Growing Pains

How many entries per person?

You'd throw yourself under a bus for this thing.. 


"Ready?" He asks                        
I can hardly keep still             
Nodding and screeching             
"YESSS!"                         

He peels his hands
away from my eyes             
Lifts my chin, points
to the mantlepiece                         
"Look there, Girl"                         

I see the thing up there             
all shiny             
wrapped in gold             
big (too big) bow on its front             
and some animal-thing in me             
wants to tear it apart;
shove it down my throat             
before my mouth even
knows what's happened                         

"You want it, Girl?" he asks                         
I give him my best pleading look                         
"Well, it's yours ... If.... "                         

Didn't understand much of
what he was going on about             
but taking off my dress sounded
easy enough and I never saw an
egg as big or as pretty before                         

"Good girl.. See what you did?"             
he points toward himself-           
"Now come here.                         
All you have to do now, is.."                                                


    "put my...   where?"                         

              "Bend like this?"                         

                            .. ".. pl..p ...                 
       
                               
                                     ....  ???!!"                                                             


Aye. It hurt like hell             
The snot             
The stinging cheeks             
The smell             
The reminder running
down my leg  was all worth it;                       

I had the best Easter egg in the Shire                               

Little Sister Spelunking Words


She knew the prospects in that aphotic hole
plunking chunky speech
chalky talk, drawing up walls
that caved in on one word.

Who was the canary
maybe both of them ? Noxious sentences
bored lungs with a punch, and pit
that black lunged neither anymore.

Oxygenated assurances that they would breathe
a fresher syntax someday did not take away
deep density, as she evaded stalactite
semantics, lacking definition.

And she still doesn't get it

what they were digging at
insisting Sister and her mine dirty coal-adjectives
while she clutched, and hoarded
their diamond-nouns in all that dark.

Drawing Away


You’ve sailed away on a boat somewhere,
Sailed away where I don’t care.

I tried to be all that you need
But all I did was lose sight of me.

I cannot help but wonder why
The white elephant here, will just not die.

What is it that’s being kept alive?
I’ve become, myself, a holy shrine

For which the Lord has sought to fill
With all the things that I soon will

Need to make it on my own,
And though we’ve checked out, I’m never alone.

How Quickly Those Days Have Passed

Oh,how I long for those days when life was a breeze
When everyone thought that I was adorable
When everyone thought I was sweet

I long for those days when kisses were for grown ups
When a boyfriend was just a boy who was your friend
When cooties were feared

I long for the days when one didn't have to comform to society in order to fit in
When uttering the word "sex" was a big enough sin
When being fat wasn't such an issue

I long for the days when magic existed
When unicorns were real
When flying was possible for anyone who believed it was

I long for those days when Lady Gaga would've been described as a scary creature of the night
When there was no need for cell phones as hide-and-go-seek kept us all entertained
When one would get a hiding for even daring to swear

I long most for the days when best-friends were in abandonce
When secrets could still be kept
And when relationships were still sacred

(It's not good enough,I know. I just thought it was worth a shot)

The Road
 
A looseleaf of loose ends, tethering poems  
A few reasons you left together alone  
And whether I've grown depends on the evidence shown  
Or the reverence of better friends who'd set it in stone..  
Old flames and venomous thoughts  
Cold veins and treacherous loss  
Envious of the emptiness, growth-pained reckoner scoffs..  
No shame, no blame, so strange the texture is off..  
I don't feel the same anymore..  
Claim denial, threatening violence  
Hollow and vile, heckling tyrant  
Feign a smile for deafening silence  
Followed for miles by beckoning sirens  
And I don't think it's an ambulance..  
Meander through the noise in my head  
These answers, few, and choices have fled..  
Powerless and out of control  
Countless, insurmountable souls  
Cowered to a mountain of tolls  
And gave up on the voices ahead...  
Even though it's taken it's toll, keep focused, stay on the road  
Keep going, stay in control, try to keep from swerving out of it  
The noises in my head are getting louder, turn it down a bit..  
Screw it, turn the music up; medicate and loosen up  
Meditate and use it, plus, in truth, I love the sound of it..  
Veins full of venom, my injustice grew from the paper  
Once what was destructive, now productive use of my anger..  
Trust was corrupted, and such is proof of the danger  
Once love is a substance, what comforts you is a razor..  
Cut back on the poisons that keep threatening your sanity  
Run ragged by choices in this menacing calamity..  
Brace for the reckoning, every second is damaging  
Embrace all that's vacant, that's all you take from it, vanity  
Some hollow existence.. Follow the resistance  
And break the chains you wallow in to swallow up the distance  
Evolution of a coup.. Groups that grew apart  
Proof is a best-kept illusion, revolution's in the art  
And that's not a revolution, it's true.. But it's a start..  
 
Copyright © 2012 Travis J Gibbs, The Ant1-Her0 Project

I wish I could trust you but I can't keep you from the ones whom you think need you, just because they say they do.

And its hard to be strong when I'm the only one who has your back. Even you. Including you. There's no way to win when we get by on just enough.

I can't move mountains and I can't build a ship big enough to sail to where you are. No one seems to know, but me, how far away that is.

Sleeping alone was never your thing. I want to keep you safe here underneath this wing. How can you survive with no safe place to sleep and no one to tuck you in?

Please don't fight it. This is all we have. Big scars that are left from picking at the scabs. We can't go down that road again, not even if you say yes. It hurts too much to just be friends.