Submissions by Lee
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I am. What else it there to say? My likes, dislikes, loves and wishes, mean nothing if I do not acknowledge that I simply am. That I breathe and experience. There is no greater explanation.
The Lighter Sides of Shadows
The sky is blue-gray two-by-fours
And they’re pounding in my head.
I keep thinking of you in waterfalls
And I’m not sure if I’m drowning
Or taking my first breath.
I don’t know how to write softly,
Last minute calligraphy
On heart-shaped goodbyes, helloes, I’ve missed yous.
I can’t remember the last time I was touched,
Like breakable like wanted
Like submerged gems
Color coated in natural somethings
You can’t stop collecting.
Hesitancy
Desire
Desperation,
But sometimes I close my eyes
And I’m back there
On horizontal...
And they’re pounding in my head.
I keep thinking of you in waterfalls
And I’m not sure if I’m drowning
Or taking my first breath.
I don’t know how to write softly,
Last minute calligraphy
On heart-shaped goodbyes, helloes, I’ve missed yous.
I can’t remember the last time I was touched,
Like breakable like wanted
Like submerged gems
Color coated in natural somethings
You can’t stop collecting.
Hesitancy
Desire
Desperation,
But sometimes I close my eyes
And I’m back there
On horizontal...
38 reads
2 Comments
Surface Tension
Someday ‘I’m sorry’ is gonna stop falling from the sky
and landing in my chest like it belongs there.
Someday I’ll find words that don’t make my mother sad.
maybe then I’ll be more than just a scribe of poetry,
maybe then someone will call Poetry
and I’ll know they are calling my name.
But that is someday…
This is a weeping moon,
drawn too close to a love it was never supposed to have.
This is tightrope apprehension
snow fall feeling,
tesla coils bent and burdened
bright light roots too far rotted too far reaching
too far too far too far...
and landing in my chest like it belongs there.
Someday I’ll find words that don’t make my mother sad.
maybe then I’ll be more than just a scribe of poetry,
maybe then someone will call Poetry
and I’ll know they are calling my name.
But that is someday…
This is a weeping moon,
drawn too close to a love it was never supposed to have.
This is tightrope apprehension
snow fall feeling,
tesla coils bent and burdened
bright light roots too far rotted too far reaching
too far too far too far...
55 reads
1 Comment
Maybe There Are Too Many Tonights To Choose From
Tonight maybe I’ll dress in blue and height
and brown waves that tells me I’m not alone.
Tonight maybe these hands will stutter galaxies
hide gullies of petrified somethings,
because they no longer know how to escape time
that deems them little more than age lines.
Tonight maybe I’ll smile,
elastic and trial-cornered.
Tonight maybe I’ll lie
and ‘alright’ will slip off my tongue like a whistle,
warbling on the end
sounding beautiful even when the ugly
sits between the vowels and mocks.
Maybe it’s me its laughing at
or maybe it’s...
and brown waves that tells me I’m not alone.
Tonight maybe these hands will stutter galaxies
hide gullies of petrified somethings,
because they no longer know how to escape time
that deems them little more than age lines.
Tonight maybe I’ll smile,
elastic and trial-cornered.
Tonight maybe I’ll lie
and ‘alright’ will slip off my tongue like a whistle,
warbling on the end
sounding beautiful even when the ugly
sits between the vowels and mocks.
Maybe it’s me its laughing at
or maybe it’s...
49 reads
6 Comments
There's no place for me in man-made things
I am tissue-paper thin
trying to stand ten feet thick.
I wish there was another word for tired
exhausted
spent,
one that expressed how my limbs are bending,
my body folding under the weight of the schedule
balanced precariously on my shoulders.
The mailman keeps wishing me good luck
while handing me back all of my unread letters.
There are phone calls answered with voices I cannot hear.
The weather man keeps telling me I’m in a low pressure moment,
but hold on, because high pressure means whiplash.
I am sleeping next to walls
too...
trying to stand ten feet thick.
I wish there was another word for tired
exhausted
spent,
one that expressed how my limbs are bending,
my body folding under the weight of the schedule
balanced precariously on my shoulders.
The mailman keeps wishing me good luck
while handing me back all of my unread letters.
There are phone calls answered with voices I cannot hear.
The weather man keeps telling me I’m in a low pressure moment,
but hold on, because high pressure means whiplash.
I am sleeping next to walls
too...
50 reads
3 Comments
Things I'm Trying to Make Myself Remember
Fact:
Screams can only sound when your lungs can expand
And your diaphragm hasn’t taken a vacation.
Fact:
The underside of the house you loved
Is swimming in prayers batted back to earth,
And sanity is a five hour long drive to the end of land.
Fact:
Today you’re pitching tents
And writing stories on skin,
Realizing that alone isn’t dangerous
Until always is tacked onto it
Fact:
Anchors sink.
Swimming only happens when you’ve given faith to water
And swallowed storms like gulps of sunshine.
...
Screams can only sound when your lungs can expand
And your diaphragm hasn’t taken a vacation.
Fact:
The underside of the house you loved
Is swimming in prayers batted back to earth,
And sanity is a five hour long drive to the end of land.
Fact:
Today you’re pitching tents
And writing stories on skin,
Realizing that alone isn’t dangerous
Until always is tacked onto it
Fact:
Anchors sink.
Swimming only happens when you’ve given faith to water
And swallowed storms like gulps of sunshine.
...
81 reads
0 Comments
Laid claim where dust ran red
One morning…
at the tips of fever-bright somethings
declaration became movement,
ideals –
deception affected, effected
highways altering the footprints I bled for.
This is slip
slip
slip
slipping through my fingers
in wanted strands,
breathable fragments of self sediment
stuttering into the hands of others.
I know I know I know
I’m not a mirror,
can’t you see can’t you see can’t you see?
Is it so difficult to understand the me and mine
you keep trampling?
That walkway has my DNA, my eyes, my name, my finger...
at the tips of fever-bright somethings
declaration became movement,
ideals –
deception affected, effected
highways altering the footprints I bled for.
This is slip
slip
slip
slipping through my fingers
in wanted strands,
breathable fragments of self sediment
stuttering into the hands of others.
I know I know I know
I’m not a mirror,
can’t you see can’t you see can’t you see?
Is it so difficult to understand the me and mine
you keep trampling?
That walkway has my DNA, my eyes, my name, my finger...
52 reads
6 Comments
Short circuiting and all you have is sorry
Golden travesty on shaking fingers
was a whisper of I-can’t-touch-you-any-longer
that you had hoped never to hear.
But when clouds become too burdened to cry
and the sky is fists of frustration,
trampled intelligence is really the only outcome
plausible.
I am not your stop signs
Not yellow or red or green lights
meant to pause you for a moment
then free you the next.
If that’s how you witness, how you see
then stop hitting the break.
Semi-conductors don’t hold shadows the way I do,
I am responsible only for the potential held...
was a whisper of I-can’t-touch-you-any-longer
that you had hoped never to hear.
But when clouds become too burdened to cry
and the sky is fists of frustration,
trampled intelligence is really the only outcome
plausible.
I am not your stop signs
Not yellow or red or green lights
meant to pause you for a moment
then free you the next.
If that’s how you witness, how you see
then stop hitting the break.
Semi-conductors don’t hold shadows the way I do,
I am responsible only for the potential held...
40 reads
0 Comments
Waiting
You are stopped between one breath and the next. Four hundred fifty five seconds. Chains have braided your fingers to unjustifiable regrets, pushing against lungs that do nothing but murder. Time has never been a friend. You have strangled too many of its negotiations to feel close, to feel familiar, to feel safe in the cusp of its integrity. Stop wishing for the next movement of air when you refuse to acclimate to the hours tainting you skin. I need to wait I need to wait I need to wait, wont excuse you from daylight hours, from moon swept tears, from a galaxies singing on the wind just...
48 reads
3 Comments
Halved
Breathing is the easy part
Its half acceptance
Half release,
Half wounded beauty
Half brave beast
Its this action inside
Its this action above
Its sometimes called hatred
Too often named love
Its half acceptance
Half release,
Half wounded beauty
Half brave beast
Its this action inside
Its this action above
Its sometimes called hatred
Too often named love
46 reads
2 Comments
Wasted Titles
I’ve never pretended to be a citizen of this city, to belong on concrete veins, rattling along with smog filled lungs. I’m sure that if you cut me open, you would find instead sand and seawater, that my organs are made of kelp, and my eyes are the product of storms ripping at the headlands. Maybe, if you look close enough, you’ll see the sea foam in my laughter or the currents in my tears. On good days, I’m translucent, my depths revealed by the sun hitting my skin. On the bad, I am turned and locked, rioting turbulence that is dangerous to touch. Maybe you would see that I’m a treasure...
51 reads
6 Comments
This Kitchen isn’t clean yet
My best friend’s name is beating
the back of my teeth,
burning my tongue
and flies have settled on the frontal lobe
of the song sung by my fingers
over yours.
Touch
Trap
gilded nose tips that buries secrets
on pulse points,
on breath of blood that jumps ship
when butterflies commandeer the hold.
You have macro thoughts,
yours despite content
mapped synapses frying
when just and reward lays dead at your feet.
I’ve spent too much time sweeping the kitchen
not to notice all the glass you left behind.
Every time I search the...
the back of my teeth,
burning my tongue
and flies have settled on the frontal lobe
of the song sung by my fingers
over yours.
Touch
Trap
gilded nose tips that buries secrets
on pulse points,
on breath of blood that jumps ship
when butterflies commandeer the hold.
You have macro thoughts,
yours despite content
mapped synapses frying
when just and reward lays dead at your feet.
I’ve spent too much time sweeping the kitchen
not to notice all the glass you left behind.
Every time I search the...
41 reads
2 Comments
Just so you know, I've noticed
I never knew that friend was a term for temporary, for conditional. But noon has turned to midnight and the birds stopped singing long ago. There is dust in the collection of memories waiting on our spinal cords, and I’ve given up trying to regain my balance due to the weight. I keep thinking that that you’ll remember, but maybe this is just a ringing clock with too few hands to hold all the seconds murdered in our lungs when we try not to break from the loneliness.
Wow, yeah that hurts, especially when trust is pockets full of ‘yes you can have parts of me’ and you store them in...
Wow, yeah that hurts, especially when trust is pockets full of ‘yes you can have parts of me’ and you store them in...
119 reads
4 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Lee