Creative | Posted by Katie M on 09/21/2012
Hero
We all know I’ve given you everything,
that – as far as I’m concerned sometimes – I have nothing left.
You took it all, because I gave it. Freely, willingly, without hesitation,
you didn’t have to ask.
Sometimes you didn’t.
I’ve given you all my words,
and now I don’t have much more to say.
At least, I won’t, when I finally tell the whole big scary truth –
which, despite my best efforts, I have yet to do.
When I say that it’s all out there… Well, that’s a lie.
Some of my secrets I’m still keeping.
Some of my wounds, well, they’re still bleeding.
You cut me deep, you know, and I can still see the scars.
You said you wanted it to have always been my choice.…
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Creative | Posted by Emaan M on 09/23/2011
Shame
Jane had pretty poetry
And hands the size of shoes
And swirling inky look-at-me tattoos
On the trophy shelves of her skin
And Jane never thought twice about you
And nor did she digress;
Don’t help me once, just hurt me
less
Yet in the eyes of everyone Jane was a trailer-worthy mess.
And some sweet girls they said things about Jane
How small and suffocating cotton would stick to her skin
How a boy with dark hair and slinky eyes
Boasted about the game and the win-
Yet no one ever seemed to whisper anything poisonous about him.
Friends, teachers, the
do-gooders and world-changers
Her righteous church-community youth leader
Would always have their little snickers of Jane
And that’s what drove her from church.
And no one ever had …
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Creative | Posted by Nicole T on 07/15/2011
The Dishwasher’s Daydream
The sink-washed dishes clap thunderously as you dry them
against one another, as if attempting to ignite a fire between
two friendly sticks. The result: a broken dish
or another proclamation that “This cup…plate…bowl is cracking.”
The washed skin on my hand is growing apart, like the leather on
a cow’s back, and it goes down the drain, and gets cozy with the debris
along with the blood that came from cleaning knives too quickly.
You scurry around the kitchen, telling me about your day
as you shove the dishes into their proper places. The plates go
above the larger plates, and ceramic cups go into a different cupboard
next to the other things that aren’t identical in size and shape.
And if I were a bowl, I would be …
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Creative | Posted by Nicole T on 07/8/2011
The Girl Doesn’t Like to Compromise
the girl doesn’t like to compromise.
she likes to sip mauy tais while staring at guys and watching movies waddle across the television screen. the girl likes to tell the truth but is more comfortable with lies.
she kissed one of her boyfriends in secret because of his blue eyes, her girlfriend in secret because of her second pair of lips, and man that she carnally desired behind closed doors because of the extension between his hips, while
still touching finger tips with her girlfriend. Sometimes she wished that they were all just friends. The guys and the girl… and the other guys that are not mentioned. She wishes that she could sit in an apartment alone, while her girl and those guys pendulum closely by, and she can experience …
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Creative | Posted by Talia on 07/1/2011
He Promised Her A Rose Garden
It was 1976.
Peak of the women’s lib movement.
New York, New York.
Peak of the peak.
She was going for a PhD in psych.
She could, thanks to Betty Friedan.
“After you finish your PhD,” he told her,
“We’ll move to Long Island.
Have three or four kids.
Buy a house.
With a white picket fence,
And a rose garden.”
She was nineteen.
She fell for it.
A week after the wedding
He got fired.
It wasn’t such a surprise.
Between the mental illness
Never showing up
And long sick leaves
It was just a matter of time.
“I won’t get a job immediately,” he told her.
“You can type anywhere.
I have to do something important.
I have to have a career.
I’m the man of …
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Creative | Posted by Ilinca N on 10/29/2010
Blood On Her Mind
Tonight she cannot sleep because there is blood on her mind. It’s on her hands as well and on her nails. Pretty soon the sheets she wraps herself in will be stained with it and sweat; then the stench will fill up the room with sour, tangy vengeance.
They were pink this morning, her hands and nails, but now there’s red to show underneath the paint and sludge she covers her appendages with so that they are merely long and oily instead of long and chapped. The ad-woman says it’s hard to keep hers smooth and attractive. On nights like this, with the iron taste on her tongue, the redness on her body, she can almost believe that, she can almost bring herself to trust the ad-woman and her perfection. …
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