Spilled Ink

revsjones:

Set me free
Or love me
Hold on to me
Or let me go
Clinging
Grasping
Reaching out
To the ghost of you
Lingering
So close
Yet so far away
I soothe you
But I feel painfully free
You move me
Yet you stay religiously.
-s.jones

paradigmpoet:

I dreamed you were
Counting my ribs through
The layers of my clothes,
As if the
Fragile longitudes
Surrounding my heart were
Not strong enough,
As if you knew
It took so many
Breakings
For me to be
Here,
Stilled,
Just for
This moment.

There are
So many bruised
Midnights
In the course of
A lifetime,
So many lonely streets,
Rain slicked,
Outside my door,
So many mosaics
Of me
Spread,
Tooth to tendon,
Belly to bone,
The bulging compass of
My arteries cut,
Poured,
Strung across
Miles I’ve traveled, like
A red rubber road
To lead me home.

And each time I
Break I
Grow
Sharper,
Like a trauma
Remembered
In total recall,
No buffer of
Amnesiac haze to
Block the carnage
Jostling the
Blooms of my organs
On their stems like
Blighted roses
In a gale,
Nudging me
Gently
To fly apart
At the seams.

And I do this with
Poise,
With the grace of
One who knows
The shipwreck like
The veins in her legs,
One who knows there is
Air to breathe
Somewhere in
The swiftwater currents
Of this catastrophe.
A surface waits
To break on
Atmosphere,
Wide open,
Horizon to
Glorious horizon.

I can taste this
Freedom,
Like the tang of
Metal
In my mouth.
I dream it like
Forgiveness
Unfettered.
I hold it like
An ocean
Tamed.

I look gently
Into the
Abyss
Of you,
Waiting
For me to throw
My drowned pieces,
Sodden but
Recovered,
Into you for
Safekeeping.
But there is
Evidence enough
Of my survival
Here
In the eye of
The storm.

I want to tell you
These splinters are
All I know of
Bodies and
Hearts,
Incongruous to
The life I was
Promised.

I want to tell you
I am not a victim,
Not a lamb
Being led
To an altar
Of vanities.

I want to tell you
I don’t care to be
Saved.

I care to be
Whole.

jayarrarr:

Okay — Tyler Knott’s last post has over 1,000 notes. If this doesn’t get more than that, we know what’s wrong with this so-called Tumblr Writing Community. Wake the fuck up and make your voice known. We’re here. If you actually care about this, make it known. This is a numbers game — not for me, for you.

jayarrarr:

I pay attention to things, I do. And I actually don’t care how you feel about features: whether you love them or hate them, think they’re important or think they’re stupid, wish you had more or wish you had less. This isn’t about that.

This is about the fact that there are 27 tag editors of poetry and prose. That means each day we should be entertained with a maximum of 270 new features. Okay, sure, people have lives and aren’t always on tumblr to burn all their features. But there should be at least 100 or so features in any given day, which is less than half the maximum, but it is a duty of sorts for which there is no compensation beyond whatever delight you get from featuring someone, so I’m being lenient. Are there 100 features in a day? No. In point of fact, having reviewed the features over the past few days — there are seldom more than 12 or so — and 9 or 10 of them are mine.

There’s a reason I’m Top Editor, see — the party line is that the pieces I promote are those “most liked and reblogged” by tumblr users — but the reality is that the pieces I promote are basically the only ones there are.

I went through the past 30 features on poetry and prose. The past 30 features shouldn’t be the last 3 days or so, but they are. The reality is that the 30th feature, where I stopped, was dated October 18th. Within the past 30 poetry features, I’ve featured 24 of them — the other 6 pieces were promoted by one of 26 other editors. Prose is just as bad: I’ve featured 23 of the past 30 featured pieces. On any given day, I’m responsible for around 80% of the pieces featured under the poetry and prose tags.

There are thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of writing blogs on Tumblr. I’m not saying that every one of them is filled with feature-caliber work, whatever that may be — but Tumblr is doing that extensive writing community a disservice by maintaining inactive editors, some of whom have even deactivated (albeit improperly), despite that many active tumblr writers have directly indicated an interest in being a tag editor. There are many who would love to have the ability to share unknown writers with others — give them a chance. I’d love some competition.

shesanargonaut:

I don’t know how to write down all the beautiful things in my head anymore. It’s like I exhaled them all and have suddenly forgotten how to breathe in.

happymonk:

I envy the wind
that embraces the flower
and makes it shake
but does not cling to it.

crleverette:

Poisoned words are
a cancer,
spreading further
and further,
eating away at humanity.

A ruined name,
a vacant heart…

Rumors of war.
Wars of rumor.

(The tongue kills)

pajamaswag:

Memories, memories, play on the lids,
A smile, three words, and kisses forbid,
Happiness based upon nothing but lies,
Memories, nightmares that play in the eyes.

Waking and sleeping the pain never fades,
Rememberance always, no hope for escape,
A heart that was true fell for one that was not,
And the heart that was true, it never forgot.

For the one that was true the memories play,
but for the unfailful the remembrance fades,
So where is the justice for one that is haunted,
By nightmares of memories they never wanted?

jambu2525:

And I told her, my cigarette burning my lips to get the words out, “you’ll never have another chance to run away with someone who’s as wrong for you as I am.”

desdaily:

It’s safe to say I’m awfully tired 
of these rollercoaster rides
of ups and downs, sudden rage, 
and relentless glass tides

Chloroform lullabies are
heard in lazy afternoons
along with compelling breaths to
dance alone in my adynamic room

virginiasinthelighthouse:

Greater wonders have been seen
Than words caught in bounded books.

A thousand golden gleams
In a single hidden look.

And calls of undead lovers
In the chasm of a heart;

To capture just these wonders
Would tear page and spine apart. 

fitzarr:

True love requires more than being in love.

It’s true, I’m afraid. Being in love is infatuation. It is a brightly coloured cacophony of flowers, whose fragrant feelings blind and confound. It is a melding of desire into physical form. It is two saplings who glimpse each other and stretch their blossom laden-branches towards one another in a desperate need to know connection.

True love is realising that when all your blossom has fallen to the ground and not even leaves hide your truths from one another, that you have somehow entwined your roots, and are one flourishing tree.

unbearablysharp:

You –

the hole
in my life raft

the un-opening
parachute

the incomplete 
first aid kit

the blocked
emergency exit

the silent
smoke alarm
(batteries stolen
to use in remotes,
torches, sex toys)

You –

the blatant
disregard for
safety

the accidental
overdose

the death
of me.

unknownconstellation:

What a stupid, worthless age. At least at 21 I could buy beer, but I’d already been doing that for three years anyway (the benefits of being 6’ 1” and having a beard since age 17). 

What do you do with 22? Nothing, legally speaking. It’s the first time since 11 that my age is a palindrome, so I guess that’s something. This would have been the age when I graduated from college, had I not taken time off after I realized that college, when you get right down to it, is pretty silly. This isn’t a knock at education by any means- put a bunch of twenty-somethings in an enclosed space with a burned-out professor and it’s not really a recipe for inspiring moments. More like paper after paper and then sex, maybe (usually not). 

Come to think of it, I don’t even remember the last time I really did anything for my birthday. Something special, I mean, like a big party. Last year, I just got shitfaced drinking wine, and watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 until I fell asleep on my friend’s floor. I woke up hungover, had to go to class, and that’s when it hit me: birthdays are a celebration of aging.

We shouldn’t celebrate aging. Aging kills people, dagnabbit. We don’t pop the Champagne when someone steps on a rusty nail, do we? Can’t remember the last kegger I attended in celebration of a kidney infection, either. 

Ah, but I’m just being silly. Birthdays are special, I guess, in the way that equipment is speical to MMO players. It changes your numbers, makes them bigger, more imposing, makes you look like you have more experience than you really do. I just don’t feel any different, physically anyway. I’ve always said that my mind ages faster than my body. I’m not saying I get smarter faster, I’m saying there are days when I think that by 25, I’ll be yelling at the neighbor kids to get the fuck off my lawn. What causes it? Frustration, I think. I don’t have direction- in my writing, in life in general. And racking up another year just makes me feel like I’ve missed the mark yet again. S.E. Hinton was published at 16. Alexander the Great conquered half the world when he was just a bit older than I am. And here is Devin Louis, the eldest Michelson boy, sitting at a laptop, drinking bad coffee, typing with two fingers very slowly because he never paid any attention to the typing lessons at school. Thinking, smoking, and worrying too much.

But I don’t want to depress anybody. After all, I was born on a Wednesday, and you know what they say about Wednesday’s child. You don’t? Oh, well allow me to tell you:

Wednesday’s child is full of woe. That’s in a poem about birthdays. All the other days got bright and sunny things, about how they are happy, or generous, but Wednesday gets totally fucked. Mother Goose, you’re a filthy whore.

So, I’m in a reflective mood, in case you couldn’t tell. I don’t even know why I’ve written this much, seeing as I’m really not all that interesting. I’ve already said too much, so to close, I’ll just say that I’m going to just…continue. That’s good. I’m just going to continue. Tomorrow, I’ll go to work (I need money), then later eat cake, then go to sleep, and then it’ll be just like it always is. I’ll be here, writing things, and sometimes people will read them. Who knows? Tomorrow may be the start of a great adventure.

Hopefully it’s to Japan. Have you tried octopus? It’s really good. 

myinkstainedheart:

O the moon, in the stars’ absence
does it weep? And in the darkest hour
does it ever seek a rope, a wooden stool,
say does it ponder, a bullet in its skull?
But no and neither, with onto does it latch,
never favor a grimmer finale of the match-
and I, where do I seek as such solace,
I carve in the dead light, the outline of his face.

virulent-tuber:

The beauty of the tumult
Paved liberally before me
Mapped paths rerouted
And potentialities unrealized
Dim though they were 
So my stoic tread passed
Allied with arrogance
Nurtured by indignation
Into idealism
Rare in form in me
This exotic emotive entropy
This turbulent facade
Most convenient to assume
Could not outwit my consciousness

The banality of the calm
Purged listlessly what was
Now surveys a dank meadow
Green not with life but covetousness
And bitter leaves
Now unlike nothing
Doubt allies with time
It decays matter’s crescendo
It fades without grace
Into the dregs 
Of pining
The brittle cache 
Within a broken heart
For that feeling now lost