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Kyle Kulseth Jun 11
You gild my haunted mind like Carnegie's ghost
A shining parenthesis for brass-poisoned dreaming.
I wish I could reach my rhizomes through time like you do--
          or space, even!
I want to watch you do anything.
  Fill a Passchendaele shell-hole with
  your triumphant tears; heal it, like it's easy.
I want to watch you do anything
  Stretch your Mud & Slush smile from the Esplanade-Riel
  across Minnesota and then right through me.

Reframe my failings, won't you?
(If that's what you think they are)
Or rewire my frowning night times, at least?
Spread me thin across your time, if you like;
but let me have some.

Find some worth, won't you?, in my fraying wires
  my decaying lines of code,
  my fear of success?

I have only my vagueness, and banks of bad metaphors
to measure against the tradewinds you blow across my minute bow.
You are such victory, such mighty reaching.
     Don't fault me my anxiety.
Lisa Jun 10
I dust the cloth till knuckles may burn,
Fold creases sharp the way they learn.
No one taught me how to wait,
But I do know how to set a plate.

Each year, I dress the table bare,
As if someone might notice a special type of care.
The kind tucked where no one ever looks,
Between all the spoons and brittle hooks.

I pull the chairs out, just a touch,
Not too inviting, never much.
They say you’re brave, to sit alone.
I say it’s worse to have them phone.

And still I press the linen white,
The wax rings ghosting from last night.
I never blow the candles out,
They die like most things, slow with doubt.

You learn to time the silence well,
To sip from cups that never swell.
They’ll say it slipped, or that they meant,
But silence makes the best cement.

I’m not unloved. Don’t twist the thread.
I just set rooms they don’t call red.
It’s not a scream. It’s just a mark,
like ash on cloth when flames go dark.
So I prepare, as I was taught,
And claim the echo as my spot.
No song, no slice, no box or bow,
Just me, and dust, and what they don’t know.
NOIR Jun 10
Ohh, Mother,
You once carried me in you.
The first definition of HOME.

Now, you look at me,
A pearl lost its shining.
The only thing
Gives you itches to your bones
Me living up to my own!
You only see
what I wear how I speak,
You only nod,
When my feelings come to your door.
Long ago, closed, with the caveat
Of leaving the host!
Now this house doesn't feel HOME.

"Cherry blossoms never bloom,
In the months of Summer", You said,
"Once on a Summer noon
An unwanted storm knocked
On your door".

An unwanted wind whispers to her mom,
"Why?!"
The choking vines of the wine yard,
Wrap around the souls of the somber.
Staring off into space,
While a chemical feeling seals their fate.

Do they feel happy yet?
Something more than the happiness they lost,
Was it right, to push love away?

In replacement they have a craving,
A welcomed feeling of demanding.
Their kisses curdle into bites,
Ripping chunks out of who they love,
Tearing holes into their head.
Many of my family suffers from this, at least some have the dignity to admit it.
Yashkrit Ray Jun 9
If a mirror could fall in love,
It would be you.
If a mirror could stare for hours,
It would stare at you.
If a mirror was to show something,
It would show the light reflected from you.
If that mirror had to introduce itself,
It would introduce you… to you.
More than a reflection — a mirror sees the light in you, just as someone in love sees beyond the surface.
Kalliope Jun 8
Like a broken machine
my mind tries to shut down,
but the cogs keep spinning
round and round.

Completely overheated,
the oils run dry—
you overthink and worry
‘till one day you die.
If to sleep is to know peace,
I'll never sleep again
Yashkrit Ray Jun 8
What would a mirror say if it could talk back?
You stare at me as if I only show your looks.
But I reflect the weight your eyes hold.
Cactus is spiky—yet thrives where most life can’t.
Snow is gorgeous, but warmth it lacks.
This poem explores the idea of self-reflection beyond physical appearance.
The mirror sees more than just the surface — it reflects the emotions and truths hidden in our eyes.
Everly Rush Jun 8
i found a sunny spot to sit
the kind that makes you glow a bit
the grass was cool, the light was gold
it felt like something i could hold

i stretched out like a lazy cat
no thoughts too loud, no weight, just flat
the heavy stuff slipped off my chest
the sun, for once, made all the rest

feel smaller — gone, at least awhile
i even wore a real-life smile
but shadows came, like they always do
and took my sunlight with them too.
17:26pm / i wish i could be a cat
Hall Jun 8
A brass barometer lives beneath my ribs;
its needle flutters at weather only I can feel.
Thoughts wind around repairs, loops of cause & cure,
tightening the unseen air.

I read distress through pressure in my chest,
a metric too subtle to name.
Surface remains stoic;
under that, doors open for the few I trust;
at the deepest layer rests indifference,
flat, still, holding every swell in place.
The trees are growing
Like babies growing up to become adults
Like flowers blossom on the fields
Like plants growing fruit
Like the soil become fertile when rain pours down on it after a drought
Lastly, the sun shines on the earth to grow a diverse life
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