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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
December 24, 2014
to Nat, my own catcher in the rye by brokengod--veins
Featured by inknalcohol
Suggested by Carmalain7
Literature Text
on the day you were buried
it was warm and sunny out
and little children played all day-
how ironic.
it’s also ironic how they handed
out flowers to your bones
beneath dirt
when they couldn’t do it
with your bones
intact with pumping blood
and warm skin
the cycle of life turning to death
is being thrown at your face,
petals counting off
the days you wasted drunk
with regret wishing
you kissed her
or how you should never
have given away yourself so easily
so fast
or how you were never
suppose to die
alone
with your heart
tiring itself out from
giving you all the time
you will never get back
the stem bent
toward you
like a big i told you so
with its empty head
and shriveled body
flowers.
why flowers?
could’ve been that bottle full of
paper stars you made when
you were seven
or that Little Shirley Beans
record you smashed
the first morning you had
a hangover-
some souvenir to turn
into your own personal
landmark
other than your coffin
because flowers are
a grave for the dead
the same way you’re
a grave for the living
how it just sits there
wilting with you
until the wind blows off
piece by piece
while you stay wilting
in the same spot forever
like grave diggers who are there
because they’re supposed to.
when i stared at that
half-dead, half-naked rose
sitting quietly at your belly
i wondered how she never gave you
one when you were alive
i wasn’t reminded of how
you were loved
but how you lived
without it
who wants flowers
when they’re dead?
it was warm and sunny out
and little children played all day-
how ironic.
it’s also ironic how they handed
out flowers to your bones
beneath dirt
when they couldn’t do it
with your bones
intact with pumping blood
and warm skin
the cycle of life turning to death
is being thrown at your face,
petals counting off
the days you wasted drunk
with regret wishing
you kissed her
or how you should never
have given away yourself so easily
so fast
or how you were never
suppose to die
alone
with your heart
tiring itself out from
giving you all the time
you will never get back
the stem bent
toward you
like a big i told you so
with its empty head
and shriveled body
flowers.
why flowers?
could’ve been that bottle full of
paper stars you made when
you were seven
or that Little Shirley Beans
record you smashed
the first morning you had
a hangover-
some souvenir to turn
into your own personal
landmark
other than your coffin
because flowers are
a grave for the dead
the same way you’re
a grave for the living
how it just sits there
wilting with you
until the wind blows off
piece by piece
while you stay wilting
in the same spot forever
like grave diggers who are there
because they’re supposed to.
when i stared at that
half-dead, half-naked rose
sitting quietly at your belly
i wondered how she never gave you
one when you were alive
i wasn’t reminded of how
you were loved
but how you lived
without it
who wants flowers
when they’re dead?
Literature
They say the one who prays
They say the one who prays receives much more
than whom we pray for, shaping what we want
to what we get. We find a way to pour
the outcomes into candle molds we can't
have fashioned for ourselves. But then we light
the wax and sniff the scent and call us blessed
by blessings in disguise. For what is right
in contexts so complex we cannot test?
For those who say that praying contradicts
free will or undercuts the will to change
injustice, fine. You have no wax, no wicks,
no blessing and no curse, you are the sage.
I pray to sculpt the candle and the mold
and scent with pity earth and heaven's hold.
Literature
I Know
I know this fire.
This deep brittle burning.
These ashes know my name.
We are familiar.
I know how you feel.
This hurt; this raw pain.
This sick, twisting, contortion of your heart.
To be told there's nothing to worry about.
When it's a lie to your face.
Trust me, I know.
When in a moment, six years burns away into nothing.
Words.
Words.
Words...
are all that's left.
In memory.
In writing.
Etched into your skin.
Clawed into your brain now.
A haunting whisper that never goes away.
I know this feeling.
And though it never fully heals...
I am here for you.
Literature
Lilium
To the wilting lilies on my kitchen counter:
I am reluctant to throw you out.
You bloomed within a day. Well, some of you. I snipped off your blood orange anthers with the kitchen shears, coating my fingertips with pollen before it could dust the slate and stain my clothes. Hand jobs are always easier to clean up.
I forgot to water you once. I'm sorry.
In the mornings I plucked chlorophyll-starved leaves from the countertop and tossed them in the rubbish bin. Your support system fell one by one, even as you still grew and opened up to the world.
Your petals began to turn limp and brown. I cut away the flowers that were no longer beautifu
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11/8/14 [two days until the end of my extended sem break]
hey there. welcome to my new (and depressing) style of writing, dang it. Been here and been writing. But I'm not with the fuck-capital-letters movement now, I just haven't been writing at all recently and being lazy in general and this is how I just have a run through writing when I feel like it after having a couch potato week. I don't know what this is to be honest, but Nat is this character I built inside my head after reading Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Nat is a lot like Holden in some ways or another.
It's a strange little book, I don't know. Maybe I don't have the right mindset to understand its depth yet but I agree with him on flowers and death. Who the heck actually wants flowers when they're dead? Probably a lot of people but not me, or him. I understand that it's a way to express love and grief but I wouldn't want them to be a waste of nature and just rot there the same way my body does. It's too depressing and wouldn't feel right :/
EDIT: OH MY FREAKING GOD! A DD?!?!?! I AM SO SO HONORED THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!!
Carmalain7 and inknalcohol thank you both so much for this honor. Oh my goodness.
EDIT: Changed the title to To Holden Caulfield and my grandfather. I thought it was more honest, and this resonates well with my grandfather. Looking back, I realized how ridiculous my Salinger references are and thinking about my grandfather-the one that killed himself with a shoelace, not the one that died from lung cancer. So there. Sorry Nat. You just had to go.
Featured in:
tWr's Writers of the Revolution
Writer's Ink Weekly Round Up
hey there. welcome to my new (and depressing) style of writing, dang it. Been here and been writing. But I'm not with the fuck-capital-letters movement now, I just haven't been writing at all recently and being lazy in general and this is how I just have a run through writing when I feel like it after having a couch potato week. I don't know what this is to be honest, but Nat is this character I built inside my head after reading Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Nat is a lot like Holden in some ways or another.
It's a strange little book, I don't know. Maybe I don't have the right mindset to understand its depth yet but I agree with him on flowers and death. Who the heck actually wants flowers when they're dead? Probably a lot of people but not me, or him. I understand that it's a way to express love and grief but I wouldn't want them to be a waste of nature and just rot there the same way my body does. It's too depressing and wouldn't feel right :/
EDIT: OH MY FREAKING GOD! A DD?!?!?! I AM SO SO HONORED THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!!
Carmalain7 and inknalcohol thank you both so much for this honor. Oh my goodness.
EDIT: Changed the title to To Holden Caulfield and my grandfather. I thought it was more honest, and this resonates well with my grandfather. Looking back, I realized how ridiculous my Salinger references are and thinking about my grandfather-the one that killed himself with a shoelace, not the one that died from lung cancer. So there. Sorry Nat. You just had to go.
Featured in:
tWr's Writers of the Revolution Writer's Ink Weekly Round Up © 2014 - 2024 brokengod--veins
Comments61
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congrats on the DD. 
the imagery here isn't as striking as what i've seen in your other poems, but with such a powerful topic, i was still moved. you make a lot of insightful points about the destructiveness and wastefulness of the youth, and i found myself nodding several times (foolishly, as i was alone in the room).
this nat character was incredibly interesting to me. how i would like to see more of his history. although it has a sad ending, i still want to understand more about him. i care about him. you've given readers much to ponder on in so few words, and for that i congratulate you.
nitpicky little things:
-have gave away yourself so easily ---> should be "given"
-with it’s empty head ---> should be "its"
keep writing and creating. <3
the imagery here isn't as striking as what i've seen in your other poems, but with such a powerful topic, i was still moved. you make a lot of insightful points about the destructiveness and wastefulness of the youth, and i found myself nodding several times (foolishly, as i was alone in the room). this nat character was incredibly interesting to me. how i would like to see more of his history. although it has a sad ending, i still want to understand more about him. i care about him. you've given readers much to ponder on in so few words, and for that i congratulate you.
nitpicky little things:
-have gave away yourself so easily ---> should be "given"
-with it’s empty head ---> should be "its"
keep writing and creating. <3