Regular poetry thread

Chatterbox: Pudding's Place

Regular poetry thread

Regular poetry thread (because I'm tired of not editing my poems)

This is exactly what it sounds like! A thread to post poetry. I'm excited to read all of your work!

submitted by Bluebird
(April 30, 2017 - 8:51 pm)

back to the Pudding's Place

I fell down the well

A long, long time ago

So long ago I can't remember not being in the well.

There's these slick brick walls

Caked in darkness and grime 

And there's me 

In the water, barely floating

And then there's the pinprick of light at the top.

I am always looking up

But it's been so long my eyes no longer register the light

People always says there's light at the end of the tunnel

But this is a tunnel in which there is no progress,

I am always stuck at the bottom.

The well is just too wide for me to use the sides to climb

And I'm much too tired anyway 

And really it doesn't seem that bad, actually. 

It's dark and quiet and cool

And spending forever here isn't too unbearable.

 

I fell down the well

A long, long time ago

So long ago I can't remember not being in the well.

It's blindingly dim and deafening silent and so, so cold 

But I could spend the rest of my life here

Because I have no other choice.

Yes, my skin is rotting on my broken bones and coming off in clumps,

My eyes are hollow sockets 

But beggars can't be choosers,

And what did you expect to find at the bottom of a well? 

 

One day (not that days matter at the bottom of a well)

There was a voice.

I first found the voice annoying,

Coming from the top of the well

And asking if I was alright

Just like all the others.

Do I look alright to you? I'm a decaying mess, 

But I humoured the voice

And unbeknownst to me it took a liking to me.

Some voices do, but they pass soon enough

Get bored and tired and leave me here

Broken and all alone

Again. 

So I humoured it, day after day

Although I can't tell the difference,

Thinking it strange how long this voice had been there.

The only thing that passed the time

Was the voice, and when the voice slept at night.

I came to dislike the nights as they fell, 

But I wouldn't admit that to the voice. 

One day I asked the voice why it was still there,

Because I love you, it said

I laughed, but it was serious.

How could you possibly love a corpse like me?

Why? 

It was quiet for a long time and I thought I angered the voice,

I was alone again, but that was okay

Before the voice spoke again.

I just do. Do I need a reason? 

No, I suppose not, but you deserve better.

Don't say that.

Why? It's true.

It was quiet for a long time again, so night must have fallen.

The voice still came back every day.

I would ask questions I thought would make it turn its back,

But it still returned, no matter what we said.

Whenever I asked why, it would give the same response:

Because I love you.

I never understood why. 

 

One day (days had come to matter, even at the bottom of the well)

When I was almost gone

The voice quietly said it wanted to fall down a well too.

Don't say that.

Don't leave me then, please. I'm scared.

I sighed.

I don't know what to do, but I'm scared. I don't want you to go.

My heart may have stopped long ago, but it still broke at their words.

I'm sorry.

Don't be sorry.

I'm sorry you're scared. I'm sorry I can't make you feel happy and safe.

(As happy and safe as you make me feel every day.)

You make me happy and you make me feel safe.

Then why do you keep saying you're scared?

It was quiet again.

Good-night.

I haven't heard the voice since. 

submitted by Jaybells, At the Bottom of the Well
(November 1, 2024 - 9:10 pm)

suuuper abstract but its Something.. ++ i haven't been on the CB in like 3 years so the formatting might be weird because i forgot how this works ++ i don't have the energy to edit this so i'm just going to leave it here :/

untitled no.4

sometimes i like to picture my brain as an
olympic-sized swimming pool, discarded ideas floating like
pond scum, coughdrop wrappers drifting, their
endless ripples reaching out into the gloom
the weeds at the bottom have grown into the concrete,
moving & twisting slower than the tectonic plates,
something monumentally important for all the wrong reasons
swarmed by tiny fish with no pupils and flaking scales
the color of bruised apples, their human teeth
gnawing on the Other Things caught in the weeds,
abandoned, unimportant moments
long fallen into nostalgia, days like
- september 12th, buried in a sagging couch
smelling of bug repellent and diet coke, 3pm, 
heavy eyes awaiting the fate of the universe
- july 4th, cheesecake with melting whipped cream,
fireworks over salt water, cat hair and the
indiscribable quality of rotting wood that whispers
you'll be like this too, some day
- may 10th, driving back from the mall, an itchy
tag on the back of my neck, a sense of borrowed unfulfillment
when i look over to see you slumped against the seatbelt
    - august 28th, shaky breathing, a broken red pen,
headphones on but silent, the truth
spelled out in spidery, barely legible letters 
safeguarded in a cheap diary from the 3rd grade book fair
some things too secret to remember.

submitted by an old friend, ruminatiing
(November 3, 2024 - 1:59 am)
2 poems (?) from october. I like the second more but let me know if you prefer the other!
----- 
the vultures are like dogs here, and 
there's always something rustling out in the distance. the children have forgotten the taste of rain. that is, the children have forgotten the taste of relief.

worms pack into thirsty soil and people choke on what seems like nothing.

my father constantly has a runny nose. we ignore it.

my mother kicks me under the dinner table. we ignore it.

the moon looks redder than it did before. it's blushing, the children say. we ignore it.

sometimes I watch television with the sound off, to see what the world looks like totally silent. I feel that I would fit in there. I do not fit in here. 

we ignore it.
-------
stardust taking care of stardust, 
sweeping each other into neat piles when we fall on the floor. we use brooms made from strands of the milky way. a few are out of place.
we were the ultraviolet light once,
until we found our way into pleasant smells,
citrus trees, 
and the mortal embers of a winter fire.
we were pond scum once,
until we scrambled out on new legs,
wind on our backs,
and learned to cry.
we were universes,
or maybe song verses,
or maybe us.
you laugh with reckless abandon, and I sharpen my teeth on your pretty words,
and we, we're rusting. you forgot where the polish was. you dust away under my touch.
we revert to our old selves, and I try to fossilize nicely so that, when future scientists study me, 
I'll remind them of when they were the constellations, and Saturn's rings, 
and dogs paws in the dirt, and sap oozing from tired tree trunks.
they'll smile when they see our matching weathering, 
and remember what it felt like to be swept into pretty piles.
submitted by limestone, rusting
(November 3, 2024 - 3:34 am)

I don't need a house, the forest and fields are my home.
I don't need a roof over my head, the stars are my ceiling. 
I don't need a floor, the moss is my comfort.
I don't need fancy clothes, the sun and moon outfit me perfectly.
I don't need adventures, books keep me on my toes.
I don't need TV, the stories in my head are enough.
I... don't need friends, I have OC's to talk to.
I don't need socialization, the trees are great conversationalists.
I don't need shoes, the dirt is cushion enough for my feet.
I don't need a lot of things, but I still have them, and I'm grateful.

What more could I want? 

 

submitted by zoba_tea, age 5 Epochs, A galaxy far, far away
(November 3, 2024 - 11:30 am)
titled outskirts of Las Vegas, written sometime in april 2024
the outskirts of Las Vegas are quiet,
nothing like the bustling image
the public has of the city,
and nothing like the flashy airport we fly into.
we arrive in Nevada and pass slot machines,
vibrant, ch-chinging things that sing off-note
and could drive you crazy, would drive me crazy.

we blink and we're in an old, rattling car.
we blink and we're standing on a too-bright sidewalk,
looking at a pale house. everything is pale.
pale roads, pale lizards, pale shadows.
the sun has leeched the color from them.
we blink and we're engaged in
quiet conversation about swamp coolers
and getting old.
my mother blinks sadness out of her eyes.
I listen to the swamp cooler.
It is tired. It is unsteady. It's voice is raspy
and worn when it tells me
I will inherit this house one day.
I blink fear out of my eyes.

the house is pale and the road is pale
and the airplane is pale and we blink
and we are back in our house
and the wind tells me it missed me.
submitted by unfinishedfawn , bleaching in the sun
(November 13, 2024 - 1:42 am)
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