There is grime upon my teeth.
We do not know it,
Much as we remain blind
To our own shadowed flaws.
So it flows, like the river of life.
Beneath the house, we each have
A basement we wish to hide from everyone.
In that secret place,
We yearn for you.
On one side lies my repentance,
On the other, my desire.
No one can ever see that underground room—
Much as the person standing right before me
Cannot see the plaque upon my teeth.
Thus the river flows on,
And at last, we all become a single sea.
On Saturday afternoons long ago, when cartoons faded from the TV’s glow
A teenager earned a modest pittance, to finish the week with his remittance
From coins for cans and chores to do, the basement became the work place too
A weekly ritual dust and sweep, and memories were polished for us to keep
Years rolled on yet still there lies, a wooden shelf with the writing of “pizza flies”
A phrase half-lost, a family thread, echoing something once misread
From allowance paid to words unclear, the past returns as I sit here
In chores, in jokes, we had a good time, it’s these small moments of which I write
It was the most empty basement I’ve ever felt.
Creaking, support beams, and spider webs.
Nothing nice like flamingos or lip gloss.
A chair for so long.
Then not even a molecule.
There’s nothing in a shoe box except shoe prints.
Things that don’t move.
Or even try to jump out of the way.
It was the most empty basement feeling ever.
I stopped getting tangled in spider webs.
It stopped, it did.
It was the most…
Like a collection of walls and the support beams that mean well.
Empty.
I got caught up in the relaxing dust, and must.
It was the most empty basement sound I’ve heard.
Strumming along with a bass hum.
I have an empty basement inside.
Got fumigated one too many.
basement concrete blocks
unfinished and grayscale
ominous feeling
imagining corpse
has there been a murder here
I get the shivers
One day, he called her a dog,
Slapped her with a ruler,
And watched as she sobbed.
Sometimes, he’d smile,
And say she was good
He’d go and pat her head
But later, he would yell because he’d wished she was dead
I was a stray who made the basement her home
I treasured my meals, which I licked to the bone
And my piles of rocks as a bed, made out of stone,
This is what I was forced to claim as a home.
He is always around, but the two,
so alone.
I once was blind, but now I see,
You are the one who blinded me
I hide behind the shadow of your words,
When you tell your friends I am doing great
I slowly turn into you
I thought this was normal, it's too late
Open the gate.
This is my fate.
I am organized.
At my brainstem.
The smells are underground.
Like bricks and her amazing cooking.
She turns her head.
Her hair flickers.
A crumb tumbles.
Beneath it all.
It is cold.
But there’s steam.
From homemade casserole.
I am even more organized than most.
Clumps of dirt in piles.
Organized by date and time.
I am in the basement.
Nothing is furnished.
Just me.
A creaky ceiling.
Pipes that could burst.
And my phone by my side.
It’s 3:45 am.
And no one is calling me upstairs.
I continue staring at the wall.
If spiders started spilling out of that crack.
I don’t think I’d move.
My mom thinks I’m weird.
I hadn’t spoken for hours but there’s still echoes down here.
I could hear her.
Coming down to the basement,
Step, step, step.
I could snap out of it, snap out of it right now…
But I wait another beat.
Until she is two steps away,
So that she hears me gasp and my jaw unclenches.
Raspy, guilty, irritable.
I don’t want her to think something is wrong.
So I go upstairs with her, and pretend.
And leave my magical portal behind.
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Would you want to see my basement?
The room deep inside where I locked away my biggest secrets and regrets.
Could you open the door and not be frightened of the monsters I keep locked inside ?
Never to see the light of day again
And if I was to give you the key and say “ this is me, this is my life “
Could you accept my past and not be derailed by what you might find ?
Could you accept that we all are broken to some extent
And that I have worked hard to become another person.
Well here is the key
Open at your own pace
Just don’t judge me
For my basement will never be empty.
You've come to the right place for a bargain today
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I get off thinking about the terrible things
The thirty-three year old dead beat
Might do to me
In the movie theatre’s basement.
I think about the best ways
That I could cheat on my girlfriend.
My girlfriend would cry.
Sob really.
Moan and groan and tear me limb from soft limb.
And I’d have a smile on my face in a post-****** bliss.
In my fantasies, men can get me off.
Men would want me to be happy.
That’s what it’s like in my fantasies.
Where men are kind
And they love me
And they see me as valuable
In whatever way they choose.
That I am not a child to bear
But a person to know
So I’ll dream about the
Movie theatre basement.
Even when there are warm hands
and a warmer heart waiting for me at home.
Because in my mind’s eye
I am not afraid
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He is more than idle,
Idleness his Idol;
A sloth without bridle,
Along sidewalks sidle …
Now begun to languish
And had been in Anguish;
You can guess: Empty Tank!
His heart this morning sank;
Why won’t it in basement
For a rump on pavement?
A human to demote
Or send to camps remote;
One I would never quote
Nor in election vote.
I fear to be Here
You make me feel spooky
Your greyed hue laid me in cist and
Chaos of headlights gore the peace
they reminisced,
How he dumped me like a trash
I repel to feel bygones allures,
What tasted like Himalayas.
When you painted me in blood and prised,
Like a god of devour.
And that one night, it purloined my
drape, frilly and virginity
Here in this basement,
inside his car with mirth!
You've come to the right place for a bargain today
Poetry at a discount with this coupon I display
A weekend special
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