Best Toxic Poems
Senseless fear of others, being shy.
All my life, been the uneasy guy.
It's a functional thing, not organic.
Social situations, just that little bit of panic.
"Stranger anxiety" from early childhood,
never left me, then even Mom and Dad weren't good.
You'd think I wouldn't feel it, at least with my wife,
though even there it's a tiny part of life.
Get through the day fine, and publicly do okay,
but what would it be like to not feel this way.
December 5, 2016
For FJ Thomas's contest
Toxic Cake
by Odin Roark
How drippingly fine
The words that coat
Such layered density
Icing thick enough
To entice the fool
Along with seasoned critics
Into toxic waste goodness
Persuasion chefs united
Gourmet salesmanship
Learned minds
Street smart minds
Tribal and nepotistic minds
All hawking hidden contagion
Beneath their ever sweet glazing
One day
A global cake will be rolled out
For all to gorge on
Unaware from the top
Might explode layered poison
Well surpassing avoidance
Our own demise
A recipe created by sentient impotence
The giant bite
The final swallow
The sweet tooth seduction
That never was
To claim no purpose for this toxic state,
other than hate or desired submission.
To find a spirit chained to the walls of circumstance,
by birth and denied just cause,
because of skin color.
To struggle in the land of the free,
trapped in a quagmire of unreasonable eyes,
fighting the cold hands of society wrapped around your throat,
making it hard to breathe,
in the noxious gas that is this toxic state.
12/3/16
contest Toxic State
Let's play pretend
Pretend you are the hero and I am the damsel in depression
You sold me a magic future you'd crafted out of fool's gold
And I fell into the shimmer
A siren song in rough seas and
I sang merrily we fall
What adventure novels did I neglect
While chasing a happily ever after lie
Though you were a tragedy in your own right
You were a rum drunk pirate
On a pain soaked ship
And I haven't the heart to call you a villan
I should have known
when you said you didn't read much
That you'd be the chapter I wish I could tear out
page by page
And burn like witchcraft
Turn your memory to smoke and ash
The boy who would not grow up
And the girl who could not make him
I forced you to see your reflection though
Not in a rippled tide pool
But exactly as it was
And you could not hide from yourself then
Let's pretend I'm the fairy godmother
and I'll grant you this one year to the midnight
Tell me
Did you think I'd ever find the courage to leave?
Let's pretend
You never said the things you did
And I never cried behind a steering wheel
Trapped screaming prayers to St. Anthony
To find the me I lost chasing you
Let's pretend
I didn't instead find silver spoons in snowboard boots
Or empty liquor bottles in full laundry baskets
Or the patience before I lost it and transformed as though by dark magic into someone spiteful
Let's pretend
I never wanted to make you hurt
The way you made me hurt
And let's pretend I never tried.
Let's pretend
That water is not vodka
And that I am not as stupid as you made me feel
Let's pretend
Like the time you shoved me into the wall was the only time you were a rough sea to me and it was only because you were weather worn
Let's pretend
I was in love with you
and not the role you wrote for yourself before I found out your true character
Let's pretend
We aren't as complicated as we are
And in my story you can be a sick evil pirate
And in your story I can be a vile gypsy witch
And in our story we are just sad, frustrated kids,
In a dark love,
In over our heads,
No breadcrumbs to lead us out,
In a Grimm fairytale
Made for morals
Not happily ever after
04/22/2021
Non-Toxic Love
Pecking order glances
Destroys friendship chances
Dissolves love, annuls romances.
Surviving smart as a fox…
Smooths that road of hard knocks…
So step out of the box.
Live above mental kicks.
Care, without verbal pricks,
Strengthen homes made of sticks.
Avoid hot gossiping lips
Prevent ill judger's grips.
Watch the evil one do flips.
Find peace with the white dove.
Be sheltered by God above.
Receive His gift… non-toxic love.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 22, 2010
Poetic form: Rhyme
I bent the universe
I bent the universe
back and forth
rapidly until
it cracked
and still couldn’t
fit through
to the future
or the past
Written for the Toxic State contest
Sponsored by FJ Thomas
Your ocean waves have,
Beaten me down,
Across the rocky shore,
As I lay facedown,
Thinking about our lore,
How nothing I did,
Seemed to even the imaginary score,
Nothing I ever did,
Seem to matter to you anymore.
My stomach will always be,
Too soft for you,
My presence will always be,
Too grating for you,
My love will always be,
Too much for you,
I could never be,
Enough for you.
So break me down slowly,
As you go,
Hold me softly,
To your soul,
I couldn’t be enough for you,
But neither my dear can you.
Being ignored,
Was all I had ever known,
So you became my home,
While I weathered a mythical storm,
Leaving me forever forlorn.
So break me down slowly,
As you go,
Hold me softly,
To your soul,
I couldn’t be enough for you,
But neither my dear can you.
All the daggers you threw at me,
We’re meant for you too,
They cut right through,
Leaving you,
Bleeding black,
From an open wound.
So break me down slowly,
As you go,
Hold me softly,
To your soul,
I couldn’t be enough for you,
But neither my dear can you.
Acceptance
How long before acceptance calmed his mind?
At first, he claimed the news was ill-acquired.
Each day he pushed and kept himself so blind
to reasons why he felt confused and tired
and strove to do all things that were required.
But slowly he began to acquiesce;
with sense of calm surrender, soon confessed,
that, deep inside he knew there is no goal
without the hope...and lastly did express...
the tumor in his brain would take its toll.
Sandra M. Haight
~1st Place~
Contest: Sad Poem - Dizain
Sponsor: Laura Loo
Judged: 05/20/2016
~Honorable Mention~
Contest: Toxic State
Sponsor: FB Thomas
Judged: 12/23/2016
Rhyme Scheme: a b a b b c c d c d
inspired by a friend who passed from incurrable brain cancer
Cold and withered my heart mildly beats,
As my mind plays my past in short repeats.
Withdrawn and rejected, I feel so low,
The world doesn’t stop repeating its blow.
I look out the window and feel the wind brush my cheeks,
Even when I want to let go; my past stalks me through years, months and weeks.
People have a tendency to hurt others bad,
They don’t even care if it makes the recipient sad.
Their hatred for others burns so strong,
They look past everything; the right and the wrong.
They use their slashing tongues and their violent lips,
Yes, their words hit me hard and slash through like treacherous whips.
I fight back with all my might,
My words spewed to kill them on sight.
A verbal war; an ugly battlefield,
Except for hatred nothing else will it ever yield.
My own words shock me out of this miserable trance,
I realize I want to stop this off-beat dance.
But when I turn to let go and run,
Hatred arms hold me close preventing me to stop the “fun”.
And when it stops and everything settles down,
With no one atop a throne, or wearing his royalty in a crown
Why can’t people choose for peace, to find?
A verbal war leaves a putrid atmosphere behind.
I could cry, I could repent,
I could spend a million years and never know what it meant.
Hatred is such a far-cry from peace,
Its toxic fumes can envelope you and you might never know life’s true bliss.
melt with me against a toxic sunset of lust
light the burning candles
illuminate the red hot metal lanterns
dive naked into my arms raw
take of my flesh as i take of yours
lose ourselves one in the other
devour the creamy liquid of my origin
and i the nectar from your petal
wrap yourself in the flag of me
i too will fly your colors
let us wage a war of sex on one another
and leave no border uncrossed
Betwixt our deceptive connection
Lies told, to always end in
I’ll never have a profound perspective
As my skepticism results in your grin
When our paths crossed
Like two sailboats in a panoramic sea
I believed you were mannerly
Though, sprouted unexpectedly was your immorality
My standpoint was already set
My conception was that you’d abet
To all the curves, bumps, and facets of me
Though you’d never devote to me
You’d only break me to debris
Every word transmitted from your “soul”
Carried no true sentimental worth
Yet I believed you, over my mind you had control
Desiring for your concealed lies to rebirth
Lies and gas-lighting were brought upon me
Despite your affectionate expressions
I thought truth be told, that I was free
But I’m now trapped under your early impressions
Doubting and doubting your false affection
Perhaps you don’t know how to express emotion?
But deep inside, I know that’s untrue
That I’m just someone to be used, at least to you
Though acceptance is quite challenging for me
I’m unsure of why I still trust you
As you treat me like nobody
Though these lies will forever pursue.
Coffin lungs unhinge a chest open bare,
fragile skin ripping thin as bat membrane-
flutter in waves of vapor, from the heart that beats itself,
exhuming an illusive space...
defined by all that never was.
The only promise left unbroken,
held against all petty wills,
is the nothingness that eclipses the tangible-
contoured by chaos, it stands tall and futile,
leaving no shade for the shelter of lost dreams.
And so let the old void fill the new,
where Only Hope's clumsy shadow filters in,
and Fear blows every breath of whim,
Asphyxiating in this open cage,
for too long I chose to stay and wait
for empty promises to take,
and take,
and take.
we learned to live on breadcrumbing
to orbit without return
haunting for love
a kittenfisher smiled
through borrowed summers
a catfisher built an entire moon
we endured benching
cushioning
roster dating—
hearts lined as spare chairs
after the guests had gone
I practiced love bombing
you future faking
the skilled preferred negging
one small faultline opening under load
and a place to live inside it
we drifted through situationships
through talking stages
through the annual migration
of ghosting, zombieing and hoovering
a hard launch
a soft launch
then pocketing
banksying taught us
how to leave without leaving
ghostlighting taught us
how to return without arriving
meanwhile the wildflowerers
flowered
the slow daters
kept their own time
every exclusive
promise
stalled at a DTR
frozen at the lip
of the relationship escalator
watching the steel teeth
flatten and disappear
red flags
snapped in the wind
green flags
semaphored
beige flags overgrown
in the yard
one night the throngers
argued hot takes beneath the stars
I felt the ick
you went delulu
someone else shrekking at last
laughed with their whole strange face
and for a moment
nobody was performing
just two people
standing outside the slang
while every
label we had worn
blew past—
confetti and bleached receipts
a failure to launch
breaking open in beach grass
Through Jaded Eyes you see the world,
and everything in view.
But see you weren’t like this
when I very first found you.
It sucked you in, this monster,
and it caused the world to pause.
It took our lives away
when it had trapped us in it’s jaws.
I wish we could go back
so we could both do things differently.
But the monster had us both,
and both had found ourselves diseased.
I fought hard to escape it,
but you had got the taste for blood.
Obsessed with getting high
no matter what it costed us.
I try hard not to fault you,
for I too, have played this game.
But my love for you was stronger
than some temporary gain.
Maybe I don’t understand
why you have never wavered.
You’ve hurt my Heart so deeply,
Now I’m sad, alone, and angered.
Perhaps if I should stoop,
and find myself once more a user,
Then I could not be mad
perhaps my hurts would then be fewer.
Once more we both are trapped again,
indulging in these sins.
We fight a losing battle
where this monster always wins.
The thing we failed to see though,
was that both of us evolved.
We replicate the monster
who had caused the harsh downfall.
Looking at each other,
do you still recognize my face?
For I am not so sure
our faces haven’t been replaced.
We spit such venom freely
As if sworn of enemies.
Our love cannot return
Unless we finally break free.
Our love has faded drastically,
And it seems there is no hope.
We’re marching towards the gallows.
Conveniently, bring our own rope.
We string each other up,
Ready to kick each other’s chairs.
We’ve come to kill each other
with chemicals to push us there.
A monster I’ve become,
not sure I even know my name.
I fear that there’s no turning back,
Or that I’ll ever be the same.
Your eyes become more empty
every time we play this game.
Tell me, are my eyes too?
I feel so hollow and ashamed.
Now clouds replace their light,
And it’s so hard to recognize…
ourselves and all that is,
while peering through such Jaded eyes.
A letter you won't send.. (a poem by ghd)
Dear R,
It's the day after my birthday
And two, since we officially gave up on each other.
I just woke up from a dream of you
having feelings for someone else
Even worse, she was my friend.
ChatGPT says it might mean I have lingering feelings for you,
But I don’t even know.
I know things between us never ended as well as they could,
And I regret the things I said and did.
I never wanted you out of my life.
I never want you to hate me more than you love me.
I just knew I wasn’t going to be able
to give you what you deserve
which wasn’t me,
but better.
I’m sorry I said that kiss didn’t feel like anything.
Or that I’d get over my feelings.
I did feel something, actually. I felt so much that it was scary,
because feeling means being vulnerable,
And I’ll never allow that.
I heard you telling people I was obsessed with you,
and we know that’s not true
because I would never allow myself that.
And yet… why lie?
I know I’m one of the most disgusting things to walk this earth,
But I’m truly sorry.
I’m sorry for not trying as hard as you to love me back,
Sorry for pushing your feelings away
because I didn’t want to get hurt.
I’m sorry for not being able to give you all of me,
as you said you wanted.
I just couldn’t,
because giving all of me
would mean feeling things I’m too scared to feel.
I’m sorry I didn’t take that risk.
I think I realize why I kissed you that night
It wasn’t for clarification.
It was so you could remember me,
because the thought of you forgetting me hurts.
And my writing this isn’t to make myself feel better;
It does the opposite,
because it really shows me
How much I hurt you
trying to protect myself.
I guess this is just my way of hoping
I get those flowers you promised
for my next birthday
whether from you or not.