The silence ate at my voice.
I didn't fight back this time
I watch a black pile of smoke
It's the same shape as “him”
devouring what's left of my voice.
Should I fight back?
Should I scream?
Do I join him?
His voice is extracted
join me
So I did
My body
turned into black smoke.
I ate someone else's voice
It wasn't like they used it.
The artist starved beneath dawn’s cold whisper,
easel tilted, drunk with yesterday's grief.
Paint clung to his fingers like blood,
a palette broken, leaking joyless rainbows.
Each breath was a war he couldn't finish,
lungs collapsing under the weight of color.
Light cracked through the blinds,
half mercy, half mockery,
and the brush trembled in his grip,
a dagger dipped in quiet despair.
Every stroke carved pieces of him away,
his veins screaming for reprieve,
screaming louder than the silence.
Coffee cups gathered dust on the windowsill;
he hadn’t noticed them for weeks.
The room smelled of sweat and turpentine,
raw and sharp as the edge of failure.
Each design stripped him bare,
flesh scraped thin by his own will.
He fought sleep like a boxer with no gloves,
shadows moving faster than his hands.
“Keep creating, keep bleeding,” hissed the echoes,
as if ghosts held the brushes too.
The canvas stared back, white as a corpse,
waiting for its pound of flesh.
He had died seventeen thousand times,
not once with enough left to bury.
A fresh, hefty heap I left in the box.
You scooped it away into that flushing abyss.
A crisp, satisfying sound echoed—
Music to my ears.
Phew. My poop was gone.
Are you a wizard?
Four long years passed.
Then, the human assumed the form of a serpent,
Devouring a long, green cucumber.
Slathering my poop all over it,
Licking away the giant, pungent stink
With a satisfied tongue.
And then, trying to seduce me
With a terrifying truth:
"Here’s Churu for you~"
"I’ve got another cucumber, you see.
And I made sure to spread the poop extra thick and salty this time."
"Eat up."
Ah, was I that hungry?
Did you pretend to throw away my poop all those years,
Just like a magician hiding a trick?
I passed out.
Overcome by your dark truth.
How on earth am I supposed to look you in the eye tomorrow?
Once upon a time, Rumple
Stein sat by the glowing fire
and called the children close.
"Tonight," he whispered with
a wicked smile, "I will tell you
about the Dust- Gnasher."
This creature has skin like old
parchment and razor- sharp fingers
long enough to wrap around the
mattress.
It waits in absolute silence,
completely flattered beneath
your dark bed frame all night
long.
The moment the bedroom
lights click off, its yellow eyes
pop open in the shadows.
It listens for the sound of
deep breathing to know you
are finally fast asleep.
Then, it slowly slides out to
sniff the air, looking for tiny
bare feet hanging off the edge.
If you leave a toe uncovered,
it's cold, bristly tongue will
give it a tiny bite.
It loves to steal loose socks
and chew on plastic toys with
its full, clicking teeth.
"So tuck your blankets tightly
tonight," Rumple chuckled,
"because it is listening right
now."
Everything eats; everything is eaten.
The law is older than hunger,
older than teeth,
older than the first creature
that learned to want.
We pretend we stand outside it—
Diners, not dinners,
yet mortality is only the moment
the oldest bargain is kept.
After a lifetime of taking in the world,
the world takes us in:
not as punishment,
but as returning.
you can smile in the midst of pain
I cannot
are you braver than me
you can choose contentment over happiness
I cannot
are you braver than me
are you more humane than me
you can feed me my own egotistical tendencies
I cannot
are you braver than me
are you more humane than me
are you more deserving than me
you can shock me (but only if I am uneasy, unsettled, or on the edge)
you can have the power (but only if I am powerless)
are you more deserving than me
I am shocked, but I am also powerful
who starves and who eats?
(...in retrospect, she wrote this poem many years ago...
proudly, boldly…
eating the tangy, sweet fruits of life...
eating well...then
and still eating well...now
singing a new song of resilience, a sweet simple song,
my most prized possession, the pursuit of peace...
within a world in pieces...)
Windows blink.
Someone’s still awake,
counting what never adds up.
The billboard’s face glows through the haze,
selling hope to those who can’t afford it.
Clouds crawl like old memories,
stretching their shadows
across the quiet of the soup line.
Rain begins, soft as loose change.
It never reaches the roots.
The sky eats gold again,
and no one seems surprised.
~Brent R. Grimes
For the second time, to foresee everything that love commits
It is hard to see, where wrong and boundary correlate.
So burden would not be love; somber is just hard to translate
Unfortunately, it's hard to designate, that it may never be delicate
The first time, thought love transcends mortality and duration
Giving up is the hardest-- to fulfill the adjudication
I am foretold that love is a sacrificial lamb existence, more on
Moron that i could be the way I am treating the situation
Now it is the fourth time; I never heard of the third.
I skipped it, made of traumas like a herd
Shepherd-- me convincing every pieces, even it is blurred
Though, it is hard to find, my glasses broke, everything scattered
Now, I realized, the pattern is so specific
It looks like mentally challenging;horrific.
That, what I just remembered-- munific
What RIvermaya just performed is honorific
Though even I see that, love eats me out
Every love I fought just made my feet seethe with gout
It is for Rivermaya with no doubt
That narrative of genuine love, still works out
I was stunned at my cousin’s new mural on her living room wall
I want one! I yelped, can he come by in the fall?
He’s totally booked up, his popularity is big.
I should warn you, he eats a lot, he is kind of a pig.
I hear he is a sloppy painter, my husband chimed in.
He does not want strangers in our house, he has a chinny-chin-chin.
I booked him in October, assuring him we would tire up the dog.
He came on the fifth, and he truly ate like a hog.
But our new mural was lovely, more beautiful than my cousins.
How many have you painted? He squealed, dozens and dozens.
My husband huffed and puffed, irritated at how much he ate.
He was messy and dirty, but my new mural was great!
On a pretty funny note
Pup eats paper like a goat
Digests it pretty easily too
Will he have such good luck with daddy’s shoe?
A dead insect
Yuck!
The female praying mantis said.
Envisioning her tasty date alive when she bites off his head
He gives her a sweet smile
Unaware that to her
He is but a morsel best enjoyed
After they are wed.
Granny decided this week
To no longer wear false teeth
So she eats soft food
Like beans and stew
Much less meat in her cheeks
chocolate pudding for supper? Sure why not?
Shhh.....Differing opinions are not sought
I like my sweet foods, and milk products too
Keep your ideas to yourself, nephew naysayer Stew
I was just going to ask if there was enough pudding for me.
Well that is different, yes, I will share, said my Uncle Lee.
Panda Pete was an avid carnivore
Devoured small birds, snakes, and wanted more
Followed the Amazon River to Ecuador
where he lived with a meat-eating matador
these two had a great time shopping at a grocery store
purchasing steaks, roasts, chicken, fish, meats galore.
The Woman Who Could Eat Wood Eats a House
For free,
The Woman Who Could Eat Wood ate a pine house
for a too bitter, battered and bruised divorcee.
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