Long Flinches Poems
Long Flinches Poems. Below are the most popular long Flinches by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Flinches poems by poem length and keyword.
Along the paw-trod path
Narrow and dainty through the gorse
Where yellow flowers
Lie dim like fallen stars in the mist
Comes a silent visitor, hesitant
It licks its lips
A taste like vinegar
Humans of old and long ago
Their lonely essence gone
The heather-stepper flinches
Shy of memorial eyes
The castle ruined on the hill
The manse below with broken windows
No smoke at the chimney
Only the wind that whips at the gables
And the empty nests of swifts
Nudging open the gate, it sniffs
The garden is overgrown
Cow parsley four feet tall
The front door at the porch swings on its hinges
Frightened at first, it shies back
But, then, seeing the door ajar once more
It pads in
In the hall, the photographs are curled in their frames
The flock wallpaper brown with age
Light rectangles appear on the wall
Where paintings have fallen to the floor
As nails have loosened away
Through a dirty glass door into the kitchen
A female body, face-up, mummified by cold
Her icy fingers gnawed by time
Clasps a mobile phone to her breast
The last note she wrote
With her thumbs
Before the screen went blank
Was: "It won't be long now."
He knows almost everything. He knows how the migraines come in waves, how they paint lightning behind my eyes and leave me curled in corners, whispering nonsense through the static in my head. He knows how my legs give out without warning, how my balance slips like a thread snapping, how my fingers tremble even when I pretend they don’t. He’s held me through it, carried me when the floor turned to water, when the walls moved like a dream I couldn’t wake from. He’s seen me faint, more times than I can count. He never flinches. He just steadies me like it’s instinct.
There’s this softness in the way he speaks to me during the worst of it. Like he’s trying to hold back a storm with his voice alone. He never treats me like I’m fragile, not really, but there’s a carefulness to him, like I’m something he’s trying to keep stitched together. When the pain hits, he wraps his arms around me without asking. He holds my head to his chest, lets me breathe in the rhythm of his heart, as if that could anchor me. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it makes the world stop spinning.
He’s learned my patterns. He can see the shift in my eyes before I fall. He always catches me. Every time. He never asks me to explain what I can’t put into words. He just walks me gently to safety, brushes the hair off my forehead, and waits until my breathing evens out again. He never panics. I think he trained himself not to. He believes I’ll get better. He trusts the doctors, the time. He believes in my future. In our future. We talk about years ahead like they’re waiting for us just around the corner. Like it’s already written in stone. I want this life more than anything, but I won’t live long enough to have it. I nod. I smile. I say things that sound like agreement. I let him believe it, because belief is the only thing I can still give him.
(yes, I'm serious)
Three minutes.
That’s how long it took
to name a swarming mess:
A self-appointed poet
with rogue chemicals sizzling in her nerves.
The diagnosis long and fancy—
bitter but addictive
on my tongue,
like the gin I’ve grown fluent in.
(Is that why his voice was slurred?)
“…The patient flinches
at the morning rains in May.
Her ink contradicts herself…
…and her thoughts betray.”
“…Well, this is why.” He pointed at my brain.
I sighed and rest
my head against the chilly wall
painted a welcoming shade of yellow.
The nurse lit branded candles:
they reserve lavender
for calming the stormier souls—
but I blow out the flame
with laughters drumming in my rib cage—
All this time,
I’ve been stuck
in debates on who’s to blame
But finally—finally,
Printed on stapled prescription bags—
a long, fancy name.
Now we can toast
with tablets in paper cups—
Here’s to
finding an enemy that's not me.
One touch, an uncomfortable sensation
Two touches, moving swiftly away
Three touches, begining to panic
Four touches, the flashbacks begin
When the only touches one has received
Were from the hands of abuse and assault
And the very notion of being touched
Associated with violence, anger, and selfishness
Will I ever be able to open up to love?
Will I ever be able to unlearn years of trauma?
Will I ever be able to feel my fantasies?
Will I ever be able to forget the horrors?
Their faces all flashing through my mind
Like reels on an old video player
One of them leading to the next
Enough to fill the whole slideshow
The times where the privilege of my body
Was robbed by men, simply because they were stronger
Stained into my mind, anger and sadness
Wanting revenge, or wanting to erase it all forever
These flinches are what have killed my soul
I ask this question to the fear inside you
the voice that trembles when life raises its fist
the shadow that tells you to run instead of rise
the part of you that flinches at every hard truth.
Tell me honestly, when the world demands courage
will you answer, or will you hide behind silence?
Will your story be one of surrender
a diary of dreams you were too scared to chase
a life folded neatly into the corner of regret
your name spoken only in pitying tones?
Will you be the one who let storms win
because you feared the first drop of rain?
Or will you stand when your bones feel weak
drag your courage from the dirt and wear it proudly
walk into the fire even when your heart shakes
and stay long enough to see the smoke clear?
Will you choose the weight of bravery
over the comfort of staying unseen?
Life will not ask you gently, it will throw grenades
it will dare you to pick them up with bare hands
to trust that you can survive the blast
to believe you were made for more than fear.
It will test your pulse in the darkness
waiting to see if you fight or flee.
Because every breath you take writes a sentence
every choice becomes a line in your legacy
every act of courage shapes the story you leave behind.
And one day, when your name travels without you
people will speak it with either pride or pity
their tone will depend on the battles you faced.
So choose wisely
will you be remembered as the coward who quit early
the one who walked away from the duel
or the brave soul who held the grenade of life
felt its heat, its danger, its weight
and still threw it back with a steady hand?
While the Pink stays unknown to our Smith without sight
He can easily tell that this voice holds might
The steps flash twisting, metal shapes into view
Wires coil, tipped with wriggling hands two
The hands grab a hold of our Smith's flubby frame
Multiple attempts before a successful claim
The hands spurt fluid from each shiny palm
Causing all our Smith's muscles to simultaneously calm
Unable to move, his digits attempt to gain freedom
As a response, his teeth begin to travel in tandem
Up one shoulder and up the opposite
To try to see if the hands can be bit
Nibbling fierce, bending bolts and screws
But they won't budge, no matter how many chews
Our Smith accepts that he has been physically matched
Then begins to speak, to find a way unattached
"WeLl, I gUeSs YoU hAvE mE iN yOuR sTeElY gRaSp!
WhAt WoUlD pErSuAdE yOu To LeT lOoSe YoUr ClAsp?"
Pink flashes again, this time freeing an entire step
And from underneath, a Machine repeats without pep
"You are a fallen Smith, a missing Link from your Chain
You will now be judged, whether you are able or lame"
A face made up of a visor and puppet like hinges
Begin to shudder and shuffle in starkly Pink flinches
"Hold still, fallen Smith, or you will be thrown away
Regardless of our decisions, there will be no delay"
Radiant rays rate our Smith's quality and potential
Each part it burns on his body is consequential
"AaHhHhH iT hUrTs! It BuRnS! pLeAsE sToP! pLeAsE..."
The Machine doesn't listen to our Smith's crying pleas
It continues its job, disregarding all pain
"Looks like you are worth some extra strain."
then:
I swallowed escape
in pastel capsules,
my pockets jingled with regret.
The nights pulsed—
bass, sweat, strangers.
Every weekend was a blackout baptism.
Every Monday, a resurrection I didn’t ask for.
now:
I wake before the alarm.
Feed cats who love me
with a certainty I never questioned.
My home doesn’t hum with danger—
only kettle steam and quiet purring.
then:
I stole to feel full,
thought hunger was my birthright.
I measured worth
by how well I could vanish.
Almost traded years
for a number on a cell door.
now:
I count anniversaries of sobriety,
not court dates.
Four years clean,
nearly one without drinking.
No more smoke in my lungs,
or fog in my choices.
then:
The floor was often my bed.
Sofas borrowed.
Hostels echoing with strangers’ ghosts.
I called chaos “home,”
because I didn’t know better.
now:
My walls are mine—
painted in colours I chose.
My name’s on the lease.
So is my joy.
And the love that brushes my hand
in the morning light.
then:
I mistook noise for connection.
Friends who disappeared with daylight,
jobs that slipped through my fingers,
love that cut deeper than silence.
now:
I hold steady.
Four years with someone who sees me.
No parties.
No promises I can’t keep.
Just textbooks, shift work,
and something like peace.
what makes me smile?
That the girl who once vanished
into every room she entered
now walks in like she belongs.
That I traded craving for contentment—
a full fridge, a warm bed,
a quiet mind.
That my joy isn’t borrowed anymore.
It lives here now,
between the purring cats
and the humming radiators,
in the way I kiss my partner goodbye,
and mean it—
knowing I’ll come home.
It’s in my voice
when I say, “I’m so happy,”
and no one flinches.
Not even me.
What makes me smile?
Not just the life I’ve built—
but the stranger I used to be,
and how she somehow
carried me here.
They see a girl with attitude.
I see a girl with walls as high as a fortress — built to protect her losing sanity, or the innocence that was once brutally crumbled.
They see a girl with defenses.
I see a girl who flinches at loud sounds, at a single touch — who has darkness in her eyes and numbness in her body.
They see a girl so strong.
I see a girl barely holding it together, hoping for death, smiling through her pain.
They see a girl who's quiet.
I see a girl who stopped shouting — not because the pain vanished, but because the people did.
I see someone who stopped caring, who stopped offering opinions.
They see a girl so successful.
I see a girl who had to succeed — not for fame, but to survive, to prove she wasn’t a loser, to forget her demons.
I see a girl who smiles while crying inside — who cares for everyone, even when they left her alone.
I see myself in this girl.
Only to realize that I’m standing in front of a mirror —
Far more broken than her.
Or maybe…
Than me.
The subway station heaves with muffled noise,
The shuffle of countless feet against the grime,
I am aware of unfounded disdain,
Coursing between strangers in the city's bowels.
The ancient fluorescents blink in yellow strobe,
Casting faint light on self-assuring cries and whispers,
Where breathy sighs of pity mingle with laughter
That hides like vermin in the concrete seams.
The old man's stare, bitter, unwavering,
Follows the young man with a foreign tongue,
Each syllable grating on his weary ears,
Each word a puncture in his sense of self.
The tracks beneath pulsate with distant rhythm,
An electric hum heralding trains,
And all around, unseen but felt,
Silent inner pleas for the world to be as I see it and want it to be.
The young man's cap is tilted with casual ease,
His eyes bright, unguarded, full of tomorrow,
While the old man's grip tightens on his cane,
Knuckles white with a lifetime's anger.
And then, a sudden scream and rush,
The young man trips, stumbles, and falls,
A quick descent into the void below,
His body meets the rails with a sickening thud.
The old man flinches, a breath caught in his throat,
The echoes of horror ripple through the crowd,
The subway station halts, a silence heavy,
As the train screeches, too late to stop.
The old man's eyes, now wide with shock,
No longer see the young man's accent,
Only the lifeless form where he once stood,
The shadowed truth beneath all their words.
The strangers around draw closer,
Their differences momentarily blurred,
In the shared reality of what they've witnessed,
A grim reminder of fleeting, fragile life.
The old man turns away, his heart a twisted knot,
The anger replaced with a somber void,
The self-assurance crumbles like brittle stone,
Leaving only questions with no clear answers.
There she was in plain view, clean, brightly colored, and not undercover.
As nice as she was, I don’t know why she was still there and not discovered.
She sat there quietly in a sales lot of an auto dealership. The only conclusion
I could draw was that she was waiting there, just for me.
I wasn’t sure that I could afford her, but I could not resist her beauty. I was happy to be fortunate enough to make her mine. So I started her wheels to rolling in the winter of 1974. That was when I bought my first car, a 1973 Maverick on that cold winter’s day.
Years later I would consider the matter, but at the time, little did I or the Maverick realize that her model in many respects represented the very essence of me. Not given to conformity or dependency, we had something in common.
She was a six cylinder and gold colored with a black vinyl top.
From Chicago to Wisconsin, she never despaired.
Through the icy and snowy trenches, I saw no flinches.
From Northern Mississippi to Central Florida,
not once did she complain, frown, or sigh.
Through the sun bleached moisture ascending through
The Gulf of Mexico, she never resisted or said no.
Nonconforming and unconventional, she shouldered a free spirit.
Unshackled by tradition, she cruised through the winds of freedom.
In the fall of 1978 with a cross on her antenna and a sticker on her bumper,
she took our young family 2000 miles to San Francisco without a hitch.
By then, my gold Maverick had served us well.
Her many miles were beginning to show and tell.
An inflated economy and high gas prices forced her to be benched.
We sold her to a dear friend in 1979, and I have missed her since.
12122016PSContest, Late August Standard, Brian Strand