A small dent presses deep in your chest,
A heavy boulder resting rent-free on your shoulders,
Making it feel like the whole world
Quietly depends on you to breathe, to move,
to make your parents proud.
Grades pile into mountains
you are expected to climb alone.
Every choice, every test,
every website overflowing with advice,
every guide full of tips and tricks,
every failure another stone in your pack,
every success is still barely enough.
Ounces of disappointment settle in your mind,
turning sleep into a distant place
you can almost see but never reach.
Late nights stretch into staring contests
with glowing screens and endless practice questions,
Hoping, always hoping
That somehow doors will open.
Dreams of shining congratulations
And bright acceptance letters,
haunted by cold
Sorry to inform you messages.
Tears and ambitions paused
By the shrill cry of early alarms,
a race beginning again every morning
with no finish line in sight.
The universe seems to expect perfection,
so you chase it with everything you have
And quietly wonder,
If someday it will finally be enough,
or if the mountain just keeps growing.
Borrow but two ounces of earthly ink
to dye the mountains, waters and blossoms in sync.
Plead three cups of mortal tea,
to hope, to dream, to laugh and weep.
Discern oneself from the bustling day
and distinguish the green from a mass of grey.
Eventually spectate a falling sun,
recall the tears and promises that came undone.
Fate came, fate went, fate dissipates
like the rain sweeps the land in cascading slates.
Don't know when the blossoms fell,
just that they could never dwell,
return one's heart to the Earth's embrace
and become part of the wind's sweet trace.
Ounces
pounces
Quite trim
so slim
Sore limb
at gym
Fight flab
with jab
Weight gain
insane
Weight lost
embossed
Shed pounds
in mounds
Too thin
won’t win
Body
shoddy
Real stout
no doubt
So lean
my scene
Perspire
don’t tire
Diet
riot
Food fad
sounds mad
Sweet treat
defeat
Whole grain
sustain
Eat clean
routine
Green veg
has edge
Pure health
best wealth
Digest
what’s best
Fruit shoot
deep root
Salad
valid
Porridge
forage
Junk nosh
tosh tosh
Cow’s milk
lip silk
soya
oh yeah
Light meals
appeals
Relapse
perhaps
Need luck
have pluck
Stay fit
that’s it
The load bearing capacity
Load bearing consistency
It lack such but provides
the artist the ability to create
It's need for insulation
He stood before with
Such a grin
The conversation would be
needed to talk in a standized
Way.
Grams into ounces
Kilos into pounds
Liters into cups
They stood there smiling
Like gold miners we
Struggle with the same
Math.
Might these conversations
Make the fear of gypsum
Block making easier or
easiest that we fear not
that thou are with us
To speak these manga stations true.
That those who wish us parted
May frown in the fact that have
been undermined in a reversed fashion
Might they then speak us as
Lord and Laird, yet we pray
Yet we pray!
The trick is to learn when you’re eating to fill the heart instead of the stomach. Feeding the stomach … is easy. That’s just diet. It’s learning how to feed the heart that’s hard.
~Coco Mellors
Never was eating an entire bag of potato chips
Enough to satisfy the inner hunger
When the hunger wasn’t really physical.
Satiation is just a synonym for addiction,
Too much time not to think of comfort
And serotonin highs~
Rough the traumas of childhood, at least
The food isn’t alcohol or drugs!
Still three hundred pounds isn’t easy to pack around,
That takes its toll on knees and hips,
And it isn’t like you can just quit eating,
Retraining habits isn’t the stuff of silly songs~
Triumph is measured in ounces not pounds!
Nevertheless here we are one hundred pounds lighter,
Even the stars twinkle brighter~
Winning the battles then winning the war!
I could reach for water
instead, I drink my third cream soda
not diet
I hate diet
I could pour myself healthy H20
Instead, I suck down sixteen ounces of sweet juice
sugar, sugar, sugar, I want sugar!
I should drink a glass of water
but what fun would that be?
No fun at all.
Blue,
like a whisper behind glass,
keeps its secrets folded in saltwater.
It doesn’t shout—
just lingers
in the air between questions.
There are days
when blue stretches its long limbs
across the sky,
lazy and endless,
a sigh from a god who forgot
what he meant to say.
It lives in the eyes
of strangers you almost loved,
and in the silence
after good music ends.
Blue is memory’s favorite color,
smeared across the backs
of photographs and promises.
It has weight—
the kind you carry in your chest
but can’t name
in ounces or regrets.
It clings to the ribs
like a hymn
you only hum.
Some nights,
blue walks the shoreline alone,
watching the moon try on
all her silver dresses,
never satisfied.
It is the pause
before “I miss you,”
and the space
between waves.
Blue
never needs permission to stay.
I'm tired of the way the ball always bounces,
and of gaining pounds while only eating ounces,
tired that for every one step forward, there's two steps back,
and that my glass is always half empty because of the crack,
and tired of that poetry teacher ~ who my name perpetually mispronounces.
she was a diva, loving her necklaces and low-cut blouses
not a church woman, a beach-loving hippie with freckled skin
if she took a liking to you, you became part of her tribe
if not, you would never see her again.
She has had hardships, heartaches, and ounces of doom.
Burdens no one with them, looking for the world’s daisies
Slow sleek steps,
Pounces on its paws,
Snow-clad fur,
Brushes off impatiently,
Ears perk up,
When squeals and squeaks are heard,
Steady and slowly,
Merges with the blanket beneath,
Almost at ease,
Confidently it please,
Lowers into its position,
Ready to strike,
Pounces on its paws,
Announces in its jaws,
Mouse struck beneath its claws,
Ounces in vigilant strides as it withdraws.
By Sarah Shahzad, July 2024
the stegosaurus was thirty-feet long
this is as long as a person's large front porch
How big do you suppose her brain was?
As big as a full thirty-nine gallon garbage bag?
The size of a small midsized sedan?
Believe this or not, this huge creature’s brain was….
the size of a small walnut, weighing two and a half ounces.
Love can move mountains,
And impair one's judgements
Make you soar high like a bird
Or so in tales, I've seen and heard.
Been watching cheesy romcoms
Couples dancing in balls and proms
Read lots about love at first sight
Thinking this is bogus at its height.
Ridiculing lovers on one hand
While secretly wanting one so grand
Hoping to someday find my mate
Not knowing I'd be in this state.
Cut to a million odd years later,
A few ounces of wisdom greater
Happened to be, by a chance so grim,
Of this menacing love, another victim.
In a place, so habitual and familiar
Your absence made me feel peculiar
So lost and empty, surprising me
Yearning to just up and flee.
But now that you are here with me
I'm appalled at how this came to be
For what was once a land unknown
Is slowly starting to feel like home.
In the infancy of spring,
An apple orchard raid.
The trees are bearing blossoms,
Teeming with fruit;
Some ripe ones on the ground.
The gang, excited and well-prepared.
Jimmy is up one tree
Shaking the branches
As apples fall every which way.
Apples here, apples there,
Apples everywhere!
His friends get busy picking them up.
There's more than enough
To fill up all the buckets and bowls
"Jimmy, try one, they taste so good!,"
Exclaimed one of the pickers.
"Not now, they must be washed first!,"
Replies Jimmy.
They go tree to tree
Plucking low hanging apples.
Oh, the varieties! The varieties!
Granny Smiths,
Twenty Ounces,
Rubyfrosts,
Yorks,
Galas,
Golden Delicious....
Yummy looking apples!
Lots and lots of collected apples
To be enjoyed!
Everything begins with a first step or stride.
Your pebble was dropped swiftly many years ago,
And now the waves are far-off and reaching in a myriad of distances.
Your balance was once certainly unsteady,
Now you hold your feet’s roots strong.
Ounces of pride seeped uneasy,
Strength and Resilience are suddenly part of your name.
The curved path is not forged by any others,
It was your battles that made the iron incredibly rich.
Remember what you conquered in each moment,
Because thats the sophisticated journey you’ll NEVER forget.
So be the person YOU are,
Always blessed by the Father up above.
Because it’s in HIS sunshine that gleams into your presence and makes everything that you strive and blister with steadfast determination, so POWERFUL.
And this is why your destiny traveled ultimately makes this celebration completely puncture the stratosphere!!
Rains of world's zillion drops
Ounces of jubilation and madness
Drains the clouds' teardrops
Bounces in invitation, not sadness
Rains over trees and heads that greets
Medleys in bees and hearts that sing
Pains healed when the sun and moon meets
Chimneys of hearth eject and bring
Rains of summer and misty skies
Skylining like rainbows before twilight
Drops of wonder flitting like dragonflies
Drizzling, soothing the hearts of the night
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