Toothpicks.

The boy leaves.

Toothpick.

You burn a body filled with poison then stick it in a jar.

Toothpick.

The girl that helps you find light is distant.

Toothpick.

The music burns your ears and your eyes.

Toothpick.

The man drinks.

Toothpick.

The queen is filled with directionless rage and tears.

Toothpick.

The boy never flies home to you.

Toothpick.

Pills and a bath just hit pause but not stop.

Toothpick.

Words. And words. And words.

Toothpick.

The sisters fight.

Toothpick.

And hospitals.

And toothpicks.

And keep boarding flights.

And toothpicks.

And you’re never quite sure which hand you want to hold.

And toothpicks.

And toothpicks.

And toothpicks.

And no never means no.

And toothpicks.

And the shadows and disease and poison come for everyone you love.

And toothpicks.

And the hearts close up.

And toothpicks.

And toothpicks.

And toothpicks.

Toothpicks.

The interior feels young but is coupled with age;

the one thing there is no changing.

The exterior looks as it should, maintained well enough,

with an outward glance, I could be forever young, in spirit.

The architecture, built by and nursed by parents,

has become what it will be ... a creation of life carried on.

There is no good or bad to this.

It's all about my self perception.

I live.

I breathe.

I laugh.

I love.

For me,

my house is strong.

Our home is small

Just enough for three

Living in the city

In an old apartment

Barely up for rent

With battered bricks

Chipped and tinged

With the soot of living

In the worst place

The rooms are cramped

Corners filled with my

Sister’s sculptures

Crumbling from use

And my brother’s

Maps and charts

Of distance seas

Set next to plenty

Boat models and plans

One area is even

Left alone for me

To keep one bookshelf

Our home is bigger

On the inside than out

Because the life within

Is explosively large

And the books I own

Are filled with worlds

Bigger than life

@MsH

#poetry #architecture #sciv #ourhome #home #city #citylife

Built solidly,

Upon a foundation of love,

Nourished with years of compassion,

I quickly grew

My walls expanded,

Until I was no longer so little

My exterior, normal, unassuming,

Hid the flawed interior within

I suffered losses here and there,

Shed the innocence of childhood,

As I viewed the ways of the world

It was what most adolescents go through

It was only the last few years

That wrecked my interior so

Familial issues, stemming from addiction,

Took root

My mind, my heart, my soul

All battered from the ensuing struggle

Days of depression,

Feelings of hopelessness,

A sense of being lost,

With no stars to point home

This temple of mine

Has undoubtedly weathered some,

But just like any sturdy house,

It continues to stand tall

My exterior is is a house in shambles

My interior is a crazy man’s rambles

The architecture is falling apart

My walls need repainting

Yet my fenced are stronger than ever

Keeping them out and me in

My exterior is an unused shed

It has no purpose

My interior is dark with bloodshed

Blood from me

Blood from others,

And the bleeding heart

My interior houses demons with names you’ve never heard of

Because they are in no religion

The architecture is brand new and modern

But then again it is unstable

They don’t make ’em like they used to

Houses are people

There are rows and rows of cookies

Fresh out of the cutter

And then there are the

Weirdos

The freak shows

The old haunted mansion on the other side of the road

That’s me

I ain’t no cookie cutter house

I am strange but I’m not afraid

My pride is all I have and it’s clinging to the skin of my teeth

There is no skin on your teeth

My pride is gone,

Slipped away

Because of a flaw in a simple phrase

Hardwood floors rotting

Walls crumbling

Yet my fences remain

No one comes in

And no one leaves.

I am that place of king and common man where we equally stand

when judged to be the wrong and bad.

My walls will you in pen and bounding bind.

I am the place where brick and stone and iron cold and mortar poured

wire razors, steel in bars that serve no juice save for the just to quench.

I have corridors with brutes and thugs with keys and duties and responsibilities.

I am that place where walls soak tears and drink the fears of victims.

With my confines I tear the souls of victim makers they the ones, possession takers. Them that con and lie and violate the space and right of others, bring them here. I am the care communities neglect.

From afar my dress of rendered impressions testify to power

that beneath my gates they cower. They lower gazes, shuffling uneasily

muttering “but for graces, there go I”.

They cross themselves and tip the rims of caps and hats as though coffins decked in blooms glide by. The death is died.

The key is turned the watchers duties are relaxed. For here I move with the times and integrate the new, the news for yiou to watch and be aware of.

The modern day deterrents that your legislators peddle, promising a better place for all the havers and the keepers of the keys and the door peepers, who will spy with digital eyes hiding in the corners. Looking down upon us like the brother’s older hand on a shoulder to steady the swaying.

I am the place they think of as their rod that does protect and does contain and does detain and does cause pain and spirits drain and again and again and again. Recidivisms rythems as they come and go and come. As I am here and they are gone, I am the standing on the time I steal form lives for deeds and crimes.

I am the edifices of might and power wielded for the right.

I am the rooms that keep you in, not letting out, not setting free.

I am built on the ideas of bringing bad to good and right of wrong. I am the dichotomy of moral and decency. Humilities lay in the foundations capping and the plaques hung in memory and honour to the moralisers shields of state and countries.

Crests on on caps and breasts and epaulettes guarding. They pretend, for in the end I am their protection and their detention is the fears that make then chain and cage and hold and bind and seal in tombs of tragedy.

I am this place of men. I am this place of them that never will my halls grace

and never in this place of incarceration stand accused for their sins.

Their sins, those sins that are greater than the crimes of the desperate and the fraught, beating the paves to my gates with their deeds.

Them seeking novel ways in to serve and burden themselves with punishments, for your equitable distribution of justice.

I exert your right to draw satisfactions from the blight of miseducations in the ghetto and enclaves of the poor challenged by a lack coin.

No community support structures. Only me and more places like me and with money agreed behaviours deemed appropriate as retribution and payment for infractions.

So those that come before me remember, that I am no roads termination.

I am a place, a space outside, protecting, inside the precious that will saviours serve upon return.

When bricks in walls and halls will tumble, cruelties and terrors crushed

beneath the rubbles of quaking earths.

I am firm and standing strong and proud, but I am by the hand of man made and subject to the natural law and rule that nothing and nowhere is forever.

A smaller place, a vintage home

Her fascia showing age

Designed after her mother

Feminine, eaves braced

Foundation, brick, for strength to bear

All the weight; her structure

Along her roofline, rain gutters

For tears of joy and laughter

All-weather, lifetime coating

To brave the elements

Siding dates her ’mong the rest

And her gabled vent

A vent that’s there to circulate

The attic air, but more

In case her fire spreads atop

Burning, uncontrolled

Her steps lead up toward her porch

Wooden, with a swing

Just steps away from her front door

Closed, yet still inviting

Inside, her ceiling, crafted

Intricate with time

In extra steps of detail

Fancy cornice mold design

Center, sits tiled hearth and stove

Her warmth; kindled and burning

Her guests enter from winter’s chill

To find it welcoming

Her family room for gathering

Informal, leading toward

Her kitchen’s open living space

Sharing of her love

And rooms, several, of smaller size

Suiting each, her dear ones

Larger, though, the master

Where she rests, undone

Not everyone is welcome there

The room set furthest back

The antique door kept closed the most

Where wooden floor meets tack

Her windows, French and double-pane

To keep world’s cold air out

With shutters, screens, crank openings

To let her warmth about

Marbled are her window sills

For function and for taste

Preserving of her fragile frame

Careful care ’did take

When craftsman in her mother’s womb

Did measure, build, create

Inside, outside - plans drawn up

A house, by love, was made

The pages breath experiences of the men and women of the past,

I seek to see what causes an apple to be rotten.....

Am I a chemist, if so do not challenge my elements...

I wither with whining words, then thrive thereafter....

They’ll write my name on sprayed walls, then X it out

I exaggerate my current status as high as the stratosphere.

Too many times was it knocked,

too many times did he wait for the rain to pacify his pain

Enter and exit, all i need is a key and lock,

on the sidewalk hearing passionate voices, I amplify the noise to escape the room

My surrrounding needs but a broom, to sweep it right under.

Neon lights glow well when she sits in my globe of eccentricity,

the walls spark violently,

I cannot decide who I am nor where I am!

My words:

are

readily

rotating

over that precarious

world.

spinnig with curls.

help

it

turn.

move over

you ignorant baffon,

my globe

is in stasis.

never

dismiss them as faceless.

A uterus.

No, two.

Two uteruses

or is it uteri?

Two kidneys

No, one.

One kidney.

Man?

No, girl.

Boy or girl.

Both?

A boy uses a tampon

monthly with the moon.

A boy tears his chest

hopes he dies soon.

A boy is caught

-a fixed world can be cruel-

she is he, he is she

and she will wear pants

to school.

He built me a body

or at least that’s what they say.

She built me a mind

and it turned the other way.

A walking joke,

a boy born with two

uteruses or uteri

walking the line of

sun break and of moon.

Out from the batch,

Lost the match,

Failed to win,

Lost in the din,

Left to drown,

I broke down.

It kicked up a storm,

But this is not the norm,

I won’t be vanquished

I won’t be diminished,

Failure is not final.

Its just a signal.

All to thaw,

Leaving it to gnaw,

The courage to continue,

With my revenue,

I found my sinew,

Strength to renew,

To guard my armour,

I raised my power.

I lost a battle,

With much to rattle,

I will march with my might,

To give a fight,

To make it sway,

I will find my way.

Stop me if you can,

Set your ban,

But I will lead with élan,

Back with my clan.