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BurialThe mud caked my fingernails.
My hair slipped from inside my hood,
blowing across my face.
The wind shifted the leaves on the ground—
a collage of yellow, red, and brown—
and the earth crawled around me.
The rain fell hard
and the wet grass grabbed at my ankles.

The hole I dug with my own two hands
was between two trees where you and I
used to sit and talk about superheroes,
videogames and high school bullies.
I thought the location fit.

I pulled from my coat pocket
the heart necklace you gave me
the year before you said goodbye
and drove off, leaving skid marks
on the vacant street.
I dropped my heart into

i'll huff and i'll puffyou are made entirely of harsh lines
elbows like knives and a jaw like a promise
that there's always worse to come

i pressed up against you
as your fingers tugged on my hair
and your voice shivered down my spine

and i'm sorry, so sorry
that i had to leave like that, but
you were making me want things
i shouldn't have

when somebody says your name for the last timeone

one of the first things she learns is that ghosts cannot cry.

this does not stop her from trying.

there's a house.

not a home. barely a building. just beyond the part of town parents don't let their kids near after dark.

it's empty. it's been empty for as long as anyone can remember.

in the upstairs bedroom, there's a queen-sized bed and a chest of drawers and a chandelier. they are covered in dust and cobwebs. they are rotting. they are bug-infested and falling to pieces.

in the upstairs bedroom, there's a girl.

she wears a long, white dress, and a shroud of grief, and a bullet wound in her chest.

she is rotting. she is sorrow-i

YearsHow does one measure a year?

Literally, it could be measured in time. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 8,765 hours. 525,945 minutes. 31,556,736 seconds. All in one year.
But in life, each person has their own ways of counting a year.
Once, it was how many teeth I lost. 8 in one year, that's when I got 5 dollars from the tooth fairy, and I felt like a millionaire.
As I grew up, I remembered holidays. Special time with my friends and family, each had a new story to tell.
Then it revolved around school, and a 'year' was no longer from January to December - no, it was from August to May.
My siblings and parents helped too. A family of 8

the art of lying"I'm fine" she smiles sweetly

The harsh hissing of underlying truth

Falling on deaf ears and blind eyes

Null and void save the stinging of niggling doubt

Her arms are faint pink and purple ladders

X marks the spot on sunburned shoulders

And there are scratches on her thighs where kitty dug his claws in

(He does so love to sit there)

The cuts on her knees and shins are from adventurous climbs

High into the branches of a big old tree

You want to know why she smiles?

The answer lies in her ladder arms

And the crisscrosses on bright red shoulders

And the claws on her cat

And the twigs on the trees

It starts and ends with one beauti

these broken pieces fit togetherwe have no family photo albums
no collectively treasured memories
only a road map and
several crumpled gas station receipts

i can point to any state of this map
and say 'this is where i grew up'
my childhood home is four wheels
a back seat and the dials on the radio

to take a walk down memory lane
we simply need to pick a direction and drive

look, there's the motel i first tried to pray in
i can still remember choking on the god
i couldn't bring myself to believe in
there's the diner where every single meal
they serve tastes just like ash

there's the roundabout you almost bled out on
this is that town the police ch

I'm Sorry, Daddy...He’s walking home alone again today,
With the bruises on his face,
Hidden by his fair blond hair.
Striding up the path,
Preparing for another painful night.
He thought, “If I were stronger, I wouldn’t have to fight,”
And,
It shouldn’t hurt to be a child.
It shouldn’t
Hurt
To be so young.
He knows he’s not the only one,
Even though he feels he has no one to talk to.
The kids they stare, but they don’t ask.
Sometimes he wished they did.
And soon enough he’ll have to give in,
To the weight of his Father’s iron fist.
And no one will ever know the secrets that he hid.
A boy is n

SylviaSylvia made it past her sixteenth birthday without ever touching a drop of alcohol. She had never been to a party. She had never done drugs. Your classic “good girl,” she desired perfection, saw her future as something she needed to work towards, and enjoyed the act of learning to a point that she was often teased. As she drove home from taking her ACTs, she knew that part of her identity was about to change. She didn’t, however, know how drastic this change would be.

Mary and Grace had been trying to drag her to a party since freshman year. But it was Elliot who finally convinced her.

“Come on, babe, it’ll b

you and i are just walking disastersif your skeleton is home
if your ribcage is the fireplace in the living room
of a house weathering out a storm
then you are haunted
your bones are haunted

there are ghosts howling down your chimney throat
there are ghosts rattling chains in the hall of your spine
the electricity running through your veins is flickering

if your skeleton is home
then you are a haunted house
you are dark and uninviting
even in broad daylight

the doors of your kneecaps slam shut
without the help of wind
your organ furniture goes flying
the ghost in the fireplace of your ribcage
howls into the chimney of your throat
and you are haunte

love is given, going, gonehan gets shot on a tuesday.

she's twenty nine, erin is twenty seven, and they've known each other for just over ten years. obviously, their time has run out.

it happens on no man's land, of all places, and sparks off a full scale war, the likes of which hasn't been seen in almost forty years. it happens three streets away from kasey's, the bar that's the second closest thing to home that erin has, and it happens late at night, when it's dark and confusing and there's a gunshot and erin can't tell where it came from and she can't really see through her rage anyway, all she knows is that she's trying to reach for her wire and someone's holdin

Just a Wide-Eyed, Curious Kid.I'm seeing a world through empty eyes
And whenever you cry, I feel so bad inside

But the reality, baby,
is that I've got places to go,
things to do
Bright lights to see
And big fights to fight

The secret is that no
One knows
Just who you are

And that's all I can say
'Cause, baby,
Times are crazy.

And I'm seeing my problems
Through empty eyes

Sometimes I just wanna give up,
Give in,
Run for miles

But others expect you to be so,
So
Strong.

And where did we go wrong?
Straight-edge, all gain, no pain,
Still I got nothing

Not a dime in my pocket and
Not a right in my ways

The only thing I'm sure of,
is that I'm not sure

that boy is poisoni remember a hot
balmy summer which we spent
topless in my shed, lips against lips,
sweat-drenched skin against
sweat-drenched skin. i loved you
for the little things,
like the hair below your belly button,
the small scar above your eyebrow.

we used an old bin bag as a
curtain, and now the smell of
festering garbage reminds me of you.

the rubbish dump is my
favourite place to go.

mum said, that boy is poison.
i replied, i'm a junkie and he's my heroin.
and i can't quit him.
i can't.

I Could...I could break the silence with promises and blind devotion,
And erase the smiles from our mouths and put locks in their place.
Only you could have the key.
I could cut my heart from my chest and give it to you in a cardboard box...
But maybe I could just tell you my love instead.
I could spend hours listening and counting your heartbeats
And play connect the dots with the pink scars on your cheeks from teenage skin;
Such constellations I could find in you...
I could catch your breath in the palm of my hand,
Or pluck each word from your throat like a string of pearls.
I could kiss you until our lips turned blue and still not be ready

what you don't knowAccusations strike like the tail o' nines
Lacerations upon my heart
A flayed soul screaming
Crimson streamers celebrating
You don't know where I bleed
You can't see beyond your pain
A lifeless puppet of sinew strings
I care not to dance again
Too often these steps are taken
Too little is ground once gained
You don't know this tune I sing
You can't see the notes for the melody
It's a game of you said, I said
Pawns upon an ebon board
Check and checkmate, no escape
Until we both topple down
You don't know that I've lost
You can't see victory is a hollow grave

dear deathdear death,

i went to visit my wife today, in the building where i have to breathe through my mouth because it smells like a slaughter house. i don't buy her flowers anymore, because they are almost as dead as she is and giving them to her is like putting flowers on a grave. i don't buy her chocolates, because she'd just vomit them up in a shit-brown wave and she never had much of a sweet tooth anyway. no, i just go by myself and hope that it's enough.

today i realised how much her eyes scare me. they used to be green. mossy green, not emerald green like they say in books, because in real life nothing could possibly be that perfect. but in

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DestinationsThey coasted down highway 207 in the red 1976 Ford Mustang they’d owned since they were teenagers, going 45 miles an hour (the clunker could barely go above 50) with their windows down and their faces tilted towards the breeze. It was 90 degrees outside and they wished to God this baby had air conditioning. But of course, beggars couldn’t be choosers. It was a miracle this car could even run, so they couldn’t complain too much about the weather. Their destination—Hollow Rock, Tennessee—was worth the possibility of heat stroke.

“You think he’ll recognize you?” Matt, who was sitting in the front

I never wiped your eyesI was never worth
your tears, but I love that you
shed them anyway

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keeps me up at night

by ~TheEmptyChest, Sep 25, 2012, 9:37:18 AM
Literature / Poetry / Family Life / Haiku & Eastern

_{my worst fear is that
no one will be there to push
you out of the way}

206

17 20 5

keeps me up at nightby ~TheEmptyChest

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... or take it for you.

Another haiku. Decided to go the "no caps" route with this one, just for fun.

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Submitted on: September 25, 2012
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~NotenSMSK Nov 15, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Your six word stories and your Haiku's are always beautiful. In this one, you took a different approach. Rather than saying "I shall be alone" or anyother such statement, you state that no one will be able to push you out of the way. That in itself works for me! Keep it up!

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~chewyraezen Sep 29, 2012

good job!

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~TheEmptyChest Sep 29, 2012

Thank you!

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~chewyraezen Sep 30, 2012

you are very welcome

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~angelichope Sep 28, 2012

I like it and relate; loneliness is not a good thing!!! I think everybody should fear that!
Beautiful message!

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~TheEmptyChest Sep 29, 2012

Thank you very, very much!
I think everyone DOES. ^^

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~angelichope Sep 30, 2012

Very welcome!
You're right; everyone does, as they should!

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~BelaRoseWolf Sep 25, 2012 Student Writer

This is a really powerful haiku!

I think it's interesting how there are no caps. Great work!

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~TheEmptyChest Sep 25, 2012

Thank you very much! Yeah, I like how I decided to shirk caps here.

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~BelaRoseWolf Sep 25, 2012 Student Writer

You're welcome!

I like it too!

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