"In the desert" - Stephen Crane

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said: “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

"Some people don't need much to live on" - Henry Rollins

Some people don't need much to live on

Hell some folks live on pennies a day

I was right about to wrap my arms around that girl

But at the last minute

I jumped back and wrapped them around myself

"I want to take a screwdriver" - Henry Rollins

I want to take a screwdriver

Mutilate my face

Find a beautiful woman

Make her love me for what I am

Then say I don't need it and walk away

And Sometimes I Sit - Nikki Giovanni

and sometimes i sit

down at my typewriter

and i think

not of someone

cause there isn't anyone

to think

about and i wonder

is it worth it

oh, yes - Charles Bukowski

there are worse things than

being alone

but it often takes decades

to realize this

and most often

when you do

it's too late

and there's nothing worse

than

too late.

Untitled - Warsan Shire

I'm sorry you were not

truly loved and that it

made you cruel.

Today My Horoscope Read - Warsan Shire

You are the alchemist

of your loneliness.

You can create anything

in its place.

Downhill - Julia Vinograd

I don’t have a home

and I live there

all the time.

"I'm in the hot room again" - Henry Rollins

I'm in the hot room again

I am a time junkie

I am a user

Like all addicts, I come to the point where I ask myself

Who's using who

I take a look around and I see what I do

I look in the mirror and I see what it's doing to me

And I come to the conclusion that we got a pretty good thing going

"Her eyes" - Henry Rollins

Her eyes

Her touch

Her voice

Takes my breath away

She's nice enough

To give it back

Thanks friend

I needed that

"If I should cast off this tattered coat," - Stephen Crane

If I should cast off this tattered coat,

And go free into the mighty sky;

If I should find nothing there

But a vast blue,

Echoless, ignorant,—

What then?

Intrusion - Denise Levertov

After I had cut off my hands

and grown new ones

something my former hands had longed for

came and asked to be rocked.

After my plucked out eyes

had withered, and new ones grown

something my former eyes had wept for

came asking to be pitied.

"Living on hope is like being locked in a prison cell and the sun is shining so brightly through the window that your eyes become blind to the bars." - Henry Rollins

Living on hope is like being locked in a prison cell and the sun is

shining so brightly through the window that your eyes become blind

to the bars. As soon as you're blind and drunk on hope, they gotcha.

"There were things I wanted to tell you" - Henry Rollins

There were things I wanted to tell you

I couldn't get it together

I couldn't get past your eyes

After you were gone it hurt to have kept quiet

So easy to not say what you think

To not do what you want

Hard to take rejection

Easy to hurt someone else and not know it

Easy to make it hard

Telemachus' Detachment - Louise Glück

When I was a child looking

at my parents' lives, you know

what I thought? I thought

heartbreaking. Now I think

heartbreaking, but also

insane. Also

very funny.

Death's Secret - Gösta Ågren

Love Poem - Richard Brautigan

It’s so nice

to wake up in the morning

all alone

and not have to tell somebody

you love them

when you don’t love them

any more

Picture by Unknown, found on Public Domain (if you own the rights and would like it removed, just contact me!). This is the full poem, not an excerpt.

At Dusk - Gösta Ågren

I will be forgotten,

he thinks. Oblivion is

a deep mother. No one

will touch you there; no one

will forget you any more.

Advice - Gösta Ågren

When the silence begins to feel

oppressive

people ought to talk to one another; otherwise

it will stop.

Homage to Isaac Newton - Janos Pilinszky

We commit what we do not commit,

and we do not commit what we commit.

Somewhere there is a terrible silence.

Towards that we gravitate.