ehselevatedvoices-blog

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write some poems guys

Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.

Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

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picking at scabs like you would pick on your fourth grade lover, and plucking marbles from the sidewalk where the kids were, you missed Him like grandma usually missed the point but let me start over. little jimmy had a girlfriend and you just couldn’t compete; she was the sandbox sovereign,...

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‘Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines,’ a poem by Pablo Neruda, read by Andy Garcia.

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Winter's Night

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

I would love to say

that and I wish I could but

you have a cold cynical heart that is stuck in a rut

Your heart became the eternal winter

every word you said stuck in my heart as a splinter

but I am no longer interested in your hardwood

so I’ll say it simply so this isn’t misunderstood

I will compare thee to a winter’s night

because every conversation ended in a fight

Your words were dark

and they left their mark

I was left wishing you weren’t as cold as the snow

so I’ll just take my stuff and try to go

- t.p.g

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THIS GOT ME SO HYPE

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“To the Boys Who May One Day Date My Daughter” by Jesse Parent

“Since before the spark took hold and ignited the fire in her mothers belly I’ve been training to kill you.”

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So. Where are the black singers, writers, poets, musicians and artist tho?

Yall my favorite kinda people honestly. Follow me! 👋🏽

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the idea of “not being good enough” in America carries so much fear in our society for all the wrong reasons.

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FROM THE VAULT: John Ratz - “Sleeping on God”

“I learned that the cure for a terrified mind was to sleep with a bible tucked beneath my pillow.”

John Ratz, performing at the 2014 Omaha Team selection slam at the OM Center. Subscribe to Button on YouTube!

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“I’m Still Really Glad I broke Up With You” by Hannah Johnson

“I wasn’t running from anything, my legs just never stopped to ask what else they were for.”

“When I asked about the ax beside your bed you answered ‘zombies’ like it didn’t need explaining”

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Ed Mabrey “Come as you are, Bring your air guitar”

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There’s poetry in my aching bones; it’s you, infiltrating my lungs like second-hand smoke. If you were my last breath I’d breathe in deep and never let it go. We’re burning up so fast we forget how it hurts to lose our youth to love ballads. These are times of war. How many hard-heeled boots have trampled your broken heart? You see their footprints in my eyes, and wrap your arms so tight around your shaking body to hold it together as our dreams die. And you can’t let me in. You breathe deep as my hands run marathons over your body. You dance beneath my touch and sing for me as I play you. But you can’t let me in. How many nights would it take to change your mind? All those broken hearts that litter our streets like roadkill, and call out to be a part of our lives, as if we’d ever believe a single word they said. “I found safety in the honest moments, when distance melts away and oceans are closed, when storms are silenced and kisses are true.” And I ask myself how I fall for it every time.

giraffevader - “We clearly can’t survive this.” (via giraffevader)

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NPS 2014 Semi-Finals - Beltway - Clint Smith “Oysters”

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Emilee Nimetz - “The Warning Poem” (IWPS 2014)

“But you have to know I don’t actually want to make babies with anybody. My biological clock tick tocks as I take steps to figure out how I can even give you an honest sliver of myself, let alone a baby.”

Emilee Nimetz, performing during prelims at the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam. Subscribe to Button on YouTube!

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In middle school, the lunch room is the worst place for feeling invisible; I feel like everyone is looking at my mouth. I think if I swallow fast enough, maybe I can pretend that I never ate anything, maybe someone will even believe me. My best friend buys candy from the vending machine and won’t stop talking about what a pig she is. Sydney is a runner on the track team–five foot one and barely a hundred pounds and her favorite word is “fat.” It’s her own private joke and it’s fucking hilarious. I guess I just always forget to laugh. See– I am twelve years old and everyone who has ever called me fat meant it. Later, when another friend of ours–a girl who is bigger than Sydney but smaller than me– pats her stomach and cracks a joke about “not being the thinnest little thing,” she looks straight at me. And while our other friends laugh, we only nod: the smiles on our faces looking out from some place far away and vacant. The difference between us and them is we are in on the joke and we both know it isn’t funny. Seven years later, and the poet on the microphone is talking about her body–badmouths it, like it’s a warzone of a country we have no business being in, like she is a factory of fun-house mirrors and amidst the mirage of distorted reflection, she’s forgotten who she really is. She talks about being fat. She doesn’t use the word. (Poets never do) And I look down at my body: the one I am still learning how to love. The voice in the back of my head that I thought I’d finally learned how to shut up, rears it’s ugly little mouth and whispers,if she’s fat,  just imagine how disgusting you must look. It’s funny, right? It’s funny. A year after that, I stand my brutal body on stage. What nobody in the crowd knows is that the blue puddle of my cardigan in my seat means that this is the first time in years I’ve let this many people see this much of me. What nobody knows is I used to be bigger than this and it was everyone’s favorite punchline. But nobody knows. And now, I am five foot two, only a hundred and sixty five pounds. I am thinner than I used to be but I will probably never been thin enough. And I’m sorry. I know how it feels to hear women smaller than you talk about their body issues. I know how it feels like swallowing your tongue. I never wanted to be that for anyone. But this isn’t a contest. And if it were, we’d all lose, anyway. We’re already expected to be flawless. And the inside joke of the beauty industry is making sure we all know we never will be. We expect such violent perfection from our bodies. I know how it hurts listening to a girl who doesn’t look the way you think they should talk about the pain that matters to you, but we can’t turn ourselves into gatekeepers for heartache. We are all hurting. There’s no litmus test for low self esteem; no one deserves to hate their body. The fact that so many of us do is exactly the problem. We are so beautiful. You are so beautiful.

LITMUS TEST by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)