Hello,

I feel that poetry should be felt. It is a piece of the author that he or she is choosing to share with the world. As such, I believe that there aren't any rules with it. Anything goes. My submissions below reflect that. They reflect my inner struggle with articulation my love, frustration, and fascination with the world. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoyed writing it.


Sincerely,


Robin E. Regan




Inertia

With one click of my thumb
I'm well on my way to oblivion.
Where everything falls away and
electrified tingles replace the wall of fear
that everyday..races across my skin.

I can feel my blood slow down,
but my body keeps going.
It hurts.
Like inertia.
Like a driver speeds because he forgets
that his body is speeding too.
That the 100 miles per hour on the dial
is the speed at which the heart burns in time.
Such a crime.
Like a gamble with a red light
and as sure to crash.

I feel like I am the engine and someone
else is driving and
cars are lining up behind me;
honking their horns of dissension
for more attention.
And I'm scratching to the rhythm of their
engines.
I'm keeping with 'em
but I am defenseless once they get restless.

I can speed up only to run into a wall
but I'm keeping pace with it all.
I'm destined to trip and fall
because nobody wants to wait for me.
They are carried on by the throngs drunk
on movement.
All I can do is smile in silent amusements
and carried away and hope where I land
is an improvement from where I started.
All reason has departed my marrow
and my tunnel vision makes me far sighted,
and the world has narrowed.

Like the square peg in the round hole,
I'm stuck with nowhere to go.
Inertia in my blood stutters the flow
shuddering muscled hug my bones
coupled with tendons prepared for the crash they
know is rolling
forward on a crash course toward them.

Involuntary muscle spasms like miniature
orgasms in my legs welcome pain.
Counting backward from two thousand nine hundred and forty three
to try to fall asleep but failing miserably.
It's like time is fluid,
protecting me from hurting myself on real life.
It's so easy to do it.
Watch this life fly by
and just wave to it.
Because time flies when you're on the run,
tying to take the hill when you're out-gunned.


Reverb

I always knew I was different.
Every time she'd come near me
my heart'd beat like the pitter patter
of little feet;
down a dark hallway,
reverberating off of my lonely
inability to understand who I'm
supposed to be.
With every push to be the plastic
wrapped and packaged version of me,
I shoved deeper into myself
to the back of the shelf because
when push comes to shove
love isn't blind to everyone else.

I'm not for sale but I'm ON sale
because I'm defective
I'm infected with thoughts of my own...
going once...going twice....
SOLD!

Pretty on my pedestal
with a painted on smile
as pink as my cheeks
struggling under the weight of my secret.
The deepest desire to reach out and touch her
radiates from my toes,
but I'm strapped to my little box
and the bonds rub me raw.

I can only watch as she walks by
and feelings I don't understand
churn inside
and fall down my face for all to see.
But my tears swim upstream
to try to hide back behind my eyes
because pretty things don't cry.

I always knew I was different.
I never really fit into the box I'm packaged in.
Silence is a good color on me.
Quiet confusion,
slightly obscuring
the recurring loneliness
that walks along the streets with me.

I'm different like the black cat in a white litter.
I give people the jitters.
Superstitions and stereotypes
label me as evil,
but the hype isn't real.
I bleed...I love...I feel.

I've fought too long against close minded resistance.
I need to break through the walls of my cage,
wipe the tears from my face and find the words to
say to help me tap into my rage.

Keep your pretty pink pedestal
and your ruffled petite parasols.
I reject it all
and my bitter resentment tastes
better when used to amplify my call
to arms.
I'm throwing myself in harms way
because today is the day you will taste my rage.

Breaking through the shadowy ruse
and slap cruelty with a b***h slap backhand
that reverberates off of the walls
amplified by years of suffering under a culturally
enforced gag order.

I have found my voice,
oh yes,
and you best believe
I'm not anything like what
you thought I would be.

They say beauty is only skin deep
but her beauty suffocates me,
making my heart pitter patter like
little feet and this time
I won't suffer silently.


Luminescent Butterflies
Poetry belongs with melody married
in a ceremony of harmony
where cadence and flow
sign the guest book
because someone took
the chance to live free and let go
popped the cork and let the words flow
out of my pen
like water from a busted dam.

The words dance behind my eyes
like luminescent butterflies
so I reach up high
and pluck them from the sky.
I sit and smile as I write
at my minds appetite;
gobbling up the words with reckless delight.

Welcome to the verbal web
that tangles in my head
where words fly around unkempt
and fail at every attempt
to land in my outstretched hands.
It's a game of chance
Can you learn to dance...
and tame the words today?
Can you gather all the strays
and get them to stand up straight
and come out and play
without flying away?
Some days,
it works out O.K.
Other days, it blows up in your face.
You just have to wait...and see
in this game called poetry.

I'm not a poetic mastermind.
I don't have brilliant lines
that will be remembered for all time.
But I stand behind my words.
I wear them like my favorite shirt,
out there for all to see.
Each line is a piece of me.


Strung Out


I've got an addictive personality
and I have been feelin' addicted to
you lately.
Your smell.
Your touch.
Your taste.
You're like angel dust fallen from heaven.
I stick out my tongue to catch a piece of
you and bring you into my body,
so that you can race through and strum
every one of my nerve endings.

My skin ripples and the hair
on the back of my neck stands at
attention when my nose catches your
scent.
Smells like sugar and sex.

My tongue flicks in and out across my lips
tasting the air for traces of you.
Hunting you down by your heat,
like a heat seeking missile.
Chasing with an intensity raging from
the part of my brain that remembers how
your skin tastes....
like sugar and sex.

I'm strung out on you.
I can feel you inside of me every time
I move.
Pieces of you are under my skin.
If I dig deep enough,
maybe I'll be able to find them.
Pieces of you are under my fingernails.
Maybe I can scrape them out and inhale you.
If I can just open a vein....
maybe I can...-


Happiness is a Warm Gun


You're beautiful like
the brilliant shine of a sharp knife,
so sharp I don't feel the stinging pain of the blade right away.
But later, the dull ache
rears its ugly head,
grinding into my back teeth.

You're like a drug for me.
Destructive,
but you feel so good in my blood.
Searching for my next fix.
I have to close my eyes,
so I don't have to see myself in the mirror
as I breathe you into me.

And I can feel you grab my hand,
as we dance on the way to my brain,
making me forget for a little while that I am insane.
Hand in hand,
we spin around,
with my heart dragging the ground,
behind me.

But just like any high,
I start to come down and realize
that I despise your feral smile
because it only comes around when I cry.
But it's your eyes that keep me coming back every time.

They remind me of a time
when I could smile
without a reason,
just because I was happy.
I'm committing treason
against my better judgment,
and playing traitor to reason,
as I suffer through your moods that change with the seasons.

Our love isn't true,
but it's comfortable.
I'm nothing to you if not disposable
and my addiction to you is uncontrollable,
but you control me easily
with your charm and wit,
or the crush of your fist.
You twist my arm behind my back,
hold my nose
and tilt my head,
as you breathe in the same poison that knocked out three
of my teeth,
right after you said you loved me.

All good things must come to an end,
for some,
happiness is a warm gun.

Plea for Insanity

can't hold them back any longer,
they are just so much stronger,
than me.
I rage in my cage and scream,
to get away before they swallow me.
I beg and plea for help
but they all think I'm crazy,
and line up in front of my cell,
to point and laugh at me,
but they can't see,
how hard they fight to get free.
all hell with be unleashed,
but people refuse to help me.

They scratch at my brain from the inside,
and I can't block out their howling cries.
They live behind my eyes,
and I am their disguise.
The only time I smile,
is when they think up something vile,
my brain is no longer mine;
It's the only matter of time.

Would you take pity on me,
would you set me free,
if I told you I couldn't control
what is inside of me?
At least put me out of my misery.
It's the only way to set me free,
from the demons that haunt me.

My screams are choked short in my throat,
to keep my pills silent company,
I have lost all hope,
please get this evil out of me.

What have I done to deserve this,
why do they haunt me still?
Please make this stop,
end my life or I will.