A/N1: A series of micro- and slightly-longer-than-micropoems, using prompt words from various challenges and all inspired by our favorite gimp. I only just started doing them last November, and sometimes weeks will go by when none of the words inspire me. The hashtags at the end of each piece show where the challenge prompt came from. Poetry ©2015-2016
A/N2: Many thanks as always to Shore for his brilliant creation, and some guy they got to embody the character. It just wouldn't have been the same without him. Additionally, kudos and thanks to the curators of the Twitter feeds associated with these poems. Not all of them are tagged, because there are a few that were inspired while watching certain episodes. Just an FYI. :o)
A/N3: This is the first time I have put all of these together and posted them in one place online. A few can be found at HITRecord, and I may have posted one or two on Facebook - but otherwise, this is it.
A/N4: Comments and reviews, as always, are gratefully accepted. All mistakes are my own.
Words
The words left his mouth
Detached and unemotional
Dripping with sarcasm
The only protection left
To save his wounded soul
#microprompt
Running
He runs
To think...to forget
It no longer matters
As he revels in the joy
In the freedom
Of exertion
Finally quieting the voices
In his head
Truth
The storm behind his eyes
Reflects his every emotion
It fuels his quest
To solve the puzzle
And find the truth
#microprompt
Resignation
His last words to her
Spoken with deep remorse
His final act of love
To send her away
Resigning himself
To a lifetime alone
#microprompt
Bonds
The bonds of friendship
Forged half a lifetime ago
Is tempered and strengthened
By the simple act
Of knowing it exists
#microprompt
Pain
The relentless pain
Sucks the life force from him
On the worst of days
He paces
Knowing his only relief
Resides in a bottle
#microprompt
Terms
"I don't want to go there again."
Remembering the pain
She left
The shattered pieces
Of their lives
Letting her go
On his terms
#microprompt
Wondering
He wonders if he can fix himself
Ignore the constant pain
For her
His redemption
His infatuation
His reality
His problem
#microprompt
Time
5 years
The passage of time
Trying to forget
The haze of pain
A constant reminder
He shut her out
Pushed her away
And pined
#MadVerse
Reflection
He sees her reflection
In every pane
Feels her lips
On every petal
Silent voices carried on the wind
Ease his troubled mind
#SenseWrds
The Key
She holds the key
To the lock that hides
What he feels
From the rest of the world
#microprompt
Dreams
He woke
Sweet dreams of being whole
Able to walk unaided
Turned to ash
With the rising of the sun
#microprompt
Nerves
The slice and dice
Of his remnant past
Exposing raw nerves
Feelings and emotions
To the air
For the first time
#microprompt
Solace
The cold solace
Of pain's embrace
The only thing left
That makes any sense
That allows him to feel
Anything at all
#HomoAquarius
Relentless
Relentless banter
Endless teasing
Childish pranks
The verbal pulling of pigtails
Wayward affections
That become infatuation
#MadVerse
Cunning
His cunning plan
Discovered before its time
By a prank gone wrong
The memory of which
Never fails to bring
A bemused blush
#SenseWrds
Nothingness
The relentless pain
In his body
And frayed nerves
In his mind
Fade into nothingness
When he loses himself
In the music
#PoemCrawl
Sonatas
Frayed sonatas
A symphony in discord
Only rendered salvageable
By the relief
Found in a bottle
#PoemCrawl
Balance
He rode the wave of tension
That delicate balance
Between caution
And wild abandon
Until he fell willingly
Into the abyss
#WrittenRiver
Brilliance
His brilliance
Woven into the fabric
Of a complex mind
His compulsive need
To solve the puzzle
Is complicated only
By emotion
#MadVerse
Letting Go
She gave him
The key to her heart
That he willingly carried
When she left
He couldn't bear the thought
Of letting it go
#WrittenRiver
Satisfied
She would be satisfied
With only the finest of things
And the highest of standards
Never truly happy
And never seeing him
#WrittenRiver
Void
Alone in the dark
Sleep eludes him
Not even the music
Is enough
To fill the void
And calm the thoughts
Of the night
#microprompt
Lost
A throne of glass
A heart of stone
The unending dark of eternity
He wonders if it's his soul
That is lost
Or simply his mind
#microprompt
Strength
Once again
He finds the strength
To try and fix himself
Hoping to finally
Be found worthy
Of unconditional love
#microprompt
Someone
She knew she deserved
Someone who would be there
Someone she could count on
Someone safe
Someone not reckless
Someone not him
#microprompt
Vices
His personal vices
Developed over years
Come and go on a whim
Making it easy to disappear
Into the shadows
She is the only one
He needs
To bring him back
Into the light
#MadVerse
Better Off
She stands in the doorway
His road to ruin
Telling him goodbye
As he stares in disbelief
His world crumbling around him
Crushing his soul
Finding solace in a bottle
Reminds him once again
That he is better off alone
#microprompt
Voice
His inner voice
Channels the internal turmoil
Of body and mind
Through his fingers on the keys
And playing along the frets
He tells the story
Of how he came to be
#VerseReversal
Shunned
Shunned again
Wondering where he went wrong
The downward spiral begins
As he loses himself
In the music
And the bottle
Watching the lavender twilight
Fade into night
#SenseWrds
Ten Years
Ten years from then
They would look back and laugh
At the circumstances
That made them friends
Ever inseparable
Ten years from now
One will be gone
The other lost
Ever alone
#ElixirPoetry
Memories
Memories of her
Her looks
Her smell
Her taste
Her love
Reduced to residue
Left in a sock
At the bottom of a hamper
#microprompt
Goodbye
She came to him
Suitcase in hand
Saying goodbye
With sad eyes he could not meet
It was never meant
To be anything more than it was
A fake, a farce, a felony
Which made her leaving
All the more painful
Again
#WyldeVerse
Opposites
Diametrically opposite
One safe, stable, dependable
The other unstable and unhinged
Their friendship the only constant
Through the years
Eschewing the social contract
Expected of them
Finding their balance
Through shared pain and loss
#VerseReversal
Trouble
He knew he was in trouble
Terrified of losing his mind
The delusions and hallucinations
Testing his belief in rationality
As the insanity that was his life
Took control
#MSPoetry
Fear
His greatest fear
Was to be told
That he no longer mattered
That he had become irrelevant
After a lifetime
Of looking for answers
In the vastness of the universe
And the very nature
Of the human condition
#WrittenRiver
Circumstance
They found each other
The way it always happens
Purely by circumstance
Two lost souls
Never realizing that they held
The answer
To what was missing
In their hearts
#AMSPC
Fractured
His mind
Fractured and splintered
Into a million pieces
Hallucinations won out
Over the rationality and logic
That he lived by
Propelling him deep
Into the abyss of oblivion
Unable to find his way home
#SenseWrds
#HandwritingDay
Reaching
Reaching for the bottle
Amber liquid chases the pills
To his stomach
Numbing thoughts of her
Keeping them at bay
Tendrils of memories wending
Through his pierced heart
As he tries unsuccessfully
To forget the past
#MadVerse
Wish
The innocent wish
Of a child
Over the years
Grew to become
The driving force
Of the man he would become
#WrittenRiver
Tears
Tears of laughter
Tears of pain
Tears of joy
Ecstasy and relief
But the silent tears
That would never fall
Were the ones she shed
As she walked away
For the last time
#AMSPC
Ordinary
On wishful thinking
He rose to heights
He'd never achieve
Became a legend
In his own mind
Fighting the reality
That had labeled him
As ordinary
#WrittenRiver
Complex
His mind jumps
From random thought
To bright idea
To cunning plan
Over the course of seconds
A complex maze
In a complex brain
Always working
Never truly calm
#bunburyzine
#micropoetry
Again
Being with her
Struck by the realization
That all was right with the world
He held his breath
And waited for it to end
Again
#fieryverse
Obsession
Years of obsession
In his quest for the truth
Had taken its toll
Reduced
To a hollowed-out shell
A mere memory
Realized
At the bottom of a bottle
#fieryverse
Mirror
Looking into the mirror
He tries to reconcile
What he sees
With what he feels
Before his eyes
No relief in sight
He fights the visions of
Life in the Before
With life in the Now
#MadVerse
Shadows
Shadows loom and thrive
In the deepest, darkest recesses
Of his mind
Never to see the light of day
Looking for the loophole
That will allow them to escape
And wreak havoc
On the logic and rationality
That defines his life
#fieryverse
Awake
Awake now
Contemplating the day
Pulling himself out of bed
Wondering if today
Will be different
Seeing his image in the mirror
He knows nothing has changed
His life is pain and puzzles
But no healing
#microprompt
Chemistry
The twisted chemistry
Of his body
Caused by years of pain
And self-medicating
Leaves him bent
On self-destruction
To make it all go away
#MadVerse
Chasm
There is a very fine line
Between life and death
Pleasure and pain
Truth and lies
But the giant gaping chasm
Between love and hate
#microprompt
Alone
His life
Finally content
And settled for once
Changed forever
In an instant
Leaving him a harder person
A worse person
And alone
#WrittenRiver
Fissure
World-renowned
But for the mangled fissure
That changed everything
Bourbon and pills
Take the edge off
For a little while
But it's the music
That truly calms his mind
#SenseWrds
Broken
Rising
On a buffer of air
Able to defy gravity
If only for a moment
But the feeling of pure joy
Only lasts for a moment
Until
It all comes crashing down
The reality of a broken life
#WrittenRiver
Resentment
He knew he should try
To smooth things over
To say the right words
To get her to stay
But words are never enough
To assuage the pain
To fight the resentment
To change the past
#MadVerse
Bereft
She was the one
He never saw coming
Never expected to find
She was his heart thief
He relinquished it gladly
And when she left
She took it with her
Keeping it safe
Leaving him bereft
#WrittenRiver
Shattered
Alone in a padded room
He stretches out
Stares at the ceiling
Trying to find
The meaning in madness
As he contemplates
The shattered remnants
Of his life
#WrittenRiver
Legend
Their first inclination
Was to put the man
In a wheelchair
The next was
To give him a scar
But the day they decided
To give the man a cane
A legend was born
#microprompt
#HouseMDDay2016
Everybody Dies
One man
Given only months to live
The other
Gave his life and livelihood
To spend those months
In the company of a friend
Chasing the sunset
One last adventure
To delay the inevitable truth
Everybody dies
Haunted
Sitting at the piano
In the dead of night
All those faces
Of lives forever lost
Haunt his dreams and memories
Reaching for the bottle
One more time
To quench the thirst of madness
#SLPoetry
Rescue
I would go
And rescue you
From fate
Then I realized
You don't need rescuing
You just need someone
Along for the ride
#WrittenRiver
Home
The place
He called home
Was less of a lair
And more of a haven
A refuge from
The daily grind
Of having to pretend
To be human
#microprompt
Icarus
Abandoned again
He tries not to feel
Tells himself he's better off
Alone
Wishing he was Icarus
Seeking flight
Beyond the sun
#SenseWrds
Clot
It was a clot
That came out of nowhere
That led to an infarction
Undiagnosed for days
A surgeon's blade
Attempting to repair the damage
Leaves a gaping hole
And constant pain
Of life with a cane
#microprompt