east coast ink presents
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, VOLUME 1
We proudly present the entrants to our “All You Need Is Love� contest for spring 2015. The prompt? Send us your best bad love poetry. Now you can flip through them and feel cuddly, cozy, and ridiculous whenever you need a smile.
WINNER : Eleanora Hyde sloppy baby’s cut onion lust I have a severe chemical reaction to you You make me feel like a faulty rocket ship Breaking to pieces during lift off and exploding in slow motion as millions watch It’s not just the way that my brain becomes an off-switch when you look at me, No, the sight of you makes my heart shit itself violently And I can tell that’s what’s happening because I get this shocked expression of embarrassment at being in your presence and all the blood rushes out of my limbs leaving me with pins and needles and nothing to say except… There is a certain shade of blue that you sometimes wear and whenever I see someone of your build in that color I get nauseous because I want to throw myself to the floor in a fit of passion and cry like a cut onion That blue. Suddenly my eyes feel too small for my sockets you’ve dilated my pupils to such an extreme with your beauty that I think they might pop and spill out my irises. I’m a poorly drawn cartoon figure. I wish I could tell you how I feel but it’s more than likely that I would only awkwardly issue a spitty sloppy baby bile bubble upon opening my mouth. There’s a mushy mess inside my chest. You give me growling acid butterflies, a rash of horny horripilations, shakes right down to my reproductive organs. I produce a cloud of pheromones so dense that I can smell them, Syrupy salted caramel. I’m sweating in all my strange places self-conscious of my moist belly button. My cheeks are so hot they might melt off my face in a really unattractive lustfully drippy kind of way that you would be weirded out by. I can’t control my facial muscles anyway. The conflict between a smile and playing it cool just translates into a grimace. Enflamed, I’m a giant red pimple and you make me want to rupture. I get all of these primal urges that are somewhere between sinking my teeth into one of your triceps to writing a poem with my tongue on your neck. But oh god, what kind of gloriously, unbearable heart attack would I experience if my cat-scratch tongue ever made contact with your skin?
Eleanora Hyde a bullet loves the heart I love you like the wildfire loves the forest in a dry-August Loves the crackling of its tongue against thousands of years of wood, Loves the singed smell of animal fur and the cry of birds through the smoke.
I love you the way the bottom of the sea loves the sunken ship Loves the ominous bubbling of the rotting hull and the way the sharks Swim through the sails and the fish hide in the captain’s hollowed eye socket. I love you as the dung beetle loves his pile of dung Loves the fecal sphere as his whole world That he pushes always in front of him. I love you like the piglet loves bathing in mud Loves the cool, wet, dark of it against skin Loves it just because that’s what pigs do.
I love you the way hooks love kissing the lips of fish Loves the bite and shocked expression The gaping awe, the sadistic pleasure. I love you as much as the cat loves its own asshole Loves the innocent pinkness and proudly rubs Against everything else it loves.
I love you the way peanut butter loves the roof of a mouth. Loves the closeness, the intimacy between the tongue and throat. Like glue, like it never wants to be apart. I love you like mildew loves the damp Loves the stale smell of its own clingy need. Thinks of itself as blossoming, never scum.
I love you the way a bullet loves the heart Loves how the heart lets it in and then wraps itself Around the metal, maybe vainly trying to heal.
Krysten Trindade love bloat Loving you, my dearest, my darling, Is like gorging myself on everything forbidden. On candy and ice cream, On grilled cheese and sugar soda, Until I am so full with loving you, My heart so bloated, it hurts.
Like a stomachache, an ice cream headache, All I can do is lay moaning. But I never want to recover.
Alexander Clements the poplar and the hill I’d search beyond the furthest mountain or under the poplar tree that sits upon the flow’ry hill where you made love to me. I’d walk through miles of snowy fields or jump in the Royal Pond, where on the shore that summer day we made the Holy bond. I’d knock on every door in London while trudging through the rain that longs to rest upon the ground like us; that night in Spain.
When you were mine to have and hold I felt the wind but didn’t get cold because I knew I had you there, to be with me, to touch my hair.
I hope you know that I am still looking, dear. For now my endless summer day has turned into a winter grey. And once upon a time ago we were free. I had you. You had me.
And the flow’ry hill had its poplar tree.
Michaela Papa what is love Baby, don’t hurt me because when I’m with you my heart feels like it’s filled with warm mashed potatoes and my pupils turn into little pink hearts like in the cartoons but this is real. Or something. And I love you so much that I Google sports game scores before I see you share the pink Starbursts take the long way that you think is a shortcut kiss you on a corner in the cold even when your nose is runny pretend like your farts don’t make my eyes water and it seems like I can taste them they’re so terrible but you’re not and if love is real then I love you.
Jasmine Johnson
Love is all you need. Its like a Delicious piece of Cheese. mmm it feeds your soul. If you do not agree. your a robot and I am on to you!
Sabrina Sucato Love me bae bae Mmm yeah loving love getting that love on tonight. You and me and some serious LOVE ACTION. I’ll swoon and pine and whatever else to GET WIT U. Hey babe let’s go skip the dinner and ROCK YOUR BODY.
I mean, it is Valentine’s Day.
Dee Travis a class called love The teacher’s up front, I’m in the back trying to focus, But I’m constantly distracted by the hottie with the mostest. Two seats ahead and one to the left, Girl, your witch-like charms are ‘bout to give me a hex. This exam’s asking me for the square root of two, but the only root I wanna square… is you. I see you every day, and you’re looking so fine, I wanna ship you into my life using Amazon Prime. Two-day shipping, but even that wait’s too long, Mmmm, If getting with you is right, I don’t wanna be wrong. You’re tossing your hair as you get books from your locker, Girl, your beauty’s about to turn me into a full-on stalker. But not in a bad way; I’d only ever respect you. If you said the wrong thing, I wouldn’t even correct you. My brain shuts off when you walk into the room. What flavor’s your lip gloss? I’ma find out sometime soon. Baby, you’d even be sexy as a dirty old hobo; I’ll be like Samwise Gamgee, and you can be Frodo. I wanna take you as my date to the homecoming game; We’d put every other so-called “couple” to shame. If you’re still not convinced, then just let me say this: You’re the number one thing on my to-do list. You’re my lady, the one I’ll always be in awe of; The only class you and I need to pass is called “love.” <3
Ana Caballero a doorway away I thought solitude would save me:
The intense mouth lingering Over the white paper quiet word
This absence of sound is fine Him is fine
But if him keeps I linger in presence One doorway away
Over paper Over word
And stay
But a life of devotion is fine:
For him would end in silence:
Linger I say:
Feel him sleep:
Ana Caballero hung He will never see the painting hung, the girl with bows with face in hands. He said he liked it on the floor. He even liked it on the floor.
It lay upright, right-side up, ready to be hung. But the effort, the decision, the position, happened just one day ago. He would miss it if he knew â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the girl with bows with face in hands, looking on and smiling off, was nailed and hung above my bed.
Joan McNerney rendezvous That was the name of a paint can from J&M Hardware. With sweat lingering on her face, she colored her room.
Tinted now like insides of ripe plums, like perfect grapes. When the sizzling lemon sun dropped from heaven...night became moist and black.
Her fan whirled thick air stained with cigarettes coffee, turpentine, white wine.
She sank into her wicker couch as fog horns trail the horizon.
Lotus screech relentlessly for water always wanting more more more water. Closing her eyes, remembering him now tasting the feast of his smile.
Katie Hoffman Joe “Why do you like me?” “Because you’re less crazy than the other girls I’ve been sleeping with” He lifted my legs over his shoulders and pulled my tights down Fucked him for the first time on a couch After we drank a cheap bottle of Chardonnay He told me I probably shouldn’t trust him That night taught me who I’ve always been
Someone who doesn’t want to be in control
Alexandra Kanapina love is all you need Who loves the most?
Young lover in the spring of love? Grandmother with her little grandson? The artist with his muse? A wild creature given freedom and set loose?
The earth stores all this love and more. The roots of trees feed on this never ending flow. It glows in all worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creatures, great and small For love and life are one. And only we - with all our desires Seem to forget this great design. So look around, forget your greed And see all the love you need!
Arthur Heifetz out of sync We are two watches set for different time zones. I steal across the bedroom like a thief pants draped over my arm shoes and socks in hand while you sleep on. I clean up after lunch while you sit down for morning tea. I soak up the tropical sun while you hide under two floppy hats one inside the other and hold a silver parasol like a Victorian lady in Bombay. You stay out of the water. The one time you snorkled you almost drowned. The mere mention of seafood leaves red dots on your skin. I glide like a dolphin through the waves and disdain red meat.
You believe in saints and angels. You recite novenas to Mary for all your sick friends while I believe in a vague spiritual force out there or a God who lost all interest milennia ago. Yet for all that our two hearts have been in sync since I first saw you standing in the parlor a timid schoolgirl in her fifties not sure whether she wanted to be kissed.
Glenn Trindade To my dearest on valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s day Ahh, my love, how I wish to have you alone, So that I may butter your scone, And rub guava jelly, on your belly, as we watch Downton Abbey on the telly.
Ethan Cohen revelations at my tissue box There are many residual effects from not having a tissue; Your nose gets stuffed so you breathe through your mouth then your mouth gets dry so you have a glass of water then you have to pee. You notice a hole in your pants after your business is done then you go upstairs and find a new pair– your best jeans are on top of the drawer– then you make your way for the workday’s pay and Lady #2, dressed in wet by the dew, Says, “Well then, good morning, I like those jeans on you.” There are many residual effects from not having a tissue.
east coast ink presents
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, VOLUME 1
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