Vestal shores of youth,
Life! -Render once forth
Coasts, before every home.
Turn castles to glass,
Liken ivory to stone.
Our long mass, come to close-
Hunger no more.
What is achieved, at last;
The peace found within,
Begins to unfold.

bury me living
for i am in a world of dead

where the zombified stumble around
looking for meaning

maybe it'll make more sense
six feet under
and down the river styx

tie me to a raft
and let me drift

far, from this meaningless charade
known as life

She met me by the river and turned her cheek to the sun
taunting it. Her willingness could cause a mark in red,
like a statue she sits so still.

My feet dangle in the river, which she dare not touch and I know
why she must stay so fussed with the pray that is all in her head,
to think she may die.

Or end up dead down some dark dingy creek
gives me no better reason to meet her here where she knows, her
friends. To say goodbye is to become a foe with the daring woman.

So I just hope that she'll turn her head and pull the mask to her chin.
To look me in the eye and scream in my face,
that I might die tomorrow.

Even though I know she could strike me down this minuet,
with the river raging i'd close my eyes,
to the fish flailing, and my friends across the waters.
To the beat of the rapids, i'd happily die.

In my mind there's a power that I keep by the shelf of books I once accumulated in an attempt to own everything
to keep something that would always stay, permanent to years
I never use it and at times the dim light from overhead makes me forget what it is i'm looking at
I don't touch it in case I've forgotten how to handle it and I think I may have
it might leave room for discussion or leave the room altogether
I was never good at piecing puzzles, the truth lying somewhere in the invariability of the same outcome
some call it probability or fate and fortune
it may even be unlucky
I used to be a woman who knew exactly what to say however poorly timed it could be
but now my mouth can't cooperate and I've forgotten all my favorite words

the sun is my king and sometimes it asks me
what i'm doing down here on earth
i can't help but explain that everything has it's place and there are certain rules you cannot bend
i consistently want to have a ****** job wherein it slowly melts my spirits but not really
what i really want is nothing by the sea
doesn't matter which one
where i can pray into the sand
where someone asks
who are you? what are you doing?
and i can tell them
at ease, at ease
like that cowboy i remember from my childhood
this is me at my most degenerate
at my most free
but you wouldn't know
except the sun king and I

a swollen finger rising to the occasion
rising to the size of a grape, purple
bloated like a stuffed pocket or pregnant chicken
green oozing out like the slime i got from the museum and the smell of rubber and plastic following me in my sleep

a ghost by the window slipping into my thumb and biting pain
the numb pressure of muscle tissue ripping
the phantom claws out and shouts that women are debris
swamps with lost metal buried at the bottom if you dig long enough the days become one and their hair consumes you whole

i argue with the shadow, threaten that this bruise will burst and blood with meet alcohol, an antibiotic fever dream
it stares at me defiant, like a giant pulverizing a village
my fingers wrestle and before the abscess can pop
the fingerprints unravel until i am nothing but thread
a coil at the bottom of the floor
a dress to be sewn in a bedroom
the shadow stand up and fits her bones into the fibers, a bride in white
the thumb hurts no more

I have faced down
the existential anguish
that drives lovers
to padlock themselves within.
I have woven blankets
to warm my cold shoulders
when I tumble
through the abyss.
I have created
Reason, Religion, and Reverence
out of Absurdity and Stardust.
I will always be
more desirous of desire
than secure with security,
more comforted by wonder
than wondrous of comfort,
and more of the romantic than the realist,
though neither is whole
without the foil.

I am alive in a home-made dress that was bought for two dollars at a yard sale
there is domestic bliss in routine
in the inching of my hand on a knife that will be used to slice the
tomatoes growing outside
there in no harm in loving you eternally
I think about everything often
about the way I tried for years to soothe my fathers’ psychosis
and my mothers’ sadness
I think about the temporary loss of my body and the way I absorbed it in sweat
my bones constantly caught in bushes of bramble thorns  
and I wish you could see how far you have to go to come back home

Mary had a little lamb,
two lobsters and a Christmas ham,
a three-pound tub of chicken wings,
seven bratwurst tied with strings,
thirteen loaves of garlic bread,
a schnitzel bigger than her head,
four rare steaks, a dozen eggs,
caviar and turkey's legs,
strips of bacon, mushroom stew,
chunks of bread and cheese fondue,
and two whole jars of sauerkraut,
(to clean all of her insides out).

Finishing the pasta salad,
Mary soon looked drawn and pallid.
"I don't feel well," poor Mary said.
"I think I need to rest my head."
Then from her stomach came a moan,
a straining, churning, twisted groan.
Mary gasped; her eyes grew wide.
She'd only seconds to decide.
What could she do? Where could she go?
Her stomach was about to blow!
So, reaching for the nearest bucket,
she retched, and then began to chuck it.

All the courses that she'd swallowed,
and the apertifs they'd followed,
all the steaks and all the fish,
each and every single dish
came flying back from in her belly,
filling up the bucket smelly
with a foul and toxic brew,
and no one knew quite what to do,
so this went on for ten whole minutes
till Mary had expelled her innards.
When she was done, her eyes were red,
and sweat was pouring from her head.

"Are you alright, sweet Mary dear?"
her mother asked. She didn't hear.
For Mary was already off -
the waiters saw her try to scoff
the whole entire pudding bar.
Now, this had pushed her mum too far.
"Alright!" her mother cried, "I'm through!
I've done the best that I can do.
I'm sick and tired of all you eat.
I will not pay for all this meat.
I'm going home. Go get some help —"
Then Mary's mum let out a yelp!

She glanced down at her legs and saw
sweet Mary there begin to gnaw!
She struck the lass, but with great haste,
alas, the girl had reached her waist.
As Mary's ma was there devoured
by her offspring, overpowered,
she cried one thing ere final slaughter:
"It smells like lamb in here, my daughter."
Mary licked her lips and grinned.
She belched out loud and then broke wind.
She felt her tummy start to rumble -
and calmly ordered apple crumble.