I have begun to feel my skin softening.
I have spent 20 years of my life being told and believing my hide was made of steel, but now..
it has become translucent,
like the stained glass windows
held high in the chapel,
morning light seeping through
every nerve and heart beat,
every synapse and tissue,
every vein
and with even the smallest touch or threat of danger
I threaten to collapse like a kaleidoscope of blood and tears.

I tremble like a leaf being torn
from its branches simply by the thought of driving through a thunderstorm, when everyone knows its safest inside a car.
I cower in fear as I attempt to walk through a public grocery store, avoiding the imaginary stares of judgmental eyes behind a measly shopping list.

I have relied on my own structure for nearly two centuries and with that I do not no how to ask for the help of others.
Baby, hold me together. Do not allow me to come undone at the throat.

will be replaced by hers
and I could think of nothing worse.

When you are home alone sobbing on another Friday night, do not call her and ask her to come back,
you know good and well her answer.
Do not reach across your empty bed to feel if she is still there,
when you know you have carved the date she left into your bedpost,
and now she is hours away wrapping herself like ivy
around a porcelain column, twisted between warm limbs and bedsheets
while you are curled next to your own grief
and tear soaked pillows that still
smell of her shampoo.

Do not make the same mistakes you made this time.

My father once told me my lungs were filled with the western winds,
swept from the plains of South Dakota
and when I spoke, I spoke in shades of the sky;
innocent and naive baby blues to raging, violent greys.

My heart beat to the sound of the hand drum, with a fire in my belly that could not be put out. I yearn for my feet to soak into the soil of the Black Hills, to run the hidden pine trails, seeking wisdom from the ancestors that rest among them.

My mind is as wandering as the Black Foot river and I cannot be stopped.

We set fire to that ****** emotion chart
with nothing but a bic lighter and a gut feeling of revenge.
How dare they try to limit our feelings to a piece of paper,
how dare they assume the tsunami we’ve felt in our chests since we were old enough to understand the words ‘I’m sorry’
can be labeled as simply as
‘today I’m feeling ‘sad’

Today I am feeling enfeebled,
belligerent,
subdued.
impassable;
Today I am feeling words you will never find on a cookie cutter hand out
given to you by your therapist.

We watched the flames grow and destroy those childish faces
in hopes of it feeling something,
it feeling our hatred
or our underlying sadness and maybe then
it would understand that one should be labeled ‘ignorant’
for thinking someone could put a name to a feeling or emotion
and call it good enough.

”How To Not Be A People Pleaser”
below are listed 10 bullet points
on how to toughen up,
on how to avoid the blow of others
wiping their ***** feet across
your ‘welcome mat’ heart.

Surely I have the look down, right?
Skinny jeans fit for skinny girls (who I am not),
tucked into loosened combat boots that have never seen a good shoe shine. Black eyeshadow smeared in the form of war paint,
"Today is a good day to die"

But the fact that this is all a charade,
that ‘looking tough’ does not mean you automatically
become some brazened ******* who does not let anyone inside
of your crazy head or heart,
loosens the grip you try so desperately to hold on to.

If you look the part, surely you feel it in your bones.
You feel the anger and the need to not be so polite all of the time.
Yet you still hold doors open, say please and thank you, smile at strangers on the street,
your mouth cannot form the simple word ‘no’ in fear of hurting another person.

So how can you not be a people pleaser?
You can’t. No matter how grungy you look,
no matter how loud you listen to rock ‘n roll
no matter how dark and damaged you let your soul appear
maybe you can allow yourself to become something you are not,
but you can not bury something you are.