The phoenix burned, once more returned, from fiery pyre aflame
With wings outstretched, soared o’er land wretch’d, seen, by the bird, as the same
old forests of past, which never could last 'gainst nature’s violent outlashes
Yet in dreams surviving, defiant, and thriving; though the air still reeked of ashes

The scorching sunset cast its melting gold net o’er the equally smoldering earth
Night's moon and day's star hung above the earth's scar as two eyes that weighed the wasteland's worth
They deemed it as decent, though the charring of recent corrupted their judgement in part
And through the cloud's pain, the celestial rain cascaded down to the wood's heart

The tears of the sky rinsed the aching dirt dry, and quenched its desperate dreams
The caked floor, satiated, filled up and inflated with life bursting at its seams
Beneath vanished leaves, under wire canopies, green shoots had begun to grow
The Phoenix, all-seeing, saw the passionate being of the plants sprouting below.

The forest will burn as time’s wheels turn, evermore reaching its end
Everything dies, yet The Phoenix still flies, watching all birthed again.

The familiar wrenching in my gut when you speak of love
The acidic burns and aches I keep bottled up
Become a flashflood
Rushing through my veins, poisioned lines constricting and forcing my extremities to spasm
You cast your words fruitlessly into the chasm
The indescribable void that lies before us
My hands scraped and bloodied from tearing down the nails that keep your heart boarded up
I can never break through the barrier you have erected
I leave myself vulnerable to your outlashes, you remain overly protected
Sheltered from the reality that is the extension of my love through every action
Every emotion you stockpile and ration
Maintaining a craving in the depths of my essence
For your ill fated presence
You bask in the symphonies that expel from my eyes gazing
Hear the strings and percussions playing
Without every fully repaying
Any emotional debt you may have accumulated over time
Fingers dancing along every line
I have written vast and true as the moon above
Yet I feel the familiar wrenching in my gut when you speak of love...

My fingers,
they tremble.
But no more do they tremor then
my grandmother in her bed,
because the surreptitious secret that is held
in between her legs threatens her every second.
When I was younger I had wished to be an actor,
on a large stage, for when I saw a picture of her in her younger years,
I could have sworn she was in movies.
But now it hits me ,
that the only stage she will ever see
is 4.
And it breaks me,
and cuts holes into my chest,
likes the holes in my closet door from my outlashes.

I wonder if I could have cut holes into my grandfathers chest,
maybe his lungs wouldn't have filled with so much fluid.
And while it causes my hands to tremble,
it causes my lips to quiver,
because maybe if they didn't I would have been able to
put my spoon down.
Maybe the angry neighborhood girl
wouldn't have told me to down another bottles of pills,
but I did because the refrigerator was empty,
and the emptiness in my stomach
had spread to my chest.

I wonder if my cousins would have been nicer.
I always looked up to my father,
so by the time I was in the sixth grade and I could fit into his shirts,
I felt like a man myself.

Don't tell me my grandmother will make it to my graduation,
because she can't even get out of bed.
Don't tell me I didn't get to see my grandfathers face at his open casket,
because of a math test.

Why is it that my father spends more time in front of a television,
than having a conversation with me?
Why is that at 14 I had no place to call home besides
the bottom of a pill bottle?

God tell me,
why my grandmother not make it to my birthday?
God tell me,
why doesn't my father remember my birthday?
God tell me,
why didn't my grandfather make it to my birthday?
God tell me,
why had I made it to my birthday,
that my grandfather never got to see me on stage,
because the day of the performance,
he was ashes,
and urns can't make it to performances?

God tell me,
why are my fingers gripping bottles of earthquakes,
and my throat is the pacific ocean?
Are these earthquakes the reason I can not find the courage to speak up
when spoken to?
Why I can't trust pretty girls, because the most beautiful
I've ever seen is laying in a hospital bed?

Health problems run in my family,
and I wonder when I'll be too slow to get away.
Because hide and seek is not just a playground game,
but it is played every day in high school.
And why do those with trembling fingers
find their throats to be the pacific ocean when gripping
bottles of eathquakes,
why do they find their necks perfect to swing by,
why they believe they must be native americans
because every day they open their arms to let the bad spirits out?


God tell me,
when will my fingers stop trembling?