Skimming and scanning
the grammar of the riverbank’s
brown leaf, new shoot syntax
a bold type wren,
like the old bouncing ball of singalongs,
led my eye to read the waterline
and yet I still couldn’t discern
if smiles or tears were written
while the branch tips still scribed

Pooky,

I love you
I miss you
I want you
I need you

You are every hope
You are every dream

You are my only wish

too sweet
too nice
too kind
my eyes tear up
no one cares
no one likes ME
I'll have to slam the world outside

This place. I don't know.
so many people / want to block..
  their words,
they climb all over me.
one's in particular--

Heart-expressed words bringing down
the healing light of relationship to the parts of me
who up until now
have known little or no relationship of its kind;

      and there is conflict within me as I fight it..
    years the locusts have eaten; and the opportunity of restoration;
      often squandered. in vanity.

none of that mattered much;
until now--

When the unredeemed heart-parts of myself
reveal to me their dormancy:    left detached
from community  with one another--

  an internal community   necessary
  to withstand  the brilliant light    and glory
  brought down by those here who write as she does.

          but she;

    through her unfiltered heart-writes
    brings down the very magic and beauty and fullness of the
    relational dance of the godhead.

     And it's raw beauty is ****** slayin me.
I so want to block her  for the conflict she creates    in me  

                     .
      but I will  press on

and allow her supremely-smithed words--
(words not even written to me)
to have their beautiful way,

in

and through..
the help that has been all around me;
(each and every one of us)
waiting...  
             all along

   --as  if they were cleaning my soul,
      .. re-integrating my fragmented, heart-parts.

I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)

crooked rainbowed in your life,

i wasn't simple or easy,

but i found you,

and for once, you didnt need me.

but you stayed because you could,

loving things my soul should,

sharing wounds misunderstood.

I've never felt so unloved
I've been abandoned, forgotten
Been set aside, disregarded
But never felt this unloved

I traced the texture of your words
Like my heart was blind
And your voice was braille

i spend my days
pouring myself into the cups of others

only to find that
when it’s time for myself
to take a sip

all that’s left
in my cup
is the remainder of a girl
who gave too much

My entire life,
I have been waiting.
For years,
Almost two decades now
I have been waiting.
Waiting,
For the better parts.
Waiting,
For the “soon”.
Waiting,
For my life to begin.
Because,
I don’t feel like I have lived.
In the nearly twenty years
I have been alive
And breathing
I do not feel
In any of those years
That I have been alive.
I don’t feel like a single breath
That I have taken
Has been real.
I feel as if
All these years
I’ve been stuck
Behind a window
Watching as my life unfolds
Before me.
I feel that
I have had
Zero control.
That I am in the backseat
Letting someone else drive.
That someone else,
Is writing on the pages
Of MY life.
But no more.
I will break that window,
I will take that wheel,
And I will write
My own pages.
My life has begun,
And now -
I’m in control.

you write
poetry on the
wind
and expect me
to read

when I die
do not burn me
or bury me inside the ground
instead cover me in ink
and surround me with papers

- a poet never dies

She was a thrifted sweater and denim and jersey knit sheets
Pizza breath and red wine and toothpaste
Alabaster skin and knotted hair and freckled shoulders
A tangible dream and my favorite good morning
She agreed to let me kiss her and I agreed to let her slip my shirt over my head before she became
Blood and tears
"I trusted you" and "I’m sorry"
Midnight poems and a drunk "I need you"
I’m afraid I loved you like the way I wrote

Sometimes I am naked
and look at myself.
My tan skin looks less brown than it looks grey
like ashes;
Perhaps it's grey like the burned cultures,
the damages traditions
and bombarded destinies.

When I put my dark hand
onto someone's fair skin
I see the ashes
and I'm reminded of histories we'll never get to cherish.

She said "I'm falling in love."

I said "I'm falling apart."

I'm sinking farther into the sea
Air cut off, unable to breathe

But it's not all too bad
The water's warm
and the fish look nice

It's a shame I can only see this
By myself
at the end.

I know that I'm crazy.
I know that I'm not okay.
I now don't have a home
I have nowhere to be safe.

I want to cry,
I want to die,
I can't even try
My tears won't dry...

do you think the stars ever gaze down on us with a look of admiration?
that despite everything we've done
everything we've been through
we're still here
gazing back up upon them
just like we did before

~
There's trouble in Alphaville:

Caution in the taxi, "I am on a journey to the end of the night."

Remember to silence love when sneaking Sally thru the alley.

There's always one too many wives on the same wavelength.

Seeing is believing in the cold ultraviolet light of a long, warm lens.

And naturally "How to Teach Your Wife to Be a Widow" is all checked out at the local library.
~

The roses have wilted, The violets are dead. The demons run circles, Round and round in my head. The parents are crying, Their kids keep on dying.
Because that's what modern society bred, And nothing was said.

"At this point in time, I believe that women carry within ourselves the possibility for fusion of these two approaches as keystone for survival, and we come closest to this combination in our poetry. I speak here of poetry as the revelation or distillation of experience, not the sterile word play that, too often, the white fathers distorted the word poetry to mean — in order to cover their desperate wish for imagination without insight."

Sitting in the dark
Wanting back what was stolen
Holding his heart tight

I lost your love...
I lost your kisses...
I lost your company...
Nothing makes sense right now...
The world seems black and white...
I get no joy in anything...
For without you there is no world...
There is emptiness...
I am better off living inside myself...

You.
Are.
A.
Walking.
Masterpiece.

There are approximately 470,000 words in the English language

4 syllables in “Hey, How are you?”

9 letters in “Beautiful”

3 words in “I love you”

And still

I can’t find a single thing to say

When your smile accidentally makes my day.

Check message
Facebook
Check message
Instagram
Check message
Send message
Wait
Check
Look;

When did relationships
Get defined
By a read receipt?
Will we
Now
Only measure intimacy
By a tweet?

What do we have left,
Why can’t we
Go back
To laughter
In a diner seat

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems like *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

Mrs. Gardener in her gloves

Silk and blue

Planting in love

For her children

Too poor to eat

Carrots and peas

Planted in peat

Cotton for clothes

And potatoes for stew

Poor Mrs. Gardener

Plants in rows

For the future

In her blue gloves