If tomorrow never comes for me
If I shall not wake in the morning
Would you know I love you
Would you know I care

The smell of new rain
permeates the air
the first heavy drops raise little puffs of dust
in the dirt.
Covered porches protect her
from the storm outside
and the dread inside
where benign neglect reigned
ennui and death strained
children’s hearts
threatened to pull apart
the joy sleeping in their wondrous souls
that lived beyond the confines
of the dark brooding grip of family
inside the ancestral home.

Where I'm not thinking
Right tonight could be
That place you left,
Reflecting like a looking glass--flawed,
Picked up cheap
At an antique store.

By the Aegean Sea
Meltemi’s talking to me
Under the shadow
Of the plum tree

And I voluntarily mistake
Tree-crickets for silence
As they, too, today
Bring as much peace

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)

ah
     ah
          ah
               ah
                     stained alive
                                stained alive

I don’t want to
Open my mouth
Because I’m still afraid
The truth might come out
And if it does
If it really breaks free
You’ll see what I am
You’ll see the true me
The one I hide
With jokes and lies
I’m a terrible person
All jokes aside
You don’t seem to know it
You don’t seem to see
Even a glimpse of that person
That I know to be me
I’m such a good actress
I hide it so well
Cover it with a laugh
And you’ll never tell
You see depth in my eyes
You see love and emotion
But what would you see
If I ever did open
I can’t bear to find out
I can’t bear to show
The me you don’t see
The me that I know
If I let it out
If I let it be
I know for a fact
That you would hate me.

The ignorant
Want to live forever
The public
Want to keep living
The wise
Never wanted to live

The moonlight falls onto my skin,
Silver and rippling
And I feel a semblance of peace.
I close my eyes
To let it all in
And let it all go.
My eyes glisten
With the reflection
Or tears perhaps.
I find I don’t care which.
Because peace is precious,
Peace and a certain kind of silence.
Not the lonely kind,
The suffocating kind.
Just the silence of calm.
I allow myself hope for a moment
That everything could be ok,
That I might be ok.

613 200 Hours
25 550 Days
13 Cars
11 Jobs
9 Dogs
6 Surgeries
5 Children
4 Grandchildren
3 Marriages
2 Siblings
1 Weary soul.
No regrets.

To finish your own life by hand,
May seem like the right thing to do.
But to free yourself from this land,
Is to imprison those that love you.

They said,
"The most beautiful art is
looking into someone's eyes
when they talk about the
things they love."
And I said,
"Or looking at someone you love.
Or maybe, just maybe,
by looking at the mirror
is the most beautiful art
anyone should appreciate."

How many poems about broken people will I write
Before I realize that I, too, am fragmented.
Equally, if not more liable for the war zones I have called love.

I think I found my soulmate
A long time ago
But I hurt her
And now we’re lost
Still connected by an invisible thread
Tangled and taunt
We walk away from
Each other
But really I still feel her
And I know
She feels me too

So many poems
and stories
have gone unwritten
due to fear of not being good enough

She said "I'm falling in love."

I said "I'm falling apart."

'how are you doing?' you ask
beautifully getting over you.

When I only get to taste
The feeling of you
In my dreams

But now, I can hardly sleep

I can't see you
In person
And
In dreamland

i.

papa... I cry
I am only good for the evening
I am not a prayer I am a ******
I am not the banyan tree
you planted
- I am an eternal yawn
yawning before you
papa come back to me
to tell me I am god
my notebooks are covered
in decal stickers, hearts
hearts and teary eyed girls
hearts     you    sunk a pike through
Papa! Papa, come back to me
                                                     will you
will you

ii.

I was 13
I was

13


and ugly
she was ugly
I is ugly?
she is stupid
she is ugly
my teeth are straight now
and I am
pretty
       again
I am pretty

was 13
was 13

why are you
crying?
you wake in the night crying
I am here
I am here don’t cry
don’t cry
papa don’t cry
papa don’t cry
i love you

iii.

the last summer I wanted to **** myself so bad
I tried it first with just some pills
than I thought i’d rent out a carbon monoxide tank
it costs 100$ and i think it’s funny
that it costs that much to

what
papa I would never leave you
you left me first though

iv.

somedays I am sleeping on land
and what is between my legs does not define me
time has never heard of me
I am beyond time
I am fire and earth
god crafted me on the pottery wheel
and he cursed me with a heart
and he told
he whispered
feel, feel, feel


v.
I am a tree in my past life

I am weak again and I cry
it is the low wailing of my soul
my loving roots set fire by fiends
they’ve wandered my fields and
eaten my fruits
and killed me again for
wood

but I do not mind them
it’s god shining in their faces too
i think

he asks me laughing
can you love me now?
when I am the one ripping and tearing
away at your soul
when I am setting aflame your peach trees
and raspberry meadows?

and through my acetic tears
I sob yes, yes

yes I can

I love you

I sob - I - I

i

you


vi.

my bedroom of grief
my kitchen of happiness
you barged in and tore down the wallpaper

I am not speaking my silence
i am living it
far off land
my roses are centuries old
they have ripped from the stems
they will grow
grow
grow

again and again.

§ the compulsing muse / the water canvas still life

she/her has no master, only a mastery;
she, comes compulsing, a physical pounding,
a throbbing impervious resistant to logic or medicine,
which is the so very ever, the peculiar throbbing
of a principled particular “present participle,”
write of compulsing is her mocking suggestion.

a presence, punishing urging, pas de choirs, obey,
submission; write freely but not free, compose or
decompose; is there a difference, no, not, and so ordered,
demand surrendered, how? how? this taking and giving,
can a single act dichotomy be so fulfilling and so emptying?


<>

wake daily to water canvas, the waves, dabs of paint
protruding, irritating. provoking yet presented silenced,
repetitiously calming, motioned framed within the
white edged sand, the bound-surround of the living painting.

eyes alight, eyes delight, this daily emergence unto
a tapestry devoid of human interference suggests
a differentiating reality; now I understand the world’s
imperfections constituting, tooting its own perfectionism.

this is not lake water; no single flat stone skipping nor
a concentric rippling to a slow death; this is seaward-
bound, an oceans subservient tributary, contributory,
a river, a bay, a precursor to a vastness, horizontal infinity.

this is metaphor; this a still life of the perpetuation metamorphosis.

<>

the muse exhales; as do I subsequently; what difference?
none, she replies to herself, tween painting artist and
verbalizing poet, the un-still life creation, always, always,
different, the essence of diversity in a singularity sameness§






7:13 AM Thu Jul 29
2021
S. I. Sound

I saw you
Through the screen
On that second
Why did I think
It was meant to be

Now read from bottom to top.

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

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

Don’t

sleep

forever.


Just

rest.


—
M. 7/28/21 @ 11:02 p.m.

Walk away.
My eyes are dry,
but I feel the strain.
I want to stay.
I want to give one more chance.
So sure of change.
My heart leaks the grief.
Not as pretty as a broken heart.
Messy spill of feelings.
So many tries.
Takes more than me.
My eyes are dry.
My leaking heart
Will have to mend.

As my eyes break and sunlight pours in
My fingers stretch
Reaching
Crawling towards a warmth and presence that is absent
So they still
And the vessel that is me snaps into routine and continues the day

And when my eyes slide shut and moonlight peters out
My fingers again stretch
Reaching
Craving the feel of his skin under mine
So they rest
And I finally sleep; till sunlight pours in and my fingers go
Reaching

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

I met a woman
brutal in her mercy.

Her embrace was a clinch
to prevent hard blows.
She pulled me close to push me away.
Seeing my nakedness
she leant me a dream
of chainmail and shield.
Taking love from me she gave a reprieve
to a mind resigned to the slow death of feeling.

Ignoring my words she heard
my faint silent heartbeat and
understood that it was music
too quiet for the world to hear
and turned it up louder
than I could stand.
I wept in my deafness
as she danced.

One day
you will forget me.
When your sun is
no longer in my orbit,
will there still be light
upon my world?

One side obscene in ignorance,
the other sanctimonious
to emetic effect

In the mid ground we most of us sit
whiplashed necks crying
as each rabid side bays allegiance

shut up, breathe clear air
drink tea
read
be fair