"Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
You know this rhyme, have heard it prior
But now, hear this - my verse to mirror.
A foolish child, to do such wrong
And string your minions, too, along
Your violent acts, and words of spite
Have earned you this most sorry plight.
The shots were fired, stakes were claimed
With such conviction, smeared my name.
And all for what? So I would leave?
Ah, what a pretty web you weave.
A novice, true, but you did try;
I'm twice as cunning, thrice as sly.
Your dues unpaid, and still you reached
So, let me practice what I preach.
The coven black has since convened
(Your kind is not the first we've seen),
Determined what the price shall be
You know your crimes, as well as we.
The modern witch is not betrayed.
What reckoning we'll see this day!
A sickened child, a woman not
Let's mind your place, as you forgot.
You think the eye I've turned was blind?
That I'd not return your work in kind?
Behold, my dear, the rule of three
All that, with nerve, you've done to me
Will come back now, and triply well
In this, my carnival of hell
You've paid admission, in advance
Forfeited hope of second chance.
There is no hiding, though I'm gone.
But I'll allow your victory song.
I possess, you see, your DNA.
And so the distance does not weigh.
The balance calls for consequence,
So new endeavors now commence.
Step right up, come right this way!
You've stirred a game, and now we'll play.
Your god is dead, but devils live
And just when there's no more to give
Again I'll strike, my darkest work
And still again, until you've learned.
Do you believe in magick, girl?
I'll let you peek our secret world.
We know no limits, no restraint;
The power here, not for the faint.
No mercy here, nor bargains made;
Your debt to us will soon be paid.
You still may beg, but per decree
Blood calls for blood.
So mote it be.
Feb 3, 2020
Feb 3, 2020 at 7:39 PM UTC
Trouble in a suitjacket,
Tailored as his words were
When he cornered me
That night.
And here I thought
Horoscopes
Were all but *******
Yet I met him
Exactly where
That ******* article
Said I would.
I started to pray.
He started to prey.
Darkness in his eyes,
Danger on his lips,
Destruction in his mind.
Hell's very finest,
Promising to overthrow
My sworn solitude for
This new year.
Come Friday night,
We step beneath
The world,
Into romance infernal,
As my resolve
Goes up
In flames.
Father,
Forgive me now.
For I know
That I will sin.
Jan 26, 2017
Jan 26, 2017 at 1:00 AM UTC
She learned to dance.
Frivolous tutus and
Twinkling tights
Soft pink slippers
On hardwood floors,
Young, dear, unadulterated.
The centerpiece
Of a music box.
A poor melody,
Indeed,
Does reality play.
Pirouettes don’t show potential.
Relevés don’t yield results.
Interest doesn’t pay interest.
Submission for survival.
Piercings…poles…provocative.
Glittering ensembles,
Sensuality in smoke,
The scandal of skin.
Little ballerina,
Her audience awaits.
No time to be shy.
They want her,
And that
Is what she always wanted.
She learned to dance.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 2:05 AM UTC
Though she has your number,
She does not call.
Though she knows where to find you,
She does not come.
Though she knows that you try,
She does not care.
She is indifferent.
She is blind.
She is half-hearted.
She leaves you hanging,
Leaves you wanting,
Leaves you unsatisfied,
And you want her.
Chasing after someone who won't
Spare you the time of day,
Craftily eluding someone
Who would give you the world.
She is The Other Girl.
The Girl good enough to ****
But not good enough to date.
Not who you would hold at night,
Or hold in thought for more than seconds,
But who you might wander to
When all else has failed.
A solid backup,
But never first choice.
She is temporary.
She is background.
She is white noise.
A quick fix,
A rushing high,
A biting jolt
Just strong enough
To carry you over
Until your eye captures
Something beyond Her.
Your moments together are brief,
Fleeting.
Disposable to you,
Consequential to Her.
You return again and again
Because She cares,
And She is fool enough
To let you.
If only you could find Her,
In anyone but Her.
If only She did not wait
For what will never come.
If only the world turned
The other way.
If only the sun rose in the west,
And set in the east.
If only the tides
Pulled the moon,
And common sense
Were a louder guide
Than the human heart.
If only reality,
Were not reality.
But that's not how the story goes.
Is it?
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 11:43 PM UTC
Don't you know
I adore you?
Not so much as a whole
Because really you are a half,
My better half,
That fifty (or so) percent
That I was missing
Without quite knowing
(Or seeming to need),
But more so as
Segments,
Fragments,
Pieces,
Each making up
The whole half
Of who you are.
The tiny, least of all insignificant
Compartments
That comprise you,
Little details painting
A bigger picture,
A work I couldn't
Even have dreamt
In my most restless,
Vivid, unconscious state,
Much less imagined that
I would lay
My eyes
And hands
And heart on.
Little things.
Your hands running
Through your hair
As you speak to me,
The way you send
My mind running every day
With thoughts of you,
The way you sent
My heart running
The day I met you,
When I knew, somehow,
Who and what you were,
Who and what we would be,
Even as everything else
Faded away around us
So that I could see only you.
Where my scope had been
So broad before,
Now narrowed
And tailored
To the emotion of your eyes
And the honey of your voice
And the warmth of your touch,
All betraying you as a man
Hurt so many times,
So deeply,
So ruthlessly,
So relentlessly,
That opening up again
Was your only option,
With what left to lose?
Significant things.
Your eyes upon me
With emotions I cannot read,
Only speculate,
While you observe me as though
I am the only woman
You have ever had, ever known,
Though I know you have had
And known many
Before me.
You look at me as though
I had come to save you,
When I am no superhero
Like the ones in your comics,
And could never aspire to be,
But rather, a normal citizen,
Come to believe in you, to
Hold you, to
Care for you, to
Show you the sort of
Gentleness and compassion
That you have been so starved for,
That comes so naturally to me
When you are in my presence.
Passionate things.
Your hands in my hair
And lips at my ear,
Hot breath raining
Seduction and fire,
Scandalous promises
And blatant temptation
Upon me,
Endearing only falling
From your mouth.
Your body and mouth
Against mine
In a fever
In a thirst
In a heat
We cannot seem
To quell,
The only sickness
For which there is
And
For which I want
No cure,
Tormenting me
In beautiful, twisted ways,
Turning wrought iron
Into tarnished silver,
Dimmed to the rest
Of the world
But just beautiful
Enough for you.
The things you have done to me
I cannot speak of.
The things you are doing to me still
I cannot run from.
God help me,
I am so enamored
That control is beyond me
And sense is without me
And a fire whose embers
Were all but doused,
Consumes me,
Is everything I am.
What was first instinct to run
Is now a reflex to stay.
There is something
About a man
Who changes everything
By staying exactly the same,
Whose mere presence,
Still as water,
Shatters your reality
And opens a chasm
In your world
Of proportions you never
Believed in,
Much less expected.
A deep fissure
Not to be filled,
But for the two of you
To jump in together,
Knowing that neither one
Will come out without the other.
There is something about a man
Who almost wasn't yours.
And that you somehow are allowed to hope
Will always be.
There is something about a man.
Something about mine.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 10:28 PM UTC
"I don't want you anymore."
"I don't love you anymore."
"It's YOUR fault that we're here. YOUR fault."
"Someone else can deal with your crazy."
Do you remember saying those words to me?
Because I do.
Despite my efforts to forget,
I hear them always,
Resonating,
Still echoing within
The confines of my mind
Months later,
After I ran from
And pushed off
And drank to
And finally faced
The kind of pain
We only imagine we can experience
Until it becomes that brutal
And humbling reality.
Do you remember cutting into me
With your careless words
And malicious intent
To deflect responsibility,
To blame it on me
That what had been hit head-on
And swerved around
And left on the side of the road to die
Was finally dead?
Because I remember feeling them,
Ripping at the tendons of my heart
Hollowing out the center of my being
Until I finally knew what it was like
To be a shell along the shore,
An article of emptiness
Aching for someone to pick me up
And put me to their ear,
So they might listen to
The cresting and falling waves
Of my suffering.
And do you, by chance,
Remember
The thanklessness with which
You returned my belongings
(But not the wasted two and a half years),
The blankness with which
You looked at me,
As if you hadn't taken the last thing
I had had to give,
As if you hadn't walked me to hell and back
With your insecurities
And irrational fears
And low self-esteem,
As if you hadn't broken
My indomitable spirit
Over and over again,
Until I thought I might finally
Be left with nothing?
Because I do.
Do you remember that little voice
In the back of your mind
That tried to be heard
As you spat those hateful words at me,
As you threw away everything
That meant anything,
As you looked at me like a stranger
Intruding on your personal space,
When you had come to know
Just about everything about me...
That little voice that murmured softly -
Albeit falling hard and fast on deaf ears,
Not unlike how we had -
That one day you might regret
Walking away?
No.
You suffocated that little voice,
Smothered it with your pride,
Your tender,
Delicate,
Obnoxious pride,
Pride in nothing
To be particularly proud of.
You suffocated it
The way you suffocated me
With your arsenical tongue,
Sweet on the surface
And killing me slowly
With every word you spoke.
"We wouldn't have made it in the end."
You're right. We wouldn't have.
For any and every reason
You could think of,
Whether or not it was the truth.
You didn't want us to make it.
So we didn't.
But then, maybe it's better to walk away,
So that what wouldn't make it in the end
Can make room for something
That doesn't have an end to be made.
It was in his arms that I found this clarity,
This realization that you had to
Break me,
Shatter me,
Leave me as wide open
As my wounds
So that I could let him in.
It was hearing his words,
So conflicting with yours,
That brought me to the idea
That I was not as worthless
As you had made me
Out to be.
The idea that
Even in my most vacant moments,
I could fill someone else's void.
That even in my greatest fury,
I can bring someone peace.
That when my demons
Are not sleeping,
And making me Hell
To be around,
That at my most worthless,
When I am nothing
Or at least perceive myself to be,
There is someone
To whom
I can mean everything.
Though it will be the last
And only time
I ever thank you again
(And of course you will
Never know that I have),
I must do so.
I must thank you for having
The cowardice to walk away
Without a glance back
Or a second thought given
Or a single regret had
About what you did to me.
Because,
To have been abandoned
The way I was
And found
The way I was
Is to look back and realize
That there was nothing
I could have said or done,
Given or taken,
Declared or renounced,
Nothing I could have meant to you
That would have saved you
From what you can't be saved from.
Your misery is your only companion now.
And my happiness is mine.
Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 11:09 AM UTC
I dove headfirst
Into the bottle,
Thinking I could swim.
And at first, it was fine...
A leisure I could afford,
A risk I could stand to take,
A mistake I could stand to make.
Leisure became a lapse,
Risk became repetition,
A mistake became a misbehavior.
Up the creek without a paddle,
Up in arms without my sobriety.
Silly girl.
Didn't they ever teach you
That 80 proof won't make you forget?
That the sting of whiskey
Won't take away the sting of heartbreak?
No.
No, they didn't.
Pour me another.
~
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
They say that when something is broken,
And put together again,
It is more beautiful than before.
That somehow,
Amongst all of those cracks,
Crevices,
And flaws that once weren't there,
There is some appeal.
That somehow,
In the broken reflection
Of a shattered mirror,
There is a fineness unattainable
In original perfection.
If that is true, I should be
Far more beautiful
Than it seems I really am,
Far more valuable
Than I could ever hope to be,
And far sturdier,
Having been broken before,
Than I was in my mint condition.
Alas, this isn't how things tend to work.
Life has a way of rearranging the compounds
Of our minds,
Twisting and bending and breaking them
So that we suddenly think, fear, and hope
In the exact ways it wants us to,
Instead of the ways that we want to.
Suddenly there is an alteration that cannot be undone,
A seam that cannot be ripped,
A stain that cannot be removed,
Though we attempt to both free
And punish ourselves
With every kind of bleach
We can reach for.
And still to no avail.
I feel as though I am a sad,
Sad piece of merchandise,
Sitting in the corner at the flea market,
Where no one sees me,
And no one wants me.
Why should I blame them?
By nature, we are always looking
For the next best thing,
Shinier, newer, something we
Can be proud to possess
And show off to the world.
This can hardly be said
Of a tarnished good,
One that cannot be fixed by
Any amount of glue,
Polish,
Or gloss.
It is difficult to hide one's scars
Underneath a sheen that's sure to fade,
Eventually revealing what a fraud you are
To all who admired you.
This is the heartbreaking truth
When it comes to what is broken.
What is shattered,
Dented,
Marred and scarred,
Secondhand and second-best,
Cheapened by its battered use,
And prized only by those
Who don't know any better
Than to add it to their pile of junk.
"Maybe it'll come in handy one day..."
Or maybe....
...just maybe...
...it could be handy now.
Maybe with the proper TLC,
A gentle hand and a gentle heart,
Willing to work with what others
Overlooked as worthless and a waste of time,
That something could become a real treasure,
Something valuable and beautiful to behold,
Maybe even more so than it was
Before someone ever dropped it,
And left it, trashed.
I believe a little love goes a long way,
But that a lot of love can change anything.
And that we would be surprised
At what that which we deem broken
Is really capable of doing for us.
To be put back together... I will smile.
To be loved despite my cracks and dents... I will laugh.
To be seen as beautiful, valuable, and desirable as that which is new, I will rejoice.
To be given the chance to be everything you ever needed... you will never want for anything.
The more often that something is damaged,
The less it has to offer.
I have very little I can give,
But for what little spirit I have left,
My heart,
And the love I have saved up in both,
That I am more than eager to share.
And although I fear being broken again,
Left to be another repair project for a forgiving soul,
I can't help but think it is better to be held and dropped,
Than never picked up at all.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 9:28 PM UTC
All my life...
There has never been a shortage
Of people to tear me down.
I have never been without
Someone to throw the words that cut,
And leave me bleeding
Without a nurse to tend the wounds
Or the means to heal them.
It wasn't often that I went without
Hearing something to remind me
Of how little I was worth.
I was told that I was no good at this,
And shouldn't pursue that.
That, "if I were you, I would skip the audition."
And that I wasn't allowed to do certain things,
Because,
"You're not good at it. Get over it."
Still a ****** I was called a *****
And was only bought clothes bigger
Than what I needed,
Because someone would rather
Convince me to hate my body,
Than change their own.
I was told that if I didn't do
Certain things,
That no man would want me.
And that he would go look elsewhere.
Though I had hands laid on me,
And not in love,
It was the words that held the most
Power.
The words that followed me.
That haunted me.
That poked at me and taunted me,
Making it impossible to ignore them.
The words that eventually,
Despite my greatest efforts,
Began to ring true to me.
And the mission whose missiles
Were these very words
Became a success,
Making me feel unlovable to the
Highest extent,
Packing me with baggage
That no one should ever bear.
The pain was indescribable.
The recovery, impossible.
The hope that I might prove it all wrong,
Harder to keep alive than
A butterfly who had already had its wings
Ripped from its body.
I had never wanted so much
For a kind heart,
A brief, flickering light
To draw me in
And keep me warm...
To nurse the cuts that always bled,
No matter how I wrapped them.
To offer gentle words
And a gentle touch.
Things that I ached for
Like food and water.
I struggled to hold on to the hope
That there was someone
Who might tell me differently.
That I was no *****
But beautiful
And deserving of love.
That I was no terror to behold,
Or bane to their existence,
But someone that made it a little
Brighter.
That I was no problem to be solved,
But a person, a being with value
To be held
And loved
And looked after.
Someone who held purpose
And whose heart deserved
Healing
And someone to hold it,
Someone to look after it.
Someone to hold and
Look after me.
I strained to hold onto the possibility
That I could make someone happy,
Instead of only inspire their hateful words.
That I might hold some merit to someone,
And be a welcome part of their lives.
But then I realized...
No one would want all of that.
No one looks to nurse wounds
And fade scars.
No one aims to prove false
The insults and jabs and discouragement
Thrown at you.
No one wants to wait patiently
For the trust to grow while the
pain subsides.
No one wants to bear the patience
Of dealing with a broken person
Who every now and then,
Cracks a little bit.
People want shiny, new, and undented.
Not something that has been shattered
And clumsily pieced back together,
Never looking quite as pretty or worthwhile
As the perfectly intact,
Looking like it might break all over again.
I worked to fix myself,
Always trying to make better
Something I couldn't even identify.
I worked to become perfect,
To gloss myself over
And fill in the cracks,
Hoping to look like that
Lovely, intact counterpart
That I would never be.
I felt as though I waited
For something to happen
That never could be,
And for someone to come along
That would never show.
Like a constant replay
Of a jilting at the altar,
I waited for something
I dreamt about so often
I had nearly convinced myself
It was real.
I realized I could never undo
What had been done.
I could never take back
What had been said.
Because these actions
And these words
Were not my own.
And making up for someone else's
Mistakes
Is about as successful as taking
Medicine
To cure someone else's illness.
I could never fix it,
But I must always
Bear the results.
I deemed myself,
Again,
Unlovable.
I began to wonder
If this had been the purpose
Of those words all along.
To create someone unlovable
Because the speaker could not
Find love themselves.
Surely,
Only a monster would do such a thing.
But monsters are real.
And this one wasn't hiding under my bed.
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 1:09 AM UTC
Isn't it ironic, lovely ones,
How so many pretty faces
Can hide a demon's soul?
How the same eyes which bat their lashes
In flirty beckoning,
Offer a window into wickedness,
An entrance to an evil place,
That harbors evil things....
How the same lips which speak such pretty words,
And lovely falsities,
In pleasant company
Drip poison behind the safety of closed doors,
Without the courage to speak so
In the outer realm...
How the same mind which seems so wise
Can foster such horrid operations,
An assembly line of treachery
Which twists and warps that
Which really is
Into what is isn't,
For its own selfish, devilish purposes...
Isn't it odd how the world's
Cruel jokes
Have remained so timeless,
Doomed, like history,
To be repeated,
Over and over again?
"Do not judge a book by its cover," they say.
And isn't it funny how this phrase
Aims to promise some unknown good
Behind that cover,
But never entertains the possibility
Of evil behind it,
Instead?
Yet it still holds true.
It is far more dangerous
To trust a pretty face not supported
By pretty words and actions,
To have faith in a glittery exterior
Without pondering the worms
Which breed underneath,
Than it is to doubt
A far less attractive cover,
Beaten, threadbare, its title worn off
By the winds of the world,
May guard a mine of diamonds within.
How foolish of us all
To take at face value
That which we see, hear, and touch.
How irresponsible
To abandon the idea and support of proof,
And let our judgment laze around,
About as useful as if it we hadn't had it at all.
I find it hard to pity those moths
Which do not examine the light
Before letting themselves fly into it.
When the static crackles,
And the glimmer flickers,
And the wings are burnt and injured,
It is too late for a second thought, then.
And as a bystander,
I cannot reach out and pull them from it.
I can call out my warnings,
My cautionary tales,
And even my proof that the light,
In all its beauty,
Harbors a special kind of evil
That they clearly cannot see,
But I must let them learn.
As much as it hurts.
I truly believe that what we put out
Into the world
Will come back to us.
Perhaps not today,
Or tomorrow,
Or anywhere
In the forseeable future ahead.
But it will return.
And though my human nature
Demands I bring order to the wicked,
Expose their evils for the world
To shudder at,
And cower away from,
It is not my job.
These forces which surround us
Bear that burden.
I, a small and staggering presence
Among billions,
Can only perform what I know it right,
And good,
And kind,
And hope that my fellow man,
Instead of drooling at the sight
Of fool's gold,
Will find a true beauty in this instead,
And choose to abandon all that deceives.
On a day which has no date,
No time,
No existence until it is ready,
Justice will come to the evil ones,
And those foolish enough to follow them.
How gloriously the wicked will fall,
Their cries ringing in ears
Which heard their sneers and cruel remarks,
Underhanded jabs and petty,
Childish words,
So many times.
Ears which will hear the music
Of that which was sown,
Being reaped
In the rays of a glorious sun.
Those untrained minds,
Which sought the disappointments
Of easy friendships
And sparkling facades,
Will fall, as well,
Regretting their decision to
Believe in the unreal,
And abandon their sense.
And I, at the end of it all,
May stand with fewer than I started with.
But, with those solid few,
Apart from the unstable masses,
I will still stand stronger
And better than I was,
And with minds like mine,
Rooted in goodness, kindness,
And grateful for the difficult journey
Which brought forth the lesson that
Examining a person's cover
Is well worth discovering what lies beneath.
Beware.
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 12:32 AM UTC