Ticonderoga, bite-marks to the lead
Bare-bone, grammar school and phonics
Sentence structures, finger paint
Yarn through cardboard looms
Shel Silverstein and crab-apples
One day I will change the world.

Bus stops and
Bug-eyed sunglasses to block the
Fog-hazed sun.

The water falls by the bridge and
Atlas holds the globe in stone
The fog shrouds him, too.

Professor wears the sunglasses
And asks
What do you need to know?

Cobblestones and two-by-four
Planks buckling underfoot.

Natural light on brick,
Cement flower vase impressions mark the spot of
What I need to know.

Pendulums
Swing in skulls
Crashing against bone,
            Ticking
             Like
            Bombs
Counting down to self-destruct.
Three
           Two
                   One
Time's up, time's gone.

Listen to the silence
It screams louder than the
Noise.
Clarity is in the static
Electric is the
Voice.

Expressions louder than
Paint on a
Clown.
Do not lie to me.
Your body tells truths
When your mouth
Refuses to form them.

Mt great grandfather was
A Swedish violinist,
Back in Goteborg,
Like in Phantom of the Opera.
I like to think of him
Walking through cobblestone
Alleyways past pastel houses
And little markets selling lingonberries,
Playing his violin.
I heard he loved someone, once.
A woman before my great-grandmother.
I wonder if he played songs for her,
I wonder if she cried when he did.
But they're all dead, now.
His violin hangs on the wall
At my grandmother's house in Jersey,
Dry from all tears,
With splintered strings like torn
Vocal cords, no longer able to
Sing.

Do not hate your age
Or the fine lines that plague
Your face.
They are marks of wisdom,
Worn by years of sun and stress.
You dreamed of the future when
You were younger,
The world you would create.
Now, you fear the future
The final punctuation at the end
Of your story.
Do not fear death
Though it comes more soon each day.
Progress is a thing borne from
The passing of time
And would never have come if
Years had not gone.
When the light leaves your eyes
And the breathe is gone from your chest
Know that Death has not won.
You are written into books of history;
Trails of papers, poems, memoirs and
Memories you leave behind.
And these things will keep you
Forever alive.

The sun is setting like
An ethereal scarlet orb behind
The naked tree, whose light
Shines behind spindly branches  
In rays that I mistook for
God's fingers when I was young,
Before my innocence had wilted like
Those red leaves that litter the ground
This time of year and release
That earthy smell that we mistake for
Autumn but is actually
Decay.

Eight-hundred miles underfoot and
Three-hundred and twenty-one dollars spent
On a Delta flight out of Newark
To spend two nights with a man I met
Once for one night, fifty-six hundred miles
And two continents away
Three months ago,
Returning only with
Two halves of one
Broken heart.

I hear that men are better
At putting bread on the table and
Making dough.
But I always thought women
Belonged in the kitchen,
So when it comes to baking bread
And kneading dough,
I think, as women,
We would know.

Ready your red canvas,
Fasten the straps of your boots
The silver spurs can't weigh
You down more than fear has already.
Remember, you are not alone.

We in the stands are watching
While you dance in circles with the beast
Teasing him with your canvas,
Waving it like an enemy banner before his
Crazed eyes, his pierced nose garnished
By a gold ring, whose furious nostrils spout
Blood in every snarl.

We in the stands,watching
are not here to see a beast subdued by
Calm words or a stroked ear.
We came to see  a man gored,
Pierced through his stomach
Tossed limp against the ground
Blood that feeds the grass and our
Eyes.

But you did not enter into this ring to die.
You came to conquer the beast,
To pounce upon his massive shoulders,
Grasp him by his mighty horns
To ride his bucking back, amidst
The brays and snarls, the jeering crowd
Until your blade has met his neck and
His tongue lolls from his mighty maw,
You came to fight; you came for victory.

We keep an empty chair
Between us so our consciences stay
Clean, but your legs are crossed,
Your shoe points in my direction.
Our feet like to lead us
Where our hearts have already wandered.
I like to think about you
Getting dressed in the morning,
pulling on your shoes.
I wonder if it crossed your mind
That later your shoe and my boot
Would touch under that empty chair.

You can accelerate to
Try to
Compensate but
I saw your brake-lights beam
Red, and I know
Your natural inclination was
To stop
Before guilt brought your
Foot to the pedal.

We were mutual projections,
a story that existed only
In ourselves, caught in a
Series of circumstances that
So perfect, it had to be love.
But romances are best kept to novels
And the silver screen.
Fantasy is never the same in reality.

Funny to think how
fork to lips and food to mouth
spurs digestions
Fueling
body parts which could not move
or function without fork to lips
and food to mouth.
And if we actually stopped eating
for once in our lives we would  starve
and our organs would cease to function
because forks not raised to lips
bring no fuel to body parts
So that they cannot move
Or function.
Funny to think how fork to lips
And food to mouth is
An act so simple but
If we didn't do we'd die without.

A handful of sand in your palm
Slipping between your fingers
Carried by
Breeze.
If only these hands
could build a castle.

I've always been an unusual girl,
and while other girls and boys made friends,
I fell in love with stories inside my head.
My childhood was never on earth, but
spent in far-off places in castles, where I was
a princess, or a wild viking warrior queen,
and my people loved me, they bowed, they would
clap and sing songs of praise at my benevolence,
my demure and generous character, and beauty.
And back on earth I was alone, but content with
the characters inside my head.
As years passed, their voices faded, and though
I would struggle to keep in contact, postmen won't ship
to figment places, and pen-pals are hard to keep when
they don't exist.
It's hard to realize that conversations with friends in the dark
were only really with yourself.
I became overwhelmed with
Loneliness, determined to find the people from
my stories in reality, and always hoping, always dreaming,
and always searching for the Prince, who I knew already--
who I'd spent countless nights with, laying in fields of flowers
and holding hands under the starlight, and watching the moon
pass through the night sky.
And at night, sometimes, in the real world, I would watch the
moon pass through the sky, and know that somewhere , on some distant shore in a land far, far away, that you did
exist, that maybe, at some point, we were looking at the same
moon at the same time, and for a split second, maybe, we were
inevitably and invariably connected, that our hearts could collide
even across time and space and realities.
I remember when I was a child, that I thought time stops
when you meet the love of your life, like in those stories
your parents always tell to you about how they met.
And when I saw you I knew I had seen and felt those eyes before,
that these were the eyes that had locked with mine across time and
space and reality on lonely nights spent watching the moon
pass through the night sky,
and time really did stop.

I had a soul, once, like a live animal.
It is dead now,  hunted and gunned down
by enthusiastic hunters and self-infliction and wine that drowned
and bled it to death, skinned and hung,
with bulging eyes glazed like glass,
leaving only sun-bleached bones and foul odor.
I had a soul, once, that flew like a bird,
and spread its wings at your voice
and the call of God, who has grown silent,
whose conversations once held in trust in dark places fall on ears deaf to thoughts and prayer and hope.
It was beautiful, once,
beautiful enough to be part of this beautiful world.
It has withered, now, like a plucked flower or an old man,
back bent, senile, ignorant, and
too broken to be a semblance or remembrance of its once former glory,
dead.

I am not your wife, or daughter.
I am the skeleton in the closet
While you sit together sharing
Sweet smiles and laughs
Over sentiments I will never be part of.
Family man with a happy home,
Why are you unfulfilled?
Lay with her at night, but
Night-time dreams bring me to
Your quiet bed.
You love her still, but
Where a flood of passion
Once brought you to embrace
Has become a slow and steady river,
And visions in your mind wander between
Young thighs.
One last moment of freedom, rebellion and
Youth before all has fled and
Feeble mind and feeble body receive
No coy flattery or passing glance.
You are just a man,
And all men fall to the right woman.

This pain is festering
Like a deer carcass on the highway
Bloated, belly full of
Maggots and the smell
Of rotting flesh and gasoline
In the hot sun.
Bowels crushed against
Hard pavement coated in tar
Where once our proud stag's feet
Had walked with grace
Is now a grave, and  heavy wheels
Speed over a body once
Full of life and love and blood
And drivers, repulsed,
Can't even spare a passing glance.

Sell yourself, everyday.
A little more, everyday.
Numbers, lists, and names
I've lost count
What's one more?
Eventually I'll be gone
all gone, every piece
auctioned, sold to
numbers, lists, and names
of men whose strange faces
I don't know and can't remember.

In another life you were a philosopher king,
and I, your eager subject.
I loved you then, too.
I still love you, I will love you,
in this life, the last, and more to come.
I am your fatal flaw, blemish,
one weakness and curse.
It's why you still love me, did love me,
and why you will love me,then, too,
in this life, the last, and more to come.

We would never work. I need stability and security. I need safety. But you, you're inherently unsafe. You seek out chaos and conflict intentionally because you think it's interesting. If you were on the Titanic,you'd be pouring champagne and singing while the ship went down. Everyone would be screaming, getting into  lifeboats, and you'd be standing there on deck, with your glass of champagne, laughing, and you'd still find your way off the **** boat without even trying.

Are you familiar with the story , "The Monkey's Paw?" There's this magic monkey's paw, like a rabbit's foot kind of, and it grants any three wishes you want . The problem is, for every wish that comes true , there is a terrible, huge cost. Being with you would be my wish. You're  everything I want, and everything I'm not, and you would ruin me. You don't consider consequences, and if we were to end, you would move on to the next experience that seems interesting. But I would never recover. Being with you and losing you would devastate me so much that I can't even consider taking that risk.

You're like a high -risk investment. You could make me extremely wealthy, or I'll end up on the street.

I've never known someone with so much anxiety and so little fear.

Face it, the reason you're into feminism isn't because you want to raise up other women-- it's because you want to be held to the same standard as men. You know you're not just better than most women you meet, but that you are smarter, fiercer and more ambitious than most men, too. You want to be recognized as the best PERSON in the room, not just the best woman.


Do you really want me to try and stop you? You don't , because no matter what I say, you're going to do it. If anything the best way to discourage you is to encourage you, but you'll still do what you want anyway.And if you choose not to do it, it won't be on moral grounds, but just because you want to deny yourself a passion to prove that you can say no to yourself, that you have control, and that's not much better than doing it anyway, isn't it?
You are the strongest woman I've ever met. You hardly ever know what you want, but when you think you want something, you go out and get it. You never hesitate, you ignore your fear, and you don't care about morality. Sometimes though, you feel ashamed of yourself , and hide in your charms. You do it for so long and try so hard that you forget yourself. Don't forget yourself. You seek out people who have the passion and motivation you think you lack, but you have these things more than anyone. And most of all, you are powerful. I can't explain the power that emanates from you, but it's like a force of nature. You can't hide it and you shouldn't. You need chaos and conflict and madness to keep going, because you ARE chaotic, conflicted and mad.You need to stop feeling guilty and afraid of yourself, and be the person you are, not the person you think you should be.

My moral compass is cracked.
It's been tossed against the wall
And thrown in the junk drawer
Too many times .
It's hard not to be lost
When you have no direction.

Careful,cautious,
tip-toe and
dance
around the topic.
Slight of hand,
Subtle motions.
Fuzzy words
with clear motives.

I am a ghost.
All I need is my spirit.
I ride on a gust of wind,
chasing whims and shadows.
I am lost, wandering,
hiding in dark places.
Like a flower plucked half-bloomed,
Promising potential,
never reaching actualization.

I am alone,
my mind wanders.
I wonder if you'd smile
if you knew
that my thoughts spiral
and race,
always coming home
to you.

Great man,
powerful man,
moral
special
intelligent man.
Even you
can be corrupted.

Paint a smile on
your lips
like makeup.
Slip it on,
like a pair of shoes
or a handbag.
Hang it in the closet
at night,
with your shirts
and dresses.
You can wear it again
tomorrow.

Your eyes are dark.
A stone, tossed,
would make
no resounding splash
in those depths.
Hand pressed to lips
Will hide the smirk on your face,
but those eyes will always
betray you.

Years fly
And I have yet to grow wings.
Mid-step,
and half-hovering.
You can't have the sky
with a foot on the ground.

Young,as a child
I knew, someday, dreamed, someday,
I'd find a prince.
Grown, almost
I search,always, hope,always,
and find only men.

Don't worry
He won't leave you.
He loves you.
Your children.
The home you share.
Men have needs.
Vicious needs.
They take their teenagers
on the side.
Like cream in coffee.
Tasty, but could do without.

When I was young once my pastor taught
The tale Genesis, how God with care
Unto hard clay breathed conscious thought.
As the wind would blow I’d say a prayer
And feel His breath, the hot gust of air
The trees that swayed were His great chest
The leaves that fell were kissed and blessed.
I spread my arms towards the sky
And knew He could make me fly.
I closed my eyes, and on tip-toe
Soared high to heavens, earth below.
Far above the pale green pastures
And winding roads, filled with rapture
I saw where the path would end,
What the course of life would lend.
Unchained and free, I knew at last
What shores we'd reach, when we are passed.
Our clumsy bodies tie us down,
But souls are free, and never bound.
And as the day faded to night
I had to end my sacred flight
Fall back to earth, where reason rules
Where those who soar
Are simple fools.