Love can be described as desire,
the flutters in your chest as your hands touch
the light in their eyes.
But love is more.
Love is fights you have to talk through.
Love is struggles with money.
Love is disagreeing on the color of your couches.
Love is wondering if you're still in love.
Its not easy. Its not always pretty.
Its having problems and solving them.
Years and years, endless changes
You can't expect every moment to be perfect
you have to work towards perfect.
Find the moments that remind you
why you had those flutters in the first place

How dare you
How dare you sit there cradling your head
Wishing you had never been born
When you have birthed someone yourself
How dare you consider leaving him
His father doesn’t know how to take care of a baby by himself
How dare you think of the check the military would give him if you were gone
How dare you think that that would be enough.
The tension in your shoulders increases the pressure in your head. You fix it. You did it.
Your hands are what’s causing so much pain
Your nails are in your legs
You’ve been doing everything on your own for so long.
Is that why now you need to be told your next step
You need to be told where to go to be better
You wish you were better
No you say, you want to be good at something not better just good at
Something
Anything
You’re sick of articles saying that everyone is good at something because you need to be worth something.
You need to make money
Help your family
Help yourself.
You want to be remembered as more than a mom
More than a wife
**** more than some girl who took her own life
So you want to be good at something
You want to be worth something
You want back the passion you had
You want to strive for talent and skills
Being kind isn’t enough because being kind doesn’t help replace the dryer.
Being someone to talk to doesn’t pay for a deposit on a house
Well then ******* try something new
You say you’re not good at anything new no ****
You have no talents because you don’t work for them
You have no passion because you give up on everything.
You gave up guitar viola art writing crochet knitting school working out everything. You gave up on yourself.
So how dare you
How dare you hold your head and pretend you’re not good enough
When you’ve never given yourself the chance to be great.

Two young boys in corduroys
             were playing with a ball.
Two young boys heard one strange noise,
             coming from the hall.

The boys stood still, well, still until
              the door swung open wide.
And a ghostly chill and a real ghost, Bill,
              were heaved the heck inside.

The brave boy stood, as the brave boy would,
             and said, "Hey, listen Bill!
We're here to hear you, not to fear you.
              Tell us what you will."

The other boy wheezed and sneezed then seized
              and vomited on the floor.
He shook his brain. He felt insane.
               Nothing was real anymore.

"Ghosts are real?! They're ******* real?!?!?!"
               he cried and shook and feared.
For nature's laws were gone because
               a ghost had just appeared.

And on that night of fear and fright,
               the brave boy had his thrills.
And the other one was ******* done
               and swallowed fifty pills.

It becomes silent
to where I can only hear
the ringing in my ears.

I am comfortable
to the point where
I feel no longer alive.

There's a burden on
my neck that causes
me to slouch.

And I eat and sleep
throughout the years.

And I add meaning
to the days but they
become contrived.

I try with all my
might to give life a good
fight, but all I do is
panic on my couch.
Over success.

These hearts have become racist
What used to be kind
And all hope to be seen
is wasted
On the stampeding blind

These teeth have become stained
What used to be white
Has been darkened by the
viscera of
those consumed by the night

These hands have become destroyers
Fingers that once saved
Equal and human;
Clean or depraved

These hands have become destroyers
I feel you chewing the limb that
used to be there
Your skin is under my nails
You're burning my fingertips
And pulling my teeth

You strangle me deep
among the sea of leaves
Flashing advertisements
in my eyes, Listening to
my every word. You tell
me I'm sacrificing for the
greater good. But I feel
submissive. I feel hateful.

You say Eve is the reason
for the downfall of mankind.
She is nothing but of rib and
even bone cracks. Saying this
as you dislodge my jawbone.
I try to argue with you, but
my language is gone.

You say that a dog is harmless
if surrounded by fence. That the
owner of the dog should pay for
the fence. That the ***** could ****
or produce pups that would ****.
I am still without words and losing
copious amounts of blood.

I am poor and no-one will acknowledge
my death. I am someone people will
forget died and will have to be reminded
years from now, during a cook-out or
amateur bowling tournament. My legacy
is that of failure and being obliterated,
justifiably so.

These people look to money,
to colors on fabric idols,
to pages in a book written by
share-croppers afraid of flooding.

Remove me, so, to remember me
for what potential may have existed.
Kindly ignore that I never resisted,
and that I, the apex of forevers, was
always ungrateful. That I conformed
and became deeply hateful.

Upon a milky hill
beneath the mounds of snow
Frozen with the horn I took
but was too afraid to blow
Beyond the sound of muffling
around the river’s bend
Walked a true love of mine
to whom I was a friend
Come cast your voice yonder
Your shrill towards the sky
I hope for your hand in mine
I am afraid to die

Gangling ghosts cause trouble inside
this meaty microwave--
I am on these streets and don't know
how I got here.
I'm carrying 2% milk, in my left hand,
and a carton of extra-large eggs in my right--
I drop the jug and it bursts. I joke about how
I still have 2%, but no one laughs because
no one has ever really been around to hear me.
So, I'm scrambling eggs and wishing I had that
milk because who doesn't like voluminous eggs.
I stop whisking and ask who is there.
Why am I afraid of you, Why am I afraid of you
the raw scrambled eggs on the floor, touched by
ceramic seashells.
And it's you.
You are the Lord, a naked lover, that absence
caused by my auto-pilot parents
Forever,
right here.

Would you look for
the atlantic coast
Where your dad
dropped you off
and became a ghost

Could you come and find
that tree in red
The one they found him under
with the hole in his head

Forever and an instant met up one day,
had a short but lovely talk,
then each went on its way.

White Interceptors illuminate, cry, and leave ribbons of red and blue,
  accelerating north on Featherbed. Streetlamps hang like midnight ornaments.

It starts to rain, turning the tar streets into slick mirrors.
  I can see my lights lead me, sweeping the asphalt.

Kent is still too dangerous to gentrify. The trashcans are spilling
  cereal boxes and empty two liters. I imagine a two-thousand year-old
mountain of trash, corroding and forming this neighborhood.

  Barefoot children walk around aluminum cakes, reaching for the rain.

Skinny cats trot across the street, green and yellow eyes,
  leaking through the dark. I name them after sicknesses.

The humming of my Camry grows louder as I squeeze by
  dripping, patting hands. I now recognize the moon.

Buildings swoosh by faster and faster. Minutes go by and I
  find myself on the outskirts; the trees sway, dodging rain.

My phone rings like a frenzied roach. Picking it up,
  'Hello.'

'Sure. Yeah, I'll be right there.
  'Nowhere.
    'I'm going nowhere.'

The phone bounces on the grey seat. A screeching.
  Coming to a stop; my chest almost touching the center
of the steering wheel. All becomes still.

  A buck with velvet antlers stands in the rain.
It runs into the dancing forest. Much like me.