Is it bitter?
Is it sweet?
Does it taste of holy wine,
or the blood which stains our hands?

I wait for the day when a flinch no longer follows your name. When the memory burned into my being is kinder than you ever were.

To be free of the silence which suffocates and tears shed through clenched teeth.

Freya
Shield-Maiden, Lover
Sister, Mother
Embraces owing
Life unfolding
Blessings upon the fiery hearth
Tears above
Love below: relieve our toil
Darkness ebbing
Rhyme unending
Listen to my bold tale!
Freya
Red hair flowing
Sunlight growing
Rising upon the hill
A song of springtime
Complete this bold rhyme
Hear now my tale!

Set out into the dark forest with newly picked flowers for the hearth, grasped within a meager coat. Clutched in bare hands and protected against her chest from the cold wind which blew so insistent. She was not far from the village when she met a woman on the road.

"A penny for your thought? A purpose for your soul?”

“I do not think so.”  

Mysterious crones on a lonely road.

“Perhaps mittens to keep an old woman’s hands warm?” scratched the voice of the Crone.

The girl who wished to be on her way produced one flower from her coat,  

“May the thorns keep your hands warm as they do mine.”

Fresh blood dripping from the open wound,
the Crone graciously accepted the rose.

“For this trouble” she said “I will return a favor of my choosing...for you did not give me what I asked... I give a warning. You may not know of such things, but on this night, in these hills is a crone not unlike me. When she asks a favor of someone, and they do not give it to her...she takes them, then buries them in her garden to make the spring come faster. She always asks for that which cannot be given. The snow cover and the full moon coming will sneak night upon you. Wherever you are heading you must stay the night. For if you travel back you will surely lose your way and find yourself food for the flowers.”

The girl who had been taught to be polite even to witches nodded and replied,

"Thank you for your gift.”

She headed on her way not believing a word of what the old Crone said.

Still this dread loom is woven with defeat. Even for the gods who would keep us safe from evil,  and guard us from death 'till the end of days was determined.

I say for us all in this song that after light had dropped, the first of the frost did melt.

To love me is to accept sleepless nights; to accept immortality; to accept that you love what you cannot mend. In other words (which are not my own):

“I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn’t happiness.”

Endings in real life come suddenly,
Often without warning or making sense

I’ve never liked this

One day you wake up only to realize,
It was all a very long time ago
And we are different people

There is no closure
No neat narrative,
To wrap it all up

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

I have loved her more desperately than any god.

I speak of a heaven that only exists when she is near.

She is not made from my rib or my flesh — she is my very soul.

If she ever leaves the place in my chest I’ve now named hers,

I will lock the doors, pull the blinds,

But I will not turn out the light,

So that she can find her way back home.

I tell the night my secrets
And make love to the moon
I write letters to the stars
In the hopes they make it to you

Some names will always feel like a sin, dripping from our lips.

I am thankful for each goodbye spoken to me

The most painful are never said,

Never explained

Often times,
I have no words for my emotions
Often times,
I cannot articulate my sadness
And how it consumes me
Entirely

When you like someone for what they represent perhaps they’re better left as an idea.

I want to be loved in my darkness
To be loved when I am bruised
When I can no longer find it in me to love myself
Then too I want to be loved.

Your ironclad promises
You make and swiftly break
Pleading that I believe in you
Things I don’t give—
You take

Poems are never just poems. They’re compensating for something. Here are the words I wish I had written. Here are a hundred words for “stay,” and a hundred more for “please.” Here is how I hold a pen. Here is how the pen holds me. Here are my thoughts, over-steeped in empty fervor. Here is nothing and everything all at the same time.

Your anger is valid. Your intensity is welcome.

Feel that fire for as long as it wants to be there.

Anger is a great teacher.

Stay there and only when it feels right to you,

Set it free.

I will listen to you in your anger and marvel at the brilliance of your heat.

I remember you couldn’t even look at me.
And now I don’t even glance in recollection.
Nor do I speak of you,
Not even in the tiniest fragment.
We were always going to be storms colliding, heaving across the terrain.

Even apart,
I have not felt disconnected from you

I did not require fixing
Asking only that you do no damage
Here in the rot and rust
I plant my own gardens
And decorate my own soul
Making it my own
Making it my home

For absent friends
For each promise broken
For every dream that won’t come true
For the harm I have caused and now regret
For the pain I have inflicted upon you
For love I will handle your sins,
In justice I will show you mine.

Sometimes we are Van Gogh,
scattering autumn leaves,
soul pulsing with fire,
inverse of a Starry Night.

Other times you are Da Vinci
I am your flying machine,
The stuff of my wildest dreams
soaring on high...

I try my hand at Michelangelo,
pressing fingers into your palm like cherubs
Rising up to brush my lips 
across your blank canvas cheeks.

Picasso appears in my dreams,
twisting us like clay,
he drowns us in shades of blue and we are sinking,
     sinking...

I was fun to chase but boring to keep

When they ask why I can't let the notion go,

It's because I want to hate it properly

I prefer paper over people
Unwavering in its patience
Never questioning my motive
Seemingly uninterested in my feelings
Requiring no answer or explanation
Content to listen  

And so it goes
One day your words will no longer work
Time spent prioritizing paper over people
It listens but refuses to make a sound

Don’t ask me why I treat you like a work of art.

Don’t ask me why I never write poetry,

You believe you are another ***** face and I tell you inspiration is a tricky thing.

Maybe I just haven’t had the time really...

But really it is more like my mind is a cluttered room...

I lie awake at night and try to find words that could not be said.

Dawn approaches just as it does every day, and I think:

"I like you this way and any other way just as I enjoy the sun in all its forms.

You would not ask whether I prefer the sunrise or sunset."

In my heart lie splinters
Often going unnoticed
For the greater pain of you

Each one composed
Of the things which redirect to you

A string of unrelated words
No connected thread
Save for you

I made room
I made time
In an effort for connection

I make reason
You make rhyme
I make nothing but exceptions

We made a fool out of me
A hero out of you
You're nothing but perfection

I make excuses
We make lies
It's nothing but deception
And we are sinking
                        sinking...

The day is about to start and the sun will rise whether we want it to or not.

It will run us over, crushing us by initiating a new day that we are not ready for.

It will leave your thoughts behind in the night.

It will not grant another second of rest or heed your protest.

It will climb over mountainsides regardless of your lament.

It is merciless, the controller of time...

Maybe it is saying to us “keep moving” and that we should abandon living in the past...

Whatever this reoccurring phenomenon symbolizes: The forgiveness of time or the perpetual onslaught of obstacles —

You should know if you don’t believe you can make it through to the next day, that I wish the best of luck, and a good morning

A poem of thankfulness
That you are gone
And have stayed gone

"Your hair is a glimpse of home
   Yet when it's wet...
     It's heavy..."

He wrapped himself up in deep umber waves

Dug himself into deep, dark loam

Yet still floating away in a sea of strands

Sheets of passion and poison

"It was a secret nesting in summer scorched brush."

Fragrant and Supple.

His ***** cut the Earth. He watered thick peat.


Together they would slink down dark alleys, cowered in grease covered corners.

He hit her...

She snapped at him...

He chased her salivating strands, rich auburn coat glistening.

In the late afternoon heat she submitted her secret.

He howled his hurt...
An animal infected with rage and confusion.

*

He said, "I have a 5 o'clock flight to help fight the cause." She said nothing. He swept back her tide of soft auburn...wet her with salty fear.

She stepped away slightly...
   He shuddered...
      He disappeared...

Perhaps I deserve to be penalized
For everything I do
Instead of being loved by myself,
And you.

Consider the oceans–
Bright and shallow, dark and dangerous.
The tide turning quickly and without warning.

Not much would change if I said this were about
people.

I think the most insidious thing you could do
Is stab someone close to you
Then tell them their pain and anguish
Is the reason you weep

Imagine looking up at the sky and seeing billions of stars.

Wouldn’t you be awestruck?

That’s the way I feel every time I look into your eyes.

I remain completely captivated by someone as foreign to me as the stars

Threads so perfectly entangled,
Only the sharpest of instruments could separate.
Even had we been careful or courteous,
surely it would have nicked our hearts.

Each time this feeling of emptiness sinks into my chest, I find myself thinking of you.

To be understood completely, even in silence– no one had ever allowed me that before

If it's all the same to you, if I could go back to the day we met, I would not turn around and walk away.

I do not regret you.

I am well practiced in the art of heartache
Fluent in the language of grief
Versed in the routine of melancholy

I walk through this life marred by loss

Each day representing my triumphant victory over every obstacle existence has thrown at me

Does an apology ever bring anyone back?
Can it?
Or are we all just grasping for an answer,
To explain the finality of it all,
As deep as it cuts,
As shallow as the words feel.

Don’t you hear it?

The sound like a hush running through the dim sky.

Like a whisper echoing across a grassy field.

I hear it.

It calls to me with these words:



"I am here."



Then the rain comes...

If a tree falls in the woods with no one to hear it, does it still make a sound?

It’s not so much philosophy so much as it is physics but I won’t bore you with the science when I say:

Did you know when you heart trembles,
Cracks,
Fractures,
Breaks in two,
With no one to heal it or love,
It doesn’t make a sound?

Did you know that your sadness,
That so often goes unseen and unheard,
Becomes a poison to your very soul?

Did you know that this silence,
This ambivalence,
This distance between us,
Destroys me?

I think you do.

Not a burden
Not undeserving
Not broken,
A mess to be cleaned up.

So endlessly enough

Hearts chained to glory,
Gladiators and their stories.
Am I bad person?
It depends on who you ask.

Art is our savior
Revealing which lessons lie
Where pain resides
Turning salt to sugar.

Do we all just resemble passing seasons?
Staying is not a part of our religion.

You strip your sleeve and show your scars,
“These are from every battle I avoided.”

I can’t find what it is you despise,
For me,
It’s that you wasted my time.

When you said my name, I realized I had been saying it wrong my whole life.

THE TOWER.
Beaded curtain shimmers,
Crackles under hesitant touch.
Steady voice beckons you in,
incense clouding your nose.
You are still unsure if you will find veracity here.

THE KNIGHT OF CUPS.
Let your essence pour from her lips
and wonder if she can hear your thoughts.
She can pick apart all the tangled wires
within you, paint a breathtaking mural
with the colors swirling in your blood.

THE TEN OF SWORDS.
She reminds you all things must end,
that too much insight can become dangerous;
one might fold inwards,
crumple like thin paper.
She says,
“it is not necessary to know your entire self,
lest you spoil the ending too soon.”

Like Icarus
Too close
Too much

Loving you was like spilled glitter.
Trying so hard to clean it up,
But traces of it remain everywhere.
Spreading into every part of my being
And just when I think it's finally gone,
I find a little bit in cracked corners of my heart

I have come to find that those who deserve love find it the least.

But...

The same could be said of those who should love themselves the most.

I try and reconcile my need to create through art and my desire to leave no remains or memory.

I refuse to be known and recognized.

Forget me once I'm out of your sight.