You wormed your way into my room through tendrils
Of smoke curling through my hair
You sat on my bed as if you belonged there, and
Who was I to tell you any different?
This is not a hate poem; this is a coming-to-terms with my own emotions.
We kept the lights off, a deliberate foreshadowing.
I could feel you sinking lower into my sheets,
The conversation didn’t bother itself to become memorable.
You said you were six feet tall, I’m still not sure if that’s true.
I made you stand up to compare, but didn’t garner much,
Other than what it feels like to have your breath gently flow towards
My perked face, to have your hands withering at your sides before
Stretching out, over my torso. We sat back down. Conversational squares
Emerged. You kissed me, like I knew you would, without hesitancy or
Any questions at all. I had a few, but your lips stemmed them, and I figured
Your body was answer enough. It was. At least the first time.
It felt good. You were good. Especially to me.
You wound your way throughout my body and stroked my worries
Into oblivion. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted it. We both did.
But looking back, I wish there had been questions.
I wish you hadn’t known that I would give myself to you.
Just like all the other girls before, just like all the ones after and during.
Nothing that happened was wrong. I came away from the night with
A new sort of tingling and a spreading smile and endorphins that
Seemed to bounce from side to side within me.
But I still wish I had been special. – Not what happened, but me.
This is my greatest downfall.

There is no such thing as
"Strong women."
There are only women who hide
And women who hide better.
Women who shelter their fears
In the attics of their minds,
And women who carry them
In their back pockets;
Women who hum little songs to themselves
While wolves wait at their feet,
And women who dance with the beasts.
Women who cry quietly
In bed next to your
Snoring mass,
And women who turn their heartbreak
Into art and music and poems
That rip at the hearts
Of those who hurt her.

The woman you knew---
The woman you loved
Once upon a time---
Hides better.
Her screaming nightmares
About the man that ruined her---
His hands revisiting her innocence;
Night after night,
Waking to underwear
Stained from the dirt on his hands---
Are transformed into drive.
Drive to create, to love,
To touch, to live.
This woman you knew
Hides better.

But strength ebbs,
Like the tide,
The sadness sweeps into the mind
With the rising moon.
But the strong woman,
She doesn't break;
Not until she is tucked away
Into her empty hope chest
Next to the dusty photos
Of lost friends and lovers
And the strings of pearls
Formed from silver tears
Of mothers and grandmothers.
Only then is she weak.
Only then does she allow
The darkness to enclose her,
Like a blanket of familiar discomfort.

What one must realize is that
Passion is not a constant.
Every woman you have ever admired,
Every woman you looked up to,
Every woman you worked beside,
Every woman you passed by,
Falls apart in private.
The body must have a rest from strength,
Let vulnerability prevail.

We've been driving for what feels like
An eternity, rolling over and over for years.

It's only actually been ten minutes but
I can feel my spine beginning to

Ache, and my legs are pasted
To the polyester seat and there are

Nails in my feet and shoulders.
The car is spinning now, out of

Control, I'm losing grip no seatbelt
Cold sweat on my cheeks.

A weight is slung on my chest
Breath is impossible

The edges blur
Until darkness.

Quiet.

There he sat
right across from me
under my roof
uninvited
His presence alone triggered a rage
that before him was never known
His words slithered from his lips
Far from anything genuine
hanging in the air heavily
incessantly striking and pressing me
and I flinched at the notion he's been here for years
I saw him before through my families tears
It's surely the game that I oppose
but when you can put a name to it
this illusion grows
that you could take the life from it...

She's never seen these flying dreams
As the streams of melodious songs do follow
Holding onto the scent of her hair in my mind
As if sealed so tightly in a bottle
Sending messages so serene
Opening once undiscovered doors
All this from passing a girl
I've never met before

She'll never know those five minutes of longing
The sorrow that came and gone as she passed
The strings on my heart plucking away in me
In a medley never meant to last
In that moment she was all there was to me
Her feet almost seemed to glide on this dusty floor
No inkling of the song I heard or the things I'd felt
The girl I loved and had never met before