In the stillness of a photograph,
I found life, moving in light speed,
Shooting the very nerve that bears
Every bit of sense that there is in me.
It has always been
the pigments of your photograph,
That touches the sky before the sun,
The shore before the sea,
The pages before the words,
And my heart before me.

And if you happen to see me
Under the crescent ball of the night,
With my eyes heaving sleeplessness
But roused, nonetheless, for the idea of you-
Let the soothe of air with its kind intentions
Be the only pleasant interruption
Between the kiss of our yearning skins.

I have been growing winter inside me,
That with sharp ice, rock crystals
And the saddest pour of frost.
See how I am not that empty after all.

I attend the funeral of hope,
weekly
Watch the birth of despair
daily
I think God has gone deaf,
atleast to
my cries
People look at possessions as
success
They aren't
They're stones tied to souls
making sure we all drown with the
Jones'
we all so long to keep up with
Oh yes,
those Jones' are falling to the
Depths of "stuff"
far faster than we Smiths
Good Lord
All day, Everyday,
I see and hear the "upper class"
whine
About the stupidest things
Its appocalypse if the Jones' buy
a BMW
while the neighbor only owns a Cadilac
Utter DEATH
I see these things and hear these silly conversations daily
"Oh did you see how fat Pam's *** looked in that Vera dress at yesterday's luncheon?"
"Yes! All that money spent on lypo! Haha!"
Disgusting ****
like sulfuric acid poured into my ears
And the road on the way to this Country Club and Gated Community called
Deerfield
Is lined with falling down trailers and houses without glass in the Windows
Clothes hung on ancient strings because the wearers can't afford a dryer
Or the electicity to run one
Children filthy and barefoot playing with
hand-me-down toys
in hay field yards
Still cleaner and more pure
than the
Filthy Rich

Echoes in ash
Sit here silent as masks
Staring right back
Through my hyperbole past

The fire, did warm me
The whiskey, did sew me
Thread, falls from my collapse
As whispers of mourning

Portraits of you, next
What you've become
One's strokes, so vivid
The other, rotund

Ashes to echos
I wonder if he knows
What, all,
He left behind

A fog of limbs
Eyes in mist
Is there,
After, life

Rocks; crack, stumble
In glass: of tumble
As red leather,
Made company

Ashes, the echoes
Of what was
Once, but
No more

Be kind to yourself.
You have come so far.
Each emotion you feel tattooed
to your skin
the seasons wash away like chalk.

Be kind to yourself.
You are braver than you thought.
No longer scared of what lies
beneath your bed
but what awaits when you wake up.

Be kind to yourself.
You are worthy of love.
Only you give permission
for forked tongues
to leave passing words as lasting scars.

Only you can adopt old failures
and stack them as obstacles
upon each new path.
You cannot dictate what will be
only – who you are.

Be kind to yourself.
You are doing enough.
You cannot always be switched on.
Sometimes you have to lay down
and breathe –

it is not greed.
If you are always exhausted
you cannot help anybody.

Be kind to yourself.
You did not grow
from a single cell
born from a dying star
in order to feel so small.

You did not close the door
on friends when you expected
more from them.
Why beat yourself up
for who you were before?

Be kind to yourself.
A faltering dancer who gets up
again and again
draws the loudest applause
at the curtain call.

A person who spent half their life
at war with themselves
knows the value of peace,
the feat of getting out the house;
the measure of good mental health.

Be kind to yourself.
You have come so far.
They say ten thousand hours
is the time it takes
to master an art.

You spent so much longer than that
learning the patterns of your heart.
You can pull at those common threads
that keep you together
even when you are falling apart.

Be kind to yourself.
You are stronger than you thought.
Like Leonard says,
“there’s a crack of light in everything. “
You do not have to be perfect.

You do not have to live in the dark.
Be kind to yourself.
Make sure you get to the end.
Do not worry
how you stumbled at the start.