Was it your fathers gun
Did your hear your mothers footsteps run
Did you pull the trigger from the side or underneath
Did you have to pull it out from a sheath
Did you wear black to hide the blood
Or white like a stained angel above
If you were in your room is the door still shut
Is the floor burnt from an old cigarette ****
Did you know that you wouldn’t see seventeen
Did you think this was the only shot at being seen
Did you second guess it or was it in one motion
Did your family bleach the house like an ocean
If we had called you would it have mattered
Was it the bathroom wall where your brains splattered
Did you cut yourself before and I just missed it
Did you know I would cry where you used to sit
Was it the cops or the school or your girlfriend
Did you know at graduation we all played pretend
Can you hear me when I scream out all my regrets
Did you think that dying young was your winning bet
Did you think about your sister or yourself as a child
Did you think about your obituary being filed
Was your face recognizable in a closed casket
Would you think about shooting hoops through a basket
Did you think anyone would miss you
I do

I am the deer
Large shimmering eyes and slender limbs
A fawn with spots still on
Like the baby’s breath of the meadow in which I lay
Mocha fur shining in the morning sunlight
Face wet with dew from the chill of night

I am the deer
Mangled on the side of the road
Intestines on display for the vultures above
Legs twisted into a sick jigsaw puzzle
Killed by the man who worries about the machine
And drives away with apathy unwavering

I am the woman
Long, toned legs
Striding down a city sidewalk, wind in her hair
A statue, a monolith, an icon
Like a being carved from polished marble from the raw earth
A face of beauty incarnate

I am the woman
A dismembered body with DNA foreign to herself
Lying in a lake, the soil, a vat of oil
The threads of clothing cut too short like Fate’s own hemline
Killed by the man and his ego who worries if blood washes out
And walks away with apathy unwavering

It is a tragedy as old as time
That Mother Nature birthed daughters

Do the malevolent poltergeists of my past haunt your benevolent spirit?
When I ride through my ghost-towns like an old west gunslinger,
Will the ricochets shatter your fragile glass house?
If I slash through phantom limbs, is it your blood that I spill on the altar of revenge?
Do all the periods of falling leaves and sundowns I spend at the graveyard
Will away the only real wisps of life I know?

It is never enough
There is a piece missing from every aspect of myself
A sliver of beauty, a slice of intelligence, a portion of strength
That I so desperately want to acquire
With hands too unsteady for Da Vinci and a voice too weak for Houston
I pull apart words and smash them back together in Play-Doh poetry
I see this technicolor world and want to put it into film
But my vocabulary is too juvenile and the style too amateur
My metaphors are recognizable on all levels, the depth of a kiddie pool
To read the works of Shelley and Milton and Dante light this flame
That burns in anger at my own futile words, a seething disappointment
The greats, the classics, all I could ever read, and all I could never be
Each poem that I write lets me down, far too short and far too simple
My own words could never capture the essence of what I want to say
Who I want to be
It is never enough
But I will keep trying

Small, sweet girl,
Love the protection
You do not know you have.
Enjoy the California mountains
While you roam them;
Feel the cool rocks in your yard
While it is still your home
Walk in the newborn stream to cool your feet
Before you want to put them in heels.
Walk through the tall, dead grasses
And pretend you do not fear the snakes,
Until you want to walk the streets
And pretend you do not fear the men.
Let your blonde hair shine
Before it turns red from the fires you watch.
Maybe the weight you gain when you are much older
Will make up for what you deprived yourself of
When you are just a little older.
I would tell you not to hold on to Mom too tight,
So that you may not shatter when you learn
Not every good girl has a good mommy.
But I can not blame you for holding on to the things you know.
She is just one that will sting of painful nostalgia.
But that will be for another poem,
Another letter that I write to you sometime;
A little older, hopefully a little wiser

A too-warm new year January afternoon
Holds the same sun as April's evening at 12 years old
The scent of gentle pink roses
Is a cool shower in the summer before high school
A new-to-me videogame console
Is sophomore year's ignored chemistry homework
My eyes and ears and nose and hands
Contain memories I did not mean to make
They store moments that take me back to times
That were insignificant in my mind
A childhood filled with life and experience
That I seem to keep reliving, despite my unintention
But I hold no complaints in my heart
As I know that one day, these words will provide the same feeling
I will look back on poems written while pushing grocery carts
And think to myself, what a pleasure to live in a time capsule

What a world I live in
To experience emotions as powerfully as I do

My sadness is not an ache in my heart
With mascara tracks running down
It is deep, mournful, body-shaking sobs
Oceans of clear tears streaming from reddened green eyes

My anger is not a flickering flame of annoyance
Nor a clenched body needing a release
But an entirely enveloping wildfire
Blinding me from reason and logic

And neither is my love just comfort
Or a desire to care and be cared for
But a presence that encapsulates every thought
Every movement, every moment, defined by desire

Oh, it is a poet's dream
And a woman's curse