She bolts awake from nightmare’s fear
Her mind fumbles for the mask
Its visage calm, gaze cool and clear
Once in place no one will ask

Exhausted from her restless night
Escape routes all slammed shut
The knots already pulling tight
Deep down inside her gut

The enemy stand at their station
They circle round her bed
Anticipating her annihilation
The demons in her head

Her feet are not yet on the floor
But the battle has begun
Another endless day of war
She must fight, she cannot run

She glances quickly in the glass
Haunted eyes she cannot meet
The enemy charge takes the pass
Her soul in forced retreat

The mask will serve her well today
Its rigid smile conceals
The terror barely held at bay
The torment that she feels

She plants her banner on the mound
Though hopelessness holds sway
She grits her teeth and holds her ground
But the ******* make her pay

All day the battle rages on
But the mask remains in place
Though at her feet hell’s chasms yawn
The world sees not a trace

The conflict ebbs, her shoulders slump
No victory is claimed
She turns for home, trailing blood
Count her among the maimed

Return to camp yields no respite
Command’s duties have no end
Cares for her troops into the night
Strength's last measure she will spend

All her charges now in bed
Mask in hidden place she keeps
In resignation bows her head
And midst the dark, in silence weeps

Now when the camp lies silent
In night’s hush no pennant streams
She braces for coming violence
And girds for bloodshed in her dreams

i touched your soul
and scribbled my name on it
love, you’ll never get lost again

When you ask him
Whether he will love you forever
Notice
If he said
'I love you, always'
Immediately
Or after a while of thinking 

Because
A true love
Would search deep inside his soul for the truth, and say those
Lasting words

But if not
He will casually sing
Those words of emptiness
With no thought

Unless he is a man so true
He has thought of it through and through
And raked through his soul for eternity
And has already had the answer
Flaming through his heart
When you asked him.

My mind to frolic, with words of Frost
Slides between and then is lost

Drifting ‘round to fellows long
My thirst is deep; desires strong

Filled with all that Maya says
Flits in and out my meddling head

And ah, when Pablo speaks of love
My heart's aflutter with pure white doves

Around the beat, who else but Poe
A deep dark place I've come to know

I stop to ponder the words worth
As if I've nursed them from their birth

I settle to hear the rambling brook
Where Gwendolyn baits my eager hook

Then ‘long comes Oscar, running wild
I listen like an eager child

When Langston paints his colored hues
His canvas fills my point of view

Not just the finest spinning me
To this state of flux and reverie

For verses drift from near and far
Forever reaching for the stars

Feeding on the gentle night
I languish in the word's delight

Finding rhyme from ‘neath the skin
The place where passion's settled in

To fill my cup, appease my soul
Till hunger's sated, fat and whole

The empty space behind my eyes
Is filled with life's sweet lullabies

And when at last, I lay to rest
I'm filled with cadence of the best

Lately
I don’t feel close
to poetry.

It feels elusive.
Unfamiliar.
Once it spoke to me.
But now it’s mute.

It sits back
and doesn’t look
at me.

If I call out
it doesn’t hear.

Lately poetry is
like that demon
I used to want
to reappear.