You were the sun, I was a flower
I looked up to you to learn, you set me free to bud
You kept me warm through windy spring nights
You taught me to grow through golden leaves falling
After storms, you crept from behind the clouds to help me dry
When snow fell, I was buried beneath the ice and you brought me back again
But once the summer came, you blazed so bright I couldn’t see

The sweltering sun, my sweet sun
I took your light, your love, and I blossomed
Then I grew, only to realize you would always be far up there
I took too much and waited, wilted and grey in the end.

I can't make brushes
dance all flamenco—
red, blue, purples
on a peacock's feathery
canvas

Nor can I raise
unborn symphonies
from a string's womb

Instead, I piece
words caught
like fireflies
in the air
stir their light
through and through
in cosmic metaphors
in sea allegories
in flights of soliloquies
in lovelorn colloquies

Really,
I can't dazzle eyes
nor fuddle ears
but I behold
the days to come
with tongues from
yesteryears

I have excess love in my heart, but nobody to give it to.
I wish to spend my time adoring and admiring someone.
I want to be able to show my true self to one who won't judge.
I want to love.

Writing poetry, for me, is like being naked.
My words are like clothes and I'll let my readers undress them.

If I could
     I'd sing to you
    But I can't
Not since he ripped my throut
             Out.

She looks at me and I know in that
                                     quickest
                               of
                           seconds
             something is wrong.
                                 "Mom?
                                        Mom?!"
And she
              crumples
       against my sister.
I saw the
                            confusion
       in my mom's eyes
and now I see the
                            panic
       in my sister's.
My mom, limp on the ground,
       isn't responding
       to my repeated pleas.
"She's having a stroke!
            She's having a stroke!"
Panic makes my sister's voice
                            frantic.
                   We've been here before.

All around people are crowding
       waytooclose,
but the shouts for EMS can't
              drown out the
                                          burst
of silence suddenly in my head.
My sister and I lock eyes,
                                   transported
to when this happened before,
              wondering...
                            wo­rrying...