I will fall endlessly,
with all the essence of your gravity.

They are all around me
Can't breathe
Chains around my neck
My whole body's being held

Like a monster inside
Its claws have ran deep
I can't sleep
Too many voices in my head

Too tired to even care
Dragging myself
From one pit to another
Can't seem to find myself in this

My mind's a blur
Nothing makes sense
Feeling overwhelmed
Heart in chaos

No one seems to notice

Do you ever fall
So in love with someone
That it makes you sick to see them?
Not because
You don't like them
but because
Can't you have them?
Of course, you can't.
well, now you know
how I feel
about you.
Because I have dragged myself
into a pothole of feelings
that I cannot drive out of
and no matter how many people are pushing the car
I cannot move
because there is no road
on the other side of love,
only a cliff,
where memories hang and trucks fall.
so I will trek on,
sick to my stomach with affection,
and every time I see you,
I will fall off again.

Like an alien in a spotlight
With her magnifying glasses on
My mother as she worked, up all night
Did invisible weaving till dawn

I would watch her when I couldn’t sleep
Honing in on that hole in the suit
Intently, her concentration deep
Weaving tiny threads enlarged like jute

In other-worldly light she labored
I was afraid she’d lose her eyesight
Watching her focus never wavered
Her face all aglow in the lamplight

Invisible weaving, I inquired
How tediously she plied her craft
Worked for the money that she required
Made the warp and weft of fabric last

Reconstruction, undetectable
No more burn, or tear, or fabric blight
Weaving magic so incredible
Its wound now perfect by morning’s light

She taught me much that I’m still making
From her life that now I’m grieving
Sewing, crocheting and great baking
But never invisible weaving

The picture of her life that mattered
I now see how she toiled so finely
And that the wrinkles in the fabric
Of my own life splayed out so blindly

The vision of my eyes, bedazzled
Incandescent, her face in the beam
Unaware how her mind unraveled
As Depression stole her ev’ry dream

The threads of DNA defining
Who I’ve become I’m now believing
My mother’s hand in that designing
Of my own Invisible Weaving

In honor of my mother, Edla Sylvia Fitzpatrick, on this International Women's Day

One of my
absolute least
favorite topics
of conversation
is that of the

                                future.
Mine has
already been
tarnished with
my failures,
already been

                               stained
by my terrible
shortcomings:
my lack of
focus, and my
problems

                                with
anxiety and
depression have
not helped
anything but
my level of

                                 incompetence

I tell you the words you want to hear,
I think things that no one else should have
to think

Today I feel great
Today is another day I just don't want to do this
anymore

I'm living my life the way I want
I've made too many mistakes to ever get the
life that I want

She loves me
No one could love me
I'm just too broken

I'm doing better
Than I ever have
I don't see the difference,
I don't see myself

I matter
*To no one

If there’s one
thing that I
crave more
than to be
happy, it’s

                                   death
I don’t want
to end things
by my own
hand, but it

                                   would
not be terrible
for it to happen,
whatever the
method may

                                    be
I feel like an
easy and
quick death
would be

                                    preferable to
pain and
endless hurt
and struggles.
All I have now
with this “gift” of

                                     living
is endless and
painful torment
that usually
only belongs in

                                     hell.

I want to hold you
And trap you in the sap of these pines
Because I know you would not run,
You find beauty in the ugliest of places.

I want to lock you in a cedar box
And leave you be until you beg my name
Because I know you like the smell,
You always were more with nature than I.

I want to hang you up in a great oak
For the whole world to see
Because I know you think you're wretched,
But you're beautiful to me.