Today I was asked what emotion I'm afraid of
Love, fear, guilt, hatred, selfishness..
I wasn't too sure
But I think instead of specifics
I'm just scared of feeling
Love can break you
Guilt can make you do unthinkable things
Fear is what keeps you up at night
Happiness can be ripped away from you
Sadness can drown you
Emptiness is the only time i feel no fear
The lack of emotion
Nothing to live for
Nothing to die for
Nothing to be scared of losing
Emptiness is safe
So I'm afraid of feeling
It's dangerous to feel

i am every unfinished poem that sits in piles of crumpled paper by your waste bin and every crowded thought in the cranial space above your neck. i am every word that begs to be free from the tip of your tongue but remains just out of your memory's reach. i am comprised of the colors of sunrise but am more the mood of a sunset. i am the familiar  fingerprints on your favorite coffee mug. i am a wicker rocking chair on somebody's grandmother's porch. i am bite marks on your pencil and the crick in your neck. i am the vacant blurry buzz of an old television set. i am all of the places i have never been. i am lovers' names carved into summertime tree bark, promising "forever" - only to fall short of that promise by the time the leaves change. i am here. i am not where i belong.

you are the gravity that keeps my feet on earth. you are the atmosphere i breathe. you are the rain that feeds my soul & makes flowers grow. you are my revival and my revolution and the courage i kept hidden inside of closed fists for so long i formed crescent moons in my palms. you are an unstoppable fire that is burning me alive in the best way. you are the only rooftop i have ever visited that i haven't felt the urge to jump off of. you are the gentle hum and rumble of the washing machine i used to nap beside when i was a little girl. you are the creaky wooden swing in my backyard where i sat for countless hours and smoked and cried and pondered. you are all my favorite odds & ends bound together by my wildest dreams. you are sometimes so beyond my understanding, that i wonder when i'm going to wake up; and if i ever did find out that you were just a dream, i would bang on heaven's gates and plead with god to let me sleep. you are there. i am here, you are there.

one of us needs to move.

- m.f.

There is a storm in my heart
Raining colors on my mind
From your words that you whisper
When mine are hard to find

The drops fall heavy
In a musical scale
-music unheard of
a heavenly hail

that soothes my fear
of coming days
when you won’t be near
with your angel gaze

feeding my heart
with the food of your soul
yes, my puzzle is complete
because you’ve made it whole

and all of my moments
are tinted with you
a brand new color
between red and blue

despite my instincts
I squeeze you tighter
Almost breaking that
Which has made the world brighter

I do my best to fight it
And keep you from harm
Its quite a scary thing
To hold the whole world in your arms


You are art
And could never bore me
When every word you speak
Is a story

That reminds me of why
There is ground beneath the sky
Each second of you exciting
Like a bird about to fly

None of this expresses
Just how you live within me
But I’ll be content in spending my life
Explaining through poetry

And maybe I’m just gone
Maychance I have gone crazy
But every sound my ears meet
Seems to rhyme with Katie

Katie, the forest
Katie, the stream
Katie, hell and heaven
Katie, everything in between

If this is losing ones mind
Let it never return again
I’ll be content in the void
Alone with Katie, the pen

And when death finds me
At the end of all things
I will smile inside, knowing

I’ve heard the voice with which love sings

When did I let myself trust
Again?
I thought sure I was just as far away
As ever.
But you never really know something inside out
Until you lose it
And it's the same with people.
You never really know what they truly are
Until you miss whatever that is.
I don't have friends.
I know it looks like I have friends
And a lot of you might even think you are among them
But I don't
I don't have friends.
I stopped talking to my friends.
I stopped way back two years ago,
When I lost everything and nothing could fix it.
And when seeing someone's face who wasn't her didn't hurt me terribly
It was still simply too tiring to have friends at all.
So I stopped talking to them.
Little by little.
They didn't wanna let me go.
Apparently I was pretty great or something.
But they did. They let me go
Because I am great-
At being persistent.
And I persistently pulled away.
And... that was that, really- I didn't have friends.
I had acquaintances.
I had a loose circle of people who I could talk to if I wanted
But who wouldn't miss me all that much if I suddenly bowed out of their lives.
I made a practice of doing just that-
Periodically leaving.
So nobody got used to me enough to like me too much,
Because I didn't have the energy to like them too.
It became that I only gave myself to love,
Not friendship,
Because when I lost love
Even the best of friends became completely invisible to me, hidden behind a haze of pain.
And I figured that must be a sign.
In a lot of ways, I don't do friends.
Or so I thought until today...
But tonight
Tonight I am losing a friend.
She is parting with hugs and promises to keep in touch
And I am sitting on my father's sofa crying
Because I don't remember the last time I cared about anyone I wasn't in love with.
How did I miss this?
When did I start making friends?
How many of them are there?
Will I even know before it's too late?
And why
Do they ever have to leave?

Well, darling, we've surpassed 3 a.m.
And 4 a.m....5 a.m....and 6...
Talking about our life together,
Only theoretically of course,
And I haven't freaked out.  Even when
You said the word "marriage," I didn't
Blink an eye and I took it in stride.

And when you said "children," I smiled;
An image of dark haired babes screaming,
Us two standing and laughing because
We just don't know what the **** to do.
My hair would be frazzled, hoisting one
On my hip as I sing lullabies.
And our toddler would be sitting
On your lap, chattering as your eyes
Widen, overwhelmed with her questions.
How I love your dark beautiful eyes.

I don't picture a white picket fence
With a manicured lawn and flowers
But I envision the two of us
Becoming older and sassier.
We are infinite for a while
Until I wake up one fateful day
And I realize that you have passed on.

But I gather the grand-kids around
And with a glimmer in my eye, I
Tell our story sparing no details
Because someone has to remember
When I am dead and gone from the world.
And when I close my eyes for the last
Time, I smile and say: "Remember,
Darling, when we were just pretending?"
And my soul will depart my body,
Find and join yours in our own heaven.

So answer me and please be honest;
Baby, will you live this dream with me?