You, sir,
I think I made the mistake of trusting you, sir.
I think sometimes they tell you people
That teenagers have nowhere to go and no one to talk to,
So when one speaks to you
You are the only one they have ever spoken to,
And they only one they will ever trust.
You, sir, are the light on the hill!
And yet I never saw a brightness die so fast.

I told you about the depression first.
Yes, I admit it, I was scared;
There had never been enough people to tell me it was okay
To be mentally ill, that it wasn't something I'd chosen,
It was a flaw of chemistry not of character.
Yet I clicked that door open for you and let you in,
That was step 1.

I didn't tell you about her next.
But to be fair, I didn't know about her, either.
I came to you about him, when I was lost.
You berated me for my trust issues;
I swallowed it and knew it and you told me to stop.
He was supposed to be the next good step.
My fault, and I know it.  

Step 3 were the voices.
When I told you there were voices in my head
I tried to explain to you that I was not crazy
The chemistry between me and my brain may be bad
But it's not insanity:
Only memories, only torturers,
And I didn't need another one.

When I told you that my sexuality was not straight like a pin
But waved and diverged to both sides
That I was not a het, I was a queer
You were more kindly than the congregation
And I mistook a warning as a welcome.
I was troubled but not condemned so long as I did not "practice."
Well I did not practice for it but when I kissed her and when I kiss her
I remember your words and look into her eyes and think
That there is no practice in her or in I.
Our lips meet and I feel her warmth and her hands are on my hips
And I tell you there is no "practice"
There is no practicing for love,
Not a single rehearsal for passion and commitment.
Sirrah I would do it again and again
Like the waves I will continue to touch her shores,
No matter how many times others may pull me away.

If you meant to abandon me for me,
You should've told me sooner.

I am God
I AM WHO I AM
There are none like Me
The strength of My might is immeasurable
The breadth of My knowledge unknowable
My children I protect
My followers I love
None whom I take into My hand I forsake
Selah!
Blessed are those, O Lord, who hear Your voice!
Be not absent from my mind!
But have patience and be of slow words
For Your servant, Lord, can only write haltingly
I give the dumb speech
To the blind I give sight
The deaf hear again with My touch
My children pass like breaths
But I am eternal
Speak to the God who listens
Oh merciful God, blessed be Your name!
Holy are You that takes the time to listen to my speech
My enemies are forfeit, my mockers destroyed
The God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, of Noah
Graciously, mercifully listens to a babbler, a fool
Humble my heart O Lord
That my words might be pleasing to You
Speak**
Listen to my prayer, O God
And hide Yourself not from my supplication!
Attend to me and answer me;
I am restless and distraught in my complaint
And must moan
Lord to Your servant David You would answer
Answer now my pleas, though my heart be crude and unfit
Lord do You see Your child?
He is tormented day and night by thoughts of You
Your hands molded him into being
His heart You placed in his chest and it was made to worship You
But he is attacked and harassed
Lord how he despairs so unjustly!
Deep into the mire has he sunk
He is trapped there in agony
And the prince of lies is his companion
Into his ears demons whisper day and night
Lord, do not abandon him!
You made him to love, to worship You!
His heart You love, his mind You made
What gifts You have blessed him with!
Then how now does he suffer?
Forsake me not, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord!  My salvation!
This heart bleeds and weeps at his suffering
In my insolence I thought it was I who could free him from his pain
But no, it is You!
Selah!
God will you crush him too?
Destroy his oppressors and free his soul
He would worship and love You God, this I swear:
These eyes have seen, these ears have heard
All is in alignment, he is made to be your most devoted follower
Let him worship You Lord, for this is right
Forgive him his tresspasses, forgive him his sins
Let him not weep in despair
As he feels Your absence and is tortured still
Are You not his savior?
Are You not his redemption, his healer?
God, Your lover, Your bride weeps to see Your abandonment
She cries to see Your glory
Her pleading will never cease
Till Your mercy is shown
And he is freed from his suffering
And back into the tender care of Your loving arms
Selah.
She will plead until You are glorified
And Your children love You as one
Hold back not Your glory
Love Your children
Forget them not in Your wrath, o Lord
May Your mercy come down like a cloud
And Your love as a rain
Amen and amen
Glory to You forever and ever, o God

Send some rain, please God send some rain
For the earth is dry and needs to drink again --
And I know not how to speak to You anymore
I’ve run and run and run from You
I have feared, disgraced, shunned, and longed for You
All in single breaths, all in one gasp
There is too much, Lord
This wall is too thick
Too high, too strong
The gate is shut and I know not, remember not, the key
Did I hold the palette knife, Lord?
Was it I that mixed the concrete and placed the bricks?
Who drew those plans?
There is not a day I remember
Where I decided to shut down and shut off and shut away
The people on the outside
Things are safer on the inside, this I know
That this mind is a trap and this body is a bomb
But at least it isn’t as frightening as the ones outside --
But no, that isn’t true
I’ve seen how this mind will break and this body will fail
How the counter keeps ticking down down down
How I will run out of tape and glue to piece
These cracked halves and splinters back again
I’ve watched myself snap, teeth bared and nails out
Primitive and carnal, ready to destroy and ****;
Sluggish, depleted, apathetic, incapable, laying on the floor
Wheezing breath in and out, body crumpled to the ground
He says he loves me
God, isn’t that hysterical?
I have fallen too far for people to love me, o God
I have not quality
Nor quantity to make up for it
I don’t know how to feel safe with others
How to trust and how to love
Perpetually planning, there is a degree of calculation
In every move I make, every word I speak, every breath I take
The alarm bells will not stop -- stop! -- ringing
Everyone is faulty, everyone is dangerous
I cannot make them safe to me
Or this odious warning system
I write to feel
I speak to find help
But I am not better
I am not alright
God?
God, are You out there?
They spoke of You in church this morning.
Every Sunday is another battlecry of you.
The mere mortals moralize and maneuver
They built their society on You,
But lost You in their rules --
Hell is empty, all the devils are here --
The Sadducees live again in this century, o Lord
I know His was only a single ticket
But perhaps there is another plane He could take, God
I was told this wall needed to descend for You, God
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
But I have never reached for You
You know this, I know this
I am looping round and round
This reads more like a child’s diary entry than a poem
A confused convoluted confession
Not a profession, a solution, a heartfelt love
My God, You have got to save me
Medication might save or destroy my brain
But it will touch not my soul
I don’t know how to love
You love me
Could You teach me what it means?
God I would serenade You for Your love
David’s desperation and my muted, confused despair are one:
Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no standing;
I have come into deep waters,
Where the floods overflow me.
I am weary with my crying;
My throat is dry;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God.

I wonder that Moses could counsel You
Could argue with You and You would listen
I know no other God that would allow
For argument and pleading
For His subjects to speak and be heard
Do You know my prayers, O Lord?
Even to me they’re muddled and confused
Do You know what Your daughter needs?

Lord I am afraid to be Your servant
Because the masters You gave by birth-rite
Like to pull out the costumes and play
But to answer my confusion, they explain everything,
Their words and actions by saying, “WE ARE GOD.”
You said, “I AM WHO I AM.”
They are not who they are.

Send some rain?  Would You send some rain?
‘Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again –
And Your daughter cries out for Your direction,
Discretion, and mercy.  There is no light
To lead me out of the dark
I have lost my way and am afraid
To search lest the way home …
Lead to them.

My sanity is not what it used to be, Lord.
Gentle kindness shushes me into quiet
But cannot soothe away the cracks in my brain.
She fears for her sanity but I wonder at mine
Contemplate how much sick I won’t be able to drain
From my cranium even when my body is aged
And legality bids me crawl out of this house to bitter freedom.

I am so tired, Lord.
I forget it sometimes when I don’t slow down
And then it soaks back in and I stare and stare
And contemplate how much I don’t have
And how little I have left for them to take.
I don’t know what will make me break:
No music?  No school?  No friends?  No escape to Your safe places?
But I remind myself here and now that I have always been melodramatic –
Haven’t I, Lord?  I tell myself that to puzzle it out and stall
The choking panic and confused tears that drill into me
And scratch their way bleeding up through my throat – I am TRAPPED –
But I’ve always been so silly
And they would add ungrateful and a liar
No one has the answers I cannot find the answers
Honor and obey, You said, but what if they’re wrong?
Am I right?  Am I right?!
I cannot speak cannot stand – I will melt into compliance and silence
And remind myself that I am wrong, a bad daughter
That I am above myself and that’s it’s just all in my head –
But the cycle will continue.

Lord, I’m so tired –
Of hopelessness and not planning for a future because
I don’t think I have one
I’m tired –
Of self-inducing apathy as a cure to panic like it were a drug
To slip into my veins till my heart’s pumped it through my dulling senses
Help me, please
I haven’t felt You in so long …

I am not stupid or incapable
Although my mind’s daily deviations
Attest to errors and tricks in mine skull
Of delusions – and every day tension
Within the crannied pockets of my brain
Watch the undeniable enmity
Between the bird and the compelléd reign
Of darling overlords and tricksome she
But I will pretend, though it be in vain,
That the chainéd bird does not wish to fly
But instead hand to them the keys – my bane –
And never dare yearn beyond the fake sky
  Goodbye to heart, to soul, to winsome dreams
  For I, instead, will do what they do deem.

Retrospect tells me that this is the year
Where my mind must ponder anew it all:
All these things I held true, my darling dear.
I go on a journey (if you must call)
Through disposition and natural born
Instincts and beliefs till myself I find.
Locked in confusion I grow so forlorn,
And though it’s you I hurt, you act so kind.
You must find someone else to hold your soul;
Love names me defender but it’s not I –
Faithless and worn, I should not be your goal,
Yet death ‘lone could leech my final goodbye.
    I figured out after so many tries:
    My feelings are fickle and my heart lies.

There is a fever burning in my brain.
My thoughts awhirl, they fly too fast for me;
Ill-kept madness that I cannot contain,
Locked in mine skull, I keep hearing its pleas.
I can’t sit still, see my mind’s yet in flight,
Scorning earthly tethers it will be free.
In moody hatred and with petty spite,
It will the world condemn with fire and glee.
No regrets – Bring them, I will fight them all.
I don’t have an explanation for this,
My hate, once free, rises like bitter gall.
Laughter cries in the crannies of this bliss.
          For morning’s tender kiss my madness begs
          With sleep to scrape aside the addled dregs.

Tomorrow I and all the world condemn
That I am only, of a person, half.
I might’ve had a life tho’ I’ve missed them,
My maze of memories’ crannies worsens:
The afternoons that should be clear and strong,
A distant haze, forgotten roads - but soft!
Is there a place I have not gotten wrong?
Remembrance catches me so badly oft …
To keep a journal, to keep a diary,
To try and lock the day within my brain -
Will I lose it all?  Yes, no past for me.
Watch all my yesterdays down gutter drain.
             Worthless, my poetry I write today
             In hopes that it will yield a better way.

“You have a lot of pride,” my sister said,
Like always, she cannot tell what’s missing.
My sister, college-fled and parent-led,
You never saw the discomfort lurking.
I ache for the dawn and pray for the end,
Because it’s times like these where I can’t think.
Solitude taught (with me I can’t contend)
That night waits for me, in darkness I sink.
I’m weak and sorry to those I befriend –
Dear God!  I pray for blissful rest and peace,
And something for my worried heart to mend.
I’d take a quiet mind, even for lease.
                Hush my tense thoughts and please banish my fright,
                I just want to make it all through the night.

Listen, do you hear them whisper and speak?
Foul minded heirs and hearts of purest black –
I fear only of my sins will they preach –
When they cry, “Lord!” it is me they push back.
Afright, this demon-child stalks ‘bout the night:
Her lips bleed lies and her eyes do bewitch,
She will waylay your soul with deadly rites.
Corruption and tricks make the devil – rich.
Hatred and pain have her trapped in the mir'r –
I am a nightmare dressed as a daydream –
Where, teary-eyed, we stare at each other
I sew up the cracks with tightly held seams
            Please, if you would accept me presently,
            I need someone to hold me tenderly.

It’s late at night, and I should be doing
Something else – look and see, dawn creeps closer.
Oh, but who knows what the morning will bring?
I pray only that we do not bicker.
This isn’t the first night I’ve needed sleep,
Nor the last evening I’ve spent worrying.
My uncertainty sure knows how to creep.
Retrospect takes my memories to wring,
And I cannot stop – please, please stop – thinking.
When I speak I wish I could be silent;
Confined in my head, I want to take wing.
Yet I know I deserve it – I warrant.
       Sleep calls me to her and tells me to shush –
       My apologies, for I cannot hush.

YOUR FATHER IS DEAD
And yet you will not let that dead man rest his dry bones
In the dirt, in the grave where he belongs.

YOUR FATHER HAS BEEN GONE THREE YEARS
And yet you speak of him like he sits up north still
In his cabin, smoking his wretched lungs to flame.

YOUR FATHER WAS ABUSIVE
And yet despite every beating, every ****** attempt
In your mind he was the greatest man to ever live.

YOUR FATHER DOESN'T DESERVE YOUR LOVE
And yet even though he never told you what you wanted to hear,
In your head you make up his words: "I love you."

YOUR FATHER ****** YOU UP
And yet you tell me about the lessons he taught you like a saint;
In your life you repeat his brutalities, his learning legacy.

YOUR FATHER LIVES IN YOU
And yet you are blind to his quirks you repeat, that
In your daughter you have made a new you:

Blind, quivering, trapped, choking on tears
She is everything you were and you try to make her
Everything you wished you were
But in your repression, your denial --
When you cling to his grave and the things you made up about him
Like a leech, like a disease, like a haunting,
You let him live again in you.

And he was not a good man.
He was a hurtful man.
A proud man.
A bad man.
A killer of your precious, finite vitality.

And just like he destroyed you,
You will destroy her.

i don't know how to explain it to you
this white skin is a canvas and i want to make it red
the trails of scarlet trailing down my skin,
the gouges in my skin, the crevices
they comfort me
when i see the canyons in my flesh
the hatred is eased and my mind is easier to please
there's a voice in my head that bays for my blood
and a gurgle in my heart that wants to swallow my life
me i bargain with the devil:
the body still lives but it will be broken
and he nods and lets me go and i am free
when the knife comes out and i drag it across my skin
my heart slowly starts to ease
the pain the confusion the frustration
the agony of being awake and aware in this head
it all becomes so much easier when there's some comfort i can see
it cannot **** me it heals with time
pink white faded lines across my shoulders
feel so comfortable and familiar when i'm gone
and my hands start floating away from my wrists
and there's a space in my head where my mind should be
i can't feel my body where is my body
what time is it where am i what was i doing why was i trying
to feel the scabs rocky and hard
i think clearer feel better know more soar higher
when the monster calls and i feel the itch in my fingers
i will do it again and self medicate
to cure the agony in my soul
and my breath will ease out into a relieved sigh
every part of me will cry for this bliss

I’m not a fan of stupidity
or guessing
too
fast
and thinking that you know
what you want
how you feel
where this will go and how
it’ll last
but you make me want to smile
you make me want to get better
you give me dreams
things to hope for and want
i’d given up on wants, you know
but i’ve painted the canvas of my future
you know, the one i gave up on?
and i don’t know about the rest
but i slipped you into it
because i can’t imagine it without you
and because i know you’ll be there for it

If there is not a solution, a transfusion, a deliverance
Then may Death’s sweet kiss deliver me from this.
I will not be alive trapped in my mind:
Hell is empty, they put the devils here
For me to unwind.

i’ve tried, alright?
you can’t imagine how long i’ve paced
there is a rut a mile deep in my carpet
where i dragged myself to and fro
trying to make sense of where i went wrong
i snapped my bones into building it
cracked elbows and knuckles trying to tear it deeper
with my questions and pleas to its depth as if
it could forgive me of my sins

i promise i didn’t want it
i tried my best to cleanse myself of it
prayed to god above on the sundays
that He could take bleach and wash me out
from tippy toe to the tip of my top

every piece of evidence was denied
for as long as i could hold it under the water
i held it down and tried to drown it

and some days i still think
that i should’ve gone back and tried again
one more minute would’ve killed it
if only i’d stayed
anyone else would have done it i’m sure
i caused this problem
the midwife at its birth was i
death i mislead when he came to the doorstep
and now the monstrosity lies on my hands

i am guilty as charged
but i am teaching myself to love
all the parts you hate

Laying on a bed in Urgent Care
Life stops seeming to be so fair,
Not that it could be or ever was,
But I’d kept telling myself this because
It was easier than facing myself.

Oh God but this is such a journey
-- Thoughts from on top a gurney --
I feel like death and want to die,
God, life sure is one hell of a ride:
I’m looking for the nearest exit.

Life’s normal denizens keep striding by,
Too far to hear my strangled reply.
If I could possess them for my own,
I would leave them behind in my body sewn
So they could drink of my daily delirium.

I’m sorry, is the bitter too loud?
Sometimes my anger I will no longer enshroud.
I keep it under wraps to protect the people best,
Lest they know how hard I am pressed
To keep myself from snapping.

I will not lie, it angers me so:
To see myself disabled while others glow.
I hate to be pretentious but I was told
That the world was mine to hold.
My desolate hands lust in silence.

But I am tired, worn, and low;
I will fall away from this anger’s afterglow.
I will sink back down away from this
Inspiration will become another game of hit and miss.
The waiting game begins again.

The walls will keep me secure and cold
And as always I will stay controlled.
And yet you, oh God from up above,
Could I learn to look on you with Love?
This heart is ice and needs some tenderness.

It’s taken a thousand miles
And a hundred high walls
To find the strength in me to say,
“Not today, not today.”

Would that I, could that I
Simply stop judging myself
For the altitude of my flight,
Be fine in just being “alright.”

These fingers take risks
For conquering’s sake;
This mind wants for nothing less
Than always being the best.

But maybe it’s okay
To slow to a walk!
To take a few hundred moments
And enjoy a small talk.

To stop griping and pining and beating myself down --
To breathe and relax and let GO of that crown!

I’ll have nothing to show
If I burn myself out,
And nothing to grow
If I lose it on this route.

It’s taken a thousand miles
And a hundred high walls
To find the strength in me to say,
“Not today, not today.”