You matter
You were placed here with two feet, two hands
For walking, for touching
Two eyes for looking
Looking into two other eyes
Looking into the vast ocean realizing no matter how small you are you matter
You are matter
You, regardless of the background noise, matter so much that if you were gone that piece of matter would not and could not be replaced
The eyes you saw and the places you walked and the people you touched would forever remember
Would forever miss
And would forever be missing
You.

We were told we were born sick
Though we never felt ill
We met in Sunday school
And over the coughs of other children
That hacked out either verses or mucus
It was never clear which
I asked you for a paint brush
And you stepped over the damp tissues
Thrown defeated on the ground
Like offerings at a precession
And you’d painted next to me.

We were told we’d always be sick
But we never looked ill
When I accidently bumped your elbow reaching for
More paper
Our blushing cheeks the color of alter wine
Bore healthy smiles and warm glows
And after countless more Sundays
When the men in funny neck ties
Came around to give us crackers
In the shapes of pills we couldn’t swallow
We decided to hide them in the sleeves of our robes
And we watched as all the other children
Grew sicker while we grew stronger
Even though they drank blood
And we’d sneak off to drink wine.

We became the heretics of hallelujahs
AWOL archangels
And we were never bed ridden from illness
In fact we yearned for the outside
Disregarding the warnings of germs
That ran rampant there
Figuring that was why they made the
Church’s steeple look like a needle
We wanted freedom nonetheless.

They told us that we would catch the flu
By holding hands
And when we were caught contaminated
They told us to wash our bodies off in the water
And you looked at me and I looked at you
And we agreed that we should-
But not this water, not here
So we grabbed hands again
And you with your free left and I with my free right
Pushed through the double doors
And as the light poured in the chapel
It scorched the priests but for us it baptized us whole
And now we tell ourselves swimming in the sea
That became our holy healing water
We’d only ever be as sick as others let us be.

My room

                                              is a work of art

on the unvacuumed           canvas

lies heaps

of U.C.S's

(unidentified clusters of                ****)

heaps                                   ­           that are only destroyed

during nights             ...                                 ...                                     .. .    .  .

that are fueled with       anxiety

or

just pu re
                    r
                   
                                      estles snes s  .

These imperfect     shapes

scattered

in comforting patterns

my          compiled life

in pieces   .

But I'm st ill restless.

The artist

is

never truly satisfied with

her

work

the mes s of          my                     life

tossed comfor tably to the ground

until i am provoked by                       ...                              ...               .. .

...

Each Article

I nd i v i dually held

Set    in   place

Stumb

                                               ling upon

Lost object  s       ... .             .

forgotten   fabrics that

held you unquestionably.

a nostaliga

art

revealing things

you were probably already looking for .

Dislocate me from existence
Put me with the stars
Far enough away to see the distance
Into darkness without reprieve
Under burned down trees
and their shadows

I do not need your voice to convince me of things
like worth
or the color of my blood
These things I am sure of
My heart writes me letters about these things

Forget about what we said we were
Remember I was alone in your company
Your words filled with hot air
Boiling your words
Evaporating anything permanent

Liberate our nerves from any feeling we might of shared
Untie my limbs
Stretching out the presence
Drenching my skin with freedom
Calming the gooseflesh upon my bones

The well in our chests hides secrets
Ones that your words never pulled
The well filled with tainted water
So I added whiskey
And liberated your grasp

I will forever forgive you
Blending business with pleasure
Drowning yourself in an empty well
Dragging feet into the desert
of our yesterdays choices

a darkening fog
swallowing
the shadow
of a black dog

following - following
close behind

- it is a hollow
feeling -
this war
inside

at evening tide
- a darkening.

r ~ 10/21/14

******* write a love poem
That's all your minds can do
Shed a tear and wonder why
Your poetry will never make me cry
What's the point of poetry
To only follow primitive tenancies
So write a ******* love poem
If that's the deepest you can be
Tell a tale and whine and wail
How your emotions are suffocating
***** and moan and disgustingly drone
About how your drowning in the deepest sea
Or please shut your hole and just go home
Don't want to hear your love poetry

Beautiful girls with golden curls
Mock my creepy face
Porcelain smiles boarded straight like tiles
Swirl in murky ponds of memories