I have thrown so much pain into this river
Watched it sink to the bottom to corrode

Like that overturned car with a tree growing up through the rust
Nobody cared enough to remove her?

All the vital fluids swept away in the current over thirty years ago.
Intoxicating the environment.
But Mother Nature took root
In Attempt to reclaim her own life.

My view is different nowadays.

Gazing downstream
It Bubbles up occasionally
Leaving Ripples,
Raindrops, Reminders

But so much of my past is cast away
Sunken, settled deep in the mud
In this polluted river that holds so much of my heart

Before the chicory unfurls to the sun,
meet me down the gravel road
beneath the Tulip Poplar.

I will Revel in your aura-
Share my radiance with you.
Our beautiful friendship gleaming.

Exchanging love in the purest form,
the way that we relate.
Laughter dancing in our eyes

If the world saw things differently
We could do this everyday.

Until then,
We’ll look forward to next summer
If only for Thursday.

I have half of an art degree

Plus eighteen years of experience in making a house into a home

I can dance interpretively
to the music in my head

And organize chaos into neat little rows

do you think that you are beautiful?
the question filled the room
the question mark,
so stark
digging into my ribs
like a phantom pain
that everybody else calls hypochondria
that i call invalidation

i grab the question mark
with a fierce fist of indignation
i change the words around
an attempt at self love promotion
i throw the question mark away
pull out my bold persona

YOU DO THINK THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!
EXCLAMATION POINT!
CAPITAL LETTERS!
BOLD!

do not question my beauty.
do not question my existence.
do not fill the space that i dare to embrace
with a question mark
when you could be making magic
when you could be dancing in the light of your own healing

yes,
i do think that i am beautiful
you shouldn't
have
to
ask

I was able to retrieve your deleted number
from the darkest corners of my mind
I thought about calling you to say
nothing at all
Instead
I chewed the inside of my cheeks until they were raw

Most days I can keep to the middle of the road

but some days I find myself lying in a ditch on my back

With my head spinning round and round
in a whirlpool of the past
Ugly

Don’t worry about me
Or what I will do
I told you

I will not stumble in front of your mother

Things are steady now

I will meet you there