You’ll ask how I am
And I’ll say that I’m fine
Then you’ll give that look
Like I’m being snide

If you knew how my anger
was the last to survive
how affection eludes me
as I’m boiling inside

If you peeked at the shadow
snaring my thoughts
and the vortex of voices
pushing sinister plots

If you felt how my stomach
refuses to eat
or heard my mind screaming
to race into the street

If you held my confusion
in the palm of your hand
you’d crumble to pieces
and ask how I stand

If you learned of the stats
in regard to my mind
you’d see that my ******
will likely be mine

So when you ask how I’m doing
And I say that I’m fine,
know I’m vaulting the bar
simply being alive

I should eat
a cake to celebrate my victories
over inherited Goliaths.
Instead my face is gaunt,
stoneless and lacking heroism,
while my mind starves for nutrients

I should eat.
Because this was my dream,
a house no one can enter
filled with unshared favorites.
I stare into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep

I should eat.
To stop the searing in my chest
the quaking of my hands
the static in my ears
as I stare into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep.

I should eat.
How long have I been here?
Shoulder bruised on linoleum,
cooling as I lie here
staring into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep

You’re going to eat me someday, aren’t you?
You’re hovering when I wash my face
lingering behind the fridge door
crouching when my back is turned,
feeding my clothes to the dryer
You clash my thoughts against each other
until I barely know I’m awake

You’ll sink your teeth into my hip
while I sprint up the stairs.
You’ll snap my arm off
as I fumble with my keys
crush my ankle
as I leap for a drain pipe,
shatter my skull
while I’m clawing a riverbank

Everywhere I go
you’ll be there.
Every time I rest
you will take a bite.

You’re going to eat me someday, aren’t you?
and no one will be surprised

Tell me how we are to defeat
a ravenous constant maelstrom
when our only weapons
are prescribed
by a fighter who sees battle
but 45 minutes at at time

What good is armor
with no memory of war?
What can I do with a sword
sharpened only once a month?
Why do I take orders from you,
the most incompetent leader?

My fists are clenched but will not fly
because of the power you have over me
You could mislead me and I would die
but somehow I’m the liability

You’re in the deepening blackness
that chases the sunset to my window
and the dread creeping beneath my skin.
The Old Fear fizzes in my ears
with hypnotic need to leap from up high

The quiet is steeped in evil
that plays the creaking doorway
and the footsteps to my bed
on loop in this sleepless unease
through a megaphone long broken

The bright icy claw of something
invisible catches up to me,
freezing my eyes and halting my chest.
I’m a prison – a waking corpse
and you don’t even know you’re here

I want to drift lightly above the earth
carrying sunshine on my wings
Horizon eyes, ablaze with good
showering laughter that sings

Seeking purposeful destination
always wilting when encaged
Never a mind more colorful
always brilliant, never strange

Mysteriously I’ll fly untethered
at times entirely against the wind
Your heart would flutter if ever you saw me
and not beat until you glimpsed me again

I’m maddened at how
one night of lost sleep
launches you
into every shelf
of glass achievements
until there’s nothing
of your lifetime work.

But the way
you kaleidoscope
stained glass cathedrals,
bright chapels and shrines
from the crystal heap
will always
weaken my knees and
be magic to me.

The aroma of jasmine
announces my radiant
sorcery of washing hair
after the seven days since.

Touch my newly softened skin
as I let my towel slip.
Behold my breath so minty
Kiss my newly moistened lips

I can make no promises
on when I’ll do this again.
Thank you for holding me still
until we get back to then

I will soak my mind in kerosene
and strike the match with my teeth;
I will burn myself to the ground
a thousand times
before I will become
the worst of my natural beast.

Only when there are no options
will the stinging vines trap me there
in the ditch of dark consciousness.
Only then will the mud at my feet
finally seize the rest of me
and feast on my warrior bones.

At some point
the pills stop being for you.
They become gifts for those
who care so much
that they don’t want you to die.
They are for the therapists
the doctors
the psych nurses
the health techs
the ER staff
and psychiatrists
desperately rooting for you.
Take them.
Take them until they’re for you again.

I'm sorry for nightmares
buried so deep
I screamed in your face
for what you did in my sleep

for the way that I promised
and failed to awake
while my sleepwalking heart
found problems to make

for leaving you lonely
in the world that is real
while I slipped off the edge
into deep dark surreal

for how I'm still sleeping
and have failed to escape
the mirages of monsters
when love is at stake

I wish I could keep you,
confirm you're enough,
but these nightmares within
won't let me wake up

She believed herself a solid boulder
though as soon as he would hold her,
the safety of his gentle touch
was home she couldn't help but clutch.
She'd dissolve to quicksand at his feet
and blow away as he began to sink.

She loathed her spirit made of dust,
trapped in a mind devoid of trust,
but every time she thought of him
she'd gain the strength to build again.
to show this unsuspecting knight
his kiss had sparked her back to life.

Though she fears he may be gone
when Darkness brings her back
his heartbeat sends fragmented light
to pierce the blinding Black.
His fire a beacon every night
she stumbles Sorrow’s path.
Lighthouse sawing the Abyss
his love ignites the map

Some gaped
Clutching spoons
Stained with technicolor sweet

Some choked
Spewing taffy
At the poison pastor's feet

Some wept
Scrubbing powder
From their pixie-dusted hands

Some screamed
Grinding canes
Into minty striped sand

He grinned
Spinning scripture
Into fluffy twisted hope

We died
Dangling sweetly
From the cotton candy ropes