Ghosts and demons
Haunt both kinds of dreams
For no reason
Other than to hear your screams

Pound cake and strawberries on snow white
porches
Guitars , coffee and cigarettes
Southern etiquette   
Multi-colored leaves
A cool Fall breeze
Welcome relief* ...

The past, one thing we can never change.
The future, we look back on the past, looking at things that have happened hoping things get better.
We cannot change the past, we want to though.
We wish this never happened.
We wish our loved one hadn’t died.
People say it’s the past move on, it’s not that easy.
Walk around with my pain and anxiety from losing my birth family.
Then tell me, it’s in the past.
Have your mom scream at you and call you awful names, try to forgive her, remember what you said it’s in the past move on.
I try to move on, I try to forgive and love.
I try to not think of the past, it haunts me though.

I wake up on a yoga mat
In what is now just My
empty room.

All the clutter That made this house
lived in.
Tucked
in the three old
Sock and underwear drawers
That used to be:
Hers.

The family photographs
half the nerdy posters
books,
Magic the Gathering cards,
Burgled by some addict named time.

I look out at what I now call
"The guest bedroom".
The only evidence of her
An empty dresser
covered in Princess stickers.

At work
Customers ask:
How are you doing?
"I'm awesome! how are you?"
How are you doing?
"I'm wonderful! what brings you to freeport?"
How are you doing?
"I'm fantastic, peak or dark roast?"

How's your daughter?
"Step-daughter."
That's all I'm allowed to tell you
My boss said I'm scaring off customers By
over-sharing
So he wrote me a script.

I would love to tell you
I don't know how she's doing
And it's killing me.

Her mother left me,
We were both fifteen at the time so
My mother, Rightfully cautious
of her overly passionate puppylove eyed son
Didn't let me adopt

So I don't get to see her anymore.

Her mother was a fire who never drank enough rain
And that little girl
Will burn without my clouds.

I am playground math lessons
In space of mindless television
I am baking a cake together Instead of
"You won't eat till you listen".
I am the voice behind every barbie doll
And dinosuar that ever fell in love.

when you ask me how she's doing
All I can think about is how
I earned that
first "I love
you,
dada."

How I made her laugh
more times than her Mother made her
Cry.
How I tucked her in at night
and she made me read her
"Oh The Places You'll Go",
Over
and Over
and Over.
Screaming
when I said she'd go
On through the hakken kraks howl,
and Giggling
when I said she'd move
Mountains.
I raised her for three years.

But because I walked in on my daughter
Locked in "The guest bedroom"
banging on the Oak door
Screaming "DA DAAAA!"
While her mother forgets about us
On the other side of a keyhole.

I have to waste at this register
Handing you a precious cup of coffee
every precious cup of coffee
another abuse I can't protect her from.

"How is your daughter?"
"Step Daugher"
"How are you doing?"
"I'm awesome."
"How is your daugher?"
"Step daughter."
"how are you doing? Step daughter"
"Tell me how you're doing, Step Daughter."
"Please, Tell me you're safe."
"Tell me you're safe."
"Tell me you're safe."

Beaten, ******, and scared.
I’m tired, you think you can beat me.
You think it’s ok to smash my head into the wall until I’m ******.
I’m scared of you; I’m scared when I wake up.
I’m scared something I will say or do won’t be good enough for you.

I Wish
I Wish I may
I wish I might
I wish upon every candle stick tonight.
I wish I was happy,
I wish I was bright,
I wish I was normal,
I wish I could put up this fight.
I wish I was able to have my mother hold me tight.
I wish I may
I wish I might
I wish to much in this fight.