Blind Paper

I beg ink for something to say.
The blind eye of white paper
frightens me.

Walking Dead

The sun on my arms feels lonely.
As much as I hunger for light
my spirit has grown too comfortable with shadows.
I’m the walking dead, a candle without a match.

It is the open arms that we long for;
the bright lighting up of the eyes when we enter the room.
An old man can deny it, but the 5-year-old within still knows.
We want to be welcomed like a sunflower field,
or the sweet voice of a grandmother at the door.
The need to truly belong is a force in itself.
You see everything in life has an impact;
the power of love and the compulsion of hurt.
The open doors and the slammed ones,
the last words spoken and the welcoming's,
our heart never forgets them.
You were too weary for open arms,
and too hurt to truly shine.
Truths an old man can discern,
but a child
can only feel lost in the darkness of it all.
For it is the open arms that we long for;
the bright lighting up of the eyes when we enter the room.
An old man can deny it, but the 5-year-old within me still knows.

Dead Grass

It is agony to feel irrelevant.
I wonder if the earth swallowed me
anyone would worry I was gone
or be more concerned about
why the grass won’t grow any more.

champagne broken dreams
clot yesterday’s bleak journal
i’m done with bleeding

I used to twirl
in everyone else’s dance
until I bled every drop
of my do into their won’t.

Pale as a sacrifice I rose
where I fell and drank
from the well of self.

Belittle, berate, I no
longer hesitate to
prioritize I before you.

His words
s
  p
l
   a
s
     h
  e
d
against
my skin.

I thought falling
in love had taught
me how to swim.

I didn’t know how
quickly his words
could change into
a riptide.