If I had someone who sat and just listened,
If there was someone without a judging heart
Of piercing ice and metal,
Maybe I’d be more outspoken.

If I had someone who said, “It’s going to be alright.”
Someone who let me cry my mistakes in silence,
And told me to look up instead of down,
Maybe I’d be more confident.

If someone embraced my scars, my tears, my hopes
Instead of telling me to hide,
To cover myself with a mask.
If I had somebody tell me to stand by my dreams,
Maybe I’d be proud of my imagination.

If I had someone who saw through my bruises and failures
And still stood beside me,
Despite the dark and cold,
Maybe I’d love myself more.

Maybe I’m crazy,
Maybe I’m insane.
But I am who I am today,
Because the someone I needed,

Was the someone I never had.

Here's to the times
Of melancholy emptiness
And tears of weathered
Gray
That threatened
To drown me
In an ocean of
Blood and dismay.

Here's to the wolves who
Tore me apart
Who snarled in my face
And howled in my heart.

Here's to the monsters
Who slept not under my bed,
Nor under my window,
But next to my head.
The monsters they whispered tales
Of failure and storms
That threatened to imprison me,
in the caverns of my soul.

Here's to the shadows
Who followed me in the dark
Unseen and unspoken,
And stirred a lonely spark.
They promised to haunt me to
My grave and beyond
So that they may torture me
With blackened iron bonds.

Here's to the whispers
That hovered near my ears.
That flittered and fluttered,
Reminding me of my worst fears.

Here's to my memories
That rise up to my mind,
Like bubbles in an ocean
That trail me and remind.

Here's to my past,
Of longing and shame
But never again,
Will I play despair's game.

someone once told me
that ink is time
and words are simply the shadows of our minds.

I dangle my feet off the cliff i stand on,
and take a leap into
the unknown of things
that aren’t what they say to be.
as i fall, fate follows me
and the fear of dying
falls with me to
the sky……

and then i’m flying,
flying with wings
marred with melted tar and ragged strings

the sun that hates to see me fly so high
sees me break the horizon
as i climb up and up and
up
with my ink-stained wings
of wax and tar and melted dreams.

the words flow and then they fall
like ink from the frosted bottle
and people see me and they say
stop it
stop flying
stop writing.    

but how?
how do you stop time?
how do you stop the ink running down your fingers,
reaching out to form veins up your arms
and a heart over your chest,
trailing around you like a vine--
only it doesn’t choke you;
It envelops you with curling tendrils
of curliques and bends

you grow wings stained in bluberry ink and
violet gray mist
and then you fly away from this world,
from the cliff that anchors you to earth.
you fly onwards into the sky,
through the light that leaves the taste of blueberries and
almonds in your mouth.

the ink that connects you to those who’ve lived before you,
and before your ancestors and your grandparents,
who have written the words of the world before.
now it’s your turn, and
you pick up that pen,
and when you do so,
the glory of flying and the
feeling of invincibility
live in you as it did in the
soul of Icarus,
but this time,
you won’t fall from the sun
you’ll reach out and grasp with your ink stained hands
the wonder and the hope of the universe,
and the world will reside in the cup of your hand
the taste of feather and blueberries will linger
as you swoop and curve,
flying your pen across the sky
with wings as dark as the night sky.

inspired by Enid Dame and her poem Lilith

i walk the streets that you used to walk when you were young.
they’re still filled with the ear-splitting traffic of streetcars and taxis,
and the heavy footstep of man
as he trudges along in the gray sludge of old February ice.

i spy on him sometimes, mama.
i watch him slouch against the ice fire breath of the winds
huffing down his neck.
i peek around the lamp-post and watch him shuffle against the dreary gale
that blows him backwards for every step he takes,
just like how he was blown from Eden.
i saw him mama.
the man who threw you out.
the man who abandoned you.
i watch him walk every day,
he seems lost.

it’s cold here mama.
this place is nothing like the paradise you described to me.
you told me that you lived in heaven
and that you were loved,
just as much as you said you loved me.

oh mama, why did we come here?
it rains all the time.
i cried so much in the
apartment you managed to find
on the corner between that deli shop
and the pharmacy owned by a
man who never stopped smoking.
you held me close and said,
“shh baby, it’s alright.
we’ll get through this together.”

the day you died,
i cried like I did when I was in that apartment,
only this time,
there was no one to hold me close
and whisper in my ear.
mama, Lilith,
you’re gone.
history has never remembered you.
you’ve been erased
by the broad sweep of mankind’s hate.
they don’t want to remember you.
but I do,

i do.

i whisper your name to the trees on fifth street
and look at the stars on faded concrete steps at night,
trying to find you among the
constellations
of the history you should have been
a part of.

We had fun,
Summer spent running
Through meadows of the brightest flowers.

Making tents in the wild jungle,
Daring the lion who slept.

Lava spews at us,
Taunting our mock bravery,
As we jump from couch to couch.

We were twins,
Inseparable.

We watched each other grow.,
Preschool,
Kindergarten.

We laughed,
We talked,
We cried.

The fun we had,
In those years long gone,
Was the only life I ever knew.

He grew up,
Years flying by as
Fast as we flew in our rocket.

He grew up,
Going to school,
Learning,
Learning to forget me.

He grew up,
Made new friends,
Laughed with them,
Found a new family.


He grew up,
Became quieter,
Thoughtful,
No time for fun.

He grew up,
And I watched with fading arms.
Tears dissolving onto a nonexistent cheek.
A heart that could no longer feel.

He grew up,
I didn’t.

Silver girls
Never gold, never grow old
A sliver of the moon,
We all claim to share.

Burning silver
Like the arrows of a god whose name I can't
Pronounce or care to remember
Silver girls
Fated to fade into the mist
Destined to become the foam
That kisses ocean shores.

Branded to be the shadow that lives in men's hearts
The shadows that start wars but never end them
Silver girls

Tragic constellations,
Stories of warning to others,
Tragedies that ***** themselves out like
Weary candles.

We are the shadows of history,
Trailing after the gold
Hoping for a moment in the stories of men,
A golden moment,
Only to find that we were the witches in their stories
All along