Wisdom arbitrarily determined
By tallied walls
Gains nothing but past mistakes
And generations’ stupidity

We hauled ourselves to wealth and safety
But we forgot them.
   -whoever they were

I bought it
hanging purple
size double zero
in my closet
I won't let it go

I wonder
when I'll be able to put it on
when my body won't roll
when I'll be accepted
for who I am
And not the 129.6 pounds I held this morning

I run at five a.m. sometimes  
the face of diet culture
before the sun
c o m e s    up
with only moonlight to path my way
only venturing out
when my weight
drops, drops
d
   o
      w
          n
with my depression

.2 or more is the minimum
the equivalent of an extra cookie
a glass of water, a second helping
and my worth

I'm scared someone will see
my flaws

16 counted, growing
you taught them to me
shouted via ads
and social cues
and who you'll let on tv

my face, 4 pimples today
with rounded cheeks
I don't want to be the fat one
the ugly one
the girlfriend's best friend
the duff
the dud

But me is all that's left
1 fat duffy dud of a best friend

And as it is now
what value do I have

Writing is like a road map
carving directions
through times of trouble and hardship
in little yellow lines
it tells us the way
and keeps us on our journey

If they knew how you made me feel
They'd never let me see you again

Me vs Baby.
Who wins the fight
for right and life?

Me living breath of possession
who has held the vote for less than 100
faced jobless incubation since 78'
who never held her own plastic card til 74'

Today I live back in 73'
where my body and life
aren't worth the breath
my festering fetus does not take

Back forty plus years they've dragged me
by terms and contracts of my ******
I did not sign

I saw who voted
and spat at screen

My life is mine
my body mine
I am not your baby making machine

I want to scream
for right
for me
for all they retract
and redact
in their ******* need for control  

We 50.8% of the population
We are here
And you do not own us

Art is built on saddened souls
feeling wronged by the world
-why every teen should love poems

rainbows of glass
can be shattered
-part of growing up

birds ran today
never flying
never dying

I left my soul in his hand
back in California home
    and I've been calling for it back
but it just won't seem to come

In split second view I'm gone
I spew blackened mess of truth
And they had me towel
The limit of love's interaction
By it is their floor I stain
And perhaps they're right
Perhaps my hiding the other half
Was me hiding a whole
Because I don't think I've seen the person that died for a long time
And In their eyes and mine I'm
    g
        o
             n
                  e
-Dissipated

Has Anyone Every Noticed That god Fills In The Blanks?
-If We Only Use him For The Holes Does he Exist?

In ideal I go by day
I need not label or self-definition
           I live as me
-And some days that's enough

Hello
How Are You?
Good, me too.
-So we say

Why do we lie I wonder
It sounds better sure
those sugarcoated fibs
But their aftertaste makes me wonder
tastes like oil and grout
     -maybe we do it Cause people Can't handle vulnerability
Makes em ugly and and turns em sour
and leaves us out in the rain
bone chilled and curiosity gone

The stampede hit today
tearing up the green
it'll be sad not to see them grow anymore
     -Goodbye You Wildflowers

I hide half my soul under raps
lock it in my journals
and undisclosed writing sites
Perhaps it is because
in acknowledging  my other half
what already is in view must die
     -Why I'll Never Tell My Parents

I shut my bedroom door
now engulfed by the bindings of paper and pen
and I roll my chair to grey desk
stacked high with Dickinson, Bronte's three, and Alvarez
I pull out my writing tools and begin to contemplate
ideas that dare not be discussed in the public of society
Why is it that God must be a man and
What make the human taught ideal of modesty such a binding force
flow through my brain and I breath again
without measure or discernment I am free
in my freedom i think
back to the conversation my mother and I held this morning
A girl had stood in our line of view her hemline resting mid-thigh
My mother had turned to me
"Ellis look at that girl! I can see her ******!" face aghast
I nodded
"It is disgusting that girls these days dress so provocatively!
Thank God I have a modest girl!"
I nodded again
and I thanked God.
     -Modesty Is A Human Construct

Where to begin?
How to tell a well structured story of a,b,c order
when life reigns in chaos?
I wait for moment to strike
for glorious inspiration to dawn in lightened euphoria,
but I fear it will not come.
How sure am I to be of this moment?
When I can feel the clock drain.
It ticks and ticks       i  n  s  i  s  t  e  n  t  l  y,
counting over the hours and draining of sand.
And while I sit here
watching the arrow round the clock,
what of the billboard plastered behind?
In my fixation for alarm's ring
the flash of neon glow is dull to my senses.
I read not the words.
My moment of finding never goes, never comes.
I       w  a  i  t
and time passed by.
And what now?
Should it all be over?
I have watched the tick of clock,
waited for my time to run bare
with little I can show.
What have I amounted to in my search for meaning?
What have I left plastered, unread to that now pealing board?

Gnarled beast looks back at me.
Its soulless eyes beading down,
my palms slick with anxious, heart-wrenched sweat.
I reach my finger up to meet the squishy, blackened holes.
They sit where eyes should be,
Soully ******* holes in the middle
Flaked, skin flinches at contact,
the action reverberating through my callous finger tips.
I push harder, blood rushes over tawny wrenched flesh,
cracking beneath my nail beds
and thickly seeping to my fingerprints.
Slowly I retract my hand,
moving it to my own snow pale skin.
The blood stains and my wrinkled soul emerges.
      -This Is My Truth

The arrow pierces my heart in abhorrent glow.
It stings against my flesh and cuts me raw.
The arrow of love is one that does me no justice;
It flies hand in hand with that of heartbreak
from which pain pours from me like a sapped tree.
I am but an immobile lump of little intellect
and I have all to blame in that arrow t
hat pierced me with such malicious intent
and softened my heart, now beating much in my chest.
The arrow in its self appears of fluff and excellence;
it is the prize above all men,
but at second snap of bow the hand strikes,
coarse against my being.
That second arrow beats me black and blue
till I can carry on no more
and then it presents the audacity to say "but I love you."
And with that I break
I go flying mad by all accounts.
My heart now drips down my open chest
and tears down my face,
but with eyes of love beading down my soul
the words echo out my own lips.
I say it back, that "I love you"
and I move to gentle, callous embrace
of those love and heartbreak
who stitch me up with arrow and thread
and wrap me secure.
     - I've Never Been One For Love

Boys will be Boys
Boys will chase those twirl skirts
Better Pull Yours Down
Before they rip you to the concrete mattress
Boys have no self control
Being but mindless humans of ill decency
Boys will spew with slugged catcalls and woos
But your skirt wasn't modest was it?
Boys have no self control
Better you know that now
Rather than when they excuse themselves from all their actions
      -I'm Sorry We Can't Control (Own-up to) It

My Birthday Came Again this Year
Shocking I know
but this time there weren't
any parties or happy wishes
A year had gone and
Nothing to show
this year I spent in tears
And I pray to god it was for
          t  h  i  n  g  s       g  o  n  e
and not for things
          t  o      c  o  m  e
     -Happy Birthdays Come Rare

My Voice Is My Own
     -A letter to my dad
My Life Is Going To Be My Own
     -A reassurance to myself

As you grow
they'll try to prop you up
with rigid twig
and twist you round their garden rules
not realizing you have already sprung
and bloomed round your own forested path
     -I will not be a vine

Charlotte I'm so glad
that your          voice
                and freedom
were found
but now I feel
it is time to find
my
                                         own.
     -the tried and true of growing up