So many lines and laments
scribed in ink and feeling,
for the girl who is the ocean

but she is a swell and surge
too dauntless and wild,
for a lover whose bones crave the shore.

She craves the squalls and gusts,
and cast iron skies,
a worldly drift to sate the salt in her skin,
the deep pull of currents in her blood.

She is chaotic but not reckless,
she is fickle, but not feckless.
Love her boldly or not at all
her bones belong to the sea
but she will always return to the shore.

There once was a young girl, shy
And pretty, but unaware of her grace.
On late summer days she gazed up to the sky,
Trying to slow down worlds enormous pace.

She understood there was more outside,
than poppy fields and hazy clouds,
while most people blindly joined life's crazy ride,
she resolved to walk without the crowd.

On her untapped path she spotted a flower,
blue and lovely as she has never seen it before.
For flowers blooming in unexpected places she swore,
are the most beautiful ones holding the greatest power.

Call a                          doctor/ plumber/ priest
My heart is               broken/ leaking/ deceased
My life is                   worthless/ so much better/ over
I'm going to              **** myself/ tell your wife/ Dover
How could you         leave me/ not know/ lie?
I hope you                return my stuff/ come back/ die
I'll never                   forget you/ forgive you/ go away
I need                        closure/ a DNA test/ to tell you I'm gay
Your                           face/ crotch/ top of your back
Is                                so beautiful/ lumpy/ unusually slack
Your                           ex/ mother/ best friend from school
Always made me      great coffee/ feel inadequate/ drool
I will                           miss you/ **** you/ stalk you forever
That way we can      be friends/ get away with it/ be together
I'm sorry                   you did this/ I did this /we failed
I promise to               pay you/ dye it back/ get you bailed
Please don't               leave me/ show the Polaroids/ write or call

(*delete as appropriate, just delete it all.....)

Dear Daddy,
Do you know what these men say to me?

With their
eyes and their mouths
when I walk on the street.

With a grin and a nod
and a look up and down.
A wink and a kiss
and a cat call heard from downtown.

With my skirt short
and my top
low,
It’s a cold world daddy
and no
doesn’t mean no.

Daddy do you know
how these men look at me?

Like I’m a piece of meat
strutting down the street?
With my head buds in
and my favorite song on.

I’m asking for it Daddy,
I’m in the wrong.

Do you know how it feels
not to wear what I like?

To walk a little faster
when I’m alone at night?

Daddy the world is my predator
and I am it's doe,
Daddy what happens
when I can’t say no?

i want you
in every way there is to want a person

from lazy rainy days
sitting around in underwear
wrapped up in the covers
enveloped in each other

to lustful late nights
high happy and in love
too absorbed with each other
to focus on anything else

i want you
and i see so much in you
that counting all your perfections
would be like counting the stars
there's too many to keep track of
and they just seem endless

i am utterly in love
with every inch of your being
every corner of your mind
and everything in between

i might not know what i believe
or where i'm going
or what i'm doing
but i do hope
you'll hold my hand
and wander blindly with me
because as long as i'm with you
i don't need a destination
you are the journey

i am simply enamored with your entity
captivated by your character
fascinated
infatuated
amorous
in love

she gave me her cell #,
in a crowded bar
inked upon my forearm,
"in case in my drunkness, I dare forget,"
a common come-on technique,
that reeks of all good things to come

but I failed to see,
in the little letters,
"@ your own peril"

a warning, poorly heeded,
inflaming my now unimaginable
needy neededs,
just a **** come on,
or a warring warning of tumult,
vampirish blood *******?

with cautious haste,
her number I did paste
into my contact list,
'in case of loss, call,'
when sudden notifications galore,
came unbidden from everywhere:

Are you really sure?

these digits seems were posted on a
Do Not Call list,
maintained by monks and bro's,
no, no, not a list of
what-rhymes-with-bro's,
but of fallen angels,
who knew the secrets of heaven

the price extracted for their revealing,
could cause you life long
arthritis of the heart,
per the Surgeon General,
for which the only cure,
endure, endure, endure...

the prize?

endless wonderful new poems, freely given,
but with one strictest of restrictions,
if published,
it meant your slow extinction!

that is why the world calls me
Poet of the Way,
forever trying to find a way,
to away these treasured glories

then one day,
he laughed and laughed,
when he first he read the magic key,
your poem, successfully saved on
Hello Poetry!

and now the poet endures,
even possibly, self-saved,
quite happily

I’ve spent a lot of time on this side of my island,
building my mirror mazes, my mirror boxes
and my mirror tunnels, and it’s just me,
walking into myself, looking at myself,
tripping over myself. It’s just me,
consuming myself in myself, just me,
multiplying myself until I cannot bear myself anymore.
It’s just me, at angles, again and again
and all I can hear there is myself.

I’ve spent a lot of time on those beaches,
lying face down in the sand,
filling myself up to feel something, to fill something,
and then I’ve half choked and washed it away with salt water.
I’ve spent hours trailing my fingers over the erosion.
I’ve spent hours searching for the ******* washed up on the beach.
I’ve spent hours lying back on the scratchy sand,
waiting for nothing to happen.

I’ve spent a lot of time breathing in the grey while
watching the murky ocean storm and spit.
I’ve waded into the waves and let the cold numb me
and I’ve made my home there and it’s not easy then
to get back on the shore. I’ve spent too long in the sea
and now I’m cold through and I want to be colder.
I spend my days crawling back to the mirror maze,
to run into myself and myself and myself, and I know,
I know, I know, it’s bad, but I feel safer here, with
the puddles I’ve made, the mirrors I’ve put up
and the cardboard cut out I’ve got used to.

But maybe, maybe sometimes, I ought to go
to the other side of my island. The side with the promenade
and the sea so clear I can see the rocks beneath it.
Maybe, I ought to go for walks in that end of day calm,
when the purple, orange air  stretches across the waves
and the sky and is so easy to breathe in.
Maybe, I ought to spend more time there, walking until
my chest feels so full that I have to stop and sit.
Maybe, I ought to spend more time sitting and listening
to the gentle sounds of that clear, purple sea,
until I feel happiness on my cheeks, in my ears, in my chest.

And I know, I know I’ll go back to the mirror maze,
I’ll climb back inside the mirror box and go back
to watching the grey stormy sea. I know I can’t make my home
in the purple yet, but maybe, maybe I can try visiting a little more often.