Mother, mother
Where have you gone?
The sky's have stayed dark
The tide has retreated
The fish have left the sea,
Mother please!
Put my ill mind at ease
Give us a cure for this disease.
Mother?

Black hole
Swallow me whole
Wallow in it
Wallow alone

Devour me slow
Soak up my soul
Tear at my skin with your teeth
There is no ground beneath my feet

Icarus flew too close to the sun
I run, i run, i run

if this is the end I do not wish to see it coming
but I can't unsee it
I can't unsee it
I can't unsee it
when a domino falls
does it even make a sound
does it wish to unhear the wind

its either

silence
and
coexistence

or

violence
and
independence

ive been wallowing in a puddle of my own sadness
hope I drown in it

This aching,
its hollow.
I feel it bouncing between my ribcage,
hear it echoing down the corridor of my mind
what once were steady hands began to shake
flightless bird
death looks cold on you

we exist
simply together
in pockets of happiness I keep in my coat
our love like fireworks
sudden, beautiful, fleeting
but
these colors wont last I know
my fear warp into a quilt that rests on our bed
an eyelash on your cheek
hair down the shower sink
the world doesn't stop just because I hold mine in my hands
im losing seconds of you to myself and im
JEALOUS
holding tight to something that isn't gone yet
holding tighter and never letting go

when do you stop saying "I wonder what he would think of this"

the clouds weep with me

for a long moment
nobody said a word
the Dissonance crept in like ice
under the nails, under the skin
mouths frozen shut
silence again

and it lingered

the scent of a cigarette
chill of the air
the disturbance of something constant

for a long moment
we touched
for a long moment, we just touched
and everything was okay again

everybody knows, everybody knows, everybody knows

time doesn't stop, it only seems to slow

so it goes
so it goes
so it goes

You've forgotten how to look hate in the face and call him a lover.
Maybe that's a good thing

if I ever loved you at all
I will love you forever

One day I'll write your name upon this anthology
but as I lay abandoned in the garden of grief  coughing out smoke signals and vomiting up words I'll burn every **** poem
This is who I am now, a weeping willow
I flooded the ocean trying to save myself
And can still hear the sirens song
Mutilated lullabies
I see you in tricks of light, and in a blink gone

She waitresses on poetry as of he's an old lover.  Serving warm hearts on a silver platter like it was never her job to please.  Don't bite the hand that feeds and never show your teeth. Thin lipped smiles counting secrets and forgotten shifts on broken fingertips.  The cafe of delight never had a women like snow white and giving is what we do best. Fine wine,  dine with us. Taste test the waters and see if you don't drown.  Bobbing for apples as if we grow on trees,  I waitress on poetry but it's about time poetry starts waiting on me

The piano is the poetess of a lovers quiet world. Like sonnets and symphony go together,  he was a note and she played him well.

I'm trying to face this but the clock keeps spinning too fast for me to keep up with, the business end is blurred with ***** and bud and I always have a headache. The world is spinning and I'm spending all my time waiting for you to come home

You're making me insane by knotting your fingers in my hair,  pulling out stands and making a necklace of rope to lead me to safety.  I'm weak and frayed,  afraid and praying, no one ever said an alter girl was on her knees too much,  these bruises are temporary but I hope you'll stay forever. With arms held high above you are mine for the night and I'll make you shout my name from the heavens.  I want to be worthy, need to be worthy of your love, I'll lay down on the aisle and let the feet of a God walk over me  let the hands of a God take everything I have to give, my reason for retribution lies at the bottom of your alter covered in relations of relief. Only luck has guided me to you

Afraid that you are to me as I was to him but oh my God **** comparisons

April showers bring May flowers and seasons will always change 'cause when April fell in love with August she felt a little bit strange' cause she fell and fell and fell outta range 'cause as August turned red she burned and fled

Dear caught in the crossfire  
I always wanted a big brother guess I got more than I bargained for. The two of you were too close to count and I've lost track of how many missed messages there are. I don't save numbers and your not any exception to it. Now you're screaming and crying through the phone but I let it go to voice-mail.  I let it go to voice-mail.  I let it go to voice-mail. Now I'm 18 states and 81 miles away and I know I'll never check it.
Dear your open Arizona arms,
Sorry to decline the invitation but it's just to close to the hurt and too far from home. Nice car though, glad to see that one of us is still moving forward in life. Sorry you think that I'm the last puzzle piece, only living link connecting you back to him but holding a broken frame won't put the picture back together if it's missing pieces. The picture has changed and we both know I don't belong here anymore. Cement block siblings in front of my tongue and I can't say your ******* name either.
Dear heretic,
This punishment has different faces and one of them is yours.

Lovers passionate cry in the heat of the moment
"No I will not drunk drive to Walmart for chocolate" but I kiss you and grab the keys on a way to a night of regret only to find no car in the lot and nobody in the bed. You yell that this is reckless and I whisper that it is relief but I can't speak and your hands are at my neck. Water tossed and star crossed I am a civil wreck. Drowning in a sea of closure and still can't get enough. Emptiness vs solitude in these hearts I call home. The paradox of privacy and the everlasting need to get away. Running from lions,  skipping town,  jogging around questions that I don't know the answer to. I'm tired and tried at the court of course it was my fault.  Injustice in young  and in love. Sentenced with this timeless guilt as I plead for a repeat. Over and over and over again the comparisons,  the loneliness. The nightmares have stopped,  you're taking mercy on me. A white flag as the dark drags me back under.

Maybe I didn't give myself enough time to grieve but my lungs were on my sleeve and I needed recitation. When I needed CPR you gave me Care.  Protection. Respect.  when I needed mouth to mouth you opened up and give me your all.  And ive been in your debt ever since.

From the young cashier bad at math who counted the drawer wrong.  Good heart,  bad luck,  pocket pennies on her sleeve.

I take my hat off and bow my head to every mile marker that is your 81, I know you're trying to follow my journey but kitten I'm going down south, East of misery and a little bit West of the cemetery, your ice cold heart just doesn't belong, the sun is my Shepard but baby you're just a sheep, I'll love you always just not in this mid Florida heat, complete opposites in the light of the path, you chose too early, and now your set in a casket, go haunt route 66 where I might visit in a few years, I'm just a wandering soul, trying to run, you're not making it easy on me, I miss my lost son

im afraid to google your name because of all the newspaper articles about the little lost boy who never made it to graduation

My heart is a bookend.
My heart is a paperweight.
My heart is a pencil sharpener, a cd player, and superglue
My heart is an atlas
My heart is an aviator
My heart is an Appalachian
My heart is a rodeo clown, the town jester, and a fabulous cook.
My heart is a survivor.
My heart is a tornado
My heart is a lone wolf
My heart is many things, and it is always, always yours.

i named all the holes in my walls after you and kissed each of them with my every knuckle

Lend me your voice like a Shepard guiding me home. Tell me how you see yourself, not like in a picture or a mirror,  dig a hole inside your chest like a grave digger and unearth the ***** reality. ***** that consciousness until there isn't anything left holding you back and stare it in the face. Those eyes are yours, those lips that nose this whole ******* body is all you actually have so don't tell me you treat it like a tombstone just taking up space. Remove yourself from from the cemetery of self misery and plant yourself in resurrection.
Tell me about your drug of choice as I pull the needle out of your arm for what I hope is the last time, you absent-mindedly pick at a scab and say that it feels like your first tattoo, an old clock, a wristwatch that says time isnt ticking by fast enough
You said that it started with nicotine because girls could be so mean and you didn't understand why the first girl you ever loved choked you in bed and you said that you started to confuse *** with death, Tell me how it’s so easy to fall back into routine, how its just like breathing and how you cant seem to catch your breath, you tell me running from your problems isn’t a good idea when you have asthma and you know youre killing yourself but cant stop
Tell me your sign, whether its yield or “no right turn” so when youre left standing on the corner of suicide and denial I can come pick you up.

His touch was light as a feather
                                  Made of metal and coal
It burned a mark into my heart
                            And into my cheek as well
Swaddled me in layers of warmth
                                         But left me so cold
It tickled my nerves
                                  And tested my patience
I fell in love with a bird
                               The wind could not catch

what is a paper without lines
these sullen faces show no decline
     or any remorse for their action

     im not a poet if I cannot write
     about these tragic spiritual beings in my sight
          you, beautiful devil, are my inspiration

               this square paper and these four walls
               so whitewashed with ambitions so tall
                    holding my pen like I wanna hug my freedom

the silence is suffocating
nails on the chalkboard, mandating
     every thought in this epitome of a prison

         the clock is tick tick ticking down
         tick tick ticking without a sound
               the boredom gaining excellent momentum

                   I ran out of ink, ill have to use blood
                   im running out of sanity, 6 feet under the mud
                          I guess that would mean that I am done

Appalachia did cry out home to me
my young mistress ne'er  could compare to
the love felt in thy heart and soul for thee
she smells of early morning petal dew

why does this land captures me so troubled
these branches have become a rustic cage
beaten and bruised thoughts left me white knuckled
she entrances and entices no matter age

I hear the whispers calling to my veins
held in open arms, immortalized dream
you are thy only breath, wide open plains
she hints at lust of remembrance, a scheme

           long to rest my feet upon thy soul
           thy roots and mind so constantly toil

to put yourself in my shoes
is hard when they have holes
filled with dirt from the heart
These Appalachian souls

we work
from night till morn
These rough calloused hands
so tired and worn

a love like my pillows
after a long day
though do I complain
‘nay

These hills have ears
that I ain’t wishin to disrespect
so I whisper and pray
and hope to connect

to the rolling meadows
and slopping range
my deep roots
who have no desire to change

when times get tough
ill never miss
the land that loved me
that beautiful whiskey kiss

I am made of wood and nails.
I am made of porcelain and a mirror.
I am made of mattresses and late night thoughts.
I am a flower who's through tears you water and through words you feed.
My petals will rise up to the rafters to give you a life to lean on
I will not boo you, or creep insecurities up through your feet and into your lungs, it is my soul that is the curtain that hides you from the misery, my echo that gives you the final callback, so callback the audience and give it one more try.
Stage fright? It is I who should fear you.

I cannot watch slam poetry at school because my body tells me it is wrong to show emotions that to show emotion is to be weak and I cannot connect the dots of this broken spirit
it is called slam poetry because it makes me watch to break things, to lash out with these tears, to drown the sea of people forcing poets to feel this way, I tell myself that im only crying because im on my period, that this is the red river that heaven cast down upon us for the curse of our femininity.
when I show my poems to my best friend I cannot look her in the eyes because I am transparent and she will see through the mask of indignation and indiscretion that i've put on
when I want to show my poetry to my English teacher I have to send it when I am not around to see the look of disgust on his face and his eyes trail my words like the wind I cannot hear the whispers of not being strong enough, not worthy enough for this career I have chosen
I love the English language, my old ball and chain, but its my insecurity that's weighs me down.
How id love to stand and preach in the choir and sing my poetry for everyone in the gospel to hear, to be praised in coffee houses and tea shops and libraries, to stand up for myself. but I cannot even bare the sound of my own voice, so I sit down and have the polyester seats dig into my skin like knives in the back with myself and its own mistrust.
it is called youtube because it is all about you, you and your favorite button up cardigan, the frayed sleeves from the over worn achievements that I cannot grasp, but the pain is sewn in tight and I cannot pull it above your chest, you can make me scream but I cannot even begin to understand how those lungs continue to be fully functioning when I smoke like a freight train and its frightening how I run this scenario over and over in my head because I can never get high enough to forget the way I arch my back to these metaphors

Tilt the bottle up to my lips darling,'
After the first one I can't help myself

Dead Poet's Society* has gotten too real,
Our favorite form of you is in teal,
Without your dry humor the world has gotten sad,
I wish Mrs. Doubtfire was my real dad,
Without you, todays world has gone whack,
Robin Williams, we need you back!

I have a lot of poems
In a lot of notebooks
In a lot of rooms
**That I no longer go into

glued in limbo like a stained glass window just waiting for your change of heart but the clock isn't ticking and the air is thick up here as I feel you slipping through my fingers once again

A grey can under greyer skies
Who knew an inanimate object could cry
Huckey pucks and baseball bats dented
These miserable hurt feelings cemented
Deep inside something with barely a friend
A broken typewriter at its end
A radio that couldn't mend
Yet their love they still send
Even as the tires screech by weekly
Metal on metal screaming yet so weakly
As the object itself is garbage
Thrown across a forgotten bridge
A tin man broken
Over lost and loved tokens
They called it trash
But now his true heart's ash
Who knew an inanimate object could cry
A grey can under even greyer skies.