I present myself "promiscuously" when i feel like my body isn't my body

When the predatory shadows swallow up my mind and convince me that my body belongs to anyone but myself

So i post that "revealing" photo, i send that ****, I go out wearing as little as i can possibly get away with

I do this as an attempt to take back my body
to look years of trauma dead in the eyes and say "*******"

i own this body; this body is my own.

There's something in you
that I thought was made just for me.

As if somehow
when the gods made me and you,
they carved a piece of my heart
and gave it to you.
Or took a piece of your soul
and gave it to me.
When I met you,
I felt I was done searching because
there you were
mine.
My love.

But nothing in you
is made just for me.
It's for you, and only you.
You have no obligation to me
or any other person.
You are a whirlwind.
You are a forest fire.
You are a star refusing to flicker out.
You are a love of a lifetime
destined to touch far more hearts than mine.

a color was a thought of painting
and poetry and literature
sadly
my son took a crayon
held it in the air  it was flesh
said right on the paper wrapper
and asked
dad, this says flesh
and I see all kinds  of color
in people,
why?
Why what?
I asked trying to narrow his
question down,
He said , it is  pink,
it don't look like my skin
or yours
and I wondered
if  I drew a man
do I have to use this to
color him with?
I answered , I don't know if
correctly,
no son,
use all the crayons
grab as many as you can
make a rainbow
man,
that would be better

Autumn's amber hued
Sunday afternoons
are laced with regret
for days gone to soon.

Yellowed pages
folded and faded,
are the leaves underfoot,
sweet and decaying.

Now the fall moon
will be waning blue,
and so goes this life,
a memory too.

I didn't jubilate the anniversary
this year. The song is still one
of my favorites, but I've forgotten
your voice singing softly,

only for me to hear in a room
of twenty other kids. It was the happiest
I had ever been; that moment you noticed me

as more than the girl who sat
next to you, and pined for you for two years then,
and nine years after. But I realized
it is not exactly an anniversary

       if you don't share it with me.

1
you were what Adam called poetry those first days in the garden; there were no words to encompass You so he used all of them

2
I have heard voices at the bottoms of bottles, always emptier

3
I am angry at my hands for being too weak to turn house keys, maybe you would've let me in if I was strong enough

4
it's all my fault, I know it. the day my father loaded his fear into the back of a pickup truck and drove away was the day I learned that leaving is just coming back, falling out of bed when I thought I felt your warmth beside me

5
show me a word that doesn't look like loss when you hold it to the light too long; there isn't one

6
maybe if I didn't cry so often I would feel fuller; if I was fuller I would have more to pour out to you

7
love me with a depth and severity that would make hurricanes green with envy

8
we want so much and we desire so deeply, it is no fault of our own that we always feel so disconnected; empty of a thing of which we have never felt full

9
playing foul piano chords to an audience of my nauseating loneliness, roars of applause come from your side of the bed

10
it's okay that he only calls when the morning after has proven to come too early & too bright, you've always been the warm & familiar darkness

a writer will write in any situation;
terror, and stoic sadness-
it's about manifestation.
verbal *******, mental incarceration.
the blank white page: a cage
and my pen is the key,
ink on paper to set emotion free.

"can i read it, please?"
you like eye ******* my poetry?
with my words i can make you feel anything.
with my words, i can illustrate an intricate painting
because a writer will write to make you see;
a writer would rather write
than speak to anybody.

(speaking gives writers anxiety)