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We hide from everyone
Wallow in loneliness and silence
But we are the only ones oblivious
Blind to our own exposure

Beauty cannot hide worry
We wear our lies like a brilliant mask
Incognito and apparent to everyone
The truth will come out in the end

Time will dig a deeper hole
And in the end it will be buried
But so with it my heart
Because time cannot heal love

Star-crossed lovers will meet again
Time cannot defeat fate
I will wait a thousand years
In the end we must remember that its never to late
What a dark place our mind wanders to when we allow it to slip away from the blinding facade we portray.
The constant euphoria of a part of the world I so desperately want to be in-
trapped in the pool of contentment that this town urges.
I'm focused but drifting
      stable but wandering
      smiling but envisioning the smell of my suitcase when I dust it off and open it up once more.
Dreaming of a place far from the seat I sit in in the town I'm all too familiar with.
My body is here, but my heart is on the next outbound flight with no destination.
 Oct 2013 Alexis Peterson
Muted
I've become used to chipped nail polish
Accustomed to tapping my feet and fingers
Never smiling
Biting my lip until I taste that
oh, so familiar,
morsel of blood

I'm used to being nervous
am I good enough?
I'm used to rejection
I'm not good enough

But, he never rejected me

I hide myself under an ugly sweater
an itchy, ugly sweater
And what lies beneath the sweater,
makes me nervous

Everything makes me nervous.

But, he accepted me
and my ugly sweater

I expect to hurt
I'm used to putting a bandage
wherever it stings
Hoping it heals
Only to pick at the scabs
When I'm nervous

But, he never hurt me

I've become used to being abandoned
I accepted the fact that
no one can love me
And I'm too nervous to love others

But,

When I met him,
I stopped chipping at my nail polish
I quit tapping my fingers and feet
I refrained from biting my lip
All of my scabs healed
I wasn't afraid to go outside
I was no longer afraid to take the elevator
He loved who I was
And I was able to love him in return
And
I smiled
Even under my ugly sweater
He was long-winded
and going on about
physics, about gravity
and the processes with
which it associates,
about how you can
blow lightly on a
precariously assembled
house of cards to see
it fall over but if you
remove one of the great
mortared stones from
the base of one of the
great mortared pyramids
the structure stands tall
and sturdy, a forever
remnant of one great
injustice and remarkable
innovation.

In the dusty garage that
day his glasses covered
in gray soot and greased
fingerprints on side of
face and shoes with caked
mud from the recent rain
that quickly turned to
cerulean sky as the clouds
were whisked by so quickly
it looked like they were
being pulled by some great
and holy wind, beckoned
to festoon someone's poorly
timed outdoor wedding and
force crepe paper flowers
to stick to stucco walls like
wheat paste.

You think you need to
talk to a person when
you have a problem,
but those automated
systems were created
in the images of people
who were created in
the images of other
people who were
created in the image
of God or some other
restless celestial being,
perhaps a dying star
or an asteroid hurtling
and on a trajectory to
startle a species primitive
and struggling to survive.

The vast mathematical
implications that determine
the universe are sometimes
a bit too much for dinner
conversation, so our chats
turn quickly to local sports
teams and the evening news.
 Oct 2013 Alexis Peterson
Cali
When the fog dissipates
and the city skyline
winks into your clever retinas,
will you be satisfied
with what you see?

When those things you had forgotten
are worming their way back
into your bones and blood vessels,
will you still glance at the intractable sun,
awestruck and catatonic,
like a moth to the moon?
Will you still find beauty in
sidewalk weeds and broken glass?

When the fog dissipates,
and humanity presents itself,
brazen and unabashed,
in a flurry of chaos and stale dreams,
will you still fall into the mass
of faces and hands and ******* and eyes?

Or will you falter at the glaring sight
of a society that's run amuck?
i inherited an entire library
full of books that offer explanations
as to why you are incapable of loving me.

the romance section was laughable,
giving me bullet point commentaries
as to why i am doomed to never
be loved or feel loved again,
reasons why i settle for beautiful boys who
enjoy my company because i'm quirky, cute, time killer material,
not anchored, solid, strong, soulmate material.
but that's just it, i guess, no one can deny it-
(everyone knows when they are in the presence of precariousness.)

the mystery section offered me nothing but
a full buffet  of questions i already had,
questions that always seemed to give clues to future answers,
delicious questions that tasted sweet at first
then turned suddenly sour,
questions that made me understand the meaning
of a deceptive cadence.
(these books made me wish i didn't leave fingerprints
on everything i touch.)

the fiction section made me feel like a child again,
these were the books that reminded me why hope
is and has always been my favourite bedtime snack.
(these were the books that reminded me that just
because i couldn't make you love me did not mean
that i couldn't make believe you love me.)
since i've stepped out of my fins every step has made me wish
for the courage to throw myself into the sea,
to dissolve in an instant,
to be a daughter of the air forevermore.
(perhaps Hans Christian Anderson was the only person in the world
who knew just how much it hurts to be a human being.)

the self help section gave the illusion of answers,
the way a fortune teller with a foreign accent
doused in flattery and jewelry might seem.
i have spent hours of my existence with these books,
laying on my stomach, furrowed brow, fingers turning white
from clutching the ballpoint pen for dear life thinking
maybe if i just keep
underliningunderliningunderlining
things will start to make sense again.
(because, don't you know? the more you underline
the parts of your life that are relevant on paper,
the closer you are to having figured out your life so perfectly
you eventually will walk by these books wondering
which unfortunate person you should donate them to.)

i inherited an entire library
full of books that offer explanations
as to why you are incapable of loving me.
i think maybe there are some things
that we are never meant
to know.
 Oct 2013 Alexis Peterson
NitaAnn
I am a high-maintenance client.
I am a sad scared little girl.
I am an angry rebellious teenager.
I am a self-reliant woman with above average intelligence.
I am sad and small.
I am overbearing and demanding.
I am questioning and untrusting.
I am sarcastic and amusing.
I am outgoing and reserved.
I am determined and strong but also fearful and weak.
I am honest but withholding.
I am compassionate and giving and yet also hard and cold.
I am stubborn and willful.
I hide behind the facade of a woman I want to be.
I feel nothing and too much at the same time.
I am the life of the party but never really present.
I am beautiful crystal on the outside but shards of broken glass on the inside.
I will endure a hurricane to take away someone else’s pain and turmoil
and yet I cannot seem to do the same for myself.*
  
I am the product of a man who wanted me in controlling and abusive ways.
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