I'm a liar.
I've been pretending this whole time, and it's a shame that no one notices.
I am sad again, and terribly lost.
I hate eating. I hate being this, being me.
I want to go back to my support at the program, I want to leave this ugly real world
and go back.
I want daily meetings and supervision. I want to feel special and important
I want to be happy.
and I'm just not.
No one notices;
not my boyfriend who's been out all night partying with his friends.
not my bestfriend who just left to Cabo.
not my mom who hasn't spoken to me in days.
not my ownself who's going ******* insane.
I need someone, anybody, everybody.
I'm alone and I hate it.
I hate every ******* thing.

**is it too much to want to be loved?

As you may know, I continue to collaborate with other poets here, most frequently with Helen.  Below is a poem of hers that I have edited and reworked, her original notes to me are contained in the notes section below.  So if you like it, tell Helen. If you "choke" on it, tell the editor. That's why they pay us the big bucks! So, send me your scraps yearning to be free...

I am choking
on words.

chest clogged,
throat seized,
as I await to deplane,
when I will perforce,
speak these words,
but for now, held in a
prison garb of my own design.

organs can be donated,
the broken heart,
the shattered liver,
the kidney failing,
eyes for the blind,
lungs for the breathless.

the human psyche
is not replaceable.

I need a mind of titanium,
will gladly settle for either the
Tin-man's heart, or
Cowardly Lion's courage,
both, too much too hope for...

but they are not sold at the airport shops.

perhaps my unseen editor
will accompany me,
hand firmly on my writing elbow,
guiding, refining, selecting
les mot parfait...

How come?
How come everything
inside a body can be replaced
so artfully, artificially
except words inside a broken mind?

I cannot get these words out,
who can transplant a soul?

"I'm enough of an artist
to draw freely on my imagination.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world."

"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth,
but delicious in the years of maturity."

"A happy man is too satisfied with the present
to dwell too much on the future."

"Good acts are like good poems.
One may easily get their drift,
but they are not rationally understood."

"The true value of a human being is determined
primarily by how he has attained liberation from the self."

"Why is it that nobody understands me,
yet everybody likes me."

and lastly,

"With fame I become more and more stupid,
which of course is a very common phenomenon."


Albert Einstein