Why do we get married if all we do  is lie and cheat
Love can't  grow in the dark
Light shines above not smoke and fade dreams
So many words but  truth is all that can be seen
Once love and endless walks
Now it is just cold and hated words
Know  i see that the cheapest ones are always ones you pay the most for

Between two ruins I built a house,
between two treason I planted a belief,
between two chasms  I set a table with napkins
                                                            and salt shakers,
between mountains of corpses I saw a saffron
                                                             and I smiled at it.
That is how I lived.  Can you understand now?
                                          That is how I lived.

Maria Banus
*translated by Dan Dutescu

When I'm set aflame
I'll burn through the night
     and I’m afraid
the fire burns
     so hot and **so bright

she wears her hospital bracelets like jewelry
to cover the scars that adorn her like
red-inked tattoos.
she pops pills like soda tabs
ignoring the dangers of overdosing
on caffeine highs and the sickly
sweetness of sugar.
she cannot recall the last time she didn't
wash her
antidepressants
anxiety meds
sleeping pills
mood stabilizers
down with alcohol in the hopes
someone would notice the heavy imbalance
wasn't just in her head.
she hasn't believed in god since
she crept downstairs on her ninth birthday
to stare at her reflection in the kitchen knives
and didn't see Him staring back at her.
there was nobody telling her to go
back to bed.
she hasn't gotten on her knees for
anything holy since she started
inflicting pain upon herself;
leaving traces of sadness on
her ribcage
her wrists
her thighs
her stomach
her hips.
she has been living in a grave
and her thoughts never stop playing hide and seek
she only ever searches
at the bottom of a lake
or if they're mixed in with the stones in her pockets
or hiding under the train tracks near her house.

The rise and fall of the ocean
Is pushing the air towards my door,
It is scattering it's salty-breath over our skies.
I drink in it while stumbling over parking lots,
Smacking my lips over the enigmatic taste.
I reach for it behind secret alleyways
Never quite tall enough to ****** it anyways.

The rocks are swimming beneath my toes
And I ask myself if I am a body of water -
Is my flesh a rippling mass of liquid, too?
The pale moon will love me, if I am.
With its ivory gaze,
Dancing and turning in its silent ways,
And its tug-o-war under gravity's haze.

I can dance like the ocean,
I can breathe currents, I can exhale rain.
I can swallow the stars when the sun rises,
And I can free them like butterflies,
Diamonds in my eyes,
When night comes again to reclaim the sky.