I keep one hand pressed against the ledges of my collorbones
Their solidity, my savior
The other hand
always clamped over my mouth, for I know that
When I smile
The secrets I ate as lunch will try to crawl out between my teeth

My tongue holds the truth prisoner
But I have underestimated the truth's ability to get out
Through my pencil, it sets itself free

Even my drawings do not eat enough

I erase her before anyone can see
I erase the girl sketched between those blurred graphite streaks
But I cannot erase the fact that my own bones are a comfort to me
And that, someday down this path,
I will be her
Beautiful only in the way that all dying things are
And I, like her, will be eraseable

I can only hope for my pencil to draw me a new path
A way out my prison and, like the truth,
I pray for my pencil to set me free.

I wish I knew how it felt
To feel so strongly for someone
To see something so special
Invisible to the world
To be so immersed
To be so blinded
That you see nothing else
But one
Though the fear within me
Keeps me from hoping
From wanting it so fully
Wishing I could just reach out
And find my hand
Entwined with another
Tangled by fate
Or perhaps by something more special
That when the fear of falling
Seems nothing
And that when you land
You land without hurting

X**

A clear night wraps us in a
trance
and my eyelids flicker slowly with sleep.
To pass the time we count stars
as if they weren’t an endless void.

One, two, three…

Our chests heave in unison
with fatally sharp air
And I think of how pleased
Helen will be
When I am in her arms once more

Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…

Joseph boasts of when we reach America’s
shores
He’ll kiss every girl in the street-
Maybe he will settle down someday.
I give him ten years.

Seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three…

I am the first to notice
a dark, looming shape—
Dead ahead, Joe! DEAD AHEAD!
He squints into the thrashing waters
And we both cry out in strength
just zapped into our spines alike.

We send the signal, but a
squeezing knot
inside of me
Knows that we are too late.
What if instead of stars
we were counting souls instead?


One, two, three, four…

There is a little kid crying in the corner begging to die.
I know his face and the reasons why he tries to commit suicide.
Little boy struggling to breathe through the sobs and tears
Wants to forget the proceeding years wants to ignore the fear
Wants to deny the lies he hears from his angry mom who is
Screaming violence in his face ripping security from this place.
I want to tell him that this will pass cause I know it will;
Say that there is something better coming, but that’s not how I feel.
I want to cradle him in the comfort of a calm future,
Rock him in a chair of certainty till he slumbers knowing for sure
The world will not continue to hurt him, that people will love him,
But I know that those tragic trends will happen again and again.
Lovers will leave, deceive, while family and friends fade too fast.
Poetry will help, but he will still wear the scars of the past
Knowing that strangers are safer than those human traitors,
Who promise hope, who hide behind friendly gestures.
I want to help that little boy, but he is me and I cannot break free
Of the shadow he casts.

The dead canaries
are still screeching
as the wolves claw at the door.

They told me that dead
birds mean new
beginnings but all I see
are shattered
hopes.

I looked the corpse
in the eye and
I swore that
I could see the shape
of tomorrow in smoke
and razor teeth
reflected in glassy beads.

I paid the hag
in gold coin,
and then the witch
took the rotted
thing away,
still shouting.

The dead canaries
are forever screaming
as the wolves break down the door.

i am only graceful
when it is required of me

and i think thats the problem.

I am the eclectic witch
There are no gods to tell me how to live
But the wind howls my fate
Where the rain falls I will dance
Because I prefer sandalwood to perfume
I am the eclectic witch I have no coven
Only the flora and fauna
And the tip of a blade
Where grass grows I will prance
Because I prefer metaphysics to religion