It took me seven years
to realise
the words in my mind
were too deep for
my mouth to dig up
I thought it was easier
to open my skin
and let the truth
pour down my arms

It took me seven years
to realise
nobody should be allowed
to touch parts
of your home
or hold pieces  
of your heart
that you don't yet understand

It took me seven years
to realise
I will wear these scars
forever
I'll carry them
through every smile
every kiss
every concerned gaze
I'll carry them
to my grave

It took me seven years
to realise
the pain carved
into the walls
of my castle
etchings of
attempting to disappear
are not a story of weakness
but a tale of
how I survived

Being a girl *****! :(
I'm one big ball of emotion
Being tossed back and forth
On the waves of this female ocean

Just when I say I'm doing okay
Another tsunami comes along
Washing away the sanity I saved
Swept out to sea, it's gone

Being a girl *****! :(
All the makeup that we wear
Who are we trying to impress anyways
And do those jerks out there really care

All they do is treat me like a piece of meat
With desert on the side
Would you like some tears with that
It doesn't take much these days to make me cry

Being a girl *****! :(
With some of the things we have to wear
This over the shoulder boulder holder
Wasn't built for comfort that's for sure

And is it already that time of month again
I've about had it with these cramps
If I hear another man explain my mood to me
I swear I'm going to reach up and pull his tongue out through his...

Being a girl *****! :(
But one thing that I can say
It sure as heck beats being a man
Where stupidity always gets in the way

oh, how in this dark
oh, how the wave flows,
the sky black and stark-
oh, how the wind blows.

the little dogs bark
their songs full of woes,
oh, how in this dark-
oh, how the wind blows.

the autumn draws nigh -
last splash of the rose,
a withering sky-
oh, how the wind blows!

For you, I will wait
without the pressure
as I pressured
before.
No expectations,
only hopes of hopes
and maybe dreams
of more.

Honey of the autumn moon
where in sweetest nectar
Flows
Golden on the ivy leaves
Through all of Eden's
Garden shows
A bud on stem
Reaching high
Content to wait among
vanilla stars  
And chocolate skys
In dew wet grass
Gazing a lover's eyes
A minted bath of
Sky ice cream
Looks like she
Must taste
Serene

My friend and I talk about it
Neighborhood got decimated this year
One after another the corners of community are gone
We touch the elder memories
as one might touch a head in blessing
as loved ones pass

We linger longest over John

Found dead after ten hot days
by other-worldly hazmat crew
flanked by cruisers
with their special, yellow truck
and zipper bags

...found 'im
glasses folded neatly on the night stand
in his jammies
all tucked into bed

No one thought it strange
that strange young guy would die
already decomposing in his head
Lost
among his personal effects
his fleet of rusting cars
and half-assed projects
Deck tacked to garage
his herds of “pets”

Easy to pretend he wasn't really there
between jail stints or some imagined threat or theft
of crap
haunted by the shadows of his persecutors
caught in motion lights
and cameras' blinding evidence of
jungle-jumble and malfunctioning alarms
going off in the wind
Everyone's out to get his stuff
We could dismiss him--

mostly
sorta

...except for times
he mowed his grass at night
or hand-built “the lunatic tower”
just for mom
from scavenged scraps and
hammered hours
power-sawed
through the housing codes
and horror
of the neighbors...
...Such a special spectacle...

******* crazy-- John!

He was enough for one day at a time
like when

he flung that threatening bolder
on bilco doors
for percussive effect

"Get off my ******' property!”
(not using his “inside voice")
“Next time, that'll be your head!!

He announces his intent
to not get mad, behave himself
to call the cops on me instead
Fake-dialing
While his mother screams in dread
“John is off his meds!”

My phone is set to speed dial
911
__

“How did we miss this?
How did we not miss him those quiet days?”

How we miss him now
How quiet

I am drenched
                  in you
            as you wash
  through my pores
I am quenched
in tsunami
as it pushes down
my door
I am splayed
to all four corners
exposed to your eye
My veins are frayed
from suffered hautings,
'Til you
rock my tender tide
My torso is taut
to meet liquid lips
all these *****,  
silky thoughts
controlling my hips
We share a
          rushing river language
speaking deftly in tongues
You penetrate my soul
as I breathe air into
your lungs
So take me on an
underwater journey
down the crash
of your shore
I want to drown
in this ocean
and come to life
with a roar

being disharmonious
with the whisper of death,
my father sentiently orchestrates
his final moments.

the cancer enfolds, unbending;
inverting throughout him like a small womb
unfolding the fabric of his universe.
his torso ebbs with these insatiable flowers.
he is born again into death knowing love,
dreaming his journey into being. his children
shedding symphonies of his laughter
are woven into silence; as he dies
a fully spread bouquet—beautiful
in the face of surreptitious sabotage.
it must be cumbersome for him. to grow
backwardly. still, though—outwardly,
he hefts it peacefully. dying a mountain—
symphonic—and in bloom.