what if in the night i let my girl-heart out
its muffled murmurs, its soft
unfolding sounds;
let it go completely

would i almost learn how to settle in life
learn to unbloom the bruises
on skin too tight
to remove completely

would i lose colour and find it among flowers
would i lose colour at all

When the earth quakes
Even the sea is not safe
Death lurks around every turn and caves

When the aged curses
Beware, even a tree on a bank withers
Even the most eloquent stutters

When a child cries
The heavens is summoned
And all the earth is cautioned

When humanity falters
And yet lack the humanity to admit same
Beware for we are just at the bend before our shame.

Make the mistakes then
Just don't make excuses for them
Just scurry and scout for the lesson therein.

Today it will rain once again,
In the windows of cloudy eyes,
Where I and you unclearly exist,
On the lotted shores of memory.

Stoic birds wading upon waves,
That grieve and go, riding, broke,
An endless sweeping of sorrows,
Carried by moans on the wind.

In the windows of our new eyes
There was, then, true gleaming
And we were *****, by seasides,
Among sparkles of stars and sun.

The island so far away was here,
Perfect, bright, cast of nowadays,
Land only love in whisper knows
O, by the graceful seasides only.

Now, dry, shelled and castaway,
The wind is shrilling its long keen
And the cradle bones of our love
Lie still, asleep in sinking sands.

He was Daniel Kingery to the police.

Daniel Overstreet to his friends.

He was Dollar Dan on the streets.

He was Daniel,
he was wet rough kisses and anger and lust to me.

He found me one day,
18 years to his 37,
he found me when i was still a question mark trying to bleed red.
From behind a lens pointed at my naked flesh
he became a man of mystery,
he became the object of my desires.

I was a young, naive girl who got caught up in
how his pockets were always full- he flaunted it.
The flowers and the exotic dinners and the alcohol and the touch...
oh god, the way we fell into bed,
onto chairs,
into walls.

Then i fell in love on a broken sidewalk.

I was blind to the empty shadows in his eyes,
to the lines he had recited,
to the webs on his face.

I made a god out of a sociopath and i called him "love".

I was his ******, his baby blue.

I became wild under his touch,
manic when he gave me his attention,
suicidal at his leaving.

I was a flower that once was his favorite,
but he left me on the windowsill at a slow, burning wilt
and forgot to water me most days.

Why water a flower when you could have a garden?

Have you ever hated what you loved
until even their existence ate at you?

I have.

i was a daughter once, i know,
not so long ago, when i
had a mother
with all the answers
and skin that never bruised.

we were close; her
branches around mine,
we’d unravel stories,
in winter’s light, and lay,
in those old mornings
where i felt safe
but branches break.

i was a sister too, a child,
with siblings sleeping, side
by side, in a rose-wine
sea, me – so small, we –
looked-after,
daughters lost and losing
something, someone, sooner
than we thought.

these days, that girl
is gone: sometimes i find
the ghost of her in
photo albums, teddy
bears, bob dylan songs.

i’ve yet to ask my sisters
if they’ve seen her.

She's an alphabet artist
she paints in words,

from a palette of adjectives,
nouns and verbs,

the landscape she finds
in the folds of her mind

she exhibits in volumes of verse.