Art bursts out my veins onto the canvas.

Everyone is talking of the storm that is taking our tiny little town
by exactly that
but no one cares to acknowledge the tsunami ambushed within me: dormant and inert
lurking among the seemingly gentle and calming flow
of my bloodstream
that unknowingly kicks up a violent tide of waves amid me
making my DNA an angry arrangement of both too much
and yet not enough

everyone speaks of the flooding rain and the way in which
it is crashing down on their worlds
and smashing aggressively against their windows
preventing them from any means of peace
and ruining the gardens that they so carefully constructed
but no one dares to speak of the downpour imbedded
in the depth and sole of MY roots
and whats planted within the deepest crevices of MY potted bones

and aren't they informed that if they really desire a lack of sleep, restlesss nights and tired, dark eyes
that they can seek that same effect within me?

everyone is speaking in choral unison of fear about the lightening
that is striking and leaving permanent scarification
to forever mark it's territory;
unceasingly imprinting the torment it has made
but aren't they aware that I have battle wounds and stitches
burrowed away in the pit of my entity
and a hospital bill addressed to your name
and I didn't need assistance from the weather for those
but it's fun to watch the flashes light up the sky like God is up there
laughing and taking photographical evidence of the chaos
that  he's concocted

and everyone speaks of the thunder like they're so ******* god-****
proud that it forcefully voices and shoves it's far too ******* loud opinions down everybody's ******* throats
yet they remain oblivious to the passion that sleeps inside of me,
louder than I can attain a scream
yet it remains silent, abeyant

inside of me roars a sentiment far beyond the knowledge of anything
that will ever even scratch the surface
of the petty grasp of their awareness

I cried simply because I could. You made it that way. You made it easy for me to do things that are selfish or dramatic, you allowed me to be human and most of all, to be honest with myself. You made it easy for me to not feel ashamed. When I cried over the phone it was because even on my worst nights when I would stab you in the chest, you would pull the blade out and apologize for getting blood on me. When I was violent, you were gentle. I do not mean to victimize you or demonize myself, but that is as raw as the truth will get. I cried because the bed space next to me was empty, and I cried because the grace of an angel does that kind of thing to you. I felt like a drug to you and you would always let me know that you were addicted, delirious, demented and proud. And in favor, I too would let you **** me as long as it meant that you ran through me every second of every day.
You told me that when you DO think of her, you see the image of the 17, 18 year old you sitting on your bed, across the room where it used to be, crying on empty nights, an empty mattress, an empty chest, and perhaps empty bottles or empty promises as well. That you had to classically condition yourself to not let her cross your mind, because it became a routine for you to let the torture flood your lungs, and leave you out of breath. I asked you what you thought of when you think of me, and you said your bedsheets. You said that when it comes to me, it's the image of a new you, a new person fresh out of old skin, sitting on your bed, near the window where you moved it to a couple of months ago, with the sheets perfectly layered and fixed, simply because I know how you love it so. I remembered an annoying peeve that you had, a quirk, or a typo in the page. I memorized it, simply so that I could fix it, and save you the trouble. You said that it was something so minimal, yet it meant so much. When you spoke about me and when you spoke about her, you spoke of two different people who came into your life that symbolized two different you's, but to me you were always the same person just eating different things for dinner, and bathing in different temperatures.

Where you sat to wait out the seasons
In your maple chair, tucked in the corner
Born from smoke and dried lavender,
Old photographs and dusty necklaces
Stained the tablecloth with your empty smiles
Puffed out smoke, eyes wide out the window
Half asleep at the table in your blue bathrobe
Buried in notebooks of days past,
In a silence of summer mornings
And hazy afternoons in bed.
And that your breath was like acid,
It still stains me today and
Your words were as sweet-
When you emptied those bottles.
Still, you loved like no other
Could
Devise.
Summer nights, beer, angry phone calls-
Where I slept and knew not
What is was you did, or why it was wrong
But when the police came,
I still hid under the coffee table.
A young child's world tossing and turning
Constant, like seas that grow with rain.
Your warm presence,
Easing eyes, thick hair, soft words
The all encompassing memory that sings "Mother"
In a delicate drawl like lace on the backs of brides.
Where I sat and we laughed over daily things
And you'd tell me about your new friend
The bird that you saw, what you'd drawn
Each day you reminded me of your dreams for us,
We'd rise out of this hole
"Twelve days", you'd said in dark
You would heal,
no more medicines or therapies,
and you might have been on your way there.
Where your body draped over the toilet
Fourty-five coursing through your veins
Lungs struggling to grasp air,
Arms went limp and neck grew cold
Did you regret the decision you had made?
Darling mother.
Where I stood in the door frame
And gazed over your lifeless body,
Paralyzed in fear
Stumbled to the trees to hear my mind's calm
To escape the screaming of
Too young
Too old, at one tragic time
Quivering to check your wrists for some jumping pulse
But only a deep stillness sat over you,
Froze you in time.
And still frozen in my memory you sit,
Somewhere between where moments turn to memory
And where lifetimes turn to fiction.
Do not worry, mother.
When you left, you did not leave ashes
But a gaping pit that requires the strength of an army to fill
And the courage of a millennium to even admit it's there.
For everything you lacked, it was a gift.
To that same seven year old that hid
In a midnight hallway across a despairing wreck of a mother
And taught her to hold on.