if this is what emotions are
hot water pounding down on my skin
the taste of stale alcohol trying to create some essence
of numbness
the words of music so loud in an attempt to drown out
the ache that my heart brings with each beat
I don’t want it
I don’t want any part of it

I can't tell you what it's like to feel like dying.
I can't tell you how I'm so afraid of death but I play with it like its a childhood friend.
I can't tell you what it's like to cry yourself to sleep for the 47th night in a row.
I can't tell you how I feel when I wake up screaming in the middle of the night.
I can't tell you, but I can show you.
I can show you what it's like to feel like dying in my playful smile and dull eyes.
I can show you what it's like to be afraid of death but play with it because I have scars on my body but I refuse to go to a funeral.
I can show you what it's like to cry yourself to sleep for 47 nights in a row by my blood shot eyes and bags underneath with tear stains covering my pillow.
And I can show you how It feels to wake up in the middle of the night screaming by the empty Xanax bottle in the bottom of my purse.
I can't always tell you the things that are going through my mind, but you can't say that I never showed you.

These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.

O I cannot explain what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
They smile and smile and smile at me.
And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start.

They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air --
It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.

He used to walk with life in his stride
He used to strut with a heart full of pride

These days see him stumbling every so often
These days see his eyes vacant and sullen

So I asked if there was anything bothering him
So I asked what is it that made his light so dim

He tarried, then answered with conviction true
He tarried before he finally answered, *"You..."

Love slithered up my sleeve
like a sun parched python
coiling around my soul
making its home in the sanctuary found within
venemous words spit forth their guile
antitdote saught in nights comforting arms
the moons radiant smile comes forth from a bottle,
stars decadent radiance cascades from a tear,
I'll hide in a sucumbant dream,
on yesterdays and alibis I shall rest this weary head.

I am disconnected.
Though I long
to be a part
of the collective heart
that binds all,
I do not feel
its tangible will.
I do not see
the helping hand.
Apathy stands.
Dullness fills
this ill fed
fawning,
yawning body.
The heat saps,
makes me
want naps
more then
human
connections.
Today dies
the dullest death of all.
nothing ventured,
nothing gained,
and only a
small poem
to mark this
mundane Monday.