Hey, kid
Your eyes hold things only grown men should see
Don't worry, little one, the sting of mortality only lasts for forever
Hey, kid
The way you lug your weary body around haunts my sleep
Don't worry, little one, the bad certainly cannot last for eternity
Hey, kid
Is that a knife in your hand?
Come on, little one, think things through
Life won't always be unfair to you  
Hey, kid
Why'd you **** her?
That orphanage could have been your saving grace
Now you're indefinitely
A ward of the state
Hey, kid
I found your brothers and sisters
Their gravestones side by side
How lovely they look, adorned with dead flowers
Kid, where's your ma?
Hey, you can't go in there
Come on, buddy, the cops'll find ya
Let's go home
Hey......
Arson won't solve your problems, kid
I'm losing hope
In your lost world
I tried to help ya, kid
But you have to want
To be savable
Hey........
I just got the call
What a shame, what a waste
I'll miss you, kid.

My cloudy eyes crinkle as I gaze out at the powdery,
newly fallen snow
My thin hands, ever-trembling, delicately weave
designs in the frost on the glass
I absent-mindedly let my thoughts turn
to the kids and their children
A soft smile warms my skin and I slip
into happy memories of days far in the past.

My vanity is cluttered with images of my late husband
Laughing with his friends after a fishing trip,
Proudly holding up the night’s meal.
Here, see us dancing alone to the lullaby of the fireflies
I remember this moment; swaying under the stars
in the coolest breeze of spring
I silently reach out to touch the man I held so dear,
desperate to feel his warmth again
And, clasping the picture frame, I step over to my bedside
Turn down the light and lift my weary body on to the pillows
I start to drift off, my fingers trailing along
the wooden base of our memories
The love and dedication etched into the detailing
by his strong, rough hands,
The hands that held me up until their brittle bones turned to ash.
I pull the picture frame up to my chest,
Then smile in my sleep, heart contented with his face so close to mine.
Believing we are floating away together, one last breath
of a blissful life is taken--
I'm coming home to you.

the buzz is a violent truth serum
that enslaves you as its quilled pen

it requires certain demands of you  
things you cringe at upon waking

because suddenly

you've unraveled a beautiful scroll
and marked it with broken charcoal

and kissed it with a wine-stained mouth--
your stamp of drunken approval

to make sure that the one
who should never receive it

is exactly the one
who gets bit on the lips

by your alcoholic kiss
your inebriated, late night diss

Peering through the dense trees,
Sinking low, light footsteps
He stalks his prey.
A newborn pup
Yipping and clumsy
Falling over herself
Just to stand back up
And do it again.
The hunter shifts between the silken grass
And the soft clay earth
Keeping his eye on the promising young blood
Craving her bones and fleshy meat.

The pup licks her paws
Pouncing on small bugs and feathers
She laughs with a bark that sounds like music
Burying her new toys, she wiggles her tail in the air
Then digs in to the earth with zero inhibition
She is vibrant and strong, a natural-born leader.  
Happy, free, and full of promise.

Nose to the ground,
He anticipates the musky smell
Of his close-knit pack
He advances, visceral and quick
His vision turns a violent red as he
Loses his stealthy and cautious movements
His gait lengthens and he slides in the dirt
Snapping his jowls, he is wild with hunger.

The pup yelps and snarls,
Too small to fight back
But trying her mightiest to stand her ground.
Her attacker sinks his teeth in from behind,
Slashing his rustic head back and forth
Listening to her fading cries as he growls with success.
Shaking every ounce of strength from the
Poor girl's lifeless form,
He tastes sweet victory and steps back
Satisfied with his current catch.

He turns his head to call his pack;
A wolf's howl only the moon can hear
But he sees instead the sad, vacant eyes of
The pup's grieving father.

when I was in the fifth grade
we were told to put our names on notecards
and to pass them around the class
so that each student could write
one nice word
about each of us in turn
and I had a crush on a boy
and I wrote "nice" on his notecard
and he wrote on my notecard
"mediocre"
and to this day my heart doesn't know
if it is more in awe that he knew such a word
or if it is offended and crushed
and five kinds of hurt
and boys are dumb anyway
and I constantly wonder
how mediocre I am

conversations with pat turn into
an all-out battle rap
people would think we're insane, crap
I swear nick isn't a pope, what a faux cat
pat's always talking about **** and it's bat-
crap crazy but who am I to judge
sometimes life throws you in the dung-
eon and you gotta discuss it over fudge,
son listen up, be better, do better
let her borrow your sweater and then
go get her
use all your might or she'll take flight and aw
next thing you know, you're stuck with **** and
an unpopelike cat with three names and
she kept your sweater
I know this
I'm a fortune teller

your hands
grasp my hips
my fingers
touch your lips
your mouth
shocks my neck
my mouth
leaves yours wet
your stomach
presses mine
my stomach
grows butterflies
your legs
tangle the sheets
my legs
feel your heat
your eyes
watch me move
my eyes
watch you

Do you want to know why I stayed?
I threatened so many times to disappear before you glimpsed
the worst parts of me, through whispers and fists and biting
my lips to stop the eruptions of volatile girl from stabbing
you with my skeletons.
In the misty, early hours when neither of us were sleeping
because you were scared I'd go and I was scared I wouldn't,
I showed you the nooks and crannies of my character, the
crevices and caverns of my interchanging moods.
I did my very best to upset and cause unrest and I flung
every miserable curse in the direction I thought you'd be going.
I screamed my violence and mistakes against the front door
and told you I had proven you right.
I was unlovable.
I was a dysfunctional bundle of bones and you were
better off without me.
And I turned over to sob myself to sleep and considered
how I would also be better off without myself and as I
went to hit my pillows-
As I heaved in a shuddering breath of regret and guilt
and my lungs expanded to places I had never felt before,
You reached out and caught me and inserted yourself as
a root in my flailing, upended life.
You stroked my hair and cradled my shivering body and
quieted my sobs and told me there was no way in hell
that you'd leave this beautiful mess.
You said that I punish myself for being anything other than
what I think I should be. You said that I wreck the things
I love the most so that they won't one day see me as
a monster, and you're right. I prove how horrible I am
before you can. I sabotage so that I can say
I know. I'll let you go.
But you absolutely refuse to go,
So here I stay.

Fragments of distorted glass
The disease of the blind showing through
I don’t know where I’m going but I do know You

The pavement is broken and cold like death
Do we ever reach the end of the tunnel?
I’ve spun in circles, losing my mind
Gathering the ashes into a funnel

Sometimes I drive so fast that I
can’t hear myself at all
That’s exactly what I wanted
The free before the fall

But I glanced in my rearview mirror
And still I felt so haunted
My heart beat faster than a hummingbirds'
Never brave enough to go undaunted

I panicked and swerved away from
This mad and invisible thing
I angled my mirror to hide the mess
But something stared back at me

Raising my fist to silence the noise,
I shattered the source of my pain
Scaring myself into resignation
The world started to rain

I’ll never know if there’s a tunnel
A light to end my fears
The car came at me going sixty miles
I had no time for tears

Sure, I’ll rest peacefully
Kind words whispered in my hair
Lowered six feet beneath the ground
No life, no sound, no air

My mind is quiet and my spirit is free,
Free from the chains of the earth
I can only hope that I’ve been given a gift
A second chance, a rebirth

If only I hadn’t been so scared
This freedom would not be so soon
But I was the cause of my own death
My funeral was at noon

I am a master at the art of ashes
human cremation takes artistic commitment
once the smell of singed eyebrows
burns your nose you can never be the same again
you know, my skin grew flame retardant and at first I wished grossly to return it and buy a new shell
but I've made the executive decision to aerate my diaphragm and pump this fire out of my pores and into your palms
singing with a slow burn
branding your sweet fingerprints into my skull
see, something outside of myself must contain me or I'll spill, gritty and fine
end over end into the depths of the alleyways and cobblestones
but, to be quite frank, I'm drowsy
so I'd rather you climb to the top of the world and release me, softly letting me blanket everything I've ever come to love
instead of confining me in that ugly porcelain jar that I spent my entire life peering at
while it hovered, haunting me, above my birthing ground
sitting precariously on that wooden mantle
above my fireplace
above my home.

a Time for hushed wind
Unseen forces pushing white clouds
in Ever-present blue skies
they Say no drinking before noon, but
I quietly Declare a glass of wine
can be A quite sophisticated gesture
if You take the time to celebrate
the most fantastic of Tuesdays.

I dream that you'll carve yourself into my skin again
Rooting your essence into my flesh like a hot branding iron
The way you used to sway me with your mind
Left me breathless and out of touch
I dream that you'll sit by my side again
The pair of us stronger than any other, stronger than me
I need you to meld your bones with mine
It's urgent; I'm fading
Brittle calcium pockets exploding
I cannot stand on my own
I dream of you turning into me
The only me that can exist
The me who is not Me without You

nights like these I think about all the people I don't know
no time is consumed the way mine is as I sit very still and imagine someone
halfway across the world sitting as still as me
sometimes I wonder if some person in china just took the same breath as me
thought the same thought as me
only, in her native tongue
is there a person out there who looks exactly like me?
I have this extreme addiction of needing to be connected to strangers
I'll be driving past someone halted at a red light
and I think
oh my god, I've most likely never met that person but I just glimpsed them
and they just glimpsed me
and for one quick second we /existed/ to each other
that person existed and was on my mind
if I hadn't been driving at that exact moment, quite possibly
I never would have known that there WAS a driver
how crazy is that?
and sometimes I people watch
and I don't know if it's my own mental block or if I'm just beyond weird
but I imagine their lives and how they are as a person;
it's like I make people have tones like music or wine or a conversation would
and I can't fathom their minds, fears, stories, families, paths, selves
life is so tough for me to drag myself through, and yet maybe someone else
with completely different circumstances and experiences from me
is feeling the same way
or maybe they aren't
maybe there are people out there who don't feel this way
I'd like to meet them, I'd like to meet all of them
even if I were to despise their choices or maybe they disrespected me
who cares?
they existed to me
and I cannot figure out why  
but the simple knowledge of that feeds my soul intensely

my throat is being crushed*
I subconsciously know this is a dream
but I cannot shake myself loose
funny how we are supposed to be
in control of our destinies
while we are sleeping
I am my own hero
when my mind is elevated out of my
shell-shocked body
I am choking and heaving but
nothing enters my lungs
I am soon going to quit feeling
it is a weird darkness
that I have been entombed in
no strangers or murderers or
demonic beings are trying to
steal my breath from my ribcage
it is just me
I   just   need   to   tell    myself
      to                     inhale  




...

..

.


I am awake
I **** air through my teeth--

I had what I thought was a brilliant idea for a poem, once, a short while ago
it crafted itself slowly up my spine and into the quietest parts of my brain where I try to spend most of my time
as I went to align wispy thought with centered, cemented object
an unavoidable task popped up that demanded my attention and distracted me from starting my piece
and just like that,
my brilliant, invisible moment in time was released back into the atmosphere
it is probably hanging around air plane wings and dreaming of things far more important than cloud stuff
I have noticed a measurable pattern akin to this idea that if we do not act on our conscious thought, it can, in a moments' notice, be whisked away from us
while we are and while we breathe and exist, that voice in our minds can come and go as it pleases
we should try our hardest to grasp what we can, maybe
or maybe we should be thankful for the pieces we are allowed to fit together into a thing called life
I don't know, I don't know
it disappeared into thin air

take my photos and frame them
I have lit the fire pit and am simply waiting
for you to toss me to the embers
each wooden corner of my person will get swallowed
whole
a boa constrictor of kindling opening its quivering jaws to inhale me
and when the smoke quiets and the sparks stop kissing the dead grass
I'll smile emptily and be reduced to dust

the stark contrast of her short hair against her delicate face utterly baffled me, if only for a moment.
I had known her as nothing less than balanced and complete
smooth edges melting into curves and grooves so fine,
a telescope couldn't tell where she started or ended.
years ago we'd held hands as the earth shook under our dusty feet,
locking ourselves in place to watch hopelessly as life as we knew it... crumbled.
without understanding why, I hadn't been afraid
perhaps her uninhabited laughter was my antidote to all things broken.
now, looking out over the marina,
remembering how she giggled as the fish danced sonnets through the currents,
splashing her tanned legs in pure merriment as we watched their undersea show,
I felt like I had made it all up.
maybe her eyes never sparkled as she scolded jillian tarver for her promiscuity
maybe her cheeks didn't warm when I delighted over her paintings in the sunroom.
it was a different dimension, back then, one I had tried to forget -- not because she was an unfavorable memory -- no, because in order to make something of myself, I had to let her go.
that hair...
I always told her how her soft curls drifting across her freckled shoulders would drive men mad, would drive me mad.
she would scoff and pretend to bat at me and tell me she was nothing special; she attempted for all she was worth to convince me she wasn't worthy of my every last affection.
I promised her she was wrong.
not only did I break that promise, but I broke what was left of my ability to care... for anything, for anyone, for myself.
she....
she had three lovely kids and a house on the hilltop with my best friend, and wouldn't you know that she chopped all her hair off and died it black.
I turned from her gaze and resolved to look out at the marina, at my marina, at my spectacle of dead fish dancing for my eyes only.
next time the ground cared to rumble, maybe I should hitch a ride.

if air can be an electrical conductor,
just imagine what our mouths can create
a brief explosion of light and sound designing
a force field too strong to hold back
I am an electron; you are my ion
we emit energy so sizzling and sharp
that the hair stands up on the back of our necks
our tongues, like spark plugs
our bodies the batteries that never quite quit
alight in ashes, we are struck
together like stones and our
brightness breaks through
the haze of the dim world
we're igniting a riot
we are a spark
fuel our flame
blow us away into the atmosphere

today
I am red
so red, and blue
angry and lonely and missing you
mad at myself and my thoughts and this hell
I want to crawl out
so violent, so loud
how do I calm down
fuzzy purple, soft hues
trickling water and morning dew
I miss you, I still miss you!
my mind is a burst of orange and yellow
crazy, untamed, deep, shallow
dilated eyes and gasping mouths
hush hushed in dark browns
I get like this
different shades
I hurt like this
broken spades
don't let me fade
don't let me fade
grey, grey, grey, grey, grey, grey, grey, grey

Too many of us sling tasks over our shoulders that are better left to those who request they be completed

Days turn into weeks of selfless help and pretty soon we stop doing for us-- instead doing for everyone else

Then eventually we shake our hollow frames and the dust flies off and settles and we take a good long look in the mirror and say it's our turn

There is something to be said about helping one another but there is a quiet strength in admitting that we need help, too.

the busiest sidewalks breed the deepest secrets
yet everyone pretends that they've forgotten how to speak
if we took a moment to watch how
the truth tumbles out from crumpled coffee cups and crinkled napkins
we may learn a thing or two
about our hollow brethren

The cold is nipping at my heels again
For two days I have been deluded into
Thinking that Autumn
May actually feel like Autumn

Rows of the skeletons I have shut up in my
Cabinets are now standing bare and silent
Along the horizon; they taunt, they mock
The few leaves they have managed to
Hold on to sway in the chill and
Shudder when I walk past

Three deer creep up to the patio
I watch them behind my safe place
My window is my protective cover
From all that is outside and out of my
Control
Frost sneaks up the wood paneling and
The faint laughter from the school children
Fades into a maniacal howl

Soon the snow will cover the tracks of
The poltergeists who visit me at night
In white robes blanketing their voices,
They surround me and pierce my dreams
Visions of violent assault and grief and
Helplessness
of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Winter steals my Indian summers and
Whips me with brutal cold and sleet
Warm afternoons turn into car accidents
And black ice and broken people
Soon the snow will present itself  
And the sunlight will fade from my eyes
So let me sleep until spring.

shivering in the snow
brittle, glittering diamonds
both so fragile and perfect..
both so deadly.
wearing each to sleep
a blanket of clear, white slumber
hushing the sounds from above,
resting in peace.

a    p o e m    a    d a y     k e e p s    t h e    d e m o n s    a t    b a y

when you speak out of turn, the ground shakes
I sealed your lips with dried blood but you were always one to fight through the pain
holding your red face between my cracked palms, I glimpse confinement
a place I have been to... a hell I will not lock myself in again
yet the humanity in your eyes braces itself against your chest and you push and you push until I split in two
half of me igniting with a desire to save you and the other desperately begging me to save myself
I am standing on solid air and I am falling upward
defined and confined
trapped in a box of infinity
with no one to turn to but the reflection of me:
you

every letter I bring into being
gets erased and sent back to sleep
finding lost words is no easy feat
when you've been muffled
most of your life
they told me to be free and find my passion
but stunted me from having feelings

I feel like a trapped wild animal
backed into a corner by empowered oppressors
under the guise of maturity, authority
I've been led into a pit of suffocating quiet
although this pen serves as compass to my quest
it cannot yet heal the verbal cues I have always dreamed of placing
atop their demonic heads

It is one thing to be haunted by past loves and loss
But it is another to be haunted by the person you have made me

I am forced to live with the girl who is terrified of being.
We all have our demons. We always will.
Mine are no bigger than yours, yet the fact remains
That we are all equally as frightened of dealing with them.
Many days I spend in complete and utter solitude,
Trying my best to be proud of myself or give any
Credit to my name for any good or purposeful thing I have done.
I'm terrible with compliments. Not in the cute, girly way
Where you smile and giggle and say "thanks" and blush
Nah, I literally feel like crying.
I'm messed up.
I lived with someone who accidentally showed me
What it means to be inherently selfish
What it means to be downright nasty and steely cold towards
People that they were supposed to care for.
And it has wrecked me. I lost my sense of identity.
I was so busy walking on eggshells and quieting
My own rights, feelings, and thoughts,
That I started not to have any.
I was kind of brutal. Pushed every single friend away.
Pushed family away. Bombed school.
The human psyche is such an expansive tool.
If we spend our time treating others wrongly,
It messes up the one chance we have at living.
I forgot how to live.
I wasn't taught how to live.
I lost myself.
I always used to imagine this white electric string
Like some new-agey stuff
It was connected to all people for before time and after.
If you're gonna be born next year, the rope has a place for you
Picked out, shiny, bright, ready to showcase you to the world
And if you are miscarried, the rope keeps swinging
On to the next person.
The next birth.
I imagined all of our consciousness' were tied to that string.
That is how we can think the same thoughts and speak languages
How we have souls, maybe the string is the soul
If it always existed then it can always exist
This was my logic
And I got so lost and away from myself
That I imagined I was cut off from the rope
It was the only time I went through with trying
To take my own life.
I thought it was a cruel joke that I could still think about it while
Being so disconnected from it.
I felt abandoned and shunned.
I felt like I could never return.
My panic attacks became violent and life threatening.
Nobody knows, I never told anyone.
When I tried to ask for help for my panic
From my mother
She dismissed me.
Irony would have it that she was also the one
To disconnect me from myself.
So over the years I have fought to rejoin the string
I am back with you people
I am alive again and I expect to stay.
When my time on the rope expires,
It will not be of my own hand.
Because my mother gave me one gift
Accidentally, of course
My mother taught me never to let
Someone else dictate my place
On the String of Consciousness.

muses hide in plain sight
they are butterflies
sidewalks
criminals
strawberries
couples
death
romance
I have been considering
the simple possibility
that I may be my own muse

for most things
that I can quantifiably say exist
because of my five senses
are all defined
by me
anyway, once I am gone
they will be my muses no longer

Lost,
as we are, with no rhyme or reason
Lost is a cliche thing that we all experience
but I feel it especially when I wake up

Sad,
as we are, with no rhyme or reason
Sad is a cliche thing that we all experience
but I feel it especially when I wake up

I silently sit in malls and on benches provided
by who?
I claim they are mine either way
my benches allow me to partake in the human experience
I feel it especially when I'm sleepy
I lose myself in a world of separate lives and minds and thoughts
I realize, too late, that I am staring at someone who is staring back at me
I feel it especially when I'm weeping

I saw myself tonight...
reflected in the hills
and as I drove home the moon lit up
the low-creeping fog like ghosts
making a spectacle of themselves
for attention from us mortals
and the streetlights turned so slow
testing my patience
it was like they were egging me on
making a mockery of my lack of
tranquility and when I
passed that one house with the pond
it's my favorite house
usually so bright and beautiful
two car garages and a variety of trucks
trampolines and pools and rich
wouldn't you know the house was shut up
even the wealthy won't look at me
and I twisted and turned down the curves
and across bridges and under branches
I thought I knew my way around
could drive this road with my eyes shut
but wouldn't you know the construction
workers were out late  
gnawing on granola and warm water
telling me, "turn around!"
like I was just supposed to know
my way home
from a new perspective
so as I reversed, over weeds and fallen
bramble and beaten, worn paths
I once again found the hills
looked deep into myself and thought,
hey
maybe life just ends up this way

you're a piece of trash
a misshapen forgotten thing that I kick under my bed
rotten carcasses hold more genuine character than you
and I'd rather inhale them than catch the stench of your pretentious flesh
you're a selfish troll with daggers for eyes and knives for a tongue
attending masquerade ***** with a guise so clever, everyone we know thinks you're actually a human being
they think, for some funny reason, that you're my mother

I'm six years old
trying on witch hats and scar faces
you grab my arms and shake me
you tell me the candy people will assume they're painted bruises for October 31

I'm not scared of monsters
and I'm not scared of you
I'm scared of who I'll become

this Halloween I'm dressing up
I'm a person with a chain metal suit shielding my most precious insides
and pretending to be something I've never, ever been:
Brave.

Momma always taught me to pull up my sleeves
Before sitting down to our evening meals
So that I'd protect my arms
From the messes I carved
While letting my salted wounds heal

She gave me toast and a side of eggs
One Coke, I said, but she gave me two for just in case
I smiled at her but we both knew I didn't mean it

I look to all the wrong idols for proof that I was made for greater things than this
I feel distressed when the sun doesn't set beautifully enough for my liking
As if the only anchor stopping me from flying away is expected to entertain me to the fullest when I ask

A boy shows me the ocean;
He says baby,
Come watch the water with me
And I light up like a torch and dream of the day when I can wake up to such an incredible view
Just like the one he's prepared for me
With sea foam and shells and hidden secrets in the footprints left by strangers and left by us

I was about to jump, I was about to take that plunge

My vision narrows and I crash back into my body and stare out a glass window
Past the ***** road and cold shoulders
To the plains beyond where the grass is brown and muddy and the trees look sunken and sad
And I remember that I am just a girl chasing pretty sunsets in the great Midwest of America
A tear drop streaks down my face into my Coke and I whisper,
I have to be made for greater things than this
I have to be

scribble my years on a square of parchment,

wrap me up tight and secure me with a bow

place me in grandfather's glass bottle,  

then send me down the river row by row

hello, I am busy
looking for the cracks in your porcelain halo
to be happy is to be in the practice of
letting your sorrows unfold into the atmosphere
they are still there; they swirl and drift lazily into bird wings and against the sides of tall mountains
but to breathe and let them be is to be happy
lately I have sat still thinking of my pulse
of our pulses when we connect our wrists together to feel that extra oomph
and I have deduced that I cannot breathe as easily as it was to recognize happiness
not yet
we are cracked porcelain

he shuddered the first time we touched
and the second, and the third
hitched breaths and a racing heart
careening right into mine

faces so close, sharing air
in, out...... in, out.....
his demons are my enemies
his dreams are a part of me

everything else in the world
is upside down and burning

now the only person I will ever burn for
is *you

by pencil lead, I carved you
      cliffs rounded into craters
silky shadows and smooth skin
         so fine, so fine
I immortalized you,
           a thing to have-- to hold
but even paper grows old
              over time, over time

her eyes told me everything she didn't want me to know.
like the first time I whispered, "I love you", I knew she loved me too.
because even though her mouth told me to hush and her fingers got tangled while unbuttoning my sweater,
her eyes burst with this firey, glossed hue and her skin grew flushed and soft and I knew right then that staring into her eyes was the sweetest gift she would ever be capable of giving me.