Acorns keep coming loose from the tree outside and
I imagine they are being pelted at all the metal chairs on purpose
Like tiny bullets ricocheting off of bunkers, startling me awake
Oh yes, my friends
The squirrels are busy staging a happy little revolution

they say there is a time and a place for everything
well, ha, the time is now
the place is here
and my everything is 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

I didn't think I could get out alive
for years I sat chained in this dungeon and hoped and prayed
to a thing supposedly bigger and greater than me
have you ever cried so hard that you panic and think you won't
be able to breathe again?
every day I have flash backs
clear as crystal and deep as a wound
I see you coming at me with rage and hatred in your eyes
my god
when I asked you if you felt sorry
you said NO!!!!??????!!!
the resentment I feel is larger than the hurt
I don't know how to cope and I don't know how to be

I was walking through town the other day and had this
alarming sense that I wasn't supposed to
I feel guilty when I want time to myself
I keep expecting you to yell at me
to threaten me
to turn that evil, lifeless grin on me before wrecking my life  
it's like
each time I rearrange my pieces into a jigsaw puzzle that spells "alright"
you come sauntering in and cut up all the jagged edges and I
can never completely fill myself again
my head is nothing but anger and confusion and dread and
sadness and mess up
I'm so messed up
you're gonna walk in tomorrow and I'm gonna have to hug you
and don't you know it kills me each time?
there will be nothing left
I don't know how to be
flatline

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 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

ah, didn't you know..
powerful imagery better weaves itself
through a simplistic tale of truth
rather than in some poem boasting
                  grandiosity
you know, full of Harvard-taught words
      and, quite honestly, empty
            
                                                    meanings

Perhaps I lie awake for all of those eternally sleeping.

Pluto, a planet!
I will never forget you
You are important

E.T, phone Houston,
I think we have a problem
I'm still scared of you

Jealous of the guys
Who got to play with The Claw
I love aliens!

Watch "Signs" and you'll see
The weird blue terrestrial
Being way extra

V/H/S Part Two
Its last scene had aliens
I hate aliens!

Maybe life on Mars
Would just force us to rethink
Our life here on Earth

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

his life lies at the bottom of the bottle
a glass body entrapping his soul
one by one, his giggling, gaudy girls
grow up into graceful adults
clinking glasses full of candid celebration
toasting their tranquility into theater walls
as he stands up to take a shaky step
toward the door, toward his girls,
the glass bottle drags him back under

He's locked his deepest secrets in his treasure chest and guided them to the bottom of the sea.

Gave me half of a rotten map, a pat on the back, and a telescope to find the key.

a home, above all else,
is familiar.
it does not have to be comfortable,
nor does it have to be full.
a home is probably a favorite place to be,
or maybe it houses some of the cruelest memories.

I like homes where I can drive quick and still avoid each upcoming pothole--
ones where old neighbors and new couples hunker down for their respectful chapters of life.
I like homes where I can walk around each obstacle in the kitchen with my eyes shut tight and only bang my shins a little bit.

a home is a sense, an intuition.
it is a place where you can dance while no one is watching.
you can fling your tears and regret at the walls and let them absorb your true feelings,
hushing you with their pillows and soft sounds and views.

a home is a home anywhere you choose it to be,
but above all else,
a home is familiar,
and that is a home to me.

dear so and so,

strong intro
hook line and sink her
cheap wines don't hide the taste of sin, oh
but you made yourself a thinker  
four paragraphs in the outline
covering her head to her toes
pouring thoughts into her hair line
writing romance in her elbows
conclusions, confusion
you kissed her and tasted him
contusions, retribution,
her surface you've barely skimmed



love,

An old, blue-eyed man
His heart buried beneath boards
Poe claimed sanity

but isn't that what we are; aren't we cycles?
don't we start from two, end up as one,
only to repeat and repeat and repeat?
creating something from an atom
that was always there,
because energy cannot be created
nor destroyed.
something had to start the process.
and the only way it will be
ended.. is the way it was begun.

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

he stared hard at the sky
and saw the whitest of stars...
a simple glimpse inside his mind
was all I needed to fall in love.
for the stars weren't stars at all,
just white bubbles in a sea of hope
stretching out to the sheer depths of imagination.
he boasted of the morning birds and
their sweet, sweet songs...
a creature I had come to hate,
he made me long to hear.
we've heard all our lives
how attraction is necessary in love
but I told him I loved him
before I ever saw his face.
and I do, oh, how I do.
those bright blue eyes bring feeling
back into my empty, empty soul.
he makes me unafraid
to love again, and to grow
to be the fullest essence of myself
without pause or second thought.
all these years...
I've been scared to be truly vulnerable
I have called myself nothing
unworthy
ugly
not good enough
you know what he calls me?

quantum physicians may not be able to write out an equation
showing proof of our bond,
but the ties that bind reach across the galaxies and beyond
and biology professors at the ivy league schools may not
be able to explain why my heart thrums faster when I think
about you, but my pulse is yours and I guarantee I can feel
you in every measurable thing that I do
it's funny... multiple dimensions couldn't even keep us apart,
and my body has been frayed and fuzzy since I left you--
from the start
of this journey toward self-realization and humanization
but the one thing that no one can deny is that time exists  
a watch is not a thing to keep time;
a watch is proof of the seconds before and now and after
and it certainly isn't ours to keep
but we could borrow some and place our fate in the
hands of that fragile wristband and call it an
insurmountable thing
I would venture to say
that we could call it love,
we can call it you and me
and science cannot create nor destroy us

I hope you don't mind--
I softened the ends of your ribcage
so that it won't wound us so bad
when I touch you

by loose definition:
to build a muscle,
you must first tear it apart
and let it heal over
and over and over
and over and
over
again before it grows into
its utmost potential.
my heart is a muscle
and let me tell you,
it keeps tearing over
and over and over and
over
and over
again
and so one day it should overtake
my entire person
and spray the whole world
with scar tissue and my greatest,
biggest love.
right?

.


   I love you,                          I hate you
I scribbled in the       places where my
   tissue paper heart   should   be   full
      jigsaw puzzles made whole again
        poor broken hearts made new
          taped it to my battered chest
             regretted using black pen
               hindsight knows us best
           {==I let you back in again==>
                     picking  up  pieces
                        drying my eyes
                          a new  thesis
                            I won't cry
                               alright?
                                 good
                                  bye
                      ­               .

like candy,
we wanna taste the sweetness
without the consequence
there's a nagging sugar rush
trying to explain something
to me in this frenzied manner
like if I don't grasp it fast enough
I just may
..........crash.........
tic tacs clacking down the path to somewhere
and I've only just dipped into my candy stash
tomorrow's agenda promises Hershey kisses and snickering calories
because everything so good
is essentially somewhat bad

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

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

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

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.

the thing about photographs..
is that they last a lifetime, mostly
if you never drop them in mud puddles
or tear their fraying edges
or forget the last names of so and so

pictures capture memories
that, otherwise, we may have misplaced
usually..
but what happens when that lovely backdrop
turns into an argument
when its subjects cannot define
if it was here or there?

snapshots freeze us in time, everlasting
except that we still grow..
or we manage to die
our youthful skin becomes crinkly
and our eyes give away more than just our years

I dunno,
still-life was never really my thing to begin with..

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

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

I was eight years old,    again

travelling down winding driveways chipped here and there with gravel and dirt

to my right, the opposite of what you'd see in daylight

a sand volleyball court, its dilapidated net blowing pathetically in the wind..

is now a gaping rectangle in the ground, keeper of ghouls and darkness so vast it makes my hair stand on end

backwards geometric shapes draw themselves into my nightmares, like two planes have been crossed and flipped -- a mirror giving life to an evil that is not seen by the conscious mind

I wish I could say that I recognize the tells in my dreams, but that isn't me

recurring scenes dance vividly against my eyelids and I wonder if they're trying to tell me something

or our brains cycle through the fluff until it is time to pull out the deepest parts of ourselves,

the  old  haunts, the  me  at  eight  years  old

a dream is a product of our being- a nightmare, the quotient of all that tears us apart

isn't that what life is? the sum of all parts?

to touch it could prove fatal.
but on the eve of winter's dawning..
the embers thawing the barrier between us,
we lay and watch the flames licking at our skin.
autumn nights after the football game
dancing circles around the sparks
holding hands and searching for answers..
in the burnt kindling surrounded by rocks.
slices of stationary, perfumed like lilacs
we write our condolences and regrets with feather quills
then, stretching out in the center of the street
we light ablaze our lost words, a sacrifice to Hephaestus.
there is a force so powerful and quiet;
it tiptoes up behind us and leaves us charred,
smoldering,
it leaves ashes...
but it is also the sweetest release
feeding from oxygen and life
blackening everything it comes in contact with
and while creating new what once was broken,
it demands respect.

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

My prayer every evening is that I will become excellent at something
Because my outlet can, at times, stutter and fail
I like to write, and I like to think
And sometimes I despise doing both
Because it's impossible to quit thinking
I refuse to turn to drugs to drown out my mind
I will not own more crutches than I already have
My biggest fear is losing control,
So why would I give some other source the option?
Ah, and so I end up writing
It is terribly cathartic and atrociously raw
I pour out my insides and then have this erratic fear
That I have shared too much, too soon
It's like once you post something,
That mental thing becomes true and concrete
I am petrified of the concrete.
But.. I guess I'm also thankful to be alive
Concrete evidence would show I'm still here
-Something- is still here
Strange, but every once in a while I need that reminder
So I keep writing.
I'm still here.

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

tending to my beautiful garden, growing, glowing, roots showing and hope blooming, tender petals my heart is grooming into something far from
dark and ruined
the others, cracked and crumbling, dry and deserted from thunder rumbling
all I want is to love, to keep loving
knowing love is fearing loss
knowing loss is fearing love
hearing loss is fearing hearing possible
endings nearing
tearing up then gearing up
for demolition I'm only wishing
for undying beautiful things
my mind dutifully sings
and screams and pleads for what my heart needs
good deeds won't protect selfish love,
nor intellect keep my garden intact,
in fact
it may only harden
my heart and pen
pardon my art,
I just intend
to cowardly restart
what must end..
to my garden, I try to tend...

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

I have turned grey from the amount of energy
that has left my body to be ****** up by others
I feel hollow and used and walked on
and yet I still feel this ultimate duty
to do better, to be better, to be the bigger person
and for a long time
I have held a vice grip on my tongue
I've counted to ten and calculated my words  
summing them up to something worthwhile and nice
I smile in the face of those who oppress me
always doing what is right
so that nothing can come back on me
but I am in dire need of learning
how to do what's right for me

I am learning how
To accept myself again
No self-denial

Show me how to love
After your false affection
Was proven useless

How does a person
Decide if they are being
Egotistical?

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.