Last night I prayed
Softly, peacefully, and still,
No strain, no grief, no disbelief,
No doubting of His will,

Last night I prayed
Softly for His strength,
Since I am weak.

Then with peace-of-mind
Worries and stress left behind
I quietly fell asleep.

I could taste them.
I could taste the rage, the agony, the hatred.
I could taste the love of a mother, slowly leaving me…
One small drop at a time.

And it drove me crazy, as I took a step
Cars racing past me, no one would have time to think
Soon
I would be ‘that girl’,
The girl who couldn’t take it
The girl who ended it all

But as I began to take the last step
Head pounding now
Mind dull
They stopped me

As much as I wanted to believe that it was over
As much as I wanted to believe that I couldn’t feel,
That I couldn’t live
They proved I could

I was drowning now,
But I managed to escape
The taste of my tears
Bringing me back to reality.

The best thing about
Haiku is that if you run
Out of room you can…

Polar bears rarely
According to my knowledge
Play Marco Polo.

Sing with your eyes closed
And your audience can be
A thousand panthers.

The television
In the front room bites me when
I pet it too hard.

Is it still a haiku if all seventeen syllables are in one

No one can deny
My right to dream. Ah, someday
An all-moose hockey league.

Too late at night, I
Wonder if Shakespeare wrote D’s
The way I write mine.

I rearrange my
Furniture to make room for
More hopeful years.

James Dean. Rock Hudson.
Montgomery Clift. Cary Grant.
I’d hit it, girlfriend.

A girl of the streets
Offers him the right price for
One more game of checkers.

My bed does not face
The window. When it rains,
I always sleep through it.

I have not seen a
Sunrise in years; I don’t
Use public bathrooms.

…always continue
In another. [Something neat
About a panda.]

The frustration you get
When you wake up in the middle of the night
And can't fall back to sleep.

You look at the clock,
Hoping,
It'll soon be time to get up.
But then you realize
It's not even near that time.

It's like the sun knows when you're awake and,
Just to be a ******,
Takes its time coming up.

So you lie there...
Trying to get some rest.
You squirm and change positions,
But still...
Nothing happens.

You begin to think about
Your life,
Your future,
The world,
Everything...

Then, all the bad thoughts become worse.
You think...
Maybe something might happen,
Or something may already have happened.

You try harder to fall asleep,
But you can't stop.
Can't stop thinking.
And you feel...
Upset...
Overwhelmed...
And you can do nothing
to stop all the horrible thoughts from coming through.

Then you're at the stage where now,
Your thoughts aren't coming in patterns anymore.
They scatter...
Like a nebula.

So you lie there.
You've given up.
You feel hopeless...
Like no one could ever help you.
So you just wait...
Wait for everything to be over.

There's a place in London,
The tourists never see.
A room containing monsters,
Kept under lock and key.

Each one is enormous,
And yet they mean no harm,
So long as we believe in them,
They keep the country calm...

one thing I’ve been unable to completely reconcile
is the ability for humans to turn cheek when one’s face simply crumples.
you know the moment
when the muscles around the lips tense and their throat tries to work as they begin to squint.
there’s a harsh inhalation and then the eyes well up with tears.
the cheeks flush and the nostrils flare and all you can see is suffering,
from the way their shoulders tense then droop
and to the raw defeat that washes off them in waves.
how does one merely avert their gaze when this happens?
how does one not immediately attempt to console the sufferer?
how does one manage to swivel around and walk away,
shoulders hunched, head down, hands balled in pockets,
one more slump of misery and the picture of one that has weathered just a few too many storms,
when there is no greater act of kindness than to extend an offering of faith
and perhaps some meager comfort to those that suffer?

how do we sleep at night when
our friend, our neighbor,
our child, our parent,
our coworker, our teacher,
our fellow human being
can crumple before us
and we do nothing to help?