i watched my mother crack her ribs open to pour out her heart to someone whos love language was violence.
his hands too rough to piece her tender skin back together again.
she pulled my sleeve down over my heart,
and pointed to her bleeding one,
and told me that this is where love will get you.
now i wonder if i'll ever let a boy hold my hand,
with out feeling like my fingers are breaking,
feeling like i can hear my heart screaming at me
i wonder if words of love will ever taste like anything other than poison sliding idly down my throat,
a drawn out pain that settles in the bottom of your stomach
and stirs every time you smile back at him.
i wonder if i'll always be too scared to let myself be pulled apart,
trust me, these inner workings are not beautiful
i get so lonely hiding within myself,
but better to be lonely and whole than lonely and left with half of a heart

I have learned that solitude is a company all by itself.
My emptiness has grown to fill rooms
The sadness on the back of my tongue leaves an aftertaste like a bitter lover.
The day i learned my depression takes up more room than me,
We became friendly.
With a mental illness bigger than the space you carry it in
You learn a lot about how to shrink yourself into something more convenient,
As if your mere existence speaks volumes too many.
Solitude becomes more familiar the longer you spend with it.
And that Solitude has become as familiar as the warm lover on the other side of your bed.
Unzip your skin and step out
to make more room for the anxiety to fit comfortably.
youll leave a bag of skin and bones and misery on the floor.
my mental illness doesnt feel like a hovering shadow,
it feels more like an extra piece of my brain that the doctors overlooked.
tell me again that im just tired,
im just lazy,
im just unmotivated.
id try to draw you a map of my mind but lately its been just static.
maybe it isnt the solitude ive grown used to,
maybe its my elephant in the room,
maybe its the never ending presence of my mental illness in the room,
my overwhelming need to no longer exist in the room.

I love you
not because
you're good looking

I love you
not because
you're caring

I love you
not because
you dote on me

I love you
not because
your smiles are sweet

I love you
not in lust
of your crevice
or orifice
or skin

I love you
because
without you
I feel

incomplete within.

Eva comes home from work to where there are many flies
and slaps my brother side-headed because he left the back
door open,  she is bovine heavy and limps to close it.  We eat

Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and it is soothing like peanut butter
fudge or Pepsi-Cola.  Eva says do the dishes up boys,  goes
to bed and cries.  Me and brother go to sleep and I dream

of a burning house.

When I was eight
At the park

Playing football
Getting dark

Older kids
Stole our ball

I can't stand bullies
Not at all

Then out of the blue
Three more kids appear

Did I mention they're black
So now I felt fear

But to my surprise, they said
Give the ball back!

What's going on?
I thought they were black

This confused my young mind
From all I was told

Stay away from the blacks
Or you'll never grow old

That one little act
Fifty years ago now

Changed the way I see color
Changed my vision and how

Today I was out
With my eight year old son

God, how I love him
We're having such fun

Then I see someone starring
No, it's more like a glare

I can't be that ugly
It must be my hair

Then an old thought creeps in
From way, way, way, back

She's glaring at us cause
I'm white, and he's black

So my prayer for this world
And I hope you don't mind

Is the day we can say
We're all color blind!

Amen

I think I know so many people so beautiful
once i gained a bit of notoriety and all I could
think was how nice sweet all these strangers are
when i don't know them at all
but for their words
sweet
and comments nice
when I go to their profiles
I like to read their statements more than their poems
things like
trying to be a  poet
or tired and dried out
I search for depth and abstracts
few say I am writer
one said save a life
I especially liked one who wrote
Just writing what I think, what I feel and everything in between.
and that said much but
I feel a kinship
a closeness
with those I never met in person
I suppose
you do too/

Like a lost cloud
In the blue sky
You appeared from nowhere
Or somewhere
I cannot remember
It was a trick
Of some kind
Along the pitch line
Of the belt of life
I think, or not
But it was short
The me and you
And the them and those
Who never had a choice
To do more than they can
Than they want or wish
I cannot tell
I am not a golden fish
Nor a golden chance
Well not to you
But to me
I am the world
And the moon
And a distant star
I worship from afar
As you fade away
With the yesterday
We shared somewhere
I say goodbye
I say farewell
As the sadness dies
In my brown eyes
We fade away
Behind the horizon line
It’s yesterday
You and I
It’s a memory
An end  
Of a careless love

I had a dream of you
But somehow it was mixed with reality
You hated me because you loved me still
And yet you found someone to replace me

I was envious of her, jealous that you chose her
Even though I had someone else too
She was the woman, married to Hector
Whose sister you slept with when I loved you

We exchanged our daughter in a parking lot
You made no effort to hide her
Foreign emotions overwhelmed me
Settled resentment returned

Her name I always remember from high school
She is Blanca, still technically Mrs. Blanca Garcia
Somehow you both resemble the devil
To remind me of your affair with Hector's sister, Ophelia

¡Diablo vete!
You're a past memory, long forgotten
You come in the night, inconspicuously
Finding any light left to darken.

I lie and watch her as she sleeps
It's then I see her soul truly weep
You can tell by the way in which she moves
She has seen more than her fair share of abuse

She is always curled into the tightest ball
Arms covering her head, waiting for the fall
To many times awoken with angry fist
This is the way her body was always kissed
Cries of No echoing, disturb her silent night
As in her dreams, again she puts up a fight

The morning sun brings no sign of relief
Staggering under the weight of all the grief
Some days she can hide it all so well
Cheery voice, plastered smile no one can tell
But most days it only thunders, only storms
As emotions ripp through her like razor thorns

She whispers when she thinks no one can hear
"I'm so tired of feeling like this for so many years
Way beneath the surface... a lot more agony no one can see
Like an iceberg lost and floating, that is me"

I gently touch and wake her up, masking what's within my eyes
Yes, I wear my own disguise
Her beautiful essence hypnotized as it taunts
I'm scared of these feelings I don't want

Terrified one day she will just disappear
Falling forever through her darkened atmosphere
I don't know what to do, her eyes desperately pleads, "don't give up"
I fear I'm not even close to good enough
But she already tied my heart to hers with diamond tread
So I'll hold this bleeding angel that graces my bed