There's a picture of you holding cake,
White frosting on your nose, wanting more
Your mother and father grinning
As you explore sugar as never before.

Behind the cameras, we laugh and clap,
Celebrating a year and nine months' wonder,
A life that we have come to know and love,
A little girl, on a day you're only partially aware.

The dog lies nearby, watching for crumbs,
In his own way celebrating this happy day.
He does not seem to mind he is supplanted
As family favorite; at least, he does not say.

The balloons, the cake, one candle all aflame,
Join our choral "Happy Birthday" song
Follow in the first of what we hope
Will be many, many more to come.

May the stars fall
The moon drown
The sun burn out
Mountains bow to the ground

May the sea boil
Flowers no longer grow
Let it be ash that falls,
Never again snow

May all that is outside
Mirror that with in
Let there be no more lies
To cover the sin~A

If it makes you feel any better,
I'm not happy
My life is lonely
I can't help how I look

The number of friends I have
You can count on three fingers
One of which is my house keeper
Paid friend

I've loved, but never known the feeling of being loved
I can't grace the world with another child
My legs no longer permit me the beauty of dance
I'm a former coke addict, current drunk

I cry too much and whine the world full
I deny myself the joy of colour in my wears

I'm a *****
No, I've not had any "plastic surgery"
I am that I am
Another anonymous mammal

I intake too much caffeine
Lately too much nicotine
I cuss and have fits
Tantrums,
As I am right now

Yea,
Just another anonymous mammal

I woke late this morning from too much "fun" last night
Yes, I was back down "L" street perched on my bench
I tried to wear colours, but they didn't show through the dark
And I put a clasp in my hair
I thought I looked a little less than dead
The cherry trees in the make-shift "park" are starting to blossom
I feel bad for them because they're stuck planted there
Perhaps this is why they weep
I thought of sharing my paper bag whiskey gift
But no
So I shared my tears instead

Black swans and roses
And debonair dark hose
What the conductor says
Is how the music goes

Night's magic abounds
Students horse around
Then the music plays
And it's silent on the grounds

Spotlights make auras
Players dance through the stanzas
The night's nearly out
At the end of the codas

The kids run off the stage
Never losing a page
With the March air about
The swans act of their age

Be gentle to yourself.
You have fought for this skin,
These eyes,
This voice.

Be gentle to the child inside of you.
When it comes to you, looking up at you
With large, watering eyes,
Brush that loose strand behind the ear
And tell them

Everything is okay

Because no one else will.

Let your thoughts devour you
If they must,
But remember to come up
For air.

Be gentle to the tiny voice inside of you,
That makes you leave your bed every day
That only wants the best
For you.

In the end,
You are all you will have.
And when you leave,
You’re going alone.

Be gentle to yourself
I’m sure if you were able to,
You would swallow this world
Whole.

When the moon hovers hallucinated
on the post canal
breaking in bubbles of fish breath
the white widow of the night
revives her long dead tongue
to lick the scales of your skin
pulling you into her bed of nails
making love with you the whole night
leaving you bruised and insatiate
when they find your shadow
scouring the edge of the canal
with her name on its lip.

Millie's pondering Georgia's
next earthquake , a tsunami
over Sapelo Island , volcanic
activity around Stone Mountain
Her mind is quite medicated yet
the clockwork control freak is firing on all
cylinders , she's got blue , pink and beige pills
to control "the jitters"
A week full of rage to spill in a two hour period ,
anxiety drunk , her two o'clock tea , her momma's
favorite scissors , cutting photographs for a
collage late at night , hanging her wet resume on a tree branch
to dry
Poor , poor Millicent , not a friend in sight* ...