I lost my grandfather
and my wedding band
all within the same week
I lost my appetite
and my summer skin
all within the same day
I lost my beauty
and the blonde in my hair
all within the same hour
My beauty, rusted
my hair, grey
I lost the need to write
and the poetry that used to stain my lips
my lips are pale now
and my need is a whisper
caught in the middle marrow
of my bones
I lost my mother's pride
and my sister-brother timeless connection
My mother is hours away
and my brother is drowning in addiction
I misplaced your heart
It's pulsing patiently
waiting for it's caretaker
like a dependent waits for their
distribution of doped up desire
and I lost myself along the way
in the iris and desperation and narcissism
of everyone around me.

The hunt is on.

I can't help but wonder
Why
Owning
The civilized lifestyle
Is so unbearably difficult for me
I'll co-work with my adrenaline
And take flight in experience
I'll take on the occupation
Of people watching,
Backpacking country to country
Indulging in culture
Surely I would be promoted,
"Employee of the year"
I could do that  forty hours a week,
Even sixty
My whole life
Now that is a career.
I could marry Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
And hold hands with the Louvre
And make love to a portrait created at Montmarte
Now that is a vow I could make.
I could hold music in my womb
Lyrical flesh and formation
I would allow notes and rhythmic sensation to feed off of my nutrients
Pushing my body into stretch mark melody.
I could birth an entire album
Now that is motherhood.
But alas,
I do not live in the city that resides in my mind.
I am told to marry a man,
Birth a baby,
Own an occupation,
And dismiss
The yearnings of my heart,
Cursing civilization as I go.

finding no rhyme nor reason
trying not to give in to fear
is this just a passing of season
the reason you're no longer here

only faint memory graces these pages
long gone song filled our hearts and our minds
time slipping away with the ages
lost alice...i'm still hoping to find

              ...lost alice
        once stood on this corner

                                   ...lost alice
                                laid open her scars

   ...lost alice
threw caution to the wind

                          ...lost alice
                  do you know where you are

you stood in your whirlwind of poetry
often letting the demons give you a ride
did they come back to pick you up
are they now in the front by your side

"this is what happens when i step off the path"
the last words you tore from life's page
if i knew what door i'd let you out
or are you lost alice...the rest of your days

my life changed in a moment
I stopped trying to play God
I just didn't know it yet,
till I walked further along the way
and shared my experience with someone else

I am you* in unseen places
The you, which you ignore
Forgotten and left behind

I am you behind the play
The nails and glue
That hide behind the picturesque facade

I am you crouched in wait
Perched and ready
To be acknowledged as truth

I am you inside your words
Shared anonymously
Naked, alone, embittered and brilliant

I am you crouched in the darkest corner
Shadowed by pain
Seething in silence

I am you oblivious to the knowledge
That in this twisted loss of self
You are in fact...**me

Engulfed by thick billows of smoke
Lungs filled with it, almost asphyxiated
Squeezing out the last ounce of life
Haze has blinded the vision of some
Hiding behind the threatening smoke
Smoldering emotions running high
Loved ones are torn away forcibly
Lives suffocating to premature death
Who will clear the engulfing smoke?
Wiping away emotions with billowing smoke
Tempers running high, mercurial rage
Engulfing even the perpetrators
Wisdom is on the verge of silent death
Engulfed by thick billows of smoke