The  ghost town yellow evening, I did wake up
in a dream, was strangely familiar, painted by him,
Vincent Van Gogh, in flames of creative fire, who else?
kept  it a secret, until I've stumbled in to, as if it's a well.

I fell in love with a girl in a yellow sunflower gown
on it were sea waves swirling in his signature style
in the blue sky, below her waist was  challenger deep,
I held her by the waist, like smoke in a flux, she swirled,
it wasn't in here and now, in the past or in future.

I wasn't present anywhere, just a thought sowed,
got embedded in her brain. This mystery of us,
Van Gogh's echo and the creative universe we did exist
wouldn't figure anywhere except when we meet.

Wait, if Jesus died for our sins,
wouldn't his sacrifice be in vein
if we don't sin?

Or, is it that
he was killed
because of our sinful nature?

Further, would his selfless redemption have been possible without the ever-so-hated Judas?
Isn't he just as necessary as Jesus to this tale?
Just as the Devil is with God?

I guess I'm overthinking this.
Thinking begets trouble.

If I could choose my fate,
I would give my eyebrows, my nose
my teeth away--
just to know that somehow
I was able to say
that others who need
who are so openly lost
and afraid
would have a life of joy
and hope and the gift
of knowing
that when they prayed
God stepped in
and sent an angel--
(maybe me?)
to help in anyway
I could
so that those less fortunate
could live and be free...

I went to the garage to throw up and came out with a glass of water and a box to store my waste
I wish I had thrown up everything all that was me
But nothing came up but a wee little bit
Our adventure set off and to the shed we went only to be disappointed by the crude lawn mower
Once more the travels we set off on to the couch it is
Where he shows me a trick to alleviate my nauseous head
My legs spread for him and I cannot control the yes daddy slipping from my ***** ****** lips at the time
21 and **** with the tats he was everything I wanted and so the game began where his **** ****** my ******* tight *****
Age is just a number I'm 17 ******* it a responsible one at that with a job and friends and good grades and a future and here I am wishing I was good enough for this man
But I was
And he was cute and funny and sweet and
Gone
And this 17 year old sits waiting wondering what the **** do I do when I want but do not need and what the **** do I do when he may not want me
But baby I'm a jumper and the fall is scary but
Am I strong enough to crawl out of that hole again?
Am o stupid enough to chance it?
Will this even effect me as much as I'm playing into it?
I may not even like him when it comes down to it
But ****
I want to **** again
And I want to be loved
But these are indeed not the same thing my first time guy

Hushed, like a morning before sunrise, 
grace floods in without threat.
A sudden flutter of piano keys cues
a story to unravel onto something
so much more interesting
than pages of paper.
To eerie tunes and haunting hums,
she brushes, feather-like, across my eyes—
a pinnacle of innocence
that humbles me to the warmest tears.
She does not speak but tells me everything.
So beautifully, with pointed toes
and arms as weightless as summer clouds,
my imagination falls to her tiny mercy.
The little girl in the light blue dress,
who became
my favorite storyteller.

“Let it go,” he said.
So I release it all slowly,
like those 99 red balloons that saved
our little misled souls on bad teenage days.
Release it, and watch it float up and away
in 99 different directions,
in 99 different shades of ruthless red.
Let it go, and instruct yourself
to set fire to any and everything
it’s ever touched.
Burn the bridges, scorch the paths,
cauterize the arteries that
pumped warm blood for its purpose.
Set the fires, and let the light
from the florid flames
illuminate the corners
of your newfound smile
as you watch the embers
dance themselves
into white, meaningless ash
above your head.

There’s something so hopeful
about a pitch black sky—
the kind of deep and ominous nothing
that couldn’t care less about your
renewed sunrise and
clean slated second chances.
There’s a calm in that darkness
that I **** up in one breath.
I hold it there, in my swollen lungs,
until I go a purple fit for her majesty,
and any specks of light that catch my eye
tessellate and turn and repeat.
This world becomes a slow song
caught in a kaleidoscope,
and I’m dancing,
happily,
happily alone.

My mind resembles something like
a rabid VCR—baring its teeth,
foaming, unapologetic, at the mouth,
rewinding and replaying and repeating
all of the small cuts of two people
I swear I used to know and love.
Rerunning a patchwork reel of the scenes
I can stand to remember—
(which is all of them when I’m feeling
particularly masochistic).
Rhythmic static travels from
top to bottom of my mind’s eye—
a familiar flaw, cracking and popping
as the picture struggles to come clear.
I try to stop it—all of it.
Rip plug from outlet—
throw this snarling archaic beast
against some unsuspecting wall.
But it’s made in the good ol’ US of A
and runs on something
a bit more complicated than
any energy they can send me a bill for.
So I'm stuck
in this cyclical hell,
where there is no fresh air,
and the only oxygen I can get
has to be ****** through
a barely functioning dollar store crazy straw.
And, really, my only anger is directed at Dante
for not including this part
in his little ditty about the Inferno.
I swear I’d take
trying and failing
to escape a river of boiling blood
over whatever it is that causes me
to create a dramatic VCR metaphor
any day.