Who are these creatures?
Why do they burn so red?
I fear their nature.
They hunt me
I hide
Under wisecracks
And pointless chats
And cotton sacks made to fit this awkward shape
Who am I?
I am lost
An alien amnesiac
A wanderer in a volatile land.

I buried my heart on the grass
covered dunes,
And my soul belongs to another,
But he may have the love
And respect of my mind
And all it has to offer.

My words are just echoes
Of words said before.
My thoughts and feelings trivial
Flecks of nothing
In light of space
And time.

The Earth watches us
Live and die
And never sheds a tear.

Tonight I grapple
With my insignificance.
And even while I write this,
Wonder why I even bother.

Tonight
A storm  whips at the window
With impressive force.
The rain like liquid bullets
bombards the fragile glass.
I keep expecting it to shatter,
But it just shudders
And creaks.  

I put my cheek to the cool,
smooth, surface
And strain my
Ear to catch every oscillating
sound wave that passes through
The barrier of fired carbon and silica.

That's when I hear it.
A low voice with emerald eyes
And a silver smile.

And I-
I remember
What it is like to be known
Completely without fear.
I remember my soul
And why I gave it so freely.

"I would give it again"
I whipser,
As thunder rolls through the empty
Space in the core of my being.

I must admit
That I admired the angular
Shape of the bones in your face,
The fey-like slant of your eyes,
And how you carry yourself
Somewhat like a bashful child.
But I'm not one to act on impulse
--not the impulse of the eye,
And was content to occupy my little corner
Just sneaking a glance now and then.

Then you spoke.

Insight poured from your mouth
Like honey from a funnel.
Pure intelligence,
without arrogance,
Caught by a slight stutter.

I could feel the blood in my veins
Rush to my face
And became painfully aware of my breathing.

You stood waiting for a response
And I just stared at you like  
An idiot.

Thank you for pulling me out of my silence
Into the world of other people for a moment.
It reminded me that my existence needs context
And that people can be something other than
Annoying background noise to my obsessions.

Thank You for ignoring the awkward silence,
And pretending that “uh, yeah”
Is an acceptable answer to any question.
Usually my obvious lack of eye contact
Would discourage the casual conversationalist,
But you took it as a challenge.
And it’s exactly what I needed.

Most of all,
Thank you for taking the time
To be kind to me,
A lonely misfit,
In an indifferent world.
And though it is not worth much,
You have my eternal gratitude.

My armor is made of sunny smiles,
The smell of peonies,
And the breeze off of Lake Michigan.
It is made of guitar strings,
Of midnight kisses,
And snowflakes that fall gently on windowsills,

My skin is made of lemon juice,
Prickly burrs,
And tree roots.
It is made of razor blades,
Suspicious stares,
And window shades.

My soul is a tempest,
An angry sea that swallows all
Who have the gall to brave it.
It is a hurricane with a human eye,
Incomprehensible and strange.
It is the wind that
Rips the sails from vessels,
That no God or man can tame.

Do not make airy promises
like a drunken sailor
On leave for a holiday.


Tell me your secrets
And love the bits of me
That are the least repulsive
For as long as you can.

It is all I ask.

I have pieces of myself
In boxes under the  bed.
Tonight I'll take each,
Neat brown parcel into
The woods
And burn them.

The parts that feel
The parts that sing
The parts that care for anything

The parts that remember
Will disintigrate in the embers
Of the first summer fire.
Erasing every trace of my presence here.

Time to disappear
Into the night like
A vapor in the wind.

Follow if you wish.

Be offended if you want,
But no one is the lord of my thoughts.
If I wish to remain silent,
To lock my words up
and keep them for myself--
That is my prerogative.

You have no claim.
I don't owe you anything.

Containers full of pain and sorrow
And laughter and joy.
Tiny universes held together with skin,
Sitting in a bus station at 3am.

Drooping faces weary with travel.
These are my people,
Though they don't know me.
My family,
Though they don't see me.
I sit alone in the corner and watch them watch their T.V.s
I watch them wait.

I watch the woman across from me.
The picture of middle-aged addiction.
Clinging to her garbage bag belongings
Like a scared child clings to its mothers breast.
As I memorize every line on her face,
Broken teeth and searching eyes,
I realize that she is beauty defined.

Has anyone ever told her?

In that room,
unperceived,
The ineffable resides.
Hidden in the suitcases of crack fiends
And vagabonds.

3am Escanaba to Milwaukee

That's my cue to leave,
I raise my hands to the ceiling and I shout
"Goodbye, you're all beautiful!"
They look at me like I'm crazy.
I don't care.
I am madly in love with their humanity.

I never want to know sanity.

My days are filled
With Quadratic functions
And Hydrocarbons.
I've had little time for
Billy Collins.
Or sleep, for that matter.

I'm thankful for the little
Moments like this.
When the professor can't find
His power-point.
Or a lunch hour where
I eat something besides text books.

I need time to reflect.
Find myself under all this stress
Take a breath and
Play a quick game of
"Where's Waldo"
With my soul.

Scribble some words
Or a picture.
Or maybe,
Just stare out the window
Contemplating the willow tree
And how her limbs struggle to
Kiss the ground.

A flatness of feeling falls and rests on my shoulders like leaves that
Drop from the maple at summer’s end.
Graceful fatigue.
My hands are limp at my side.
They have no wish to grasp at false strings of hope.
All of the passions of my youth have died.
Now, I only care for truth.

How quickly I have aged.
Only a few years ‘til I reach my expiration date
And all I’ll leave here are a few words on a page.
Words of rage.
And the love of a man that time forbade.

His soul bears the scars of my mutiny.
I am guilty.
But somewhere in his veins,
Somewhere etched in his DNA
Is all of the love I gave.
I did not take it with me.

I heard news of him today.
He has a wife and a summer house on a lake,
And
He’ll be a daddy soon.

Isn’t that beautiful?
What a fitting dénouement.

I.

I am the eye that floats on the wind.
The third observer
To your first person nonsense.
I see all and say nothing.
I am all and nothing.
Simultaneously the end and the beginning.
I hold your world together
With a steady stare.
If I blink you become a blur--
A quantum hurricane
In the blender of nonexistence.

II.

Or maybe
Somewhere in the multiverse
A version of me
Is drinking tea by a fireplace.

I'm sorry that my open wounds
       Dripped and oozed
And ruined your new carpet.

Complex PTSD made even more complex by frequent bouts of mild psychosis.
Neurosis.
Impulsivity.
Mood swings.
Suicidal tendencies.
Inconsistent personality.
Writing uncontrollably.
Questionable hygiene.
Obsessive pineapple eating.
Veganism.
Atheism.
Humanism.
And I have a horrible sense of direction.

Wait,
What was the question?

Someday when the door is open
And the sky burns blue,
I’ll see you standing on my beloved dunes
In the spot near the coyote’s den,
Where when I was ten I learned of death
And life,
From the sun bleached remains of a rabbit’s collar bone.

Someday I’ll see you shining in a sunlight
That no shadow can erase.
Joy will be the air around you
And there will be no more pain.
No fear of retribution,
Divine or mundane.
No more death
No more hunger
No more shame.

Someday we’ll start over.
Just you and I
And live the dreams we spun
When we were young.
We’ll have world that isn't crooked on its axis,
A life that isn’t hopeless.
We’ll have our innocence,
Immersed in the warmth of
Pure,
Unadulterated,
Love.

For now I will endure.
Live the existence assigned to me.
I will quietly suffer my share.
But someday,
I’ll meet you there.

You, sir, are talking
To the child who has raised children.
To the girl who worked a full time job when she was eleven.
To the girl who has won fist fights with men twice her age and size.
Who walked away with bruised ribs and never cried.
To the girl who has gone more than four days without eating.
Who has slept on the moth eaten couches of strangers.
The girl who
When she was fifteen,
Took her fourth grade education
Taught herself multiplication
And now studies particle physics for fun.

When you look at me.
What you see is a weak,
Insecure, little girl.
But I've fought my way through hell
And have come out victorious.
While you've been sitting on your
Trust fund sofa.

You think you have the upper hand
And that will make winning  easy.
I'd rather be a friend,
But make no mistake
I'm a formidable enemy.

Don't think for a second that you can
Treat me the way you did today
And walk away unscathed.

We wandered the night aimlessly.
The children of street-urchin-anarchy
sacrificed to the detrivores
of the sky-high metal labyrinths.
(For fear they’ll devour the living)

I remember it vividly.
The iron foundry air
cut like a razor through my sweater skin.
The concrete beneath my feet
swallowing the warmth like a vacuum.

Then you wrapped yourself around me like
a Mylar blanket.
And seeped into my skin
in a cosmic osmosis of lost souls.
For a moment we were home.

Only a moment.

We were thin white plastic blowing in the wind.

My sister loved sunflowers.

Anything worth loving in me died in a ditch behind a trailer park in northern Wisconsin. I’ve never been one much for talking. But I think I’d like to say something. I am all nerve endings. Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. How dare you look at me? Keep your money, I come here to be lonely and broke. That is the whole point of me, you know. I’m like some sort of plot device the author chose to show how lost the human soul can be. I’m supposed to die horribly to teach you that life is short and beautiful or some ******* like that.

My niece liked pie. Not just any pie.
Pumpkin pie.

I could go on this whole speech  about how you don’t know me. But I’m probably just as ridiculous as I seem. A stereotype confirmed. Go tell your friends you’ve found Waldo in the wild. It probably won’t happen again.

My mother collected angel statues.

No, I wouldn’t change anything.  I’ve tried so hard to fix the people in my life. To fix myself. But my hell has made me complacent and I just don’t give a **** anymore. Spite is the only thing keeping me alive. Spite and Jack Daniels.

You know, I used to like to sing. Isn’t that interesting?

With a voice like steady moving water
You never falter
Your eyes are the fruit
Of steady growing roots
Full of energy and luster
You catch rain and turn it to life
Hold the sun in leathery leaves
You are what grows in a well tended garden
A celebration
Of what beauty nature can bring

My voice is small
Like a trickle from a tap
My eyes tired and searching
My roots are thin, brown , tendrils
My stem is weak and wilting
My leaves are chapped and few
Full of parasites and poisons
I am what grows in wastelands
      In rubble lots
             And broken flower pots
I am something that should not be
A testament to nature's infallibility

The silence of my world cannot be shattered
By words
Or touch
Or light
My eyes are mirrors
Never in
Never out
Alone in a crowd

Time is not my master
He cannot order me to forget.
Nor is he my doctor.
My wounds are remnants of the dead.

As long as blood seeps they
Live through me in memory.

I made a vow in love
A promise, an oath
That I would never let go.
I wouldn't break it.
Not for all the happiness in the world.

I have known the sweetest love
How could I let it fade into the abyss of time?
How could I do that and live with myself?

The lonely little girl in me
Wants to hug the scared little boy in you
Until you stop being scared and I stop being lonely.

But this is a grocery store.
And you are a stranger buying cauliflower.

It's funny that I can so clearly see
The soul you deny you have,
Shining brightly through
Your ocean eyes
And peeking through corners of your smile.
And the softness in your voice
Has such spiritual undertones.
I cannot believe
You are merely skin and bone.


But What do you see?

If all I am is a rush of dopamine,
I wonder why you put up with me
When so many others could facilitate
the same purpose.

How can you love me and
Say that I am nothing?

Mr. Materialist,
What do you mean?

Infinite curiosity
Naivety
That is what I see in your eyes
But my eyes drip
Like leaky faucets in an abandoned house
Empty
But for the faded stains of crimes
Committed long ago
That's no place to call home
You are too warm
The cold here will pierce your bones
Please go

I am too full.
At capacity.
Feeling
seeps from my seams like
radiation from a faulty nuclear reactor.
Meltdown.
A slow motion disaster.
You have a death wish
I'll do the trick, but something
else might **** you faster.

You are so empty.
So impotent.
Like trying to start a fire when
the wood is wet.
Like soil devoid of nutrients.
Like a house no one has lived in.
Curtains drawn across your eyes like something is hiding, but
open those shades and there's nothing inside you.
Just uncomfortable silence
Unending.

Honestly,
you meant nothing to me.
You were just a lie I told myself so that I could sleep.

In complete truth,
I meant nothing to you.
There is no meaning in anything that you do.

Last night
I saw a monster
At the foot of my bed.
A familiar beast
That's haunted me
Since I was a kid.

He stares at me
With a white toothy grin
And a crooked head.

He says " you think you're so great, don't you?
With your fancy job and education.
Well, I know you better than that.
You're still a street rat.
The queen of trash.
Have you forgotten the scars on the back of your neck?
They will always be your epithet."


No matter how far I run
Or how well I pretend
He fills me with dread

Just like when I was ten
And laid still as death
While the carpet swallowed pints of my blood.

I am frail and fallen
Broken and scarred
Burned, beaten, bruised
I have nothing but my soiled name
Nothing to offer
But my love and gratitude
I expect nothing
Not even a kind word
Though kind you've always been
I love you
Without conditions
Without pretensions
Without limits
Your willing servant 'till the end

Restlessness,
My oldest friend
Pulls me from my bed.
3am.
A lonely pilgrim searching
For a holy land.

Finding nothing but
The light of dying stars.

My twenties came
And buried my mind in a shallow grave.
  But it's okay.

It's okay.

They say damaged goods wont keep
Without a refrigerator
anyways.

Let it spoil.

I left at first light.
Packed my bags for the 23rd time.
(Or was it the 24th?
I've lost count.)
I went south,
To a sad little factory town
Where I spent part of my adolescence.  

I thought it would be interesting to see if
The townies still remembered me.
If their *****-soaked brains had
Retained the memory of the strange
Little homeless girl with crooked hips.  

I have changed quite a bit.

And I've just seen the medicine man,
He knows who I am.
I saw the fear in his eyes when he came in.

To him I am
A ghostly amalgam
Of memory and imagination.

A dream.
A nightmare.
Something he never thought he'd see again.
He walks right by me without a second glance.

I let him pass.

I only exist in the rear view.
Just a minor case of déjà vu.

Don't tell me to shut up and be grateful,
For the rights "given" to me.
Nobody "gave" me my sovereignty.
It is mine, inherently.

To say that I should be grateful to possess more rights
Than the women before me,
Is like to say I should be grateful to the theif
Who only steals twenty dollars, when he used to steal fifty.

As long as I live in a society that blames a **** victim
For being too ****,
As long as I live in a society that creates an institutional
Gendered Heirarchy,
And as long as I live in a society where people feel trapped
By their ****** identity

I will not shut up and be grateful.
I will be loud and angry.

You promise I'll never be alone.
Never again.
You say you'll burn all of the pain away
With the heat of your kiss.
You'll take me somewhere
Far from this life
Of bruises and broken dreams.

I know that you mean every word.
But these are promises you can't keep and
I won't hold you to them.
No resentment in the end.
Time has this way of making liars out of all of us.
you're older than me,
But you're just a child.
Experience has taught me what your years haven't yet.
Life never works out the way that you plan,
And you can't rely on someone else for happiness.

So hold me tight,
While this night lasts
In all of its euphoric lovliness.
Don't think about the future.

It hasn't happened yet

I'm no angel.
I'm not made of gossamer and dreams.

I am a painter,
I paint the world according to my whims.

There are so many things I am dying to say
But words are no match for the meaning
So I sit alone
In this empty house
And try to keep from receding
Back into the hole that once held me
A prisoner to my own conscious mind
I find solace in the words of an unwritten poet
And though he dares me to dream
I'll pick truth every time

Please don't mistake my silence
For indifference.
The way your eyes flash
With unquenchable
Passion
When you talk about light fixtures
Is so stunning
That I cannot form a sentence.

What I mean to say is,

Yes a spot light makes sense in the second act.  
And I'll need some work lights for the costume change.

Wash my brain
Wash it clean
Burn it down with kerosene
Self inflicted lobotomy
I wish I could tell you what's wrong with me
I bring new meaning to heart Disease
Everything I love runs speedily
It's for the best
Don't you agree?
They'll never see
My crazy streak
They'll love me for
What I am not
The empty smiles
And pointless thoughts
I'll put them in my special box
and pretend that I forgot
This is just a game I play
to keep the rain at bay
Nothing more to say
I was born this way

There is a mountain across the sea
And at night I hear it call to me.
Restlessness
Not  anxiety
Is the reason I must leave.
Nomadic blood compels me to roam
I've never called any one place "home"
So it has been all of my life
So it shall be until I die.

I can feel it pulling
I can hear it coming through the clouds
The little red balloon understands.
He is my only friend
In these short hours near the end

And when the time comes
To pack my bags and leave
No one will remember me,
But that's how it's supposed to be.
I have learned to love
This crazy life I lead
Never looking back

Never looking back.

I've no idea why I write so much
As I have never had a way with words.

And I don't know why I fight so much
When I am genuinely apathetic toward the outcome of most arguments.

I think I get bored.

Maybe I just--

I like to make things dificult.
I like the combination of puzzle and pain.
It gives me something to fill my little brain.
Purpose.
A reason to be awake.

It's like a game.
But not the kind that children play.

More like a contest.
Who can destroy themselves the fastest?
Except the only prize is self denial and
If  you are lucky--
A bit of Jack to wash away the lonliness.  

A miserable existence, I know.
I live it,
Because I still have this ridiculous hope

That the empty chair in the kitchen will
Save me from myself.

I'm a senseless,
Rambling,
Fool.

The room spins with an awkward intensity
As I find myself (once again) questioning what is real
Fearing that time will steal another moment
From my consistently weakening grasp
Unknown forces pillage my thoughts
3:00 am
Ideas jump from my mind like suicide bombers
Burning and fizzling as they plummet to the ground
Confused by my feelings
And confused by the world
I ***** emotion onto a page
Hoping it will save me from being broken
But words cannot contain
The run away
Freight train
That is my soul
On fire and restless
Far too tired to sleep
Way too hungry to eat
Too thirsty to drink
Too everything to think
I mean what I say
But I can never say what I mean
So I stare a the T.V. screen
Hoping it will make me normal
Or at the very least numb

Goodnight Red Balloon

I love how this town empties out at night.
How the buildings take on a life of their own.
With all the people gone they can
Breathe
And finally so can I.
Ironically
I feel a lot less lonely when I'm alone.

I wonder if someday I'll turn to stone,
Like Lot's wife turned to  a pillar of salt.
Only, I imagine it would be a bit less dramatic.
More like falling asleep and becoming part of a park bench.
In any case, I think I'd like that.

I wonder why I write these things
And who I am writing to
Immortalizing my thoughts here
In black ink on the back of a used
Envelope.
I guess I hope someone will find it someday.
I just wish I had something more profound to say than

That tree had blossoms on it last week
And now they've disappeared.

Can you hear that?
It's the quiet humming
Of time
Containing all of life
In one single song.

It burns through me
Warm and painful
Like the first sip of *****
On a saturday night.

On these dunes
I hear voices
Across the low, wobbling frequency.
This small moment of safety
Time has given me
Is all I need.

Two lost.

"Two children
dead
Before their lives began."
A disconnected voice
On the intercom
      says.
Silence invades the room
and takes us hostage,
Demanding that we weep
For their broken bodies.
Demanding that we claw the ground,
Gnash our teeth and tear our hair in
grief.
But we simply stare at our shoes
Trying to avoid the glare of our own mortality.

White spots on the bathroom floor
Remind me of you
They make me feel empty
Like a glass without water
Like the remnants of a burned out fire

I remember it so vividly
The cold city air smelled of metal foundry
And cut like a razor through my sweater
I thought it would never get better
Until you wrapped your arms around me
(remember how I kicked you in the shin?)
You found me
A broken little girl
Alone in a big scary world


Running the dark, damp streets
We never thought twice
Never planned for a future
No need
We weren't going to live that long
I was weak and you were strong
But now you're gone
And all that's left
Is a box of matches and an empty desk
And me
A lonely insomniac

Vanilla and sandalwood incense
Remind me of you
Of the only home I've ever had
A haven in the whirlwind of my youth

Goodnight Red Balloon

They say we are strong,
Sister
What do you think of that?
I laugh.
They say we are lucky,
Sister
What do you think of that?

They say we are survivors.
I smile.

I glance at my sister, balancing her beer
precariously on the edge of the couch cushion.
Her brows furrow.
She knows how grief worms its way into your
Heart and makes a nest.
They stole our souls and ****** on our innocence.
No amount of change, distance, time, love, therapy
Or pharmaceuticals
Can ever replace what was taken from us.
She looks back at me with knowing eyes.
We laugh.

No one survives.

I am of the north country.
Sure feet and sealed lips.
Born on the shore of lake superior
And carried off by the wind.

It takes guts to live like this
And maybe a little bit of a mental illness.
Keen senses and good instincts.
Always with a foot on the gas.

I've seen a lot,
maybe more than I should have.
But life is a learning experience,
and I've had a few laughs.

Things have changed.
People have gone.
It's been years since I've heard the cold wind'ssong
Or been trapped under five feet of snow,
But this place still feels like home.

Where else am I going to go?

Some things stay the same.
I'd take cold, northern civility
Over southern hospitality
Any day.