I was sold to pain
in a slave market
that  didn't  look like one,
auctioned by a civilized crowd
of people just like you and me
in everyday life,
posing as my comrades, acolytes or lovers.
I stood firm on my ground
unrelenting even in pain's intimidation
and said, what  Valmiki
                 the first poet found,
        "Grief gushes out in verse"
                                 and I sing
                                        alone.

She knows one or two things about love
One is she hasn't been there enough
And when it comes to number two
She is saddened by that truth
That she knows one or two thing about love

She knows the bitterness in the pain
And how tears hide well in the rain
Just a few more things she knows
Although she knows a lot more than those
She still knows one or two things about love

She knows how the sun feels when it sets
And how it is to live with more than one past regret
One that she didn't see
A heart needs room to breath
Yes she knows how the sun feels when it sets

She knows one or two things about one or two things
The waves of joy but also the sadness it brings
The heights that love can be found
Followed by the lowering back of the down
She's learned to accept all that it means

These are just a few things that she knows...

She was stunning, gorgeous
Everywhere she went she turned heads
The boys whistled, the girls muttered their jealousy
They poked and prodded her until she was reduced to nothing more than a hopeless nobody
She stopped trying, she stopped looking for the compliments and the easy smiles that seemed to spring up when she came around
She didn't know what had turned the opinions of so many,
Maybe it was a nasty rumor made by a popular girl
It could have been anything really
But all that tearing down allowed her to build back up
She realized that she didn't need the makeup and the dresses and the fancy shoes to be beautiful
What really mattered was her heart, her soul
And so she found beauty inside
Her new found shining grace shone from deep beneath her skin
And although there was still muttering when she walked in the room,
She had learned to push it all aside
And see the true beauty of the world around her

A fierce Blue-Jay
blowing in the branches,
the wind and rain and icy snow all around.
The second day above freezing,
a break in the sub-zero cold.

But the house is warm
and I am having a smoke
on the doorstep.
Blowing the wisps into the wind.

I see God everywhere, and
if He wants to have me on
the condition that I have sinned
and am a sinner.
Well, I am long past the mark
of only one lone sin.

The Devil, he takes the lead
when I am in the drink,
or in a bout of confusion.
And I know for a fact that
some won't capitalize his Title
on the count of, they say..
"It's giving the devil his due"

I feel like
i've been blindfolded and
trapped into a dark room
no doors
no windows
nothing
but shards of glass all over the floor

and i've just been shoved to the ground.