Whisper words
And feather bones,
Lips like echoes,
Eyes like shadows.
Unbreakably ephemeral.

Silent steps
On carpet,
Night thief
With her cloak of stolen stars.

It is easy enough to pretend
She was never there
At all.

A new moon
Hiding away from sight
We know its there
We cannot forget her presence
But it cannot be seen

Depression is like that
An illness, on the inside
When you have it, you never forget
A moments respite
Is never available to you

I carry you with me,
Woven
In between
The frayed
Ends of my oversized
Sweater,
And the
Hollow pauses
Of conversation
Saved for thoughts
Too sacred
To be revealed.
I carry you outside of me,
Like the thin layer
Of frost
That dances lightly
Before collapsing onto the
Ancient windows of
My two door Oldsmobile.
I carry you above me,
Your presence as big as the
Wide open sky,
Yet also as unattainable.
Reaching above,
My fingers stretch out to grasp
You, but instead
Are met with the vacant
Feeling of air
Drifting between my
Clammy palms.
I carry you beneath me,
Supporting my
Staggering steps
As I drag my heavy feet across the
Uneven ground.
I carry you with me.
                                                                                   MB.

just addicted to lovelessness,
i guess,
addicted to the feeling of something that could be
a distant cousin of loss,
but can’t be loss when it wasn’t there to begin with.
a cousin of loss and brother of bereavement,
a lexiconical gap
in the english maw,
a space where the definition slipped out
but the word never grew in.
a gap where a word should be,
a word meaning missing something you never had,
losing something that was never yours,
grieving for something that never looked your way
or graced you with its pain.
insomnia of the soul,
unable or unwilling to droop into the catatonic stupor
of love,
until my eyes ache with open,
and my heart aches with empty
and just beautiful aches and pains,
like stiff joints filled with sterling silver
or arthritic necklace clasps.
my tongue is tin because the argentine
is in my hands,
silver in the space between the carpals,
oozing precious metals
onto the page.
writing in second-best so that it’ll stay.
writing second-rate love letters
and pretending they’re real,
like the words i moan mean something other than
hello
i’m lonely
who are you?
like i’m not the girl who cried love
because the village had already learned
that wolves are lies,
and vice versa.
because faking it has always been my favorite pastime.
i’ll write love poems forever,
keep feeding my addiction for as long as it stays,
let my loveless track marks bloom cantankerous sores
on my ribs.
while i’m young
i’ll write poems of arthritis and weakness
and death,
because oh now i am immortal
invulnerable and omnipotent,
but when my bones are brittle and my flesh is loose
and my spine makes me bow to the earth,
my poems will be of life and strength
and god
because darkness is only beautiful when it isn’t
an imminent looming
future.
when i know i may die tomorrow,
i will write of bluejays
and of a love that never found me,
though it knocked on all the doors and called all the numbers,
waited on my porch while i hid in the closet,
nursing my ache
trying to fill a lexiconical gap
with bukowski
and insomnia.
supersaturated with emptiness
because all the words in the dictionary
can’t make up for the one that’s missing.
it changed the locks when it came,
shutting me out of my skull,
taking residence in my chest
and growing larger with each slow breath.
every huff of oxygen fed my
resident,
every injection of
late nights spent just writing,
every pill popped -
the lies that went down better
if i said them with a gulp of gin.
so my lovelessness cracked my ribs as it grew,
replaced my marrow with sterling silver
and i watched it happen like
a glacier devouring a desert
because i knew i would never survive loving something.
deserts were never made to run bounteous
with water.
just addicted to lovelessness,
i guess.
addicted to silver joints
and words that don’t exist.

She lives a quiet life,
she tiptoes around,
she whispers when she speaks,
she hardly ever makes a sound.

Although her words are quiet,
her mind is very loud.
She has so much to say,
but no one listens for soft sounds.

She's an invisible girl,
who doesn't want to stand out,
she just wants to be heard,
without having to shout.

Sometimes the loudest people,
aren't saying much at all.
Empty words and promises,
just leave their mouths and fall.

But whispered words fly high,
and catch peoples attention,
they're intriguing, so amazing,
but only when they listen.

So look outside the spotlight,
because often the real star,
isn't anyone on stage,
but the mind behind it all.

You are not fair, not fair.
Never have been and never there.
And we will live for years;
Under foot and without doubt,
That our Parents mistakes will break our backs,
Hearing them crumble and crack,
Under the whip and as they shout;
Faster, Faster, and we groan;
Quicker, Quicker and we moan.
Until we die under the weight of kings.
As we were blind to all free things.