In my great tale
my predestined coming-of-age
Innocuous, bittersweet
glad
To have made it this far alive,

I hope my heroine is mostly the same.
I think I am in one of those years
less about changing
More about remembering.

Returning to the belly that didn’t question
Whether it was full or hungry.
a return to self-regulation and boundaries that
quaked ferociously—screams.
That baby—knows how to say no.

I don’t think I’m changing.
I think I’m remembering
things we are untaught
we learn again
and I sadly believe this is a cyclical thing
But today I’m remembering.

My coming-of-age
20 returns to two.
I write my script in a font that fits
and fight the urge to ask my mother’s opinion.

I surely will come of age again.
Around 32
Again at 45
Heaven forbid I should reach 59.
And every year before or after that.
20 returns to two.
Remembering histories in vibrant pink
Futures, navy blue.

I believe in the hand of God
the way, for many years
I believed in myself
which sounds promising to those who think they know me.

but I concede,
I don't believe in god at all.
And those who know me best
often wish that were not the truth.

And I wish I could believe
oh, the poetry I could reap.

Spinning divine lies
falling through time
empty promises and walking fine lines.

I've been asked to apologize so many times.
for my sake they say
but I wouldn't have it that way.

God's way.

my kindness is not a trade
for the life I could have after my dying days

The truth is, I'm twenty
and whether it's today or 80 years from now
I'm ready for my darkest eternal sleep
and even at the pearly gates
if such a place exists
before someone else's god
I will not repent
believing in goodness for my own sake

and if oblivion is the price I pay for turning my cheek
I will laugh and revel
in being right all along.

Those who know me well,
have to concede that goodness isn't
merely a facet of indoctrinated celestial belief
and pray for me
to be accepted anyway
even when I turn m cheek.

she wanted to
be his escape

someplace he
could get lost

someplace with
no direction

or destination

someplace too
dark to see

where all speech
is touch

but she offered
him too much

so he never
wanted to leave

and thus it was

that she had to
break him

We play with minds
but the mind plays us

don't use it enough
only when convenient

or when it's too late
when we've been suckered

bamboozled into thinking
too much about nothing

The only reason you are here
is to be composted

Recycled into something
that will in all hopes last forever...

There are always waiting spectors
as morning’s penumbra ripples
where chants of the mind play
to an audience of one.

They shape the mist as dawn
expands and connects each breath.
The weight of darkness lifts to
the edges of ether, emptying
the private hole of self.

Slowly, the hours
open to the hovering light,
the soft burn of the sun.
Like an instant between
seasons, the clot of darkness
dissolves.

There on the edges of wakefulness,
unexpected color breaks open silence,
dispersing the night’s assembly of ghosts.