You
Are not my crutch.
You've named yourself
But you've got it all wrong.
Even when I crawled through life
I never even took a hand up.
I've never leaned on
Anyone
And I never intend to.
I have no crutch.
I am no *******.
I am simply
Something you have never seen before
And may never see again.
(It takes a certain madness to walk
This tightrope.)
I have no crutch. I have no support.
But
I have my knowledge
That when I fall I will not hit the ground.
That if I am to tumble from love and life
I may be bruised
But I will not be
Broken.
I have someone waiting to catch me.
And you
Are not her, either.
Darling, you are what I want.
You are who
I want.
But you are not my constant.
You do not rise in the east
And set in the west
And I do not expect
That you coax every living thing that grows
Up from under the soil
And give it life.
I cannot count on you
To keep me warm when I am shivering
And that
Is okay
And that
Was never the point.
You are like the stars-
Never in quite the same place,
Bright and guiding some nights,
Shrouded in misty clouds on others,
And that
Is why I love you so.
Elusive and divine,
You shape the night into a glittering sheet of velvet but you
Are not the sun
And I do not want you to be.
I've got someone
I know will always come back and light my life up.
I've got
My safety net of sunbeams.
I am reaching for the stars,
And I want them to set my heart aflame
And print constellations of white light
Along my tender skin
But
Make no mistake
I neither want
Nor expect them
To make the grass grow
Steady beneath my feet.

Printed a couple of poems
onto crisp white pages
My daughter coloured pictures
around words that took ages
Hole punched the left hand side
with Pink wool it is tied

Written and illustrated
by Helen and Chelsea

It's my greatest achievement to date
(beside my daughter, you see)

An elephant graveyard
rests, etched on my TV
as I listen to the howl
echoing from outside
the window. Grabbing
my rifle filled with pellets
I stride outside to face it.

Adrenaline clouds my vision
as this monster of an animal,
this beast of a creature
glares at me. With his flesh
thirsty fangs, drooling
with spit. Ready to rip
me apart and bury the bones.
It growls with want
as it shakes the sick dust
from its mangy coat.
Hair hanging off his skin
like the dead clothing
from its past prey.
Cracking my petrified bones
I fall to my knee
and pump after pump
I prepare my weapon.
With fingers dancing their way
to the ready trigger, I hold
my aim. Steady. Breathing.
Pull. I release my breath
as the gun exhales a shot
into the body of the beast.

A cry shoots out
from the pounding heart
of this whimpering animal.
And as I watch
with regret tumbling
down my cheek. The dog
stumbles off
into the shadowing forest
so that I will never
shoot it again.

I don't
     Believe
Anyone is a
    stranger
To hardship.

    But if you are...

Well,
    What a
Horrible
    And  
         Inexperienced
Life
You must
      Live.

it's 4 a.m. and i didn't study
those latin conjugations
no, i studied
the last few weeks.

i don't care if i've ****** a thousand men;
i don't care if i've ****** one.
none of you have the right to
make me seem like i'm unclean.
because if i remember correctly
it takes two bodies,
two sets of limbs moving in the dark unseen,
and two resolves to explore
the sensations of their ***.
and i'm expected to sit here quiet and placid
while you throw my sexuality in my face
and make this an unwelcome place
for ****** like me.
*******.
*******.
*******.

i'm a person; a human being
and stop playing nice,
stop playing dumb.
i'm not going to pity *******
because you were kind to me
a time or two
you pathetic *******.

you came at the wrong time,
when i was already seething so silently,
and you asked again and again
like a kid asking his mom for a new toy in the store.
it's hardly even you i'm mad at:
it's this systemic poison in the great pool of people,
and there are plenty of fish in the sea
but how many are free from this toxicity?
i thought *** was an exploration, a harmless invitation
to enjoy what felt so organic and good
but you're the ones who've made it *****,
who've made me feel like a ****.
who've made it your personal business to erase me,
and displace me
because i liked the touch, taste, feel.
this is unreal to me; and i'm sick in my heart.
because everyone wants to try and isolate
this one part of me
and simplify who i am into
the whims of my skin.

no. the answer is no.

so *******.