my mama sets her lips on my cheek
but not long enough for me to feel
loved
quick, she says
we must go
this place isn't right for us.
my mama stares  at me in the
doorway
calm, she says,
that boy wasn't right for you.
my mama drives down 1-95
speeding past and cursing out
quiet, she says
that man wasn't good for us.

stuck in the wheel between
living and dying
rage between teeth
and words beneath tongue,
that fear will get ya.
lying under the vaulting
of the technicolor sky
smiling among the white-bellied
rotting creatures
smiling because there's not another
thing to do which lets you show
your teeth
besides a scream.
and scream you must if you hope to ever
make it out of this beast.
the fear will get ya and
all you can do is bare those pearly whites
and hope your head and heart coexist
and oh please tell me again
why i cannot hear the sound
no matter how hard i try and remember
shut up i said, or did i?
here they are inside of me,
these evils, these souls who so willingly
ecstatically employ their wrath,
upload their anger
******* on the hard-drive with a golden
molar
and here i am
drowning in the noise when i'd rather be
basking
extending the possibilities of a working realism
mathematizing my existence
because it was nothing to you
and you hurt ME
and you don't know it but you've colored it all
red
blood-red beet-red battle-scar-red
and you don't know it but that's all i can say
and that's all i have said
because if i say more then i'd have to be dead
no way i'd let those suckers see me
finished by a simple three-letter
thread.
i love you
oh really? you do?
**** me again then.
and the worst part about it is the hands.
that sickly warm skin,
i can feel your sweat and your
sin, all mixed in with that under-the-breath
promise as long as i give
in.
time is reckless in this fever-dream
live all day and die all night
become talented at suffering
so when someone asks you if you are okay,
without looking away
you can say
its just another day.
you, so talented at suffering
so skillful in your right to yearn for death
like that wire-tailed cat
in the gossamer green,
so fit to claw your way up and lose a bit
live a bit
love a bit
and see with your shuttered soul
the entire ******* thing come
crashing down before you.
so when my eyes meet yours
i do not know you, i know
the hands that took
it all away.
so **** me over again and again
even though you’re dead
again and again,
in my head you’re dead in that bed,
where you left me the last time
turned inside out and rotting-white belly up in the air
dead fish cant breathe on land
and a child cant breathe on need.
the fear will get ya
worse when the control is blood-letting itself to the exit
they’re hunting now, im trapped, all sides cave in
hot breath and cigarettes
its too much to take in when
we surround ourselves with birds of a feather and act like we don’t want to pluck them.
take away the things that make us human, things we can glue on ourselves, decorate our faces like the places we’ve had our first firsts.
the heart is 5/8ths of a pound so why did it take me so long to
tear it to pieces?
each tick of the tock reminds me of how birds count a lot for not knowing how
and van gogh cut off his ear and gave it to some *****,
appreciate that *******.
at least he chose a sacrifice instead of suicide, twice.
so im stuck in that wheel, going crazy
waving that S.O.S, shredding that white
flag to ****** pieces because i know now
that not a single person cares unless
they're on that wheel too
turning blue
turning to
the only thing they know and that
is this.
life isn't what you make it,
life makes you.

and hear me this
you wake to me
you sleep to me
you die to me
i am grief
and from my throat tears
the unencumbered rattle of
despair.
i am grief
a great beast
with dripping teeth
and souls to keep.
i destroy the ground
beneath my claws
and the flesh between
my crushing jaw.
i am grief
the notches in your door frame
and the smell of him,
untamed.
hear me this,
you wake to me
you sleep to me
you die to me
you fight to me
and cry to me
i am grief,
i am you.

i am you.

put your underwear on
light a candle at 4 am because today
i do it backwards.

last night there was no walking
she sat with heavy, swinging *******, expectant

she disregarded all the ***** on the floor
her smoke mixed with the salt from my tears and the reaction
was instantaneous
what she wanted mattered to me
last night

she knows my skin must shed all this chaos
feel smooth and and young and free
and so she sets the pattern, the swing
of things

three times around we go
i tap her below her spine as i smoke
with her red lip prints on the ends
i don't mind

ive vaporized now
a freak tangled in my bed alone
she can be a shadow to squint at when dilated
i cant make out the naked moon or
my naked mother
or the beach littered with my smokes.

a beautiful woman to be
rejected by
left with her moans still
suspended in the air
above the
bed.

18 years, its been
since i first felt the scalpel make its way into
my eager skin,
yet, it should be called a KNIFE
because that sounds harsher,
less kind.
and this is not a kind story.
18 years its been since they
re-orchestrated my existence
for a third ******* time,
and hey nobody asked me.
nobody did.
if that was an emergency,
whose to say this one isn't?
but hey, doesn't a cheap motel sound
nice when you get to have the continental breakfast
with a freshly sewn up chest?
doesn't oatmeal sound nicer with oxy?

i've gotta say man, this is it.
this is the time where you get to feel better than you
ever have and better than you ever will.

don't get used to it.

don't get used to that freedom feeling
that fly-away hyped up bs
they're always gonna look at you and scour
always gonna have that glint in their eye and its
not the one that says
i love you
i need you
i want you
how you are...

its the one with that bitter disapproval
the one with the utter disappointment
the ever-untrustworthy smile.

this isn't you
this isn't you
this isn't you


so come on
grab your KNIFE
grab your sutures
grab your morphine

get on with it,
and don't forget who told you
about God on your way out

the world is dead
but in my head
the "not good enough" still roams
the world is dead
and by a thread
my consciousness is thrown.
I see my body in the mirror
too fat, too big
too much I fear
that even when the world is dead
I won't.
I won't be enough for anyone
because I can't use a glue gun
or create a piece of which DaVinci would
approve.
I won't be enough for anyone
so **** it all, I'm flying on
the world takes time to love
time I don't have.
I look now, I am enough,
I'm adequate, ample, strong enough
to take the earth by storm
and prove my worth.
so **** it all, I'm flying on
I'm flying on.

I want for nothing more than my own mind -
but obsolete it is and empty as I.
for hours in this corner I shake,
and get nowhere with my cries.
on this floor, I turn to dust -
and walk unsteady with my pain -
prescribed dose goes down my throat -
seven pills to keep me sane.
I want for nothing more than my own mind -
but obsolete it is and empty as I.
for someone has taken my thoughts out
and replaced them with a lie.

my mother used to dress me up

with pink and baby blue

she used to sit and scowl at me

for using too much glue.

on all the projects i failed in school

cuz i never saw my daddy’s face

he was always off to work somewhere

in a cold and lonely place.

and as he cuddled with his cash

the four of us would sing

the songs of gospel and a dying man

who rose again and was called king.

and when my daddy was away

i would come across the paper men

who knew they’d float higher than me

and said i looked a certain way and then,

they smacked their lips and tongued their teeth

and smoked their cigarettes

and without fail they always gunned me down

with a stare and beads of sweat.

thats a fine looking high-horse you got there

in the hollow of this hot and southern drum

theres not a lot of girls like you

that would kneel for a pack of gum.

i used to think i owned the world

because i made my dolls queens and kings

but soon enough i realized

that those were nothing more than things.

and i was one as well to them

a thing to hate like daddy’s bills

they liked to break my arms and legs

and hunt me for the ****.

but after all the fun and games

and smoke that burned your eyes

i came to know that i was sin

with a kept secret between my thighs.

and plastic jesus only sat

on his high and mighty shelf

and despite my prayers or

shut-eyes confessions

he never moved himself.

and what could help me more than that man?

certainly not mother in her cool dark room

and not my daddy raking cash

in some business ridden flume.

here i reside in this truman show life

smoking cigarettes of my own

suffocating memories and

ignoring the phone.

one day there might be someone new

whose teeth are white and straight.

whose hair is neat and eyes are kind

whose clothes don’t spill their

hate.

but till that day i sit and feel and

keep my head down on the floor

because theres nothing more that i can do

but drown in metaphors

last night i woke up on the floor. or at least
i think i did, and even that was maybe a year ago because
time isn't real, and anyone who thinks so or lives by the minutes will die before any sane person tells them to ignore the ticks. they don't even realize time doesn't make noise. the slow inevitable marching? that's silence.

i remember when i was about eight or nine, a very young girl in a very blue school, my hands practically glued to the wood in front of my face every day for morning prayer. and hell, i swear, religion is delusion and time isn't real. anyone who prays to anything other than what they can see is only making excuses.

i remember being this young girl and fearing and forgetting and remembering all over the pain i was in. later i learned that this pain was called **** and this **** would be the next seven years of my life before i recognized it in the dictionary.

i did not stray from this pain, i did not stray from the abnormality of Christianity as a way of ****,  i did not stray from the fact that a woman wanted my body as much as i wanted a friend, or a new pair of shoes.
i did not stray from the fact that a woman could ****.

even though i knew Adam and Eve loved each other, i hadn't ever heard of Eve and Eve and Eve and a little girl like me, and so on.
i knew what *** was before this, but of course considered it holy and equally unholy, something my small and shaking hands didn't get to feel.

was i wrong to assume that? maybe.  i think i remember loving it, or maybe only because love goes with *** and *** is beautiful and it happened to make me. was i a victim? of ****? of love? i cannot think much more of this at a time, it makes me feel as though i am crazy.

i have definitely lost control. i have made dents in the walls, smashed and shattered objects around the house, not even my house. i have screamed, yes, and cried till i can't hear myself cry and i have shook and shook until i'm surprised i don't fall apart or bite my tongue off. but how much control did i ever have to lose?

i do not write as much as i used to, perhaps i am too concerned over aesthetic. i am tortured, but what language is that words are words,  however abstract or ugly. i do relish the occasional purgatory.
releasing sin is necessary, even those you never committed.
we all need a little guilt in our lives.

i did absolutely nothing.

back up against the dirt,

should i die today, among the weeds

maybe death won't hurt.


and should the flowers

watch me as they grow,

and the birds with their serenade,

at night's delicious close.


and not the silence gathers round

to take upon my plight,

so quiet, gentle hands

which take my thoughts in flight.


so gather round and watch me fall

sinking chagrin in my chest

between the line of life,

across the line of death.


i lay among the trees which reach

their arms up so desperately high,

oh how i wish i could reach with them,

and now i realize why.


the grass does not appear afraid,

the leaves shake not from fear,

but alas, my triumph's had enough,

my eyes shut tight as he draws near.


i did absolutely nothing,

and here i am to live,

purple shadows under my eyes

and all i've got, i give.


i did absolutely nothing,

and those flowers wonder why,

all i can say is that i'm here to reach

like the trees that touch the sky.

I let people down.
I let them down so far that
there is not enough light for
them to see that I didn't mean it,
they cannot see the look in my eyes
that says that I would do anything
to change it,
they cant even find a ladder
to climb their way out of the deep
misery I put them in.
At least, that's what they tell me.
That I descend them so far into
darkness that there is no getting out.
And so, that is what I tell myself.

these memories haunt me always
my knees begin to shake
I can't find the off-switch to this terror
when I sleep and when I wake.
these voices are too kind to me
telling me to die
I deserve much worse and more
and all they want is a goodbye.
I waste this time away and rot
because I cannot seem to speak
when all these words are stuck up there
and my mind becomes too weak.
too weak to say anything at all
to speak any truth or meaning
I am paralyzed by all my friends
left to all but my breathing.

lost am i
on a season of
reconciliation.
tried and true
the billowy blue
which calls itself
a home.
i see everything
as it comes and goes,
as my coffin lies in wait
for a sordid corpse to pick
its way through the dying
leaves.
but before my death i must
surrender, this depressive mode
for freedom never came to the weary
only the willing.
and the audience applauds
well done, you sickly being
forever living as an open wound
but little do they know
i've my own audience now.
and i know i stand in hell
with my own mind.

you press your lips into mine
like whistling grass.
they taste like blood.
there is a white t-shirt on the floor
if only I could reach it.
to be myself again.
I promise myself to stay silent.
like I always do, trust me, it works.
and it's over before you know it.
my hands, so much smaller than yours
are pressed still behind my back
and little do you know
the plan they are hatching.
I pretend i am stronger than most,
maybe enough that I could **** you.
I know, in my heart, that it could never be.
your grief is so much that it's a wearable
coat, large enough to fit both of us.
I'm better now, stronger with each of your thrusts,
I am not the girl under the sheets
or the one in the bikini or the seven-year-old
huddled on the bathroom floor.
I am fresh-faced and venomous,
one bite and all this **** will cease
with the beating of my heart,
and the deafening orchestra of my
mind.

i used to focus on all the things that hurt
knowing that's what most people do
i felt more justified
i used to jump out into a sea among
all the children who had more than enough to eat
and a bed big enough for their egos
to rest alongside them
they seemed to fear those kids who
lived on food stamps and played on
imperfect lawns
but somehow hated those kids who had bigger beds
bigger houses
bigger egos
they told me i was lucky to have two homes
even if my mom didn't love my dad anymore
even if no one is there?
they told me i was lucky to be that skinny
cuz they would die to look that way
and aren't i hungry?
they told me i should be thankful
that my daddy's rich and at least i don't
look black,
how awful it must be not to be able to
wear your skin like a trophy
they said who cares if you were scared
you're lucky you have someone who wanted
You.
who couldn't keep their
hands of you.
Are you even listening?
Don't you know how lucky you are?

these visions come to me awake
despite a gnawing need for sleep
in tangled sheets, I lay,
writhing for a different dream.
goose-fleshed skin under her grip
a trembling chin, and stone-cold eyes
I pray to a God I cannot see
and hope it wasn’t the same as she.
the hands run along me, poking
prodding, loving, lusting and in
short moments they take their
fill, hungry mouths awaiting.
and this ugly feeling in my gut
takes hold my throat and
I fall down into this hole of mine,
the dark creates the blind and
I am blind to all I cannot see.
her outstretched hands grasp
at me for more and more and
I cannot give,
for she has taken all there is to take.

i told him with my silent lips
and sleeping face,
do not come near this
sing song beast inside of me,
and i said to it
hush, stay in your cage
you hideous thing.

i shouldn't let him see you.

and they have that saying
little do you know
little did he know
how tall and big and wonderfully
horrible
it is.

i remember
riding down the red petal street
as fast as my legs would allow
squeezing the handlebars,
squeezing out the rage,
as the beast sat nestled right next to
that beating thing.

i remember playing hard,
cocking a loaded gun,
waiting for the shame to come
dancing in for the ages,
far from dead now,
but he's got some exit wounds.

what nights i had,
lying under the crooked ceiling fan,
salty with sweat and tears,
yet laughing anyways.
i tried to tell him about the
beast,
but he only understood with his
hands.
he only understood with his
hands.



forgetting of me entirely.

it is but a puddle, which contains so strongly my veracity -
a naked pain, which inflicts like a cursed spoke.
and though the sea may be livid, I have been inured to its anger.
you must not believe the sight of such torment.
see not the gossamer of my skin, nor the stiff white edges.  
hear not my howls which echo behind the black door.
feel not the warmth of Blood stitched upon white sheets.
hold not my aching limbs for they may never come undone.
lift your neck and heavy head, hold steady your breath,
to let your eyes rest upon me and see the truth
as a tentative gift, so that everyone may watch as
I inhale Misery, feather-quiet creatures wait on me
for the Rapture is near! on unsteady feet, I rise,
careful as not to wake them, At last, I have summited,
out of this tempestuous sea,
I do not recognize myself.
there is a salt upon my lids,
where I let the angels cry unto my brow.
they come to me in this euphoria,
this window of time that had been opened
whereupon I weep, this time at their feet.
I kiss their toes and cradle in my hands their marble heels.
oh, joy! I have been awakened,
and yet, still, the mirror is clear.
where am I?
What have I become?

and here i go making a fool of my cards,
laughing easy, crying hard.
this fight is great, im lost again
when everywhere is all I've been.
there's nothing left to do but wait,
till all my sorrows are down the drain.
dear god, credit all where credits due
but devil, how I've danced with you.
there's not a sight i haven't seen
with you by my side through thick and thin.
these sorrows have turned me bitter and black
that fleeting joy's not coming back.
oh god, you've made me a dear friend
but the time is now, the ends the end.
my moments come to **** the dark
and you best believe ill make my mark.
and so i sit to pay my debts,
and smoke that one last cigarette.

white dog sits
beneath the tree
questioning
the man
who gave him a warm
bed
his finger is cold when white dog
licks it

white dog has to crane his head
even farther
than he ever has to
see the mans face
he's not sure why
but the man doesn't shoo him
when white dog nibbles
at his shoes

white dog has never seen the
man like this before
he sits and waits for him to
throw something
white dog has never waited this long
for anything

he decides he'll wait
near the radio
the man always plays a tune
or two
for white dog and him
so white dog goes
and sits
and practices patience
like the man taught him

white dog falls asleep
and when he wakes
no song comes from the radio,
and he sees the man
sleeping funny
beneath the tree
and as he cranes his head
one last time
white dog could swear
that tree had lost
a limb

her mouth is like a
crimson slit
her face as pale
as death
her arms as thin
as morning sun
her hands dance
on her *******
she carries slow
her dying words
and ****** them at
my feet
before she lays
eternally down
she speaks them on
repeat
i am your mother
i am your wife
the sister you never had
i am your mind
i am your lies
im that which makes you glad
i am the lust that comes from ***
i am your deepest fears
i am your guilt you hold so
deep
i am your biggest tears
and so i set these at your toes
in hopes you run with them
never forget who i am
until your very end.

diaphonized love
an arm to reach
out through the ivory black
needed that.
most days are spent between
the rift.
a losing battle, and a waiting game
this want.
skeletons serve as a muse
on nights and days like this.
where darkness refracts
and shadows hang like
fractals 'long the walls.
tonight I ride the high
tonight its to the bone
there is no winner here
only losers
lost minds
and found demons.

stultify, my mind
this routine is never kind
the same drill of terror, obsolete
to black and blue, I'm beat.
this pious voice inside my head
wants nothing more than me dead
and yet I quarrel with my sorrow
and hold it to my breast.
clutch tight to your volition dear,
you're too smart to give him power here.
God doesn't know what he's created
monsters, demons, angels,
me.
what pious voice echoes in my thoughts
that all but consumes me.
what sorrow lies upon my breast
that all but consumes me.

the mind surfaces,
afloat on nothing, extinct almost
but not yet.
a swollen soul, adrift on blue
i am suffocating, taut
is the net.
the hands lost inside me
broken fingers grasp
and break in two.
i pray, religiously,
and once i know i see
im drowning as he grew.
as i have grown a bit since then
and much inside me changes when
im grasping at the sun
to fill me up with something
that no longer resembles
the pain that I've outrun.
and then i realize
i am alone
and nothing can be saved
this **** is not a memory
nor a thought, rather a road
forever unpaved.

stultify, my mind
this routine is never kind
the same drill of terror, obsolete
to black and blue, I'm beat.
this pious voice inside my head
wants nothing more than me dead
and yet I quarrel with my sorrow
and hold it to my breast.
clutch tight to your volition dear,
you're too smart to give him power here.
God doesn't know what he's created
monsters, demons, angels,
me.
God doesn't know what he's created.

i give thanks, of a sort,
that there were waves. green oil or not.
to block the sound from my throat,
a kind of mourning bellow,
of which i held no recognition.
these walls surround
on all four sides, a valley of hurt
and prove solid enough to hold
the shaking body.
will I ever be Happy?
won't I ever be Loved?
give me back what you took
so surely, like an old possession
give me back this
capacity
to hurt.
for i feel nothing at all.

this is a kind of pain
I cannot fix.
the gnawing, clawing night
has found an opening.
its blue-black fingers itch for
restitution of my skin I
give it what it craves so
I may sleep.
this is a kind of pain
I cannot fix.
among the grieving sighs of sleep
imprisoned in this mind to keep
the aches and pains of grief
where they should be.
this is a kind of pain
I cannot fix.

im young i said, you turned your head
and snatched it up anyways.

i have met again my match
this dangerous optimism
acoupled with a cockeyed rage
which tears about in my blood
like some hell-bent rabid beast.
and i hope and say my prayers that
shes just an exit wound.

lay your greedy hands on me
sew your wings upon my back
your voice of ecstasy disguised as reason
this is euphoria
a high where ledges don't exist.

look at me
the fiend
the pessimist run askew
this newfound joy might break me

and alas, i realize, i am not predator
but prey
and this hunt is mine alone.

time again i lay here
near death and suffer-spent
a ginger beer in hand and half a heart
to hold.
as happiness, the *****, laughs in my face,
and the silver cheeks of grief are pressed
against my own, waiting for the fall
for me to fold in my own
existence.

for this joy does leave
the rage does stay
and there is little left to
say.

her gleaming eyes atrate in
black
reflect in them the lies I've
told
untouched blood no longer
flows in lack
blessed be her hands which
hold
the supple flesh of a corpse,
my own
with greatness she consumes me
whole
I am left with nothing but
a throne
which crumbles like dust 'round
my soul
her gleaming eyes atrate in
sorrow
with rigor and a story
tamed
from a locked door and no
tomorrow
I am now broken, with heart
un - chained

and you
you think you see snow
over those ridges
but its really government factories
churning out the next shiny thing
but no, my friend
how blind can you be
not a single planet
not a single moon
not a single stare moves for you
you see,
perhaps you don't
that we are just rats in the ever
changing churn of a system
a system that clamps down
on our will
that thing inside you that no
matter how hard you search and
scramble,
you might never find.
it clamps down and never lets go
it chews through your soul
right to your core
right to the bone.
and you,
my friend,
there, chasing the whitecaps
braving the wave
the great, unbearable
crushing wave
i think one thing:
there is beauty,
collateral beauty in you,
your ignorance
your bliss.
and you,
you think they'll help you
you think they'll stay.
and i have just one thing to say.
they never, ever
stay.

a small, perfect child
was run through nights
and walked through walls
but the side of his half open
brain was too much
like holding hell in your hands
unable to look away.

beneath the dying flowers
too long a funeral
makes for too long a night
not to make a child in grief.

open eyed mother falls in her ******
a meaningless hill she must climb for
the man,
and all she can think of is
the child.
this is how she made the child.

and though
i may be sleeping
now
with this hunger -
an eternity

my soul will be
dreaming
of that future
where i may lift myself
from the ground

make no mistake
i am still alive

i am the
albatross
powerful and
sound

just above,
among the rain-clouds
feather-light and
free.

he tells me
my father
never let any man take
advantage of  you
i tell him
that is not  your place to
even say
my mothers thoughts waft up from
an empty wine bottle
she shouts
all i WANT is an
unbroken child
i shout back
i am
ALIVE
that is all you get!
glass shatters near my head
what must i have done to
be this bad
sobs bubble
from beneath my curled fists
my eyes are red
from all this
darkness
isnt there someone out there to
******* help me?
but i am alone
and there is no one
and
i wouldnt
deserve it
anyway
if i had known
it would be this dark
i never would have opened my
eyes

you've kept me up most nights
nights, bleed into day and day's end back again.
you've kept me,
surrendering into the nothingness of sleep
wrists and ankles bound to dreams
like you did to me.
she taught me to nod a yes instead of screaming no
instead of- help me, help me please.
i try so hard to remember anything, but you see
with a mind like mine the body is the brain.
i scream out only to realize
my lips have not even parted.
and that song, it sounds like the color of her house
forgotten love from lust only the love is a child and
she's crying out and nodding yes.
when i am broken and
there is nothing left of me to
touch
to hurt
to choke in your fists
maybe then they'll all realize
im just a little girl,
with a thousand ways to
die.

once i read in a book of the time
a girl was hurt
not in the way where one can say
here have a bandaid,
or stop the bleeding
or numb the Pain.
he held her to the ground
as the rocks dug into her back
tugged on her hair in the way which
men do when they use
someone.
and as he held her, pushed her towards the
dirt
she did absolutely nothing.
i believe, her heart stopped.
it stopped because it couldn't keep
a steady rhythm,
as he did.
pushing and grabbing,
owning and groaning.
i imagine her,
staring at the sky and thinking
this is how i come undone.
this is the time, the moment,
the very seconds in which the
corpse becomes a corpse,
the face becomes a moment frozen in
between what could happen and what
never did.
and as i sit here
devouring the Pain
suckling on the hurt and fear
i feel it too.
that it's tearing me apart
"all i want is to *******"
and all i want is to die.

but i can't do it
because what a life i would take
what a soul i would un-soul
and do i even believe in me?
as i sit in this perfection of Pain.
this metamorphosis of suffering
i feel it too.
i feel it so deep in my bones
that it makes me sick.
but alas, i know
ill up and face another day
another day to destroy it.
destroy her.
destroy him.
destroy myself and the sky with me.

i know ill up and face another day.

They said that life, itself, was all one big miracle,
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
When I walk the black of the manhattan alleys,
Or dart my eyes over the roofs bowing to pedestrians,
With the windows that frame the solitude of a lone cat,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Stretching their tired arms towards the sky,
A same routine of eternal awakeness to souls drifting by,
Standing at the ready for the open fire of the harsh winter,
And the soft song of spring,
Or sitting at the dinner table with the rest,
Or talk by day with anyone I love,
Or sleep by night in bed with anyone I love,
Or wade with naked feet along the break of sand and sea,
To me the sea is an infinite miracle,
With life just under cusp of blue and swirls of green,
So much life that of which we cannot see,
With men in ships and shells in sand,
And salt that stings the eye,
What stranger miracles there are than these?

grief is a beaten lion
which rears its ugly head
despite all of sunrise and its turning face
silent, hungry he stalks
among the underbrush
scarred and matted fur is bleak
against the pale tin sun
which beats upon him thrice more
and as his mighty frame
pounces through the dust
he is met with unlucky prey
and how loud and belly-full she is.
skinny, broken lion rears its ugly head
bearing teeth soon to be soothed by
blood
lonesome, prideful, broken lion
tears his prey apart.
and oh, how he roars upon the taste.

many people i know
and i know myself
seek acceptance
love
compassion
from other people
and
admittedly
rarely seek it from themselves
it is a near impossible
yet impossible, simple thing
to love yourself without condition
yet most people
do not even
like themselves


we could start to.