Trump nation, Aleppo sin
fighting battles we'll never win.
I am you and you are me,
something humans dread to see.

Burning effigies of terror and hate
in hopes of making America great (again).
Blue collars turned red from the loudest silence,
Inciting their God-given right to violence.

All for one and one for one,
that's how you negotiate and
get **** done.

Caring for your neighbors
does them no favors
and handouts aint for free,
but you can earn them and more
by becoming a slave
exactly
like
me.

Inside my brain lives a lush, multi-colored
garden full of blossoming word play
and ancient discoveries.
As Venus magically touches my lips,
mind and heart, I am reborn.
She is the fiery spark that
ignites all the fireflies slumbering in my imagination,
gleefully waiting for my siren’s call.
When I’m in tune with creation it’s like
riding a wave made of all that is truly me,
and I meet myself over and over again
capturing with words the reality of my existence.
But, when I am disconnected, scrambled, fuzzy, blank, numb….
it’s the worse abandonment I’ve ever endured.

She is summer,
Full of laughter and joy
Radiating love and light
Among everyone she sees,
Without a care in the world
She runs free
Adventuring recklessly
Leaving bruises and scraped knees
And losing pieces of herself
As the summer rain begins,
Like the tears she cries
Late at night.
The leaves start to fall
Along with her spirit
And her friends tell her
That her pain is beautiful
Capturing the changes
In pretty photographs,
She feels the air cooling
Sending chills down her spine
And drying up her heart
Like the barren ground
Beneath her feet.
As winter rolls around
She hides away
Fearing the slippery snow
The coats the driveway
And the ice
That has grown in her heart,
She stops talking
And they stop calling
Because her pain
Is no longer beautiful.
As her heart hardens
Into a lifeless seed
That will not sprout,
Spring slowly approaches
The returning warmth
Melting the snow
And revealing fresh soil,
A blank canvas
To paint with life
Turning the seed  
Into a beautiful flower.
And once again
She is summer.

I miss writing,
Writing the happy poems,
the ones before my mind left me.

The ones about fantasy,
about the me I desired to become.

All those have left this brain of mine,
The reality forbids I cross this threshold.
I know the truth in all, crushing the dreams I once had.

I am no longer confused, just curious.
I know not what I should.

I have lost myself,
and can never be found.
*To this realm I am eternally bound.

Safety in bones
splintery and barbed,
cutting away the fear of flesh
as Persephone sleeps eternally.

Knees ache and bruise during restless slumber,
one on top of the other,
from running this eternal marathon
of illusive perfection.

Recklessly chasing rainbows
conceived out of the
blind imagination of the masses.
Hunger pains mistaken for redemption,
skeletons misconstrued as a life
well lived.

Freedom and courage are found
in deadly comments from innocent mouths:
“Are you eating enough?”
“You are so skinny!”
“Are you sick?”

Yes.

I am sick.

A slow, tedious sickness of my soul.
Not wanting to live with the flesh
of my past,
not knowing how to maneuver the
burdensome flesh
of my present,
while obsessively worrying over the flesh
of my future.

As I slowly **** the only self I know,
(or don’t know),
and replace her with a mask of self possession,
I unearth an exquisite relief from the dread of
never being loved because I am
too much.

In my twisted perception,
that is true death.
This is only dying….

We are all fallible because we are all human.
There isn't a soul on this earth exempt from
hanging a skeleton of ignorance somewhere
in life's hidden closet.

A big, brawny bag of bones dumped atop our
fragile heart spaces, in order to quiet those nagging,
screaming egos.

Sharp elbows and boney shoulders
forcing us to truly taste the soured-sweetness of humility,
and humbly drink it down.

Peace is found in our common flaws - our shared ability
to be so **** cruel, cheap, manipulative, scared, loud and wrong.
What hurts you hurts me,
we are all connected through that which
we've decided separates us.

We are not perfect. We've all really messed up.
Sometime, somewhere we've caused pain to ourselves
by inflicting pain onto others,
and vice-versa.

It's within the murky kaleidoscope of messiness that
we find proof of our connectedness, our mutli-colored similarities,
our twin tattooed scars of wisdom reminding us of our divinity,
in the wake of this endless slumber.

We must embrace our skeletons, transform them,
set them free....
For they are our greatest teachers
holding up a mirror to our souls and reflecting
all of humanity back at us,
revealing the brightest darkness we've ever seen.