I burn
so much hotter
than most men
But am I
a candle
burning at both ends?

the King’s fool
never gains wealth
for everything he earns
he promptly spends
on better jokes
and checkered cloaks
for brighter bells
to golden gleam
upon the float of his laughing dream
his joy is to build
what is only remembered
with gilded fondness

You held my hand
laughed at the danger
you stretched across
I blushed
at the sight of you
doing this simply to please me

Your soft, sweet, happy eyes
graced me
like a warm breeze barely whispering above
the butterfly garden of my heart

I sigh as they turn towards a breeze that  cannot return

My moments of wakefulness at night
lead to deadening days
As my eyelids flutter open in the dark
so they slowly droop amidst sunlight
I lift my head from my pillow and remember the pain of a dream
as crisply as a fresh fried chip
Then I’m pulling my chin down in frustration afternoonly when I can’t remember my tasks inside a funk as muddy as chocolate pudding

I find myself
strangely silent
my chat box sits empty
I think of you and sigh
once I did so well
why do my fingers hang so limply now?
my heart cools
as if floating in a murky pond
and I don’t know if I’m too busy
I’m too content
or I’m too ambitious
to pursue again
Or if I don’t believe
I know how to find a heart at all

I’ve seen my inner lady
dressed in long, flowing organzas
she’s standing on the edge of sea cliffs
or the middle of empty, rolling hills
while pastel clouds flow past her legs
and pain ripples her hair
I think my soul feels stuck
like legs locked in position
almost exposed in sheer fabrics
the touch of sorrow has softened to a breeze
but endlessly caresses my being
beauty brushes my fingertips
and wraps around my torso
but it’s like passing petals on the wind
nothing enters in deeper

there are so many ways
you could have ended
spontaneous abortion
SIDS
childhood meningitis
drowning
forgetting to look both ways
gun accident
gun on purpose
car wreck
overdose
domestic homicide
war
Death came pretty close
before your eyes were even open
Don’t let the only killer you can control
get the best of you
*****, you lived!
Don’t let your mind **** you

I dream of you
then think about looking up definitions for love

I’m just one of many people you hurt
You hurt me because that’s who you were
You didn’t know how to not hurt
It wasn’t that you were slipping up or were in a bad head space, you did what you did because that’s WHO YOU WERE
I don’t know why I didn’t understand that
I don’t know why I thought for so long, just maybe, things could be different or have been different.
You weren’t for me. You were a clumsy oaf but you were dropping everyone since childhood. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t the first, and I wasn’t the last.
I thought so highly of love and it’s power, and I wasn’t wrong. Love is that powerful, but it can do nothing for someone who won’t receive it.
You couldn’t receive my love because of WHO YOU WERE. You couldn’t receive any kind of love very much.
I wasn’t a fool for trying.
I offered you something beautiful and undying, and again, I wasn’t special. I wasn’t the first to offer you a real love you couldn’t handle, and I wasn’t the last.
My heart was just one small casualty in all your destruction. For you it was all in a day’s work and you couldn’t help stepping on what your eyes were blind to.
Maybe one day you’ll see all that you did, but I don’t wish that for you. Even if you become capable of understanding the destruction from the lies you planted in me, it would be placed next to an understanding of everything you did to everyone else.
And that’s a lot of ****.
I’ve come to realize I don’t need your apology. You apologizing would be like a child apologizing for breaking vases during tantrums he threw as a toddler. You didn’t know better because no one raised you better.
I’m fine now.
I have new vases.

If you would like to hold a weeping woman
then I’m the one for you

Sometimes I look at all my art
in rapturous awe
other times in apathy
but mainly with pride
Some days
I think I’m just a ******* mess
A ****** rainbow built from dumb and harmful ideas

Oh human
so glorious and grand
I sigh in awe
as I stare into this nebulous navel
So full!
and yet so ready to hold more
That is the loveliness of You
every one of you
every one of you glorious and grand

in my lazy moments
when my mind searches for questions to collide
I’ve imagined you apologizing
asking if I’m mad
“I’m not mad” I say
“Why would you think so?”
But apparently I think so
more often then I’d like to admit
I’m wanting an apology

An apology
for bringing me to the edge
the cutting edge
the edge I’m no more than five steps away from
At all times
It’s not your fault
that I’m always on the ledge
looking for ways to climb down
jump down
run down
dive down
You were a journey I wasn’t expecting
but I was willing to take

Oh how I’ve wished you would talk to me
But I learned the hard way
Love isn’t something I can make
And when you walk away
You walk away
And I will NEVER
beg a man to stay again
Or consider going $600 into debt
just to buy a plane ticket
and a week to prove that I’m worth it
I’ll be confident
that you’re the only one who lost
But we’re both better off in the end
even when I feel like you stole
an opportunity from me
to show my love
ever so extravagantly

It’s part of everyone’s life, suffering
But most people don’t enjoy it like we do
most of them don’t find in it great trees
But we do
We make those great sad oaks into timbers
We stand them up in the snow
and build our homes with them
The scent of victory is burning pine
Our fire
Our suffering

Gold doesn’t elbow it’s way onto your front door
It doesn’t scream it’s own name in throbbing lights
at night in city squares
It doesn’t drip down television screens pleading for recognition
No, gold waits
Gold sits with his head held high
But his body down in mud
He finds a bed at sea just as comfortable
there, in the dark deep
as he does old, forgotten heaps
of pillaged treasures
or the velvet pillows that support his form
contorted around bright gems and pearls
in palace throne rooms
He knows nothing and no one can take away his identity
even on the off chance they didn’t recognize him
He’s elemental
and you love him for his service
He lives to serve
For in service he is glorified

Growing up gracefully
is learning when to lean into yourself
and when to lean into someone else

I praise you, Lord
    for you have lifted the boulders of my  mind
    and broken up a highway to Joy

How I love the curls in the mane of the dark horse
dripping down his back like a black waterfall
The obsidian of his eyes matches the soot of my palms
His quivering nostrils like my quivering heart

I feel snowflake dreams
slip from weakened fingers
How I promised to keep you
and meet you up the mountain
I stand in shadow
the dim edge of early morning
convinced the peak will turn gold without me

Throw your dice as you might
but you will never win the World’s game
For the rules always change
faster and faster as the day wains

Delusions of grandeur
have made many a ship sink
But a boat that never leaves the harbor
has no story to tell

A need emerges
a need to be among the wild
lay down and soak among the grasses
fall into an endless sky
crying with release
and the gamey taste of joy
Leave me to the wolves and antelope
Goodbye trees, my old friends
I need to be alone

I do not answer a fool in his folly
for the retorts of a fool are too many

Oh, Great City
shrouded in the mist of the future
Still stand stark in my mind
An indelible landmark of the future
drawing me with scarlet cords
Clearly I will See You
Clearly I will Hear You
as surely as I have been alive
I will walk Your streets

My hand is cramped
the muscles and skin begin to meld
with the smooth hilt of a sword
I grip but know not how to swing

I stare down a deep well
Old memories still accessible as a blur of pain
Like an open wound it smells of danger
every time I walk this way
Time has yet to fill it in with the dust and dirt of life in the trenches
And I visit much too often
for things to settle as they would
I’m sure they could
But they don’t
I keep sifting
like sand the memories rub my senses raw again
Long ago I decided it was worse to remember any good or neutral thing about you
For a moment it was a balm
but then like everything else it was just a bludgeon in the palm of the demon responsible for my torture
Anger is just as strong a tie as Love
and sometimes calls back to Her
when the heat subsides and I wonder what irrationality I have committed in those fierce moments
If my resentment be half-lies
so is every infatuation
I have committed to resentment as a safer place

When battle positions are none too desirous, one still must choose between them

So what do you think the world is saying,
when you don’t get the attention of the people you’re looking to?
what secrets stream slowly out like shadows
in that silence?
what knowledge grows in the quiet of loneliness?
Maybe they aren’t who you think
you long ago learned the portraits you lovingly paint
are filled with your own ink
You can’t see clearly
so it’s time to move on
the windows may be just as ***** further up
but ***** windows standing still are clearable
Unlike the ever moving muddy rivers
your imagination took you down

So often
human intelligence has failed to understand
the reality that awaits in Heaven
of pure, unhindered connection
deepest connection
far deeper than the intractable sea trenches of our own world
And yet, quite reachable it will be
Deep and Seen
every swimming prize recognized
each long lost golden treasure
at long last recovered
The manmade glories set beside the natural

women
when they love someone
open and close
open and close
with the light of your kind face
and softer words
in excitement she opens
in care she closes
Be an ever fair expression to find petals facing out

come wild one
come Willow
come west
It is time to leave your rest
rise
awake
the truth inside your chest
has blossomed

The call of a goldfinch wakes me
My eyes flutter open
I see it’s bright yellow body flit through the night dark branches
Oh, Willow!
Why are you so far from home?

I hate to lie down
when my feelings are in knots
I’ve always excelled at untying real knots
pulling out each strand with enjoyment
I’m proud of every knot I’ve ever untied
And I give great advice
but I hate to lie down in slumber
when emotional solutions evade me
The day stretches out unresolved
I lack the pieces I need to make peace
with the present

To all the boys I’ve loved
my downfall was your eyes
I looked into those pools of light
Brown, grey, blue, and Hazel
and saw an endless soul
What vision of greatness stretched out before me?
waves of wonder
For each individual is filled with unfounded gems!
the corals of the deep I long to see
To dive and find such treasure is my favorite past time
But the winds of the outside world have wrecked me
Left me broken back upon my shore
in the waters of men
I’ve ventured in the farthest
Great Tsunamis threw me out
corrupted by great cracks
Tremors shudder in deepest pools
and burst!
into the heart of the diver
who learns that pearls can still be found in tranquil seas
But your eyes still haunt me
the hues of adventure leak out of organized, locked away tubes
whenever my nervous fingers find the end of the rope of present projects
and I long for the salt of the deep

I’m dying for a lover
and a good night’s sleep
but I’ll settle for a song
and some CBD

A pile of my poems
lies in deepening dust
I look upon it sneering
at its lies in deep disgust
But I cannot say my words are poor
No, my words have richly wrought
the only beauty I could bring
from such an empty thought
To those moments I have gladly said goodbye
that inspired my pen and ink
But I’ll bring out the poems again
for no piece of my art into darkness must sink

Why is it when I see the ocean
I cry?
I laugh?
I dance?
I overflow with exuberance?
I feel like I am home again?
It’s as if I see my sister
my soul
my dearest love
and she laughs
and cries
and dances with me

A happy five year old
I picked up my crayons and gave it my best
so proud of a little thing
but my friends said
“You colored outside the lines!”
Pouting I brought it to my mother
after school was over and I was home
“Yes, Eva, you colored outside the lines”
What lines?!
All I had seen was my own rainbow of color
placed exactly as I liked it

like beauty that stood for 800 years
can burst ablaze in an instant
so the strength of my heart is consumed
give me something new, O God
give me more of You

It’s probably not that you were awesome
(but you were)
It’s probably not that it was worth it
(but it was)
It’s not even that you deserved it
(but you did)
It’s that your words became an apiary
And all my bees built honeycombs with the curves of your face
Now your words no longer come
nor does your smile grace me
The sweet honey has drained into the jars of my heart
And I’ve tried to forget you
but the syrup on my tongue remembers you
it puddles into the hexagons of your name
whispering like bees wings





I strengthen myself with sugar
and beeswax feeds my flame
that I harvested on a day my feelings decided to dance around you
like bees they nestled in your flowers
How long will I eat of your honey?
How long will your sweetness remain in my memory?

I’d like to meet you on the road
one day
And my heart would fall
down the slippery *****
and find hope
and a stream
at the bottom

All the men I used to love
or close enough
have settled in the fringes
And I no longer have anyone to think of
during love related songs
I’m in a strange limbo
so rare for me
with no one in any sense of reality
taking over my thoughts
I’m almost grasping for obsession
but trying to learn a lesson

And for a moment I am happy
And for a moment I am not
it continues in a dizzy, confused fashion
that I’m not sure if I should stop
Does this ride have a sudden end?
Do I really want to get off?

in a moment of weakness
comes whispering strength
Who taught you
to regret each last message
to them who said goodbye?
it was not I who left
and I should not leave a bitter taste
upon my own tongue
when all my words were contrived of sweetness

some woman
Most
are born hellfighters
The heat grows and ebbs along with the ******
a good mother hands her daughter a strong hose
tells her not to fight alone
keep your body strong and you’ll survive
to put out many, many fires