I have become stone. I used to be soft, open, passionate. But somewhere I looked up to find I am made of tortoise shell, a million years old. I am full of emotions, they're just buried too deep to find- maybe I never had them in the first place or maybe they have just fossilized. I am a mother, without my child. I am not a daughter, though my mother is still alive (define alive). I am spiritual, but I have lost religion, Buddha, Jesus, and Allah are not contradictory to me. I am selfish, and self-serving, but I love - just in my own way - flawed.

My Mom's plates
given to me weeks ago,
remain in the trunk of my car.
Rattling chains of Marley
at every bump and turn,
reminding me of dinners long ago
when we were still a family,
when those plates still mattered.

There is a place in Colombia
where kids have proven
they can educate themselves better than you can.
In the midst of a world we have labelled
"developing"
children of farmers who don't know English
(but are better citizens anyway)
are kicking our superior *****.
There's talk of bringing the method here
where, no doubt, it will be standardized
(all the better to fit into a single test)
and forced down our children's throats
while we coo
God Bless America!

Retreat into the palms
my dearest red-haired siren.
(It's always red hair isn't it, Ross?)
Back turned
away from steamboat thoughts.
Play your lovely instrument
(is it a guitar? a violin?)
its soft tones lifting up
with the birds of Paradise.
God
cannot see you
or sees you better.
Yes, you are more aware
of yourself away from civilization
that heavy burden
we beg for.
You could forever be my lovely here.
Blazing in the sun.
Paradise's Artemis,
A Goddess hiding in the Garden.
If you were me, or I you
were we each other
could I turn away from
Steamboat thoughts?
I could lure Ulysses
I could sound dangerous music.
Don't call them back,
tired of your island,
your handmaids of Paradise.
I don't want to have been wrong
to trust your image
if you are not a Goddess at all.
I might hate you
or I might love you
now that we've been ****** together.
Maybe I should have studied Elvis or Frieda
but I retreated into the palms
with you.

My poetry is like a sneeze it pops into my head and I write it down and its a relief its purpose changes to express millions of things I don't have much control and I don't ant to the main underlying purpose is selfish my poetry is for me i don't care if you read it or understand it my fingers itch and words keep pummeling my brain so I write to shut them up and every so often it comes out well I never sit down to write a poem and i hate writing it more than once it punches me in the middle of the grocery store leaving me panicking for paper and pen

My little dove has never been good to me.
It halts and stops
at the best parts.
I am too lazy to whip it into shape.
Instead, I indulge and abandon my writing pen.
No wonder I can't write **** anymore.

I ***** onto the page
and it is poetry

There is a tree on the street corner
all twisted and stunted and ugly
sitting on an empty lot surrounded by
hot asphalt and car horns.
But every year at Christmas
it is strung up with lights,
and in February
it is given one lone, glittering heart.
I see it on my way to the cafe
after a drunken night of revelry
and I wonder
who on earth would decorate
this lonely dead tree
in this dead little town?
I stole a pen in order to write all this down
and despite all that effort I left my little poem
on a table in a cafe.
I struggle to recapture my words again
It's much harder when you're sober.
I am obsessed with that tree on the street corner
twisted and stunted and beautiful.

The world is ending today,
the sky is falling in clumps.
It was just a bunch of LEGOS after all.

Nobody sees it but me
and I am alarmed.

Why do kids think they are so **** indestructible,
When the whole wide world
Is just waiting to pounce?

The private gun salesman
divine savior of our life,
liberty, and pursuit of happiness!
Washes his own hands
of the matter,
he has no need for Mary Magdalene,
divine *******, hippie.
Arms outstretched
he sacrifices his own collection
(for a sum of course)
for the anonymous benefit
of a person who
"seems alright".
They aren't Mexican or Black after all!
Or God forbid, Indian!
What would we do
without that Just defender?
Our private gun salesman,
divine savior of America.

I remember staring at the ceiling
listening to Schindler's list in the dark.
We were two orphans
sleeping with our poor lost mother
who couldn't pull herself together
for her two orphan children.
The only lullaby she knew
was her own depression.

I remember how the music scared me
worse than nightmares
and I lay close to you imagining
the great train
carting off lost mothers
and orphan sisters.

Our poor mother turn child
sneaking into bed with her orphan daughters
to escape the wisps of nightmares.
The music,
filled with so much sorrow and pain
was too much for ones so young.

I'm so sorry sister,
We really should never have listened.

Imagine,
Just for a moment,
That Eve had a daughter
Before the desert.
And,
Remaining pure,
She was left behind,
The sole tenant of that holy garden.
Retaining her creation-day innocence,
She is imprisoned
by her eternal perfection.
Naked, pure,
she is a ghost
haunting heaven.

When I start to forgive you,
This is what I will think about.

I won't think of your laugh,
Our talks, or our jokes.
I won't think of how
you pretended to defend me,
Or how much I loved you.
I will not remember the theme parks,
The movies, or the gifts.
I won't think about our long road trips,
I won't think about all the things you taught me,
All the gentle words you hissed like a snake.
I will not think of how you used to be Father.

I will think, instead of how much you hurt me.
Of the bruises you left on me,
On us, the one's you turned against
And left behind.
I will remember how you threw me to the wolves.
I will think about your hands on me,
In the pretense of play,
And of how sick they made me.
I will think of all that you ruined,
Of how happy I was when you died,
When it was finally over.

You may haunt me all my life,
But I never want to forget how much
I hate you.
I never want to give your spirit
A single moment's peace.
You've been my nightmare long enough,
It's time that I was yours.

In my grandparent’s house
There are stacks of
National Geographic magazines.
Next to the couch,
In the bathroom,
So that
From the porcelain throne,
You can travel the wide world,
Stepping into the shoes
Of some great explorer
In the time it takes you
To ****.

I am dying in this house.
I am stifled by this hate.
Not mine,
I don't want it.
Please Dad,
don't put it on me.
I want to love,
I want to be open
to feeling,
to learning,
to growing.
I don't want this racism,
I don't want this prejudice.
Please Dad,
don't put it on me.
Teach me love
not hate.
Love the poor,
the black,
the Muslim,
the gay.
Love everyone,
isn't that what I'm supposed to be learning?
But it's not what you're teaching.
I grew up in hate,
your little girl
and that's all you taught her.
But I have strength in me
because I love anyways.
I love you,
with your racism,
your prejudice,
your blind, uneducated hate.
Even though the hate
makes my heart want to harden,
I love you.
But please Dad,
your hate will blind you,
maim you,
**** you.
Put it away, throw it out.
And if you have to keep it
please Dad,
don't put it on me.

Memories come fluttering back like ghosts,
long after they ought to have been forgotten.
They fall like dominoes, holding hands,
set off by the gentle slush of (mostly melted) ice in a big gulp cup.

The words of the argument have faded,
like argued words are wont to do.
All that's left is a face, shout-filled, anger-contorted,
and a cup (Sonic, extra-extra ice, watered down and barely fizzing)
hitting the wall beside me, sticky sweet in my hair.
The memory of whirling, a picked up chair,
and my body throwing itself against the door, into the sun,
before a picked up chair could join the cup in the category of Thrown Things.

Like dominoes, one memory follows another,
with a million in-between.
A night-filled, shout-filled car,
a cup (moderate ice, ****** straw) sitting in the middle.
A freshly parked car, a shouting boyfriend (anger-contorted),
a door, opened (at last) with the weight of my small body
throwing itself into the night.
The cup, thrown from the window, smashed against the street's asphalt.
The air (more night-filled, less shout-filled) carrying my body
to the warm light of the front door,
the rattle of a (used/abused) cup echoing on the street.

Two memories, with a million in-between, follow each other like dominoes,
long after they ought to have been forgotten.
Color, sensation, emotion, all blurred,
two different colored strings (light-colored, night-colored) tangled together.
Ghosts haunting me with the sound of (mostly melted) ice in a Big Gulp cup.

Civilizations come and go,
and what is an empire
will one day be ruins.
Our moments are fleeting,
and will one day be forgotten.
What we fought for,
bled for, died for,
will one day lose all meaning

Future societies and new civilizations
will one day laugh at our absurd efforts.
They will ask,
where it all led?
From dust,
back to dust.
Is this pessimism?
Or is it truth?

Is it objective thinking,
refusing to believe that
we are anything substantial?
America, England, China,
one day will fall and be counted among the ranks of
Babylon, Petra, Atlantis.
So far lost, mating with myth,
losing all truth.

One day they will laugh at our irrelevancy.
For civilizations come and go,
and what is an empire
will one day be ruins.

Once,
When I was just a child,
pondering life in that simple and profound manner
in which children so often do,
I turned to my mother and told her
that all our lives
it was as if we were digging our own graves,
each shovel full of dirt
a memory,
experienced and then put aside
until the hole was made
and we could lay down,
covered in the memories we left behind.
What a depressing thought!
my mother cried
and I was confused.
In my child mind
I could not understand
why it should be so sad.
Because after all those shovels and memories
surely it would be good
to rest.

Someday,
we're going to find it.
We're going to look up and realize
that we've finally found happiness.
No more razors by the sink.
No more beer bottles littering the counter.

Someday,
It'll all work out.
We'll find what we're looking for
and all our previous pain will be forgotten.

Someday,
we'll turn our backs on the shadows
that plague our present minds.
You'll write a new song
and I'll write a new poem
and everything will get better.

Someday,
we'll find what we're looking for
and we'll smile knowing it's all behind us
making us that much stronger.

I imagine you in heaven,
Eternally young and happy and beautiful.
I wonder if someday
Your soul will be returned to me
Like he told me it would.
In my darker thoughts,
I wonder if you had a soul,
If conceived upon conception is really true.
Because why would God send to Earth
For such a short amount of time
Such a precious thing?
I wish I could have seen you,
Held you.
But I imagine you in heaven
And I wonder if someday
I will know you.
Eden.

Across the room
Oh how you drive me to distraction
Night time moments
The feeling of my legs wrapped around you
Quickening pulse
The taste of your salt skin against my lips
Soft, secret sighs
Memories of your hands against my skin
Close my eyes
Thoughts of our bodies moving together
Quivering sweat beads
Thinking sounds, sensations, gripped sheets, quiet moans
Open my eyes
Coming to reality as if from a dream
Across the room
Oh how you drive me to distraction

Life weighed on her soul
like millions of stones.
Her lover the spaces in between,
those beautiful weightless moments
he gave to her.
But t he stones grew heavier still
and those beautiful moments
were so fragile in their impermanence.
So she held her choices in her hand
and she took them all.
Going to her lovers bed
and to her lovers arms,
and in his arms she breathed her last,
a sigh so soft and sweet
and her lover held her closer still
kissing those gently parting lips he wept
Loving her into her own eternity.

Tossed about, spinning.
Lights, noises, sensations,
all blending together.
Night air kissing my face,
warm bodies pressing close.
Static, vibrating energy
bringing me to life.
Young and free and weightless,
running, breathing, laughing,
this is how we exist.
Clasped hands, flying carpets,
a silver unicorn dancing on a chain.
Together forever in this moment.
This is how we live.

I'm on the edge of a precipice
With you.
And I want you to jump
With me
And fall.

I have a feeling
that we are dancing
in circles
with our words.
Both trying to hide
the same thing.
Maybe it's just a fantasy,
but I can't help feeling
we're missing each other,
by inches,
with every spin.
If we could just stop,
read each others thoughts,
remove doubt,
would we just echo each other?
But we don't stop,
we dance on.
The whole world dances on.

We lost it.
So we went searching,
through trees and grass and hills,
by the river, under rocks.
And all the while we throw daggers
At each other.

We lost it.
And in our hearts we want it back.
But in our minds,
our pride won't let us.

Where did you put it?
No, you had it last.
We search, pointing fingers, glaring.
Blaming each other for misplacing it.

We lost it.
But still we cling,
hoping we will find it.
Under the bed, on the counter, in the fridge.

We lost it.
But we're too afraid to leave.
Because we're the last place we had it.
So we stay and search,
we look in books and in offices,
searching every bar and the bottom of glasses,
too afraid to admit its absence.

Because we cant remember the time before we found it.

In my backyard
there is a bunch of
empty
flower pots.

Why do our words make us bad people?
Our desires, our wants,
our likes, our dislikes.
How do we judge on such a shallow scale
a soul?
Why is it not our meanings?
Our thoughts?
Who are we to peer into a soul and deem it bad,
when the only soul we could truly comprehend
is our own.
And that we keep hidden
even from ourselves.

Oh god, my soul,
it reaches out to you forever.
I ignore its grasping hands
that wish to touch your open flame
and embrace the searing pain you inflict.
Your eyes are in the back of my head,
Now as foreign to me as heaven or hell.
My body constricts to think of your embrace.
But too much have I remembered,
for now I find I've forgot.

I had a dream that you said you loved me
While waiting for the rain to stop.
I had a dream that you wished to kiss me
but what we knew held you back.
I had a dream where we were silent
staring at the flowers.

I woke up and I couldn't remember
what the words sounded like on your lips.
I can't remember how you used to look at me.
Or how you used to sound,
but sometimes, just barely, I can remember how you used to taste.
And I want to go back and sit with you
staring at the flowers.

I'm waiting for sunrise,
my eyes glued to the horizon.
Sometimes the skies lighten
and I fill with hope.
And then the night descends again.

I'm waiting for the rain to stop,
my eyes closed against the thunder
sometimes the drops slow, fat and heavy,
and I think to come out
but then the skies growl once more.

I am unhappy
huddled and alone.
I am waiting for the "un" to fade
so I can just be free
But sometimes I'm afraid it never will.

Sleep in peace my love,
Let no dream disturb your rest.
Know in your soul that I am here for you always.
You will always be safe in my arms.
I love you
You are my light,
my love,
my joy,
my life,
my only.
You are my soul.
My love for you shall never falter,
never stray,
by your side shall I stay for always.

Lonely I stay in the dark,
a silent scream,
a broken heart.
Others just pass me by,
looking both ways,
but never at the Heart.

I am an artist
and no one gets it
But I see things
that they all gloss over.

I am an artist
and everyone laughs
But I can see millions
where they all see one.

I am an artist
and no one is jealous
But i see the Sky
while they see the ground.