you are made of many girls,
all longing to be lighter,
softer, sweeter, less hurt,
less intense, not
a burden to bear.

your kiss scalds with the promise
of forevers. you swore your allegiance
to boys who were unsure of you,
left them dizzied & breathless,
yearning for the empty space
you once filled,
the missing lodestone,
left them lost.

you struggled ceaselessly through the fire,
rubbed salt in your own wounds.
i can still trace the story of your suffering
in scar tissue sewn across wrists.
but you need never apologize.
the wildfires burning in your wake
may have scorched & singed your skin,
but you are not yet scattered ashes.

do not say ‘I’m sorry’ for survival.
your brain is a battleground,
marred with years of misuse,
but you need never apologize for what you are.
when they ask about your flaws, tell them
what it took to get from then to now.
tell them you are lionhearted.

remember, you are a cosmic body.
your bones are  made of starstuff
& when you breathe in,
welcome the universe
filling your lungs.

“That girl in the photo,
who wears a smile upon her face

with twinkles in her eyes

and a skin that glows

You have no idea

how she once struggled

In finding herself

and in fighting for her

many dreams
That girl in the photo,
she once cried for

365 consecutive days

and suffered eight years

of depression
That girl in the photo,
she once thought that

her body was fat

and starved herself
 for days
That girl in the photo,
she once wanted to
 **** herself with her
bare hands and just 
disappear
That girl in the photo,

she once hated herself 
for the way that 
she wasn’t perfection any aspect
That girl in the photo,
she was a wall flower 
who was thought to be
anti-social because
 she was quiet
That girl in the photo,

she once had best friends
 that she loved
 but lost them when 
they left her
That girl in the photo,
she had parents who
 restricted her freedom
and criticized her 
for being useless
That girl in the photo,
 she had her heart broken
 one too many times

and lost herself 
in so many ways
That girl in the photo,
you have no idea
how much she cried 
and wanted to end
 her precious life
That girl in the photo,
she grew out of it one day
 when she started to learn
to love herself 
for who she was
And now,
it is your turn”

I woke up to say **** in still here?
Jail, drugs, love and still i made it 20 years.
Two decades lived i still cant even by beer.
So why the excitement for 20 years?

Because the fact I'm still here surprises me.
I beat dope told it to leave me be
At the end of my rope eyes so blackened i couldn't see.
I should be in jail.
But every time id just get out on bail.
To the legal system its a fail.
Cause every time they give me parole
I give them the finger and bail.

On to the next couch looking for a come up.
Stuffed in a little pouch. And then i re-up.
Im just another corner store clerk serving to the public.
It might make you sick
But 20 was a big number i needed help reaching it.

Black sand morning sky~
   Scorpion strikes from the south
   Orion hides now

r ~ 13Mar14

A wrinkle in time
       born with hair gray
  and fragile bones
       jutting against feathered skin.
Black eyes cry
           for joy that day brings.
  Child of ages sings
         to Mother Earth.

r ~ 13Mar14

I used to be obsessed with the idea
that the stars we saw at night were
mostly already dead
Like everything was as lost
and as inevitably hopeless
as I felt I was
But this turned out to be another legend
Most of them are still there
and won't explode
for some time
and maybe I was disappointed
that the universe
wasn't as dark
as it appears to me.
What I like most about you
is that you
can turn things like that around
when you explain
how we're made up of materials
from some primordial
atomic cataclysm
that sent particles
in a billion different directions
until they reformed
and made
the sun
and the stars
and the planets
and that the entire spectrum
of our existence
was brought forth
from these events
and
I should consider myself lucky
that the universe
went to all that trouble
to make you for me.