if I should sleep with a lady called death
get another man with firmer lips
to take your new mouth in his teeth
(hips pumping pleasure into hips).

Seeing how the limp huddling string
of your smile over his body squirms
kissingly, I will bring you  every spring
handfuls of little normal worms.

Dress deftly your flesh in stupid stuffs,
phrase the immense weapon of your hair.
Understanding why his eye laughs,
I will bring you every year

something which is worth the whole,
an inch of nothing for your soul.

And one day all the screams

of all the souls you have put through hell

just might catch up to you

and shatter your fragile ears

maybe then when you wake up

day after day

tortured by all the mistakes you have made

and all the lives you have poisoned

you will know how it feels to be me

your own antagonist

just once please tell me that you get it

so I can move on

and not feel like I poisoned myself

that it really was you all along

I've said it before
I've said calm and zen
I've declared and I've swore
And I'll say it again
I am not afraid to die

When I think of death my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this rotten lack of truth.

When I think of death my head is raving
And in a way I'm craving
To be done with all this agony
I've paid my dues
And I've got nothing left to lose
I'm not afraid to die

This seems hopeless and sad to you
You're wondering
"What does she live for, if she does not fear the universal fear?"
I will laugh at the odds, and laugh at everything, and laugh at the austere
And live my life so well that Death
Will falter, flicker, hesitate
And hover in reluctance
Before taking me away

I taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer on a small island in the Federated States of Micronesia. The following is an account of one of my student's most treasured memories.**

'''

My most treasured memory was very sad.
We were at the hospital, everybody crying
and I just couldn’t breathe

I looked from my mother to my father
and they were both out of words
with tears streaming down their faces.

I felt like my heart was gripped so tight
I could not move a single joint.

We watched my little brother struggle
through the pain of his last breath.

I was not close with my brother;
we fought all of the time and sometimes
he just scared the hell out of me when he
lost control.

He threw everything he could reach
and hit me with anything he had in his hand.
I was just a nuisance and an annoying girl
so we were different people because
he is so speechless and very shy.

He had a very bad temper and it ruled him
when he got mad.

He was such a handsome young boy.

I stood there crying with all the other people
and he called my name.
I knelt down beside his bed and took his hand,
crying so hard I could not talk or see him
with the tears pooling and sliding down my face.

He looked at me and said
“I’m sorry about fighting and hurting you,”
barely in a whisper.

I clutched his hand even tighter.
He said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,
I just got mad and couldn’t stop myself
from doing so.

Q, take care of mom and dad,
I can’t because I think I’m going to die.”

I was screaming at him by then
saying that he is not going to die.
Every word he said he struggled to get out.

My mom was pulling me away
but I could not be led away.

She was pleading and begging me
but I would not budge.
He was having a seizure by that time
and the doctor was with my mom pulling me away
and, for an instant, I thought my dad was going to slap me.

But he held me in his arms and told me not to cry
because everything was going to be alright.
I calmed down and knelt by the bed with my dad next to me—
he held my hand and squeezed it.
I held my brother’s hand with my other hand
and he looked at me with sad painful eyes
and everything went still.

My mom screamed and my dad froze
and I just cried even harder.

I pulled my hand from my dad and gathered
my brother in my arms and started to cry,
scream and shake him.

It took both my mom and aunt to loosen my grip on him
and my dad pulled me into his arms again.

This memory is so attached to me because
only once in my life have I been held by my dad;
slept in my mother’s arms.

And for the first time, my brother told me
comforting words and asked my forgiveness.

Everything was first-and-last because my family
blames me for my brother’s death.

I was treated so badly after that
but those moments were so comforting
beautiful and sad.

I love my family.
They just don’t love me
as much as I love them.

       My most treasured memory
       Happened when I was eleven.

       No one knows what tomorrow will bring.
       Maybe it will change.

When it all got to be a bit too much
I reasoned my way into a corner
Sat there silent
Stapled my bottom lip to my convictions
And called it poetry

We all pretend to have ways to cope
Write a poem
Pretense and prophetic anthems
Some say it better than this
It’s harder with through staples
I didn’t know how to pull them out

So I learned to drive
Pressed mute minutes into the pavement
Pulled prayers from the asphalt
It’s all I was good at
Taking long steps

On the last night I lived there,
I stood on my mother’s front porch
Holding everything I was in one hand
Everything I could have been in the other
And clenched my fists like a fighter
Denied the daylight
Spit in the face of the night
Drowned expectations in the dawn

Counted 148 bricks between the front step and the streetlight
Illuminating 4 wheels and one way out
Kissed each brick with my boot heel
Packed my belongings in the backseat
And my longings in the bags beneath my eyes
Put pedal to promise
Peeled out and pretended
That we all run away

When it all got to be too much
I bit rubber into ground
And wrote myself a letter saying:

“Someday, kid,
Someday you’ll be found.”

How much Hell could a person
swallow before they drown?