i never took Mother Earth for a felon,
but it is nothing less than a ******* crime
that you & i are forced to exist continents apart.

- m.f.

i am every unfinished poem that sits in piles of crumpled paper by your waste bin and every crowded thought in the cranial space above your neck. i am every word that begs to be free from the tip of your tongue but remains just out of your memory's reach. i am comprised of the colors of sunrise but am more the mood of a sunset. i am the familiar  fingerprints on your favorite coffee mug. i am a wicker rocking chair on somebody's grandmother's porch. i am bite marks on your pencil and the crick in your neck. i am the vacant blurry buzz of an old television set. i am all of the places i have never been. i am lovers' names carved into summertime tree bark, promising "forever" - only to fall short of that promise by the time the leaves change. i am here. i am not where i belong.

you are the gravity that keeps my feet on earth. you are the atmosphere i breathe. you are the rain that feeds my soul & makes flowers grow. you are my revival and my revolution and the courage i kept hidden inside of closed fists for so long i formed crescent moons in my palms. you are an unstoppable fire that is burning me alive in the best way. you are the only rooftop i have ever visited that i haven't felt the urge to jump off of. you are the gentle hum and rumble of the washing machine i used to nap beside when i was a little girl. you are the creaky wooden swing in my backyard where i sat for countless hours and smoked and cried and pondered. you are all my favorite odds & ends bound together by my wildest dreams. you are sometimes so beyond my understanding, that i wonder when i'm going to wake up; and if i ever did find out that you were just a dream, i would bang on heaven's gates and plead with god to let me sleep. you are there. i am here, you are there.

one of us needs to move.

- m.f.

For starters, evil eye staring contest and immaturity

For mains veggies, breast of chicken marinated in malice and verbal abuse with a side dish of silent treatment

For dessert, munching on the sliced up agony lingering in the air with a knife made from resentment

After that we'll sip on some pinot noir then argue viciously for the rest of the night.

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

Solitude is addicting
As my head grows restless
And my thoughts take over
Washing down like a waterfall
But at the bottom
There is no oasis
Just rapids

Madness is inviting
As my thoughts bounce around my head
Like a tennis ball at Wimbledon
Knocked back and forth, searching for a victor.
Like 100 tiny voices fighting to be heard in an endless echo
It's like fighting for calm
In the middle of an endless ocean,
Struggling in the midst and mist of a hurricane
I'm thrown from the sanctuary of my boat
And plunge into the murky waters of insecurity
Drowning in sorrow, mistrust and anxiety.
I sense a calm and open my eyes
Just to be hit with another wave and pulled back under
Deeper than before.

In this dead warmth by the bed,
A minion on alert sat mute.
He is my eyeopener.
Be true, hell.
Amen.
-Idle Wrath
—————————————
There are many weapons
beneath my bed.
The ammunition is
not real.
The bullets are
inside my head.
-Wild Heart

Before taking out a clean sheet of paper,
I hold before the blue of the window
a freshly-sharpened pencil pointing toward heaven
and blow the imperceptible dust
from the needle-tip
before getting down to business.
For in life’s long journey
few things afford greater satisfaction
than turning the crank
and powering the cylindrical burrs
of a mechanism which sharpens
the dulled mind of a yellow number 2 pencil.
In the silver pencil sharpener
I witness the marriage of utility and beauty
—a model for art and a purpose for life
celebrated each morning before this small altar.

There was a Young Lady of Tyre,
Who swept the loud chords of a lyre;
At the sound of each sweep
She enraptured the deep,
And enchanted the city of Tyre.

I found God in the heart of a mustang
And he begged don't show me
To the rest of the world
I'm not the man they think I am
I created neither the universe nor the earth
I'm sorry I just am
The spirit of a wasteland
Just please, don't let them find me
They'd **** me if they knew

And his eyes shone out his fear
Too wild, too innocent and vulnerable
And he quivered knowing he was
Alive only in his unbroken freedom
He pleaded once more
Please don't let them know I'm here
They would hunt me down
Rope me in until I could neither
Move nor breathe any longer
And they'd bury me ignorantly
Beneath their fear and false crown

I found God in the eyes of a mustang
Hiding in the desert canyons
All skin and hollow bones
Waiting for the world to end
And he screamed as I roped him in
And tried desperately to warn me
This will never be the same again
Keep on dreaming I whispered
We both know that God is already dead