Look at yourself
Lauren.
Look what you have done.
Look how far you've
fallen.
Look how far you've
come.

Look at yourself
Lauren.
Tell them what you see.
A woman so strong now
broken.
A girl so independent now
weak.

LOOK AT YOURSELF
Lauren.
Don't act like you're fine.
With the way you are
slipping,
you can't afford to
lie.

Look at Dean
Lauren.
Look at Lillian too.
They never got a
chance,
but that's not because
of you.

Look inside you
Lauren.
Look at your heart.
You would of loved
them.
But you weren't ready
to start.

Look at yourself
Lauren.
You are so strong.
He said what he
said,
but you know that he's
wrong.

You love him
Lauren.
That won't go away.
And if he comes
back.
Can you face what you'd
say?

Tell the truth
Lauren.
Yes, you were crushed.
And to forgive him might
be weak.
But I guesss that's just
love.

Look at yourself.

So much is lost in language, something I remember every time I fail to describe your eyes.  Maybe words are just the reality of life, truth without all the romanticism, but I can't help thinking that everything looks worse in black and white.  The newspaper tells me about the **** that happened down the street, but the printed words can't describe the woman's screams as she was pierced in a way that will forever leave a scar.  It doesn't give us the vindictive sense of power that the monster walked away with, still uncharged and roaming the streets.  Words can't breathe life onto paper, but that doesn't stop us from trying to make a body out of ink.  Something to hold close at night when sobs are held in and rib cages are sore.

Today I remembered the weekend we made cupcakes. Batter dotted our skin, and we kissed it off each others faces.

I remember falling asleep on your basement couch, curled against your beating chest. We watched movies the way a nicotine addict smoked cigarettes. Our relationship a reflection of blue-light on our faces.

I wish we'd been as innocent as the cartoons we watched in my bedroom. Instead we crumbled like corporations in Fight Club. The irony is a bitter taste in the back of my throat.

All for nothing I fell asleep in my hospital bed. Clinging to thoughts of you to send me to dreamland, until the day I found, that I'm much more prone to nightmares.

It was then I realized our love story was a tragedy. That maybe all love stories were.

The first time I skipped a meal, I spent the night with a gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach.
The first time I cut myself, I threw up at the sight of my own blood.
The first time I made myself sick, I cried.

The first time is always the hardest, but it only gets easier after that.

Years down the road now,
I can see the beauty in what I've done.
The breath-taking wonder found in decay.

Tonight I sit on the pavement
outside my apartment.
My fingers curl around the
rusted chain-link fence.
Sharp edges of broken wire
left cuts not nearly deep enough
on my arms when I squeezed
through the hole next to me.

I don't live anymore than the metal at my back.
Just like the fence I am merely existing.

Months from now,
my kidneys will run
the risk of failing.

Already my teeth are
stained and eroded from
stomach acid.

My bones knock against
one another from shivering,
and the pavement underneatth
me chews at my tailbone.

When someone asks for a picture of me,
I give them the grainy photograph of the hole in the fence.
Just like it I am rusting. Breaking down piece by piece.

There is beauty in dying. In the natural course of slow decay.

When doctors ask me
why I did this to myself,
I will show them the scars
on my stomach.
I'll show them my
barren womb and
protruding rib bones.

I'll tell them that in trying to be perfect, I found what we're all really looking for.

I discovered that we're
born to die, and that
the beauty of life is
our slow descent into
the darkness of death.

At night I place my hand over my heart.
Feeling for the beat that means I'm still alive.
Still here. Still breathing. Still worth it.

I can remember the day you brought me flowers.
You showed up, shirt pressed, with that same sad smile.
I didn't want to tell you the truth.
That my lips had already known another man,
that my finger tips burned at the thought of his skin.
So instead I told you that I only saw you as a friend,
despite the weeks of rough *** and stolen time together.
After everything, how could I admit that you were so much more?
I'd already proven that you were clearly not enough.

Tonight I'll place my hand over my heart with tears in my eyes.
Praying that for once I'll be able to believe it's beat means I'm still alive.

Snowflakes fall,
icy crystals, blanketing
my yard like thousands
of little fairies laid
to rest.

The wind wraps around
the trees, and swoops through
the hills, only to batter
against the houses
standing in defiance to
the winter air.

Inside, our hands and hearts
are warm. Steam curls in
ribbons off mugs of hot tea and
cocoa. Our feet hover next
to dancing flames, as little
lights twinkle between
pine needles.

This, is my winter.

From stars we are born.
Atoms burning within us.
Traceable back to before
time began. It connects us
to those we never will meet,
stretching across galaxies
and piercing back through our skin.
As we are part of this universe
so it is part of us, making us larger
than most can accept or truly feel.
Breathe in your importance, and
contemplate the universe. As it
is nothing more than the atoms
inside of you.

Every time I visit,
my hallway is the same.
The tiles breathe cold air
through my jeans, and the
bench, now occupied,
gives me a longing look.
I know I am it's favorite.

People hustle by,
busy little critters trying
make it on time for
their next class. Giving
not a second thought,
to the girl with a frozen ****
and bright red hair.

Today my hall is musical.
Filled with the symphony of
fingertips colliding with a key board.
A piece that races on with a sense
of urgency. The player, a girl
with worn black converse.

The door to my favorite class lives here,
in this hallway, with 12 or so other neighbors.
Who's noisy occupants leak
through spaces in the door frames,
and whisper their conversations in my ear.

I'm not sure where
the comfort comes from,
in this hallway where I sit.
Maybe its the assurance that
the tiles, no matter how cold,
will always have a place for me.

Maybe it's that the people shuffling
back and forth, slowly become familiar.
Or maybe it's just because I need
something here to help me feel at home.
Maybe this is just the place I picked to be my safe haven.
A spot of comfort in a campus of confinement.

Lost in a dream of endless beauty,
my body disappears in the tall soft grass.
It tickles my skin as it blows in the breeze.
My hair billows out like a red wild flower.

I am part of this place.
I belong here.
This field is mine.

Above me the sky stretches on without stop.
Dotted with puffy cartoon like clouds.
The sun bathes my skin with warm kisses,
setting my hazel-green eyes ablaze.

Everything breathes innocence.
A new beginning is in the air.
I try to soak up the feeling.

Underneath my back the earth shakes with life.
I can feel the snakes writhe, the rabbits hop. I can
feel the bug world teeming with activity. I can feel
new shoots of grass breaking through gound.

My body may leave this heaven,
but I never will.
I will rest forever here.

I spend Mondays pulling pieces
of glass from the bottom of my feet.

Every shard reminding me of you.
Every line of blood bringing out your face.
And I smile with a bitterness,
as I throw the pieces away.

On Tuesdays I try to make
everything symbolic.  

I sit at my window in utter bareness,
and whisper to the cold panes that if everyone
stopped lying, we'd all be left naked.

Wednesdays are the days I drink
only water, and eat only celery.

Hoping to purge my body of poison.
Hoping to drop another pant size.
Wanting to get high off double zero skinny jeans.

Thursdays I always attempt to draw,
but never get past the art of words.

It's so much easier to stay in
my comfort zone.  Hang out with
punctuation, margins, and lines.

Fridays have a way of
being rather nostalgic.

It's never a happy trip down memory lane.
Too many wrong turns to be made.
Too many *** holes to get lost in.

Saturdays I binge on pizza,
realizing how much I love to eat.

The strangest feeling I'll ever know,
is that of feeling full.  I'm so used
to feeling completely hollow.

Sundays are horribly predictable,
that I can always count on.

To diffuse my energy I break wine bottles.
You'd never believe how it feels to walk
over something you've completely destroyed.

Our reality is always
changing.
Turning, wobbling.
Falling apart,
and back together again.

I expect nothing from life.

The problem with
beliefs.
The problem with
expectations.

They lead to disappointment.

To live without ideas
of how life comes and goes,
is to be wise.

Ride with life.
All its steep hills
and double loops.
Embrace whatever happens.
Bury it in your arms
and realize that this...
this is the part of
life that terrifies people.

Because beliefs...they're ignorant.
Expectations...they're irrelevant.
Let go of all the weights holding
you. Free yourself to a life of
traveling. Experience your emotions,
your pain, your happiness.
Let yourself be taken into the
chaotic, peaceful, violent, loving, lying, helping, wonderfully ironic,
state we call being alive.

I am Lauren Pearson,
and I am not a believer.
I have opened my eyes,
and I am enlightened.

They told me to write about the family dynamic,
and even though they were careful to say

"The" family dynamic,

I was quite sure they wanted to say

"My" family dynamic.

The way I'm quite sure that when my mother asks if I'm gay,
and if that is the reason I'm sporting a gay pride belly ring,
that she is actually saying,

"I swear to God if you're a **** that's the last straw."

Catholic upbringings seem to only account for politely covering up
hidden agendas, not actually purging them in place of acceptance.

My family dynamic is the blank stare I gave my mother that day.
It is the uncertainty I feel on a daily basis. A constant debate on
whether or not I should send her fragile ideals about me spinning
off their axis, admit to being bisexual. In my mind I always look
her in the eyes and say something along the lines of,

"Don't worry mother, I could never be gay. I enjoy a good hetero ******* too much."

In reality I smile and shake my head.  Leaving her to go on living in a world
where daughters don't have premarital ***, or lose babies, or try to **** themselves.
In a world where her good catholic daughter could never be gay.

I plucked words from your mouth like petals from a flower and let them settle in between my bones. So that when you stumble home with fire in your fists, your once-soft " I love you"s would soothe my aching skeleton from the inside out. But petals often wither, and their silk touch turns to dust, and these days you don't say "I love you" to replace the ones I've lost.

Raise a glass,

Let’s make a toast.

To the years of our lives,

We’ll remember the most.

These times should be flashy,

Filled with drama and chance.

There’s nothing like summer,

For some risky romance.

We are young and inspired.

We are beautiful and strong.

It’s in these golden years,

That we can do no wrong.

So we’ll run from the cops,

And swim naked in pools.

Drink till we drop,

And smoke to feel cool.

The world is our pearl,

That’s how it will seem.

This is the time of our lives,

For you and for me.

If life followed logic,
we could all get through easily.

Join hands and think through
wars like they were a word problem.

If life followed logic,
we could negotiate fear.

Bargain and trade for a better
phobia. Trade the darkness for a candle.

If life followed logic,
we could hold court on heartbreak.

Sentence people to live a life of letting
others down easily. Set bail at telling the truth.

If life followed logic,
we would be at loss for purpose.

Because we are here to experience things. Not
sit in a chair and smile at one another.

Searching for beauty
she stumbles in
darkness.

Convinced the mirrors
on the wall will
talk.

Telling the world
her ugly secrets.
Telling the world of
her inescapable flaws.

Searching for happiness
she clutches at
porcelain.

Loving the purge
in such a sickening
way.

Her insides roll with
aching triumph. Her
lips form a smile on her
***** smeared face.

Searching for peace
she carves out
her skin.

Silencing the voices
that drive her to
this.

Rubies fall from her
open wounds. Lips quivering
at the thought of it all
stopping to soon.

Searching for perfection
she puts on her
face.

Paints her lips
red and straightens
her mane.

Sweaty palms smooth
her barely there outfit.
It's time to test all her
self-injury effort.

You act as if everything is okay.  You let him stroke your hair and hold you in his arms because you're lonely, and he loves you. He never stopped loving you. You think that you have it all under control because when he leans in to kiss you, something makes you stop him, and at that moment you have given yourself the chance to do the right thing. To tell him to leave, and never ask him to come back. But as soon as he's gone you're empty again. Empty like the day your first boyfriend went to see his ex-girlfriend for a talk, even though he told you he hated her guts. Empty like the first time he called you a ***** and made you cry.  Empty like the day you had to call him and tell him that your baby is gone, the baby he didn't know about. Empty like the night you took one or three or five too many Ambien after he hung up on you when you needed him the most. You hate this emptiness. It stands for everything that's every gone wrong in your life, and so the next time you see him, you kiss him like he doesn't remind you of your first boyfriend, even though he does.  You watch him smile, you see the hope in his eyes, and feel part of yourself dying on the inside, because you know that it won't end well. That this time, you'll be the heart breaker, not the heart broken.

Months later you remind yourself that he was there when you thought you were pregnant, again.  With your ex-boyfriend who you still loved's baby no less. You remind yourself how he was ready to step up, and how you never could feel the same way about him. So you try to make yourself believe that you deserve what he's doing.  You let him tell you that you broke his heart, let him spread vicious lies about you, and then tell him not to apologize on the rare occasions that he tries too.  You tell him that he's right, that it is your fault. That you just want him to be happy.  When you find someone new you fall in love, and think everything is going to be okay. Think that you've finally stopped chasing after lost puppy dogs and found a boy who doesn't need fixing. Yet for some reason you still cry at night. You still want to hold on to the people you've lost and the people who hurt you.  You still feel the sting of pain when July passes and you should be in the hospital with your newborn, but you're not.  So you write poems and try to use words to make sense out of life, but nothing ever seems to be enough, and when you hold your youth minister's four month old, so tiny and helpless, you can't help but burst into tears. All you can hear is the baby's mother saying over and over again how big the baby looks in your arms. All you can feel is the maternal instinct to clutch the child closer to you and feel it's heart beat. You try to tread water, but it feels like your drowning, and the emptiness you've been running from comes flying back. Whispering in your ear that it never left in the first place.

When it comes to food
I don't have to say no.
Ana says that for me.
Through her eyes I read
calorie labels like death threats.
Together we write love songs
to my collar bones.
We beg my thighs never to meet.
Her touch soothes my hunger.
Ana tells me that pain
is just my stomach applauding.

Others come and go,
but Ana never leaves me.
Her name is stitched into my skin.
Tattooed on  my body
Till death do us part.

The day I buried
your memories,
you sent me a postcard
with your love written
in blood. And despite
the pain you've brought to me,
my hands couldn't fathom
how to drop this last piece of you
into the grave.

You left no return address.
No way for me to slap
you with the stinging
knowledge of how thoughtless
I considered you to be.
So instead I filled the
back of a Polaroid
with everything I never said,
and placed it in the postman's hand.

I told him that if
he ever saw the person
from the picture, and
placed the Polaroid in
his hand, that I would
pay him in stories about
a broken life.

Or if he preferred,
fifty one dollar bills.

Yesterday I sat on your porch,
and drew pink chalk hearts around
your doormat.  You asked me if I
wanted sweet tea and I said yes,
though all I really wanted was your
lips against my ear.  Whispering how
much you missed the smell of
my perfume on your pillow.

And sometimes I take snapshot of my
face when I cry. I mail them to you
in a grey envelope and on the back of every
one I write down confessions about
what animals I'd run over in the
road that day, and how they all made
the same loud thump under my wheels,
no matter how hard I pushed on the gas
pedal, or how much I turned up the stereo.

Occasionally you bring the pictures
back to me, telling me everything you
know about radio waves, road ****, and how
they relate to the tread on my tires.  You tell
me things I won't ever need to know, but
will never be able to forget no matter
how many times I try to burn the memories
of you from my frontal lobe.

I guess that's another reason why I love you.
Because no one's ever told me how
they make the colors in my favorite
fourth of July fireworks.

Most days,
you are all I want.

Your heartbeat next to mine,
feet kicking inside me. The first
moves you'll ever make. Just
for me. Just between us.
Most days.

Some days,
I make myself sick.

The sight of my stomach, so
flat and empty. My womb so cold
and dark without you there. The pain
is so real it forces me to my knees.
Some days.

Most days,
I dream about your life.

The colors I'd paint your room.
The music I'd play, the kind that's
supposed to make you smarter. The
stuffed animals that would clutter about.
Most days.

Rare days,
I hate you.

For teasing me with a chance
of life. For pushing away the man
I loved. As if any of it is your fault.
As if you chose to die before living.
Rare days.

Every day,
I think about you.

Endlessly.
Painfully.
Joyfully.
Lovingly.
Every day.

Non stop,
I love you

No matter
what happens,
this love will
never end.

When I close my eyes I can still feel the swaying.
Side to side, back and forth,
constantly tilting one way or the other.
My mind is still standing on sea legs.

It's funny how much faster we adapt on the outside.

When I first stepped on that boat,
I didn't know where my point B was exactly.
Only that my point A was a place I couldn't handle anymore.
So I took on the sun and salt.
Before long my skin was a cocoa bean.
My hair waved with the water.
My fingers and toes grew calloused but quick.
I'd traded in "street rat" for "sea urchin".

You could see for miles on that floating piece of heaven.

Something happened out there, though I'm not sure what.
I didn't get off at the first dock. Or the second, or the third.
I'd lost count after awhile. The sea was my home.
I could fill a night with talks of trade winds.
I thought I'd made a home out of misfits and maps.

My mind hasn't quite caught up yet.

It doesn't understand why I left.
One day we stopped, and I just started walking.
Sand, grass, and dirt replacing soft worn wood.
The forest draped down around me in an eerie green embrace.

I knew there was no turning back.

I still have skin like cocoa beans, though it very rarely burns.
My hair still waves like the beautiful pacific,
but it's become decorated with flowers and leaves.
My hands and feet remain calloused,
but now they are stained with berry juice, and tree sap.

Digging my toes into the earth, I wait for my mind to meet up with me.

Heart skipping beats.
Hands enclosed in
what should be a causual
embrace.

Smiling like I haven't
in such a long time.
You're presence fills my
lungs with air.

Air that was taken by another's
hurting heart. ****** out
without regret.

Our paths collided in
a drug induced-haze. My
mind set so raw I would of
given you anything.

You're eyes drank in mine,
Calming my tears. You
stopped my advances, knowing
my fears.

Now we float in the sea
of uncertainty. Reaching for
each other through the
parting waves of time.

You're leaving so soon.
Starting your life.
It seems i'll stay here,
remembering that night.

You can't fall in love during the summer. There are no shivering hands or burnt tongues or worn out coats. Sandy beaches are a poor substitute for autumn leaves, especially in the Midwest, and the heat will burn out new passion much too quickly. Love requires coughing on bonfire smoke and learning the difference between grey skies and rain.

You can't fall in love during the summer, but that's when I met you, and I think I'm starting to realize that not every rule is made to be broken, but every broken rule is made with consequences.

You can't fall in love during the summer, I know because we tried, and look where that choice has landed us.

The summer air, I fear, brings a sort of mania.
Starting with the breath of mother nature's warm breeze
through my car window, and ending with my face pressed into the ground.
A sort of emotional and drug induced black out. In between is a madness.
Flowers bursting from their shy buds inside the bones of my arms.
Fireworks up the filaments and out the anthers.  
Sparking the tribal chants and patterns trying to live inside
my white blood cells. Forcing them to expand
and break, releasing a fever for sun and soil.
A sort of combustible stage production inside my veins.
Yes.  The summer air, I fear, brings an awful mania.

Sometimes it feels as if I am tattooed
with all the roads I refused to walk.

Whether they made me who I am, or shed
me of who I'm not, it's rather hard to tell.

I suppose it's all the same,
since I kept on walking anyway.

Love is fragile.
It spins, a plane of glass,
on the pin point of a sowing needle.
Tilting, and twirling, and wobbling.
Unsure of where it will crash,
or if it will crash at all.

My love for you is ever-turning.
It shimmers with a beauty free of cracks.
My love for you is constantly skipping.
A pieced-together, scarred shard.

Love has many faces.
Like masks in a grand theatre show.
Waiting behind the closed curtain,
ready to break free for life's ******.

Our love is deep and wide.
A fire that fills my soul and strokes my womb.
Our love is steady and gentle.
A calming wind that comforts my back.

You can't understand,
why our love is so different.
You can't understand,
why my heart lies romantically with another.

He will always be my one.
Our futures are entangled with one another.
I wish you would see that.
Understand my love for you will never fail,
Just because we're not together,
doesn't mean you're not my friend.

What blaze of fury has brought such decay?
Translucent hearts are all the color this picture
of hate. Can you see the broken ones? Can you
smell the hopelessness they wear like some
expensive perfume? Watch them cower and scamper
through bushes. Hiding their scorched skin like it's
something obscene. Watch as they scatter like marbles
from a child's circle. Building fire from scraps of oh-so
precious wood. Their smoke clouds the almost
non-existent breeze. What would their ancestors say?
Would they blush at the ***** rawness of this world?
Would they gasp at the events that brought us here?
Does it even matter? In the end the grass
is gone. The trees have died and the flowers have
fallen. Tell me what is sacred about this.

Where is the god you prayed to?

My lips feel heavy,
as I watch you fill yourself
with toxic waste.

Disgust bubbles hotly,
but no judgement
will I ever speak.

After all,
I wouldn't want you
to judge me for my
cup of ice against your
plate of pasta. My dark
circles against your
rosy cheeks.

Shaking tremors
make me tap at the
table in between us.

What do you see
when you look at me?
Beauty? Or bones?

When I look at
you, all I ever see
is a life I will
never have the luxury
of living. Mouthfuls of
treasure I'll never
be able to think
of consuming.

When I play pretend,
I always pretend
to be you.

And it's always
better than I
ever think it will be.

Even when the
consequences of
being you fill
my mouth with bile
over a pure white
basin, the memories
are still worth it.

Still enough,
to get me through
another week.

Word gets around about
a girl who never speaks.
She sits in the diner for lunch
every tuesday, and just stares.
Kids make it into a novelty.
Trying to taunt her into speaking.
Into telling everyone why she lives
in that broken down store up the
dirt road, but she never tries to
explain.  Instead she looks in your
eyes like she can see every bad
thing you've ever done, then takes
her coffee, and leaves. It's no wonder
that she isn't the most popular
in town. Eventually she'd stop coming to
the diner, and if anyone ever cared to
check on her, they'd climb through
the broken panes of a door that no
longer opened, and it wouldn't take long
to notice the ratty couch, the leaky sink,
or the empty and hanging open cupboards.
It would be easy to spot the holes in the
floor and ceiling, and the table filled
with ***** plates. These are all things that should
should jump out at them right away,
but instead they'd see the floor covered
with envelopes and paper.
And before they discovered her broken body
in the back room, they'd realize that every
piece of paper was a written letter, and every
envelope was over stuffed with them as well.
Letters filled with all the words she never
bothered to say, answering all the questions
that she'd ever been asked, and some, just
a select few, crying out for help.
In the back room her body rested, broken
at the neck and cold to the touch. Next to her
a final letter, about how she felt jealous of
those who never lived at all.

If I fall asleep tonight,
never to wake up.
I'll dream of the brightest light,
and you're unending love.
My ears will ring with laughter,
the air filled with white.
Our families merged together,
and your hand grasped in mine.

If I were to close my eyes,
and take my final breath.
My thoughts would be of blue skies,
and the heart beat in your chest.
Of a growing stomach to rest my hand,
with gleeful kicking feet.
And your courage there to help me stand,
when I fear I am too weak.

If you were to ask me,
what my fondest memory would be.
I'd have to tell you simply,
it was one I'd yet to see.
So if I died today,
I'd miss an awful lot.
Like our wedding, and our baby.
Like the house we'll fill with love.

Dedicated to Sean Rogers.

Sometimes I catch
myself.
Thinking about your
face.

Where you are.
Where you're going.
If you're missing me....

Yet.

I don't miss you.
I don't regret you.

But I know,
that sometimes you
think about me too.

Where I am.
Where I'm going.
If I miss you....

Still.

The answer is no.
I love you, but no.

She can have you're
hollow heart.
You're just a shadow of the
boy I loved.

I'm not jealous of her holding you.
My heart doesn't break at her seeing your smile.
You are not the person you used to be...

Now.

She can have the cheap
knock-off,
You can downgrade for her.

I'll move on like I do.
On and farther away from you.
I don't need who you've become...

Anymore.

Does anyone have tips on collaborating with another writer on a piece?

When the girl with sunken eyes
and white lips mutters to herself on
the subway, remind her that there are
plenty of things to worry about, but for her,
losing weight isn't one of them.

When she gets off at your stop,
invite her for coffee. Even if her
eyes are throwing daggers at you,
and even if every instinct in a normal person
would be yelling that her track marks are just that,
track marks, and for all you know
she might just shove a letter opener into
your stomach for the contents of your pockets.
A few bucks for another spoonful of hell.

Lace your fingers in hers after she reluctantly
agrees, and without missing a beat,
talk about how no girl should pass up free coffee
or free alcohol. After all, there is the
economy to think about.

Gossip to her about people you
pass on the street, and when she settles
into her signature silence, tell her about
how you love to make up life stories
for the people you see outside your
apartment window, and how you've never
admitted that to anyone else.

When she leaves, after a warm vanilla latte
and two cinnamon bagels, tell her that
you should do this again sometime,
and make plans to meet her again next week.

When next week rolls around, don't be
surprised to see your alley rat friend
missing.  Instead, smile and think about
all the important reasons she couldn't make it.
Like staying in to finish a term paper for law school,
or picking up an extra shift at the local volunteer hospital.

Then turn to the little boy next to you,
scared, *****, and without parents,
and offer to walk him to the local church center.
Because these days, no one should have to feel alone.

Strong and sturdy,
like a well-believed lie.
Your arms stretch out
grasping for some kind
of truth. What has
your face seen? So
weathered and creased.
I wish I could fall
into you. Put my feet in
the earth. Grow as strong
in my convictions as you
do to withstand time.

Is it crazy to want your
strength? Can I put
my hands on your
roughness and myself
become rough? I want
my limbs to bear the
weight that yours do.
I want them to stay
strong through never
ending change.

Is it crazy to
want your strength?
A strength so rawly
beautiful and intense that
nothing short of
death could diminish
it?

I want to learn
your unspoken
lessons. I want to sit
and listen to the wind
whisper your secrets.
I want to hold a lifetime
of experience under one
stern mask. I want to
be strong and sturdy.
Like a well-believed
lie.

Iridescent bubbles pop,
an explosion of shimmer in
sunlit soap drops.

Magic wands in blinding
colors give life to miracle
sphere-shaped fairies. Meant
only to exist for brief
moments, disappearing at
the fingers of
earth-bound angels.

Tiny imprints dot the
shoots of green, that carpet
my angel’s feet from harm.
Leaving in return medals of valor,
earthy marks of bravery
from her romp through
tiny forest worlds.

Golden rays say goodbye
as they sink softly down to rest.
She lets her weighted eyelids close,
Whispering a melody so divine
it could only come from her mouth.

My lips touch her porcelain cheek,
Fingers dancing on her moonlit hair.
To kiss an angel, my angel,
this is what I live for.

Some things exist behind curtains of experience.  

Those whose tongues have
tasted the holy fire know the touch
of something divine.

Those who have laid eyes on
their sleeping bodies, and walked
away to places unknown, can grasp
the idea of an inbetween.

Those who have groped in the darkness
for something to believe in again, who
have longingly looked over the cliff edge,
know that true despair does exist.

As for me,

I know that true fear can
come in the form of footsteps
behind you on the empty street.

The person at the bar who insists on
hollow compliments and free drinks.

Friends who scoff at your anger for
men who yell out their passenger side
windows about the treasures beneath
your clothes.

True fear can come in the middle
of the afternoon, as you face
off against the four floor staircase
to your apartment, when your steps
are echoed by the man in 2b who has
a wife, son, and a taste for resistance.

Don't tell me I'm overreacting,
when the single most terrifying thing
I can do is walk alone under the street lamps.

Don't tell me I'm too uptight just
because I've learned that flattery
can come with a horrifying price tag.

Don't tell me I'm wrong just
because you don't understand.

Look me in the eye when you have
waited until a security guard can walk you
to your car.  When you have held your
breath in a shared elevator.  When you have
lowered your eyes to the men who yell
obscenities at you, because standing up
for yourself could prove deadly.  

Look me in the eye when you have held back
the curtain of experience, and walked in the shoes
of someone who lives every moment knowing
this could be the day someone decides to steal
from me what is only mine to give.

Then look me in the eye when you tell
someone of your wound, and they reprimand
you for daring to walk this world as a woman.