Why does hope
Sometimes feel like barbs in my heart?
Is that the doubt creeping in
Or the poison of my dreams
Slowly, finally
Starting the process of my own death?

Why is it
That I give others the power to hurt me
So quickly
Before I'm sure they won't?

I watch myself do it,
Like when the horror movie turns towards the basement
And as they walk down the stairs
I scream for them to stop,
And yet that is simply the way the story goes.

To avoid it is to stop playing the movie altogether
And while I know what is coming
I know I need to simply let it play
To see the end at all.

Helping myself
But what is it all for?
I climb slowly out of the hole
I didn't realize I had been digging for myself
Though I know as my vision crosses the rim
There will be nothing but a foggy open field.
Damp in the clouded light,
Unable to tell evening from night
Sunlight or moonlight, it makes no difference
I have no flashlight anyway
And no one is here from whom I could ask for one.

It is good to want for yourself
But what is the good in wanting,
If you are wanting alone?

I guess the hope is in the waiting
For a light across the field
Maybe, there is only the theory
You could only chance finding another
If you have both climbed out to the surface.

Hours, waiting
Left at the dock
The water cool as I dip my feet
Pants rolled above my ankles
The sun sets beyond the horizon
As I know he's not coming,
But I try to enjoy the evening anyway.

Each time the note is slipped under my door
The handwriting is different, the phrasing
But the date and place is always the same
So every Friday, this is where I am:
Alone, waiting.

Someone smarter, maybe,
Better in some way
Better for herself, or better for someone else
Might not have found themselves in such a position
For these propositions.
I can't even tell if they're from strangers, or maybe
Just written from myself, and I can't remember

But I hope, anyway,
And I show up
Just in case
There was a reason left
For hoping.

They struggle to contain
The feelings inside bottles
Messages to throw in the ocean, iced over
They skitter with a clatter
Scattered snow-covered glasses
A pirate's best haven
Maybe one of these corks popped
Leads straight to my heart

Through monsters and ruins
Sharp claws and fanged vices
Struggling up to the surface,
Finding purchase in the darkness

Messages in bottles
Voices to be unheard
Some are my own
But the labels are too worn
Best leave them closed, and wait
For the ice to thaw under her.

They, on her shoulders
The child, and the older
Manipulative and scheming, plotting to point out
Every flaw in the artistry
Every wasted second, every fear

She wishes to give every
Benefit of the doubt, assuage every tear
Every anxiety to be released,
Anger and angst held back

But she protects the child
And sometimes, she's wrong
These overprotective anxieties can cause harm
But every time she's persuaded
It only took time, for the voices on her shoulders
Are the only ones who do not lie.

Sentimental
A sentinel
Colored pictures would show him
Old, and gray
Weathered by winds and storms he couldn't name
Memories, weather-beaten
They fall the same
On his creased, stone face
Rivulets of rain dug in
Sweat stained
The outcropping set to collapse
A thousand years from now
He remembers when his placard stood
Not so close to the edge
And how many has he seen
Plummet, where the rocks do
He will follow one day
And no one will place his face,
Or remember
The monument to the sentinel
Stood by the river
An oceanside ringer,
Immediately recognizable
Yet once its gone
No one will know his name.