My mind is clear
finally
for the first time
in a long time
and I see the light
break on the rim
of the crystalline
glass I mistakenly
thought I had to keep
sheltered
to keep my happiness
unbroken.

I can't yet
feel
the fibers of this
noose become one
with the tendrils
of veins in my
neck
but I'm
hoping
when they do
I'll start by pulling
myself free
from the roots
still
smothering me.

An acid trip and the sink still drips
I found cover of night
after nightingales left my
shifting sight
but I've got little to say
that you haven't heard and I
miss the soil between
my toes when the heat
burns my sunlit cheeks
the sink still drips and my dreams
don't stand a chance
against the sound of wasted
water in the night
I'm longing to make a change
when I realize I already
have but all the
same I'd like to make it
again if it would
mend the memory of
nightingale wings pushing on
through the snow
soaked skies and still
the sink drips on and I'm
left reminding myself
the roots beneath
me have changed but one
day soon I'll have to
scream to call it all back to me
any other day
I'd disagree but just now
I think an acid trip
will be about as mundane
as the drip of the sink
if I can't manage to let it last
to let it change
the ways I choose to see
this old frame
desperately fighting against
every warped
memory I've made
and every sheltering night that
made me.

Listening to
cowboy songs
I'm wishing I could
dance
along the horizon
like a Pale Rider
in the moment before
he followed the
setting
sun but all that's
left of my
nameless
grit and grandeur are
whispers
through dry weeds
and the echo of an
ache
in the tune
of wild wanderers
confined
to a song played on repeat.

She's got her hand out the window
as cars speed by and she's
moving too while
her fingers are going
numb out in the air but it's better
than only twinning them
with the warmth of her own hand
she knows it's safer to keep
her palms at ten and two
but she's still
caught trying
to decide if she'd rather
cut the air
while her delicate fingers dance
or if she likes the challenge of
fighting the breeze
and making her own path
with the sort of
strength
she always had in hand.

I
Vengeance never made much sense to me. Then again neither did apathy but both have managed to find me from time to time. I've felt my skin peel and molt when I least expected it to and I've heard the sound of resounding wolves calling from the days I often swore to leave behind.

So long I've fought to be anything but the crumbling ruins I've admired from afar. I'm asking. Begging. Now. For you to let me be the dust storm I've become.

Quiet in my controlled passions. Many have asked passion of me when I knew better than to give it freely and I owe that to my own resolve and all the things you taught me unintentionally.

I've let you believe, and let you live so long, thinking I was much less than I've long since learned to be but its getting hard to watch the sky change when I know I've loved the sunset much more than I've regretted missing the dawn.

I can't tell you all the things that shaped me, all the minor heartbreaks that brought me to, because so many have and would have broken you too.



II**
The hardest part of loving the children you knew is admitting they've become so much more than you. I'm asking now, I know no other, no easier, way to show you that you're missing so much of me by asking me to remain free of easy disappointment. I am not perfect but I have tried and am still and I am far smarter than you'd likely admit and I've overcome some things you still find struggle in.

I have been cursed with an unrelenting empathy that's built in me a patient wisdom that is more often than not beyond my recollection. But more than that I wish this could be enough for you. But I know change breeds disappointment and before I can see the sun you'll have ripped it from the sky and put it farther beyond my reach.

Left to my own devices I've made the right choices and I've rarely faltered when I had the right and opportunity to fall. Tears breed misery and I've never shed anything the winds of my storm couldn't gather back to me.

All the same I'm asking now, for the first time, for you to let me be. Without condescension. Without disapproval or dismay. I'm begging you. Now. To finally let me be the person you're afraid of.

The person you should be proud of.

I need a place
of color
like wind-whipped prayer flags
and I need
someone
who will think of me
when the skies
turn
grey. I've known familial
love and I've felt needed --at least
for what they call
my empathetic ability. Now I'm just left
thinking
what's the use
of being the spoke needed to make the wheel
turn
if I never really needed
the wheel
to get where I wanted to go.
The only thing
something round as I
needs
is a little breeze but I've been
left watching the wheel
turn
without me. I've been left
watching
breezes carry feathers
far --and much too high
to even nudge me.


                                                           ­                                       I asked
                                                           ­                                       to be a kite but
                                                             ­                                     even kites
                                                                                                  need

                                                      ­                                            the fickle breeze