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  Nov 2016 Aspen S
Lucid
"She says, 'It's only in my head.'
She says, 'Shh, I know it's only in my head."

I was baptized when I was four years old
except it didn't turn out like most baptisms do.
It was a backwards baptism,
my childish innocence was left floating in the bath water like dead skin
and I stepped out bathed in sin.
Reborn in sin.
Seeds of sin
planted into my growing body
by the man with the face like Jesus.
"**** on it like a lollipop", he said
trying to appeal to the childish innocence
that he unknowingly stole
just moments before.

I did as he said
obedient child that I was.
I didn't know the difference then
like I do now
but the difference doesn't even matter anymore.
When you plant corrupted seeds
you grow a corrupted tree.

Now I wake up with blood under my fingernails
from trying to shed the hate
branded into my skin.
Now I'm constantly fighting a civil war
between the devil and god
raging inside of me.
Now I feel guilty for who I have become
because I never knew how innocence felt.
Now my poisoned mind only knows to yield
to the sinful whispers
that float inside my head
whenever I close my eyes.

I may have lost my innocence
but I guess
I didn't lose my obedience.

"But the ******* the car in the parking lot
says, 'Man, you should try to take a shot.
Can't you see my walls are crumbling?'
Then she looks up at the building
says she's thinking of jumping
says she's tired of life.
She must be tired of something."
We talk just like lions
but we sacrifice like lambs
'Round here
she's slipping through my hands
  Nov 2016 Aspen S
willow
i wonder if you see my hand tremble
as i smoke my cigarette and
try to match your gaze

you are saying something different
with your eyes than with
your mouth

i tell you you look like a tiger in a zoo
where they don’t feed you enough
because it is the truth
  Nov 2016 Aspen S
Summer
sometimes i pretend we're still friends.
our bodies tangling together
as i feel your breath pressed up to my cheek.
friends.
there is a daydream in your eyes.
I tell you you're beautiful.
my creative writing class has been forcing me to remember the past.
she says
"Write about an instance with someone you love or used to love."
the room stays silent
at first I hate it,
but by the end of it
I am writing your name with hearts around it on my paper.
I hate remembering.
I try to write about how I hate you.
no hearts on paper
but I don't.
i tried to hate you.
but then I remembered
Wes Anderson films
and first kisses
the sort of things that cover
bad songs and poorly worded excuses
and the secret site
I poured my thoughts to
the times it was worse than just "things are bad right now"
the bad times are still there.
i know you're bad for me.
but it doesn't matter.
I read poems from a girl who has the same name as you
i pretend it's you,
I feel like I am a part of you still
wish she was you.
I say your name in the mirror
until it doesn't sound real
and it will lose all meaning
and I repeat
"losing you wasn’t a loss"
"Losing you wasn't a loss"
and i try to hate you
I'm really trying
and i might
but the secret site is closed down
and i don’t go to it anymore
i kiss others to get the taste of you out.
i don’t think it is working.
their lips aren’t soft.
I stop talking to them days later.
i watch wes anderson movies alone.
the blankets cover my toes
as the tv flashes onto my face,
casting different shadows and lights
till I don't feel like I'm myself anymore.
i reach for your hand and it isn't there.
the space i occupy is empty.
so am I.
and I won't fall asleep
I don't want to dream about you anymore.
  Oct 2016 Aspen S
Luka Love
It’s the morning after the last heart session
Eyes open but brain still crackling with static and white noise
When I try it again
Hoping to get pen to paper
Before consciousness can recover sufficiently to intervene
And proffer pretty syntax to the poem
Hold the mind blank
And stack the words in rows of green growth
Like garden beds
That only need time and attention to bear fruit
Let truth come from some other place
Than reason or left brain
Or the extensive vocabulary
Meticulously indexed in the cranial cavity
Somewhere near the brain stem
Or maybe in the DNA
As C, T, G, and A
Storing data like binary only twice as complex
The recall mechanism operating in the darkness of our comprehension
Apprehension of its failure threatening to leave the poem unfinished
Unillustrated
Uncalibrated
Un-fact checked
Like that matters somehow
Like the facts are important in art
Like the right brain has no sense of propriety
Just as surely as the heart tells lies in gibberish
A chattering maelstrom of syllables in a cyclonic vacuum
And yet somehow the heart speaks with perfect clarity
Uncluttered rhythm
Timing and flow
So you know there is more going on here than we fully understand
Lend a hand to help decipher the intentions of a part of yourself wayward from the rest of you
Leading to a collapse of the ego
And a blurring of the lines between you and I
Turning discrete data into continuous
On the fly
On the run
Under sun and and moon and sky
Until the day that even death fails to be discrete
Or even an event any more important than a fire
Converting energy from one form to another
  Oct 2016 Aspen S
Catrina Sparrow
.    ironic
really

          the brain stem controls involuntary movement
     and lies just inside
the flesh that i can't help but check
for the glass and pebbles
     you left behind
  Oct 2016 Aspen S
Purple Rain
Left on the rocky edges of life and death
50 feet to tremendously high
To wrap my head around
my mind slips,
as I slump down into cold cutting water
I can't swim I tell myself
As my body clashes against the tides
My limbs become powerless
The weakened lungs of my
endure torturous pain
The water sweeps my body
like wind sweeps the leaf's against the autumn grass
Am I dead yet? "I ask."

The seconds in this cold cutting water
feel as if it's been decades
my eyes fasten tight
as I hold on to the words of "hope"
I begin to pray.
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