Plowing fields of acid soil
Where nothing good will ever grow
I swelter in the summer sun
And didn’t bring some water.
ljm

Dressed in all my brightest colors
               Why am I so blue
Surrounded by excited, happy people
               Why do I so need to cry.
                                  ljm

when i go down to the creek
flowers sing at my approach
shades of grey escape within
until i'm whole again, vibrant
crystals for teeth and strength
to hold my truth between my own lips
my love like honey, slow and rich
enclosed in this jar of clay, my soul
so ready to overflow
the banks of the creek
covered in stones, strong
and yet fragile, like me
easily eroded by the water of life

i am broken and i want to be whole
death is stained on my fingertips
he loves the taste of my tears
so i wash my face too often

why am i so broken
there is no meaning in the cracks of my soul
i fill my life with comfort and
still death is always behind me

my throat is so swollen
from pollen and panic attacks
that ravage my body and
rip out the seams in my story

i've lost myself and
though i spent months seeking myself
all i see in the mirror is unspent
potential for depression to run me aground again

there is no wayfinder in my heart
like yours, with your goals
as a GPS and your achievements
like landmarks in your mother's hallway

i write beginnings
of sentences that now are
litter on the floor of my mind
because no words encompass my fear

and now endings are all i can think of
but i don't want to be another
face on the obituary, lost
amid painful goodbye's and small typeface

you know two months ago i was still trying to make these rhyme and now i'm using a scalpel just to extract the words from my lungs, fumbling and failing to fit them together on the page, wondering if writing is killing me or keeping me sane, fitting thoughts into so-called poetry almost as easily as the rings i fit on each finger before i leave for the party i'm not wanted at. i could keep drafting these and waiting a day to publish each or i could accept the fact that my habits and realities will never coincide with the apathy they hope to see in me (even though really they hope i'm never wanted because then i'm a threat, or a tease) and while i may never be self-aware enough to cease i see enough of me in your eyes to know i shouldn't care anymore what you think of me.