“My good bold sir,
Your words flatter me like a gift of myrrh.
I am humbled that I am the subject of your affection
Now prepare thyself for a little rejection.
You consider yourself a decent man, good and just,
So, please explain your unchecked lust.
You dare address me in such a way,
How can you look at your wife every day?
I don’t know what I did to give you a false impression,
I don’t like you; get over your obsession.
You talk about the ticking, proceeding time,
What you suggest is, to me, a crime.
Let me throw a stone at your house of glass
The women out there are numerous like blades of grass.
If to your wife you are not true,
What does that foretell about a relationship twixt me and you?
The lust of men leaves me forever vexed
If you love me now, who will be next?
I’ll say it now and it’s been said before:
All good things in life are worth waiting for.”

The “coy mistress,” coy no more,
Leaving him to massage his pride so sore.
She takes up the abandoned pen
And writes a few more words to him.

“I am sorry that this has been a misunderstood mess
But, I am now giving my father your address.
I am so pleased that you consider this exchange fun
Now he will come after you with an army and a gun.
I do not like you, you slimy toad
Now, if I were you, I’d hit the road.

-Very truly (not really) yours,
The Girl That Is Yours No More”

Star light, star bright,
There are no stars tonight.
But even in the darkness,
We can still find the light.

You can live for an eternity, but never become wise;
You can be blind without any problems with your eyes.

I've lived a few years; seen much and felt more.
I've lost everything I am, changed forevermore.

After living for a short time, there is a lot in my head;
Knowledge doesn't have to come from what you've read.

Ask me a question, and I'll give you an answer.
Not responding eats away at me, growing, a cancer.

Long ago given the curse of a stream of questions, infinite,
All askers seeking the substance of something definite.

My name is ancient, one you'll recognize instantly ,
In English, the name I was given is "Honesty."

Today, a man asked me a question I'd never heard before.
This question shook me and changed me forevermore.

He asked me to tell him the saddest words I happened to know.
So, in his ear, I whispered four little words: "I told you so."

They say that your destiny
Is at your feet, just waiting,
Waiting to be seized.
They say that you have
A great future, the many
Things that you will do.
But if you really think
About it, they all have a
Plan in their own minds:
A mold that they are
Preparing, you are the
Wax, waiting for any of
Them to shape you.
Wait just a minute!
I am the one that is
Supposed to have the
Destiny, but you don't
Care unless it fits into
Your scheme for me.
What happened to my
Ideas, my plans, my dreams?
What if I want no part
Of your manipulating schemes?
Time for a reality dose,
And, yes, reality bites,
Especially when your
Timid pet thinks for itself.
You can't hold reality captive
So, get out of your delusion.
When it's time, I'll do what
I want to do, not be busy
Filling your mold.
Molds break.
Paradigms shatter.
Stereotypes snap.
Puppets pull their own
Strings if you don't
Look away.
You only see
What you want to see,
So, you might as well get
Your eyes off me.
My dreams don't meet
Any of your grand schemes,
But, since I'm nice,
I'll give you a choice:
You can either support
Me, the real me, all
The way, or you can
Move off the tracks and
Get out of my way.
Whether you like it or
Not, this wax, this clay,
Has decided to mold itself.

I want to stop;
To never do it again.
I've wanted that before,
But I could never make it,
The threat, couldn't shake it.
This time, I have to do it,
Then, it'll be no more.
Six times that has happened,
But there was never any change.
So what's different this time?
Each time I was desperate,
I hate how that feels.
But never hated it enough
To stop what I was doing.
I can't look at myself;
I can't live with it anymore.
I'm tired of the hate,
I'm tired of the shame.
Maybe that's what makes
This time so different.
All the hate has piled up,
A ticking bomb,
And if it explodes, then I'm gone.
I don't want that, so I
Decide to try again,
To lie awake and wait for morning
And see what may come
With the breaking of dawn.
If it is the breaking of me,
Then so be it,
But I will be real.
Real and broken,
But forever rid of the
Mask and the nightmares
That it brought.

Be the poetry you cannot write.

My arm snagged
On a thorn
In the woods.
A thousand thoughts
Came crashing in.
Many contained swearing.
As blood welled,
My thoughts stuck
On one thing.
Every last drop
Of my blood
Reminded me of
Just how painfully
Alive I was.
Without the pain,
My life is
Nothing but good,
Floating and dreaming.
With the pain,
Good and bad,
It is real.
Beautifully, incredibly real.

They say that I have problems:
Schizophrenia and such.
There’s a lot more, but
I don’t understand very much.

Am I crazy?
I can’t possibly be!
There isn’t anything
Wrong with me.

Why am I in this cage?
Just because I can’t remember my name
Doesn’t mean that I am insane!

If these walls could speak, what would they say?
Would they grieve for the loss of those who had been in this room,
Not realizing that their time was wasting away?

Or do people enjoy losing their minds?
Do they like the sense of clarity that it brings,
Like knowing why the caged bird sings?

The visitors I had today,
The visitors do not exist,
Or so the doctors say.

I told the doctors about the knight
Who showed me how to make pictures with raindrops on the window.
They simply said that my mind is in limbo.

The dragon told me a story
Of how he rescued the knight from the princess,
But the knight got all of the glory.

The princess tells me about the voices,
The voices, the voices that whisper all around
As you slowly feel your sanity giving ground.

“No! Stop! Get out of my head!”
At least, that’s what I wanted
Before my sanity fled.

Quiet
Peaceful
Room to think
Noise
Friends
Clarity
Reason
Chaos
Insanity
Infinity
What a luxury
It must be
To lose your
Mind
Completely.

My friend, what if you are the one who is in chains bound to this earth,
And I am the bird, the one who is soaring free?

So the one you loved
died And now comes
the tragedy: The
Endless eternal
Lines of those who
Wish to give you
Their sympathy.
In plain words:
Your loved one
is dead
And all you get
in return
Are hollow words.
Mom tells you that
They mean well, but
they don't know
what to say.
Most don't know
The way you feel,
The way you want
To rip apart the
Foundations of this World.
Others do know
The utter feeling of
Loss and emptiness,
But they can't put
Their thoughts to
Words so they just
Get in line.
They ask if you
Want to "talk"
And the answer is
Always no;
You don't want
To talk. You
Want your loved one
Back, but that can't
Happen. They expect
You to know that,
So they're always
surprised by that
Desperate wish.
It's great for them
To know that the
Dead are in a better place,
But you don't care
at that moment because
you just want them back.
Denial, bargaining, anger,
Guilt, acceptance;
If you hear those words
one more time,
You might snap.
How dare there be
A "process" to
A state so raw and
So devastating?
Simultaneously wanting
To destroy everything
In your path and cry
In some forgotten corner,
Both such utter forms
Of loneliness.
In a way, it is all beautiful,
If beauty is defined by
Heartbreak and chaos.

A city with a split soul
Once sat high on a hill.
The city was split:
Higher and lower planes.
The higher plane was for
the fortunate,
the powerful,
the wealthy,
the elegant.
Only the best were allowed.
The lower plane housed the
Outcasts,
Forgotten,
Clumsy,
Abandoned.
The society deemed them to
Belong in the sewers;
To be deserving of the worst
Humanity had to offer.
To fall from the upper plane
Was the ultimate shame
Because you could
never go back.
You can fall from grace,
But never rise to elegance.

Upper city was once home,
But, then they learned how
Clumsy and ungraceful I am.
After spilling the soup
Too many times,
They cast me down
To join the lower city.
Home is now among
The lowest of the low.

After fumbling along
Without any sense of direction,
I learned why I was lost.
Upper city was where
Pomp and protocols
Dictated every move.
Now free from that,
I had no way of knowing
The path before me.
The confusion, however,
Came from me,
From my being
unaccustomed to making
My own decisions.

Finding my own way
Was hard, but I learned
That my fall from elegance,
That my fall from grace,
Had been a blessing,
Not a curse.
Free from the rigidity
Of elegance, there was
The vibrancy of clumsiness.
In the stumbling, faltering
Manner through which I
Guided my life, I found
A sweet freedom in
The possibilities.
It is because of this
Wild sensation called
Freedom that I love
The lower city
And pity the upper one.

What do I want in life?

The wind in my hair,
The sun on my back,
The sounds of drumbeats
And rustling trees in my ears.
A well-loved book nearby,
And a pen in my hand
With a blank page before me.
A creek running over my toes,
Its melody blending with the trees,
And the grass beneath me.
The arms of the one I love around me.
That is all I want
From this life.
With only this,
I will be content for all of my days.

Two o'clock in the morning
Is my best friend.
The steam from my
Fourth cup of coffee
Curls out of my chipped old mug
To caress the frost-kissed window.
The golden glow of my lamp
Disguises the cold light
The moon casts upon the ice shrouded garden.
Two o'clock knows
All my secrets
All my tears
All my schemes.
My cup of coffee and I,
Holding the universe together
Just by our existence,
By our very essence.
For two o'clock in the morning
Is not for the faint of heart.
It is not for the lovers
Or the mundane
Or the sleepers.
Two o'clock in the morning
Is for the writers
For the poets
For the dreamers.
It is for the desperate
The passionate
The obsessed.
They join the stars
Dancing in the winter sky
In their wanderings through the darkness.
Once the mundane fade
Into the realm of sleep,
Heaven's teardrops pour
Their favor on upturned faces,
The faces of those who look to
The stars
The dark
The night
For guidance
For wisdom
And for inspiration.
And so, the daybreak finds me,
Something small dwelling with something enormous,
I and the universe.
It is, however, a part of me,
And I am a part of it.

I glimpsed a man
I'd always seen
But I really saw him
Today. Saw the
Furrow betwixt
His eyebrows
And the relentless
Tapping of his fingers
Against hand-me-down
Blue jeans. Today,
I really saw,
And I could tell
From the way
He moved
That he yearned,
Hungered, and
Wanted something
With a desperation
I couldn't begin
To understand.
Compared to
Him, I merely
Existed. He
Was alive
In every sense
Of the word.
He knew what
He wanted and he
Knew how to get
It. He was following
The path to his goal
With such an
Unwavering
Determination
That I knew
Heaven and hell
Would scramble
To his aid.
I don't know
What it is he
Wanted, but I
Know it wasn't
Me. I wanted him,
But I couldn't
Possibly want him
The way he wanted It.
I couldn't clone,
Reproduce, or
Replicate his
Desperate craving.
I could not be
That fully alive,
That awakened,
That aware of
What I craved.
But what I did
Want was for
Someone to see
Me as clearly
As I glimpsed him
In that moment.