Have you ever
Stretched a rubber band?
It’s easy.
Just grab both ends
And pull
And pull.

The tension builds
Tighter
And
Tighter

The rubber gets
Thinner
And
Thinner

Soon
The tension gets
Too much
And

The rubber
Band
Snaps

Remember
The pain that comes
With it?
The sharp
Sting

That brings tears
To your eyes
But just within
A short moment

It’s over.

Darkness never was my friend

At age five
It was a monster
A monster that
Could eat me alive
If momma forgot
To turn on my night light

At age ten
It was a reminder
A reminder that it
Was time to head home
And get ready for bed
The fun was over

At age sixteen
It was a cloak
A cloak that
Hid me from the reality of my choices
As I took another hit

At age seventeen
It was a reason
A reason to get wasted again
Cause what better to do than drink your sorrows away
In a small town once the sun's gone down

And now,
At age nineteen
It still haunts me:

The monsters sleep under
My bed cause momma doesn't turn
On the night light from 11 towns away

The reminders of all the
Things I should've done today but didnt
Compile themselves in long to-do lists for tomorrow

The cloak lets me hide from the outside
And obsess over all the things
I told myself I didn't care about in the light

And the reasons to get wasted
Are more abundant than ever
Making it more of a necessity
To escape the pressures building up all day

Darkness never was my friend.

My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.

It was at first sight
My heart knew since that moment
Will always love you

May 16

I bit into the apple’s core one last time before
tossing it out the window. It was just before sunrise
and I was the only car traveling down the misty road
at this early hour in the morning.

5:47 and I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee. I was still
invigorated, restless at best. Sleep had run miles from
me this past eve and all I could do was act in response
to it’s disappearance.

I made my way through the curves and foothills,
pulled forward by the sweet smell of a fresh rain.
After all, it was the first dawn that the sun grew
his color, climbing the source of the sky.

My tires rumbled along the gravel as I slowed to
a still. I was greeted by lyrical birds: red bellied,
brown, and blue. The soft grass felt damp under my
toes, but it was cooling, comforting.

I could smell the sweet hay which was so skillfully
being churned to mulch by anxious, hunger stricken
horses. Whinnies bellowed in rhythm from
the depths of the stable.

I tightened the saddle around her silk coated barrel
and latched the supple leather to her muzzle. She was
hypnotized too, I could sense it. That early morning fresh
leapt forward, exerting her muscles into a gallop.

We ran as one contingent soul stamped with the power
of a strong spirit. The subtle breeze that tickled my nose,
now fiercely pulled at my attire, blowing breathes of
chilled mist down my skin.

My eyes watered as I filled the space between us with joy
and bounteous laughter. Those few seconds—we slowed down.
They become moments of eternity. We were both free. Her
breathes came in strokes, fogging our trail.

We raced against time to meet the sun. Hurling through the
trees we exhausted all innocence. Leisurely breaking from
the strenuous expenditure of energy we waded through
the clear creek. It soothed.

Greeted by the harmonious rays which shined
through the tree tops, we un-mounted. My legs
unsure at the stillness of the ground. I sat on
a tree stump, she grazed.

Our eyes became fixated on the reflection the water
mirrored back at us. Her eyes pierced the depths of the
pond’s surface and so did mine, and meeting us in the
middle was the sun, filling the gap between our faces.

Whiskey to me,
is like holy water to the devil himself,
I know that now.
A hole in the cellar door,
and a shattered shot glass left on the ground.
My head is pounding,
and my thoughts are flying in all different directions.
I feel like I'm going to puke if I don't hear some real good country,
And turn all the god forsaken lights off.
Whiskey is holy water to the devil in me.
Especially when I'm hurting.
I've learned.

Your
mug shot
stared back at me,
removing all mystery left
within the night.
I became grateful for the glowing screen
that separated your captured image
from my wide eyes.
My breath lunged back into lungs,
squeezing the walls for safety,
terrified of battling
the thick air
in the room
where I held your photo.

Your lips thin and
braced,
as if you were holding
your hell
in the muscles of your jaw.
They were grey and tight
like the rest of your skin
stretched across your foreign face.
Your eyes,
sunken
as if you were already a skeleton.
Death peaking through in physical life.
I could barely peer into your pupils
for longer than a fraction of a second
without looking away.
Your gaze cold,
seeping with chemicals,
reflecting a glassy turmoil.
The features of your face
were no longer present
the way they used to be when
I was a little girl.
It's as if time
washed the details of you
away.

A rainy sorrow
I used to get caught in.
Until realizing the dryness
of non-existence.

The only deciphering factor
that lead me to believe
that it was really you
Staring back at me
was the way your part
forced your blonde hair
to wave
around your face
and collapse at your cheeks

The way mine does.