when all the words have been taken
and all the thoughts given away
that is when you'll hear me saying
i will kindly be on my way

when there is no more ink worth dipping
with paper parched in yellow dust
when all ideas end up missing
when the feeling i once had is lost

that's when i'll pack what little i have left
and say goodbye to all i know
what good is poetry to me if i can't seem
to compose another poem

my sleeping is poor
I cannot relax

my body hurts
my mind is wet

the legs and arms I have been given
are malfunctioning

the summers summer is ending
and the air is cool.

i'm clean, i tell them
they smile
they tell me they're proud
they tell me that i'm a fighter

but when i say i'm clean
it implies that the rest of me has always been
*****

that the girl with faded scars
and an empty heart
and a full head
was filthy

My father was a hateful man.

The words he spewed
were alcohol on open wounds.

Behind his eyes
raged the fire
that burned down a home.

Night and night again
he'd say he's sorry.
And he was.

Until it happened again.

My father was a hateful man.
And that made me kind.

You are repeating
hymns to douse the flames
of a burning god.

Walk to the potter's
field, where books are
buried in wraps.

In the wasteland,
you can search the frozen
tears of Zen.

Weathered
Moss and speckled stone
Linger
In a place that I had known
Souring
Wrinkled fruit upon the trees
Creeping
On our elbows and our knees
Crackling
of the leaves and sticks below
Hunting
As it does when sun sinks low

There are dreams below me
Great nightmares above
I am tethered to both
A kind of stasis in between
If I’m killed I go to the dream
If I die I go to the nightmare
I fear to fall twice
In either direction
For I know not what layer
Might lie beyond
What I have thus far discovered
I know not which is better
The limbo in which I reside
Or the dreams and nightmares
To which my mind travels
Perhaps in endless time
I will tire of this stasis
And die twice that I may explore
The vast unknown frontiers
To free myself
From this primordial curse