Suicide notes don’t serve their purpose,
just an antiquity of my youth
please don’t promise me your presence-
I know so well,
you must leave with the night’s pin
pricking of stars.
And I,
A child belonging to the sun
hidden-
as twilight’s cloak slips out of my fingers.

Closure and I’s skin never touches,
comfort does not embrace me
and redemption refuses to look me in the eyes.

I’ll never forgive others for dying
But I hope they can forgive my weary spirit
Authenticity in pain
is such a rarity
in this aging process

God it hurts, god it grows old
But I cannot depend on figments any longer;
Too tired of my own silence,
talk ****** talk
instead I substitute ink for
the pool of blood at my feet

Have always known how to plant roses
upon the grave of my sorrow

open my mouth: speak up
make my own choices
life: death

To wake up
against the rallying chains
of the unwilling,
who keep us captive and weak.
Lies become so cheap
you can buy a seat at parliament’s feet

But the price sleeps
In that house of white.

We as the people,
have a right-
to wake up
yet it is not enough,
awakening only works with
ten thousand fists in the air
in protest

Not to stand proud
but for firmness
denying weakness

We as the people,
are not a guest to democracy.

Democracy is a home for all

Those taller,
should use their fingertips
to reach toward the sun
rather than standing in the way  

Let that light no longer be difficult to obtain—
let it reign
over abuse of power
temperature rising on the corrupt

our brightness
   must be a force
to drive out darkness

Humanity standing tall for everyone
no worries of divinity
when the land we live on
wouldn’t be blessed by any god
soil planted by frauds
and the hate spread
grows nothing
from this earth

To rise-
Everyone can survive
Only with the courage
And ending of lost lives

Power depends on the downfall,
for someone to die

but revolution only requires
us
to rise,
to rise,
to rise.

Anesthesiologist places mask on patient,
coaching easier breaths,
stillness.
Finished-
he leaves, leaves
leaves, leaves.

Surgeon enters with shiny tray of metal tools,
Patient’s rib cage rattles,
rapid breathing, sporadic monitor
panic breaks hospital windows
shattered,
everything is shattered.

Patient cries of days lived in uncertainty,
mutters about metaphorical agony.
Surgeon is insecure in performing procedure—
due to patient’s complaints,
“Pain is a parasite inside my ears, laying eggs inside the brain, where maggots squirm through my eye making a home in the skull.”
Patient feels no pain,
but screams of
impalement by life - -

God, what would your diagnosis be?
God claims, “the heart fights for purpose.”
Patient believes there isn’t one.
A suggestion;
reason with patient to make payment or rental of new
blood circulation, chambers, ventricles, valves, atriums.

Patient takes scalpel,
opening own chest
with hand inside
Patient is unable to find source of hurting
but reports numbness.

current status,
human.

—V.H.

How often I’ve heard,
there’s no wealth to be made from words.
Just ink that burns,
pages that rip.
But enrichment of lives takes place,
profiting from human experience, and
Allow abundance in emotion

The beehives of my mind rattle.
Creating words, slowly,
their honeycombs of poetry.
I am as genuine as these stanzas claim.
Trying authenticity, keeping the first jar beside all I’ve concealed.
Words re-colonize all the time,
shaping themselves to make a home,
in the heart & mind.