Life has the tendency to feel like a prozac commercial,
the reality that everything either pops or goes up in the air.
I see my little sister's gapped smile, in the soapy reflection-
her joy should be infectious, but it spreads guilt like a plague
to my already tortured mind.
I feel so guilty,
for wanting to take my life.

I was fifteen years old.

Holding your heartbeat between my hands,
watching wrists restrained to wires,
attached to monitors reading your chest.
As the child, I did not want my mother to leave me,
but instead, I chose not to leave you.
There was not any time left to admire
the natural color of your hair showing through,
stealing a final glance at your emerald eyes.
When the overcast of death held you firmly,
I find myself loathing what it is capable of.
Only in a hospital gown,
were you swept off your feet.

Death’s arms pulled at what piece
of you I still cradled,
reminiscent to the time I held
a bird with a broken wing,
helpless.
I tried to put it back into the nest,
but the mother rejected it.
Your body rejected medicine
the same way.

I have been myself, from
the outside looking in. The soul
a darker shade, where no blossoms
dare to bloom.

An experience of postpartum with poetry.
I yearn for ink to snuggle close, staining my arms
from the elbow down to my calloused palms.

Cradle close, soft cries-
it feeds from the paper's ******,
tender flesh that leaks words.

This child hungrier than I.
But the spirit is famished for
more than my body and mind can give.
These blossoms, dreary in gray
monochrome. I pour my heart out
to this infant haiku, that must grow more.
Though, nothing worth
saying appears.

Totally peaceful beyond the hydrangeas,
Dusk is now swallowed by Earth’s mouth.
Spirit’s make their entrance, saying goodbye.
Birth of other souls, continuous.
There is strange luminous, breath in the wind.

We grasp at waves, catch the clouds passing by-
And we float, ethereal above its' parting lips.
Entrance returns, birth.

Opaque grieving, translucent during reprieve.
Tethered to this world, we think we can retrieve
its broken parts.
All our hearts out of control,
and our wounds in front.

Where dreams are chasing us.
Chasing before our lives can be more.
When does it end? When can we be anything
more than what has bent?

Beyond the hydrangeas, the moon is swollen and glowing,
soon-to-be mother to a whole new generation of lovers,
and hope is pregnant with the that thought that lessons can be learned,
and I am hopeful forgiveness can be earned.

I envisioned walking on water
outside my window, it twinkled
and sparkled- dancing by the aid of the sun.
The sun was something I could be
if I tried hard enough, I could kiss it
and feel holy.

But life cannot be enjoyed
when there is a screen keeping you
from the parting splash.
Of course, there is work to be done.

Sunlight is inside me,
and I am warm.
Though, it burns
I ache to exist purposefully.

The becoming of the reflection
whose face I’ve never taken the time to know.

It shows the repetition of a woman that I fear.
The shadow calls me, it lives here.

The white noise of my thoughts
ran out of ways to make suicide plausible.

Illness, like an imprint on the brain
where serotonin is slow to the nervous system.

I took the cocktail in the paper cup,
when my own maternal attitude
wiped away those tears.
I took the cocktail in the paper cup,
when poetry no longer screamed in my ears.

Starvation of love isn’t so unheard of-
you’re the same scrawny boy. A child who
yearns for acknowledgement. That you are more
than just the mistakes our parent’s made.
You find a way to reach your way
back into the crevice of their hearts.
But you’re just a phase,
some children who grew up too fast-
leave behind.

I have also dug into my flesh,
to make sure the veins worked- that I am alive.
But you are no needle, you are a user.