Cicadas hum quietly,
amongst the summer choir.
Locked doors,
birds on their wire's.
Keep from harm's way,
but thorted by desire-
Blinds colored gray
block out humanity.

These dreams speak to me through insanity,
a tv plays white noise,
my mind is in calamity.
As nightmares creep in through my eyelids,
amid the darkness of this quiet house.

This is my Strauss-
wooden floors entirely silent,
the thoughts inside are violent.
Recalling Baptist Hospital.
No cart rhythmically on call,
a nurse alloting me two pearls to swallow.

Making the sea of seretonin flow,
making happiness through my body grow.
Tonight,
I take my trazadone
no longer resembling a pearl,
my toes curl.
At the bitter taste,
following the nightmares that make haste
to follow me to bed,
praying I don't wake up dead.

A sense of fleeting,
feet planted firmly on the ground,
but my mind is abysmal.
Sometimes-
it's a whisper of my mother's voice,
or one of the five psychiatrists who seemed uninterested.
It was the comfort in darkness,
becoming the lore of my life.

There was comfort in wanting to die,
I tightly grasped onto the concept of survival.
How we became enemies;
never seeing eye to eye.

I love it,
my ability to control the pain I feel-
how little, how less
I can make myself hurt.
Although, I'd refrain from calling myself a *******.

I've gained no pleasure in harming myself,
undeserving, unworthy of all the blood I've lost.
There's no notable war,
when the cause is in my veins.

Gauze I've had around my wrists,
felt comforting,
keeping in the sickness,
I dreamed would drip down my wrist.

Doing this to myself,
I'm no *******.
Allowing myself to be chaotic in how my emotions were expressed.

I know,
it's a cry for help,
but I'm left wondering-
do I want to be helped?

I've become immune to the numbness,
a damaged girl as they all catch up,
comparing scars.

I can be who you want me to be,
carve a smile on my face,
I can be who you want me to be,
I can be happy.

I see your parched lips
like that of a dying rose,
the small cracks forming
are like an indentation of their own.

You speak in that same tone they once called me,
as if it isn't patronizing
to be treated as a child,
despite having adult skin.

This treatment makes me wiser
of the cruelty of love
or even the fear in thinking it exists.
The lost luster,
apparent just in this one bad day
and I remember the reoccurrence of rain,
with its strange heat smacking my face
I wore the same look you have now.

The feeling of leather,
the hurt of words,
an admission in not knowing what one was doing even in their creation.
It is not a need,
to water our own flowers that wilted so long ago.

I have established their presence,
but we still try.
Life blossoms through you,
those opportunities
the talent,
the potential
and urge to believe
you can trust somebody
to do better than you’re doing yourself.

There it is,
this beautiful symptom
and these gardens the cause.
The same thirst
we all died from as a sprout,
same blood we shared
being clipped too soon and
placed in a vase.

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.

Change
Frightened
Silenced

The lavender surrounds me
that my head will lull into
and my eyes will open
aware it disappeared
and so you fade like
the aged oak that once carried me in its' arms
that lived on 409
and the desire to cross that
street one more time

Ed and his wife are likely
no longer with us
but I wonder what it's like
to not have to make the effort
to have a home
seek you out
and want you
to still be in its' life
but I wonder if I stand here,
next to that stop sign
where I caught up to it
in size

find a piece of you that remains in this world
I can feel the softness of your palm
that never was
I almost know what it feels like to belong
someone's love to pour over me
and not feel greedy or ashamed for needing it so badly

I ache
to be held
to be touched
A moment of tenderness,
touch of my shoulder blade.
dad's warmth for me died
when you did
I wonder if it is selfish
to inquire, that you come home
your spirit can live in my heart
possess me like you want me
as if being my mother
was a privilege

Dad told everyone at my graduation party,
I was unplanned and that lavender where
he and I felt it in our hands,
he put a bushel in my hair
pushes me away
in the home of my own mind.

It whispers, it tries to tickle my arm
but it tricks me and admits
what my own parents, alive and dead
refuse to do.

Resentment has always made its home
in my arms, like warm candlelight caressing
my face as I give life to the wick
It always stings, as your palms did
or not knowing ******* the things
inside of you that made you want to die

I wonder
if it was
the same
when you were
a child

The answer after being asked,
"How I'm doing?" was caught in my airway.
So I take a blade
and slashed across my throat-
Ink oozed from the seeping wound,
stanzas splashed across each page,
putting a hand upon my chest,
I felt purpose-
ripped it out.
My heart it bleeds,
in truths of me and
in thoughts of you.
The wonderment of what it was
that coursed through my veins,
describing the phenomenon
of how it rains,
or we allow ourselves to express pain.
Losing blood
and shying away from what other's think,
when transfusion began
they gave me ink.
Speaking of honesty,
I promise you-
when fear takes over,
I'll write for me &
I'll write for you.

I won't drink all of the lemonade: take down my artwork,
My shoes won't litter the welcome mat:
I promise not to haunt you.
I won't scare you when all the lights are off: I won't take up space or bother you.
I won't scare you by turning all the lights on: no more wrinkled sheets,

My voice won't be in your head: no more unmade beds.
I won't give you chills: the tv won't flicker.
My favorite songs won't burden you: you won't have to worry about me never leaving the house.

My journals won't appear to you randomly begging to be read:
that ink will follow me in my death

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 envied the cadavers haunting my nightmares,
watching those before me
spread upon a metal slab
bodies are hand-me-downs of regurgitated poetry,
with wretched closets in which I take their place.

This ventilator called "loved ones"
forcing breath into anguished lungs-
tragedies belonging to these poets meant something,
a desire to save the words written,
but never the one who becomes a eulogy.

Agony burrows inside of me,
conversations with my mother's ghost
still,
the living are possessed by
the dead's shortened tomorrows.

To die by suicide wouldn't give,
authenticity to hurt.

I am learning the autopsy of a soul:
extracting a heart from the chest,
as it's sense of belonging was never there.
An inability to weigh the words bleeding from valves,
aside lungs I'm unable to breathe through.

How ungrateful is it of sorrow to ask for hope?
placed in a pill divider to swallow,
muscles within my throat so tight.
Wondering,
How many times did I diminish my voice?

Inside the brain,
schematics of labyrinths with no end to betterment.
Surgeons reach for a soul,
an iridescence small enough
held in a gloved palm,
watching it writhe.
Placed upon a slide,
but even a microscope
cannot perceive the pain a soul hides.

Once more,
stitched with needle and thread.

Wilting of my own garden,
comes one day-
an incision is made opening me up.
My heart showed the same
blood-red ink, writing apologies
on the marble floor.

They opened my arm,
displaying a noose of veins.
In this moment,
they removed my soul
only to gift it to another
birthed from torment
ripped out of the arm's of their mother
& into the embrace of woe.

—V.H.

Man made dark;
Stars within my eyes have burned out.
You- wandering spirit,
I’ve high hopes your’s still shine brightly.
There’s no meteor shower looming over your skies.

I’ve always gravitated to the dark edges of the sky,
It’s friction with the refusal to wear away
Our memories paving the milky way,
That crescent moon reminds me of the crooked smile I’d wear,
And in powder blue day-
The sun is something I’m working towards.
How simple it is to admire the dark for being mysterious,
But day is a fear as i’m all too aware
of what I’ve put my soul through on the brightest of days.
One step behind,


Flowers upon this porch shake,
the cup in my hand shatters,
blood splatters.

The skin I’m in is weathered,
Scars in white lines across the horizon.
Lost my balance on a constellation-

Gathered shards from the night and bled on sheets of white.

Fingers shake clasping a camera between them,
there's no film in it,
just an urge to capture fragments of time
before they decompose
into a grave of forgotten moments

Inadvertently,
I speak of my own funeral
in the present tense.
My frame resembles a cadaver
in the summer months,
limp from depression
but encouraged by mania

Fingers shake,
causing an earthquake between the fault lines of my palms
close my eyes and I've become a paperboat
floating on a pond,
cattails brush my edges
where incisions were made
they dazzle with coats of glitter
and star stickers

Like madness pirouettes through flames,
the wet edges of pages
are destroyed and what I was made of
could not remain.

such a gentle color,
maroon is under the starlit night
I am fragile,
but not enough to crumple in your grasp.

I've stood in front of an angel teary eyed,
nodding that I was ready for departure.
Spoken to a Heavenly Father,
with a weeping tone caught in my throat
that I didn't have the strength to keep living.

The devil had me in chains,
but Angels spoke to me once
"You are enough" they sang

Static in my mind,
as I hear the shakiness of photos falling off the wall,
the beast has come to feed on my head-
it wants me dead.

There aren't enough prayers to lift me
from what's breaking my spirit,
Spirits wept and spoke inaudibly,
"Let it happen, there's not much to be done"

Ethereal, but they could detect darkness all through my body,
in shades of red, grays, and blacks.
They frame my figure and display it in the gallery
of tortured souls.

Nightmares had predicted such a tragic ending,
when I bled,
the beast could track me down.
His claws are long and sharp, cutting into my skin
Its disease infecting my blood.

It likes the parts of my brain that are seeped in ink,
it loves when I'm alone and all I do is think.

It's stronger than me, coming to life when I write about it.
I hear it's heavy footsteps, deep breaths
and smell my death-
resembling the inside of its foul, jagged mouth

Angels will carry me to a place I might consider home,
they'll admire my suffering because,

I've become a martyr
to the imbalance of chemicals in my brain,
and with every moment my heart was beating,
I made efforts to fight off everyone else's pain.

Perhaps, when I meet heaven
I'll have a cigarette
and not be bothered by everything in white.
When my skin touches its surface much of it will turn gray.
Willing to die, they'll recognize my own lack of willpower
in letting it rip my heart from my chest.

It pounded so loudly in the beast's clutches,
it squeezed it between its palm and erupted--
painting the living in sinner's blood.

Sickly creature found
clawing up the rocks
with hell below,
there isn't a sound.

She is a girl,
but resembles a ghoul.

How sad it is
that she couldn't smile,
she never found living worthwhile.

You-
as a human being,
have morality to make her feel loved
even if you never meant it.
You- as a human being,
benevolently take advantage of vulnerability
and see it as doing a favor.

You're the patron saint,
savior for suicidal girls everywhere.

Her frame looked beautiful stretched out,
skin was the perfect canvas
to plant unmeant kisses,
matching the color of her underwear
you'd never see.

The bones fashioned into a bed
you lay in,
again, it isn't a sin
when she's barely breathing.

Seething with melancholy,
tasting the despair on pouted lips.
You had *** with her misery,
and ****** when she had unmoving hips;
Saw the lines up and down her thighs
so he cuts the ****-
and became a decent person by “loving”
a girl who didn't believe she could be.




Just the distance between a ceiling fan
and chair held her back,
from being free.

She’ll make up another one like you,
or assume the worst of everyone for the rest of
the days she decides to see.
Rests in her own bed
re-living the grip of your hands
reaching for her pants

She’ll bare a toothy grin in your direction,
make a joke about suicide or hoping to be dead
and you'll never know what to say-
just that you can find blame in everything,
but what's inside her head

But even with you there-
she's always alone.


No need to be held and caressed
as if it will subdue the demons that rest inside,
or that she'll wake up the next day no longer depressed.

Put that sad music to rest,
dressing her sorrow in lace,
paints her face,
and collapses farthest from grace.

To open my ribcage,
ink would spill around
***** feet and form
verses created inside this
sad sea of a mind, drowning
what surrounds. A firm
believer in common courtesy,
but not for myself as I never
write the line where I survive
maybe at least one
where I float above the surface &
remember to breathe.

Crazy little thing called love–
a kind of magic,

See what a fool I've been,
Radio Ga Ga;
jealousy,
liar --
breakthru,

don't stop me now.

The show must go on,
spread your wings,
these are the days of our lives—

love of my life.

Keep yourself alive,
too much love with **** you;
I'm going slightly mad,
save me.

Who wants to live forever?
under pressure

Who are you outside of my apartment door?
Someone with the capacity to entertain sadness
other than yours. You don't tell others what they already know- hating yourself is counterproductive. You can show patience
for an over-apologizer who cannot catch their breath. You're an expert at comfort as your tongue grows bouquets of lilacs to soothe, whispering sweet nothings. You believe in that place to plant them.
You're nobody's apparition but mine. So I welcomed your black shoes and wiped them off in the welcome mat of my brain matter.
Those footprints aren't yours, just as you don't eat animals alive, but you still are
and I am just a bone.
You're not in search of something to taste. You are merely repulsed by the thought of the remains. You simply love more because of your sophisticated palette.
You paddleboat on the coast, secretly embarrassed to admit you're happy, but cannot help condemn the curve of your lip. You hate to admit it, but you are someone who enjoys being alive. You think being a nihilist is a choice; someone just wakes up one day with the will to withdraw while indulging
the world without consequence. You don't poison yourself just to withstand two hours in the same room. You find vigor in the softness of the skin that is not mine, you feast, but you share a table.
You have your sunglasses on- they aren't atop the fireplace where I kept them safe in my backpack. I wished I had kept them. I believe the vengeful spirit will always come back for what was theirs. But that is not who you are.
And it would really just be another reason
to see you again.
You are someone who returns, but not to my arms.

Live my life through photographs,  
see foreign faces of people as my eyes dialate while,
my brain has taken the picture no matter how many centuries.
Is that the meaning of an old soul? 

My paintings have improved,
mixing the colors has become easier,
irises are a video camera
while, the nerves can rewind the sequence of events
and how the portrait or picture had developed.

Who the people were
and what their lives meant.
I don't live a tragic life,
I'm not trapped in some cryptic looking tower,
Only trapped, by my own personal unhappiness.  

These pictures are a way for me to live vicariously through someone else,
Imagining myself there. 

These pictures are taken to capture a momentous
or joyful time in my life,

television and movies are like that in a way. 
They remind us of the miserable world,
but we have decided to allow our worth
to weigh our subconscience like gold, 
These pictures are memories that trigger another event,
in a vicious cycle. 

I promise,
You don't get pictures taken of the countless empty bottles,
the pills you've choked down,
the tube that's shoved down your throat
when they 'save' your life.

(That left me wondering why I had to stay alive and it's all about contributing-
keeping up with the rent you're due on existing.)


 The happier times are easy to forget,
we didn't run out of film.
Aren't those kinds of things in pictures we see?
The media tells you to cut the corners of your mouth so,
you can smile.. 

 
My mother died some time ago a year and some odd months,
my mind had accidentally snapped a picture of her,
still framed; her statue like chest, no veins flowing, and the urge to wait for her chest to rise again. 

I think,
waiting leaves lesions on the brain,
because, most see waiting as pain without any kind of gain. 
That's where trauma comes from-
waiting,
time changing, embedded in the bellies of women and dripping out of men's mouths.

Body, you had no suitor
When honesty is lost
courage could not have been misplaced worse
  by anyone else  
than my failures.

We never belonged-
A wallflower
to the dance of life.

Happiness, you are too big of a concept
For this head.
I dreamt of you in dances,
Being dipped into the sunlight.
Reborn by possibility
and bathing in the glow
that could handle the portrayal of a shadow
so dark

Shadow, you will soon feed
And I shall be consumed,
just  as you wanted.
Light, I wish I would have asked,
For your blessing.

Misguided with glazed eyes,
they gleam in an effort to encourage impulsiveness.
I no longer have a desire to be the windows inside of you.

Admiring a lavender sky,
sunsets continue to die,
plagued by the thought of
night creeping in again.

I am vulnerable to the pale moonlight.

You once told me, 'There's a cracked home that you carry inside of you.'
No longer am I the thoughts filling your head,
that I'm the cure to your sickness.

Isolated myself in heavy sheets of sadness,
suffocating-
in an uninvited guest room,
just some extra space.
A breeze persistently tugging,
the tattered curtains.

Someday, you'll understand-
I was never your home.
Never becoming a garden,
never a lonesome white gate.

Paint chips from my decaying bones,
from years of damage.
Been here before
a ghost to these creaking stairs.
Fixing everyone else's homes,
a loose floorboard bares secrets,
but I continue to keep things just to have something to hold.

Stairs cave,
with each step I take.

I end
as it begins;
your body becomes an earthquake,
the house crumbles,
words evolve into raspy whispers

Damage has been done,
marks are on the wall,
as demons claw.
They're ripping through your veins
as I feel the foundation in my fingertips.

The walls won't be here tomorrow,
no longer holding everyone's hands,
or breathe through these polluted lungs.

I've begun to feel a need to repent
and with every move I make,
my happiness is spent.

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

Roses In Spring

His voice has the same qualities as a locomotive
words engorge my jugular to be so easily cut across.
The girl who is caretaker of this soul, she fails.
She doesn't light cigarettes or catch the residue of smoke in lemony stains upon the walls.
Why poison your lungs?
When oak lives in the backyard that kills your kneecaps.

Standing in a powder blue dress
matching the sky, matching the call I'm making.

He never responds in prose,
just in the growth of roses.
Handfuls of amanita phalloides in my palms
trade pulling my own roots
for mother nature's.

Knowing he sees me as I pirouette towards my own demise.
Never responding,
dusting myself off,
gave an earth shattering grin.

As a younger girl I believed in me,
and he existed as well as honeybees did.
Cherry blossom lips became mine as I grew older,
and my eyelids painted like a hummingbird's feathers
pretty boys and girls asked about the weather
and I awaited your response, but it never comes.

Just in the vague appearance of the sun.

Living near the ocean should inspire happiness,
remaining caged in my bedroom,
I hear the ocean call my name.

A siren draped in golden satin with red lips,
she combs my hair for awhile.
Moves her hips to an old crooner's song,
that plays in my mind-
the sun is so full of ****, so full of lies.

Telling me, "I'm gonna be fine."
Why's it always in my eyes?
Everything’s just "fine" for the sun,
loved by everyone.

She is mocked by its presence,
she does what you wanna do.
Sings a solid hymn with the understanding
in life,
nobody wins.

The siren kissed my hand while,
taking pins out of her hair.
She unfurls the waves of an ocean-
revealing a black case with red felt
in her arms.

And she sang,
"The sun will come,
I will melt."

Red felt held
two ethereal stones.

"Sweet sadness cannot be escaped,
you are not fine,
this was only ever fate"

I've tied the  stones around my ankles,
the brush is in my hand.
I feel the coolness of her hair in my palms,
my hands wince from the pressure upon
my face.


The sun is just a lesson never learned.
Feel the sadness lift,
before I can rush ashore,
it's too late.

"Come
sweet sadness cannot be helped,
you are not fine,
this was only ever fate."

Limp cloth tries to dance our silhouette to life,
White, paper, teeth, famished for ideas of
you & I- in the same sentence.
The light’s glare, that I should look toward
is imprinted in my mind.  There’s a look of
yours I’ve familiarized myself with, it is all-knowing.
You lick your lips as a sign of defeat.
We’re both stalemates to time,
its’ unforgiving mark- bound to be alone.
Always afraid of change, taking place.
Is there redemption? Or are we fated to smother?
Is there a pardon? I’m left here.
Though, the seasons do change, leaves falling,
as our patience wears thin of each other.
Here I am, left to tend
to the non moving skeletons, we both surrendered.

Is there redemption or are we fated to smother?

There's a singing wound upon my hand,
obtained from a skirmish with rose bushes.
A row of sopranos upon my right arm
await their turn,
altos sing melody this time.

I've always admired blood’s crimson shade
if that makes me a sinner,
so be it.

If writing my sincerest feelings upon sheets
then wrapping myself in them
inspires me to be a ghoul, so be it.

Had wanting happiness splashed across my face,
like freckles kissed on the flesh from strobes of the sun-
makes me naive, so be it.

God thinks all suicidal individuals have an
impeccable sense of humor,
so be it.
Satan is bound to believe he's the one to drive
someone to commit suicide,
“he becomes more powerful”

So be it.

I'm sorry I'm collapsible,
while, you are all mighty.
Cutting out more shapes like my sister's and I.
Allowing us to be worshipped
for what lies between our legs
not admired for what's inside our brains.

Penned this down to ask him:
How the moon illuminates heinous crimes?
Or compares the bruises upon my chest
to the sunsetting skies?

Don't pray to not be *****,
or a woman to be paid (not in compliments)
So by all means- tell me how respected she is
that your fist is mighty,
Adams apple mightier
She just crumbles beneath your palms.

I'm sorry I'm so shredded,
they can't read the apologies I've recited upon the palms of my hand, but my father has possession of the ink to write over a women's existence like it's his right.

Mother is ashes,
father leaves a trail of them below his feet,
In that moment, I realized-
A woman will die to survive.
While, all a man has to do is thrive off her oxygen.

It is not your fault.
You only know that,
it is in your nature to
know pain
like the back of your hand
as you administer it

To know,
children, little girls
are to be docile dolls
in which resentment can be  
hidden under the dress
that's the perfect color
in the tulle, we twirl
and do this dance
it is but, fate's job
for the strings to be cut

The puppeteer, songstress must go down. Her children
to be reborn as the next soprano.

You have ached and
your agony was ignored
so you demonstrated it
you sang with the voice
of the unheard

and somewhere, perhaps,
like the phantom you are
when we both sing, it is the same song
and our throats warble at the same time
in unison
our voices are capable of more love
then we were for each other

It starts with the difficulty
I have
in seeing you as human,
as if sharing the same blood only
inflicts disease.
Both damaged creatures
inside
I'm filled with love for
the undesired.
As if I am diseased,
having been taught many lessons
in human agony
and I am resentful of my empathy
burrowed for awhile
then gone forever
never felt entitled to any
of the tears I've cried, have never
felt entitled to
what I've been put through.
Back in the 90s, I can see
that tube down your throat
and I feel it too

vacuumed the contents of my stomach
but I doubt they were equipped to clean
up the clutter and dander
still, I write about you
in the spirit of your suffering
like the rat
who missed its'
poisoning

Broken-record words,
twirl in the lobes of a brain.
Don’t play again.

The times they-are a-changin;
you ain't going nowhere.

Not dark yet,
rainy day women

subterranean homesick blues,
if not for you --
when the deal goes down,
lay, lady, lay.

I shall be released;
blowin' in the wind,
like a rolling stone

Down the highway.

Girl from the north county;
mr tambourine man,
jokerman,
ring them bells.

With god on our side,
to Ramona—
it takes a lot to laugh,
it takes a train to cry

Dawn is a good friend of mine
While, day is just an acquaintance.
A respite from my mind seems ideal,
but that comes from setting my head ablaze.

I wore the brightest shade of Hell on my lips,
with a desire for Heaven under the eyes.

Had the desire to be a good person
so, from a young age-
I began to hurt myself instead of other's.

Mother once told me--
I'd put bandaids on the wounds of friends,
but I'd let scrapes bleed,
and drip down my ankle.

Father told me I was a hard worker,
I felt ten again.
Meeting his compliment with a blush;
he doesn't commend just anyone,
but my fingertips in that instant- burned.

Loved the sun as a girl,
spent hours under it-
now I can't stand the heat.
Even when I had to make appointments
for my father's love
those days seemed longer,
my skin younger.

Found a way to love the sky I'm underneath;
sky blue pill sertraline,
and white cloud- abilify
allow my brain to absorb sunlight once more.

& they tell me of a God who loves me so,
but my cheeks burn,
as skin melts off the bone.

And I was euphoric—
a star that burns incessantly,
taking up too much mass.

Red giant that encompasses all,
suffocating in the process,
exploding.

I want to be a good person,
but I don't feel human at all.
I'm rediscovering how to love living,
just the same.
Burning brightly,
unapologetically,
as a flawed being.
With passion that makes
smoke rise from my mind,
and flames in my hair.

In sixth grade,
I wrote a letter to David Bowie
addressed to his New York home never knowing
a girl named Kamryn exists,
but I thought I was special enough
for a world-renowned rock star to reply
or care enough about some pre-teen angst

I shared with him how my grandma Pam
chose drugs over (I know now an addiction has many more complex layers)
getting to know her grandchildren or
to love her son, but then I remembered-
this is David ******* Bowie, he's lived life
with ******* in his bloodstream for thirty years prior

Maybe, I mentioned it all
because I wanted to feel special,
like the way, I think dying young
will create that for me. It's stupid
how I painfully so-identified as
"the girl with the mousy hair"
and the piano aiding an eloquent
discussion about the world's disarray
in which I selfishly identified as my own
"Life on Mars" always felt like a personal performance
just for me, but at twenty-one, it isn't just a song
and I still lay awake wondering if Mars and I
share a similarity, we want life to ebb
so distinctly within us both.

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.

You are a decrepit home
and I am a crowbar,
familiarizing myself with your insides.
I am not rusting from the waterbed,
my skin is not tarnished.

I am strong and bludgeoning the windows,
there's blood, beneath your gums
as I swing, knock out your teeth-
this time,
I am inside of you.

Your knuckles fail,
with the first blow;
broken, unable to push down
the folds of my underwear.
I plant a bruise like a kiss
on your right cheek, erupting
into a display of consequences
for your actions.

In my dreams, I scream
your name. Under the surface, I am your messiah
with the sunrise of bruises tracing my broken rib.
I am your adam, using my pain to create
strength.

You don't come around anymore,
but I still remember making memories
that never had a place existing anyways—

the say heaven, hell, and purgatory
don't count as long- distance
still I punch in your number,
listening.
To the buzz on the other end,
muting the television,
turn down the lights,
and put candles in the room;

I keep your existence alive by fabrication,
sewing selective memories in the lobes of my brain,
but they manifest
& my dreams--
are the seams of my sanity
being pulled out.

You're always there with a glass of lemonade.
Yet, you never knew what an inside voice was,
as you scream about how wonderful the afterlife is.

Your proposal a tempting blade,
the encouraging way
you promise
I'll see you-
meeting the artery in my neck,
or a tendon in my wrist.
You know-
I've done it more than once-
mistake my sickness, for your ghost.
I swear,
I can hear your voice,
all the time now.

I haven't felt this sick in a long time,
can't even recall the last time sleep came to
me in a quiet hush, with a wash of calmness,
asleep with the sky resembling
a blanket of
stars casted
out into the atmosphere.

A constant migraine hammered into my skull,
everyday I burst out randomly and cry
so hard until my knees quake,
my sadness does not end,
it folds me, unfolds me;
creases me, & turns me into a paper airplane-
I float.


There's no tin can tied to string,
I can't set out lawnchairs,
and await
for the Thursday,
you were supposed
to live to see-
never comes,
there's an emptiness in shuffled feet,
and hatred for that surgical green color.

Or when people utter "home"
I think of your paralysis
and the way your word's
fought for meaning, in that slurred tone:

"I'm going home"
I've never been religious
nor do I judge those who are,
but I've been spiritual my whole life-
the spirit knows when it dies.

my skin shudders to think how they carted you off;
to discover the parts of your body
you had not known were betraying you,
your lung's gave up
and soon the breaths in your chest,
had no place left in this world.

Like anyone else;
trying to justify why time rots hope, as it loosens our grip on reality.

Awaiting your chatter as
I shave my legs while,
you do your make up
in the faintly lit bathroom;
I hated that guava pink lipstick
you wore like it was your job.
I loved that mauve colored one
that made cherubs beg for you to
hold them in your maternal arms,
always having open arms for all outcasted,
it was part of your charm.

They say you always know when you're dying:
does that make an illness,
the equivalent to the
heartbreak of your body knowing
it has no regard to live any longer,
and the crisis with mortality,
that if we fend off fears and try to be stronger,
then an unbeknownst curiosity for what happens.

You know, we all know.
We are all going to die someday.

But-
does your mind go
when you die too?
or do memories remain
as something complacent
that even death cannot
strip the soul of?

I never liked people who call trauma "interesting"
especially in reference to those white raised lines
cascading skin, or young worship of praying
for the hurt to stop in my sleep.

Devoting years to stupid diets,
melting away the jiggle of my thighs,
sometimes when I indulge, my brain receives texts
but I don't reply.

You certainly don't, so why
should we give energy to the notion,
I am only as interesting as my suffering. Saving
ourselves isn't a definitive moment,
though I strive to find purpose within myself,
slivers who I'm meant to be
come through
in conversations with you.

All those years,
living life like an obituary. I want
to show you I'm more than a picture
that told herself shallow things like,
ugly people are a statistic and pretty
people are a portrait-
these things bore me.

But your head resting between my thighs
as I hold you

doesn't

knowing our imperfections
keep us young

doesn't

a meaningful life in love

doesn't.

If the stars are just a doorway to lifetimes that could've been,
I suppose I'm hoping a night like this never ends.
Where I've found myself in your embrace,
gazing lovingly into graceful eyes-- you and your
words, lips, & promises.

Time may sour hope,
but it proceeds to season love.

I suppose-
the sweetest would be this temptation.
If you ever dare say those five words
longingly I've yearned for--
to come out of the pome mouth of your's,
clothed in the darkness
but illuminated by the basking moonlit night.

Say them,
say them.

So resonant the sky is given light:

"I'll never let you go."
& infinities are far longer than promises,
your voice so vigorous, so dignified.

Garishly-

as I awake the next morning
the corrosion of my ear's occurs
while your proposal came across as thunderous roars
upon vast skies and growing grounds;
the salt of the earth is mixed with the rain.

Children can sing, can rejoice
in this reassurance--
today and tomorrow shall not be forecasted with any pain,
we're in the same hours.

Hold me closely,
that if the Rapture were to take us
mislead;
equating how pure our love had been.
we will only be garbed in what is our redemption
wholesome & good- willed
I would rip through the edges of every cosmos
to perceive where this would take us again- and again.

As fate would have it,
In every universal tear  
we are
together always

A backwards code
never to be deciphered
perhaps, not in words
but in tone and more importantly
in a ribbon wrapped song

A song of us—
crossing oceans and aging old,
but if not love and cherishing one another
was it not worth our weight in gold,
as we are richer than one man
together you & I.

held close,
hand in hand.

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.

I’m fine,
thank you.
So talk about your demons…
give my your share,
you asked if I loved anyone,
but you wouldn't understand-
trying to love yourself.

Instead you lied about studying psychology
and asked my bra size;
my eyes were as big as that full moon,
when I watched you and him
skinny dip in that pool.

I never would have been able to predict
what would happen next,
He was ******* and said-
“Don’t have ***”

Drove around in your car,
held hostage
the next day
I never had any idea
as to what I should say-

It was MY body,
but not your dichotomy to know
where those parts were
stripped of my soul,
to reveal what hurt-
& you impregnated me with an omen
that visits my sleep every night.

It has your ******* sapphire eyes
and licks its chops.

“You led me on” It says
(defending a child predator)

Next,
harassing me for gas money,
Didn't I give you enough?
your existence is a heavy
debt in my mind

I lost a friend,
my ****** addicted friend.
They detest me
but defended you-
can't help but wonder
if god's the *******
who makes me bleed.

Was the thievery of purity,
enough to succeed in creating imagery?
I speak of how I lost my dignity & sanity.
But-
your toxicity never strains itself from my veins.

I still dream you hold my hand
as we walk across the pond.
but its surface was clean and unharmed by filth.

Your lungs were never deflated
and you would breathe so graciously.
I waited so long, my hair has grown
& your emerald eyes
had a lust for life.

I wish I could conjure your spirit when
they say how much they see you
in me.
But I'm left empty in the midst of all
they could never see,
I've grown up, but I'm never free
of the child you held in your arms.

I don't want to spend my life being haunted by a woman
that never fought her own ghosts.
Cancer is not a demon, it is an illness
and the zodiac you were born as
should be the only thing to touch you.
But still those weakened cells
took your body as their host.

Now I mourn you in the reflection of ponds
and wait for waterlilies to bloom in the place
of your face.

now I wait for your soft hands to hold me in your lap
and place a soft kiss on my forehead.

And when I think of my mother;
her poise and grace,
dresses of lace.
My desire for our souls to meet once more,
or to see your face in front of pearly gates.

—V.H.

Brain doesn't work the way i want it,
and I can't figure out how to loosen my grip on those broken parts,
I've collected.
Nor let love "heal" me.

Those parts are no good when I can't build
anything worthwhile that makes this easier.
The thought to resort back to rubies dripping down my skin,
opened back up
& it lets the sickness have breathing room.

The wounds not needing sutures,
but time-
for scars to remain.
Another way demons flow in through my veins.

Slits on the surface of my body,
distress the canvas that is my skin,
I'm trying to be okay again,
trying to not let the darkness in.

But each time I destroy myself,
in attempt to reinvent the brokenness.
I show everyone I hurt,
but I can't recall what the reason was.

Used to imagine dying was so simple,
but you don't become a ghost with suicide.
There's no need to hold onto it;
let the pain go,
You don't haunt the walls,
or sob for the living to hear.

There's no cure for what ails me,
but I'm trying to remember how to survive
and have a heart that beats happily.

There's so much wisdom in an oak,
with its' dying breath,
of that tree-
I admired the courage it took to change.
Baring a naked soul after shedding layers,
Reds, golds, and oranges-
Cascading down the streets.
In my moments of mourning
I realized-
We don't hold funerals for trees.

—V.H.

In the dusk of August we remained separated.
Different lives lived,
wondering has the "best day of our lives" already come.
Riding home in your car;
I remember how full of life you looked in my eyes.
We both laughed about inside jokes & stories from childhood,
I never figured out how to stifle my guffaw that spoke of how lonely I am.
I promised you my honesty, always.
Referred to it as a curse,
but a fate much worse is-
the one where we never belonged to one another.

Sometimes, my head gets so heavy:
I never belonged underneath the sun.
I had stopped writing poetry for weeks because, I didn't feel I had anything worth saying.
Until August 4th.
I cried to you, poured my heart out to the waves.
Where I dreamt they carried us away-
in the mundane life I lived,
my bones could never be content in finding happiness within myself.
Last August we spoke like two children in love.
Becoming the lights that illuminated Gulf Breeze where my residency was.
My heart erupted into
smoke signals across Pensacola
that reach your window.

We spoke effervescently of a future we'd
be a part of together.
We spoke of intimacy and how it'd feel to be enraptured by passion.
I'm a fleeting thing, my love.
Gone.
Like the rotting leaves through Autumn in another state,
I am the present time when-
destiny does not meet with fate.
I'm no longer here,
with a curtained heart outstretched,
loving me is dastardly,
and now it's too late.

—KRM

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.

Look me in the eye,
ask if I’m alright.
I might just tell you a lie.