My mother said I had my fathers eyes
I always thought I kinda looked like a bug
But not in that
Strange-insecure way
Just in the way we stare at lady bugs when were kids
And we don't judge them,because they just are
Before we learn to be afraid
And start calling them "insects"

My mom also said, drugs were the best thing that ever happened to her
to the world
to society
A teenage girl in a woman's body
Forever sifting through history
The never ageing blue eye'd hippie;

So I set out on a journey
to somehow find what she said was so great
I swore to myself that I would be the next drug
And do what it takes
To change the world
   To change society
     To be the best thing that ever happened to my mother
        The eternal hippie

I also think the women in my family
Have this uncanny knack
At finding these beautiful
wrecks of men

Her last boyfriend blew his brains out
  I was three and thought we painted the walls

Steven was her boy toy, with an artist's deep dark eyes
  I used to watch him paint
   He'd drink a little too much
   watch a little too much ****

She found him in his car
And then Brett
Who was the whitest thing we saw
Blonde hair and white eyes
  Well by the time we got there
He was already gone

So she says to me "Honey, don't make the mistakes I made, these weak men,
    well they aren't tortured artists, tortured souls, just misguided little boys."

     I haven't been able to quite shake that curse off
  I guess its something in the nature
  In the way that we walk
    The words that we say
      The way that we talk

But I'm sick of being the unpaid therapist
And staying up all night thinking about
   Problems that aren't even mine

  Dangling the live's of people with this terminal illness
    This disease no one talks about
      Because its so ******* "Taboo"
         Hoping they will survive the night
             Leaving my phone on just instead

Being thankful when they call me
Drunk and sobbing
About this dark abyss of water
The chains around their ankles
In the light dawn of day
The clock says, 4 AM, the bed says come
Their cries say "stay"

Holding their mother's hands
At funerals
Thinking of something beautiful to say
When really, I think I just need to start hanging around with a new bunch of people

But I find everyone else quite boring, quite stupid, quite dumb
You know, the kind, go out get drunk
For the sake of a friday
Study for a test you'll take on monday

Its like they never feel
out
   of
      place
And like they will always be
quite
    okay

  I hope they will make it through the weekends
    Make it clear they are not alone
      But ive always been icky with emotion
         Talking about these "heavy" things
I
   just
      want to
quit

They tell me I'm great
And that I''ll go far
Because I posses such "intelligence"
For someone so young
I say Ive known greater
Ive known smarter
And the acid eating away at my insides
Is a direct result of all
your expectations
That I wont meet
And that test I'll fail on Friday
And all the teachers I'll let down
A doctor's daughter
The family of academics
That somehow bred a writers soul
A so called "artist"
However intellectual
I cannot do this
I cannot

I saw you sitting on our front porch
It was a dull, silent day
The kind you find in Colorado
at spring time, early may
And the kids are at school
And the housewives are too busy cleaning the house
cooking their meals
Washing the lipstick stains off their husbands shirts

And you looked cute like little kids do
with a chubby face and baby hands
I sat next to you
and asked you what you were doing
You said "I'm waiting for the rain."
why?
"Because I like the smell of it."

You reaffirmed my sense in humanity then.
Someone who was only 5 years old
You made me want to go home and destroy every razor I had stashed away
Rip out every sad sob story of a poem I had written
Open up every curtain in that death stained house
That smelled like body odor
and human warmth
But it lacked
life

You made me want to scream and cry
and say "yes yes yes you're smart little guy!"

But I stared in amazement as thunder was heard
And now when I hear it, im reminded of your words
As I held your little hands in mine, the neighbour boy
and we danced in the rain as you squealed with delight
five years old with beautiful brown eyes
I could only hope one day Id have a brother like you
That was before my mom had the baby

And you were just a little boy
so every time it rains
I think of that dance
and how it smelled
and how it tasted when I found out that your stepfather had beaten your brains out

     3 years later
        after we'd moved.
That sweet-bitter taste.

of life laughing in your face

It seems like we waited forever in that waiting room
I kept trying your cell
Just to see where you had gone
Until you came back 3 hours later
Looking like ****
Shirt wrinkled
Tie rumpled
Face crumpled

Bruised knuckles

Looked like you had been bargaining with the God of war
It was a week from his funeral and I hadn't ever seen you dressed up since
You came to it in slacks and a wife beater stinking of alcohol

With eyes that looked like fire
like fury
like you were blind
like ice

And I willed myself to walk over to your heavy frame
  Shaking against the wall
But then again I knew nothing I could say
Could somehow make your anger go away

I realised you had every right.

So I just kept whispering a thousand apologies
Mumbled "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry"

Until your bleeding knuckles
Punched the knocked out plaster
And the sound of your bruised bones breaking
Against that ******* wall

Too deafening, for me to hear at all.
And the nurses rushed around you

To try to calm your thoughts
But all I could think of was a gorilla
King Kong
Mighty Joe

Some beautiful ferocious animal
that beat on its chest
Out of anger
Out of fear
Out of pain

When your lips touched that bottle
And swallowed me whole
I thought good because
atleast I'd have  a better chance at keeping those things down
Whatever it was that you were trying to
push away
By drinking

But I was lost in your stomach
And made deaf by the sound of your heart
Your acid eroded me
And those monsters in that deep hollow pit
The ones in the dark
Well, they tore my limbs apart

I tried to find my way through
Cling on to something solid
but all I could hear was
*** *** ***

I didnt know you had a heart
But, you did keep it well hidden

Oh wait, that was mine
The sound of my own beating drum
As I desperately tried to
Get to you

I fell in love with your words
That beautiful mouth
That binded me to you
Like the alcohol in your blood
The blood that was never free from
your
own
self inflicted
Poison

Many think of anger, as hot
fiery
volcanoes erupting
The ground shaking
Thunder
In my fathers voice

When I think of being angry
I think of silence
Of turning the ocean to ice
I think of glass
And reflections
I think of lava
because I think true rage
is kept hidden

It isn't the smoke that escapes nature's destruction
Or the roaring flames that engulf it
It isn't a thousand shattering windows
Or a deafening wind

Its the silent, burning lava
Rage is eternal
Destroying all in its path
Without so much as a
*Whisper