I've never felt so at home,
as I did the day I met her.
For once I couldn't hear
the bickering of voices in my head,
and that's how I knew.
Home is wherever your demons
go mute, and the feeling of
her palm on mine is
a better silencer than
antidepressants ever were.

She makes me feel whole,
like the only reason my heart
is aching is because I
cannot possibly love her more.

She smiles at me like
there might actually be
something there to smile about.

When I am with her,
I forget that society did not
teach me to love this way.
Did not teach me that
sometimes love arrives
in a package tied with a pink bow.

And I could change all the pronouns
in my love poems to him,
if it would make others
more comfortable,
but it wouldn't change the truth.

The truth is that nothing
has ever came easy in life,
except for loving her.

There are memories between those walls
Places I put my head on your chest
My hand engulfed in yours
It may be stupid but I thought
For a while...
Maybe.

My older sister once told me
that if you aren't making
sacrifices for someone,
it isn't love.

So I wondered if she
would be proud of the way
I'd sacrificed parts of myself
to make it easier for you
to hold me. The way
I'd cut off friends due to
your paranoia of being left
before you were able to
do the leaving. Or how
I gave up my dream job
so you would never have to
face up to your problem
of codependency.

I swore to her I would
be giving. It's funny
how ironic life loves to be,
isn't it?

Because while I was sharing
everything with you,
you were desperately
clinging to your only child
mentality. A little boy,
still scared of sharing toys
and feelings. The problem is,
I'm not a little girl anymore.

I've outgrown the myth
that boys hit you because
they like you.
Boys hit you because
you learn how great the
word no feels rolling
off your tongue.
Boys hit you because
alcohol turns smart
men stupid.
Boys hit you because
they are terrified
that you will realize
your worth.

And I finally have.
I do love you,
but I love myself more.

And now I finally
understand what
my sister meant.

"I feel the beat of my own words as they tumble
A stutter, a jump in the waves of thought that crash
Down, encircling my head, shooting an emotional gun
A bang in bed, so hard it breaks. The love causes a concussion."  

I am thinking too much,
I can't just let thoughts fall from my lips,
I wish I could speak out about emotion;
The path they've led me down,
And have people think they're beautiful and heartfelt,
But I don't have that capability because lately my
Mind has been overcrowded and empty,
I contradict myself like a wasp that has no sting.
What's the point?
I am a poet that can't write or rhyme,
I am a performer with no character,
An artist without a clear muse and so
I scribble on a page hoping to find
Someone who will respect my patheticness.
I listen to music, wishing that I could sound like
The people who know what to do the next day,
Because I have no clue.
Thinking that far ahead leaves holes in my vision
Because something is missing,
But I cant see far enough to find it!

My entire life has been a magnifying glass,
Trying to find my way, the right way, and society's way,
But I can only follow one path and that one
May not even be paved yet.
And as a girl who hated wearing shoes as a child
And who looks to her childish heart for guidance,
That may be a problem.

Old women are forgotten wombs
whose graceless bodies have fed the world,
then been sent to sit in its shadows...
not quite seen, unacknowledged
and without nurture.

Old women are crucified with the nails
of oppression and poverty.
Invisibility swallows them when
age freckles out-number the fresh
patches of youth.

Old women have scarred and calloused
knees from kneeling in submission to
lesser minds that felt bigger for the
looking down.

A rosary of sorrows is strung through
the weary fingers of old women.
They are hung on the crucifix of youth
and beauty to wither into dust.

Old women have crabbed and ruined toes
from shoes worn too long - that a child
might have new ones.
Alone in cubicles or corners, frayed photos
beneath their coats, old women remember
children that have long forgotten them.

Old women do not seek a man’s arms...
for that is not a refuge, but a honeyed trap
where souls are flayed and burned.

Old women talk to themselves because
no  one else has ears to hear, or words to share.
Even their echoes are faint and whispered.

Such wondrous minds...libraries of living life,
vision and experience...left untouched because
they are not behind a pretty face.

Behold the woman....she is a wealth of wisdom
and power, beauty and courage - to those
wise enough to touch her power.

Her reckoning will come...

Until then - she endures.