My thighs have
Known scars  
They have known how to close in fast like a threatened house when thieves are sitting in my bushes waiting for the door to open so they can fire a gun at my esteem  
And take away all the love I have spent endless years collecting for myself; they have known to close and shrink when they are too much
when it seems like no one wants to come in  
But my thighs have also known courage  
My thighs  
Stretch outward
My imagination
Jiggles when I run after my train of thoughts
I  
Have always been the elephant in the dressing room
My thoughts popping out from the sides of the curtains there
Is nowhere to go.  
I look at myself in mirrors that cannot fit my whole body they reflect only what is  
Seen by the naked eye  
On the outside I am fully dressed up for shame
Inside of me is a Greek figure
I  
do not want to tell my story like this.  
I hear: big is beautiful but so is small but so is "normal" I ask them what is
Normal give me two minds that speak of a same definition when  
Have we never been programmed to give the same answers like regurgitating lessons in biology only speaking compliments that sound like cold hard facts  
You are beautiful you look nice you make me look so bad your figure is so curvy and attractive your legs aren't too fat come on why would you buy this if it does not suit you why don't you go to the gym anymore why don't you talk about your weight loss story  
Why don't you figure out a way to love each other outside of way too much flesh way too much bone way too much of  
This.  
I know,  
I know what I am what I am not what I wish to be what I know I should not wish to be but the idea of changing myself runs in my mind more than I run or I grip at my sides at my scars, more than I skip meals I skip a beat at the thought of you seeing me in my underwear I skip through dieting techniques in magazines
And instead  
I flip to the gardening section {IN THIS ISSUE; YOUR OWN VEGETABLE MINI GARDEN}  
I flip my hair to wash my face in the morning
I flip the middle aged man off catcalling me when
I am walking in the streets I flip coins to choose which book I am reading next  
I flip to the next page in my life; yesterday you are no longer needed
I will rest in my bed tonight
Instead I move to the easel and paint myself;
I paint myself as I am; not negative space.
I fill the easel and by the end I have run out of paint but this is what happens when you try to paint a reality things empty out when you try to correct it every time you look in the mirror your heart does not seem to understand that it has run out of blood by the time it has tried to tell your story in the most sugar coated way it can;  
Heart,  
I do not blame you.  
Sometimes I am lost as well  
But in this unwanted balancing act of love and hate my body feels dizzy my consciousness is begging me: "Pamela, stop" I stopped, I listened.  
As I was running on the treadmill as I ran away from the party because there was food as I run past a sign and don't notice it; it was telling me to stop as well.  
Because in our marathon through life in our rush to get to the other side of our mentality that says: "Welcome! You have achieved body positivity and can now be mentally stable"  
We have forgotten there is always a bridge we must cross, one we always try to shortcut our way around and where we end up falling face-first into the water most;  I believe
In the linear motion of time; I wished I knew how to turn back time though and stop myself from being born into a world where I am labelled the second I am pushed out of my mother's body,  But I believe
In the linear motion of time but also in the linear motion of learning how to love this heavy body of mine.  
In the way that I carry its burden on my back I see that there is always something in the equation of body love I have overlooked, something that makes the mathematics of confidence add up
I see that before the negative numbers go in ascending order they stop at   
Zero.  
Before we can go from body hate to body love I had to make one stop at Zero.  
The words blowing through its empty circle there is a neutral place for you before you carry on, a "no man's land" in the battle against the voices in your head, a safe zone from this battle ground.  
  
Zero comes to me when I am shaking from the rain and tells me: "you've come a long way, baby", tells me I do not need to be this or that, that I can just be, in the utmost simplicity.  Tells me I am what I am and that is fine to be.  

Zero: maybe I do not want to be neutral. Maybe I do not want to be zero on the scale in my space, neutral in my life. But I walked and I saw that zero was light and burdenless.  I walk.
I stop.
I may not be home, but the way there isn’t so bad.

This is a memory of the time I first stepped into a plane,
When I took a seat by the window next to the 80-year old man
And as the world got smaller and bigger the only thing that kept me sane
Was that I was a lonesome traveler without a plan.
And all the while my insides churned and the cocktail washed the bile,
The man came out of the cockpit to tell us we’d almost land
In Cairo airport, and I could feel the stream of the Nile
In my lungs, and the smell of the mango in my taste glands,
I twisted in my seat to have a better look
At the sad earth I’d soon call my own,
But my lips deceived and my head shook
For Egypt’s glory furiously shone.
                                                         *p.t.

Who’s that man in the black coat?
He always gets off the 11 p.m bus
and whenever we’re two *****
brown and ripped seats away
I can distinguish the smell of smoke
in his hair and the rain on his eyeglasses
Every time he sits down two *****
brown ripped seats away from me
the yellow neon lights
stuck on the roof  that he has to avoid
by bending, catch the rings in his beat up
calloused hands
I can see his fingers holding an overflowing moleskin notebook
and I am yet to approach him
about his name
when all that fills my conscious is the question
concerning the stack of papers in his hand.
                                                                               *p.e.n

I spot you from afar,
And I feel a sweet, aching weakness in me.
That is love.
That is all there is to love.
                                           *p.t.

"Here, hold my hand", he said
and he lead me through the darkness
"Where are we going?, I whispered
But I didn't want to know, I must now confess
There seemed to be a great light in his eyes
but he lead me through the darkness
I followed him slowly, with heavy sighs
With the urge to run away from this mess
  
A thousand years passed by
And my hand was still entwined in his
A thousand years had passed by
And I never searched for my own dark bliss
He walked me through caves, he showed me stalagmites
and filthy bats
He showed me murky water and rotting rats
He showed me mossy walls and the rusty ceilings
But I did not see it
I did not see it at all
Because he lead me in a darkness
Only he could understand
He lead me in his darkness
And mine stayed the undiscovered land

I don't mind when it strikes and it hurts
Eighty miles per hour
It won't ache it won't irk

Discover when you've been lied to
And the ones with blood on their hands
Just wipe it on your face and kiss your cheek

I don't mind when it wounds and it shoots
The alcohol tastes so sour
Though it claws at the memory from its roots

And the times spent in your room
Dissolve with the tears from the fumes

Sons of bedeviled thorns and pistols
They take you in
And they swallow you whole
They take a shot
At your chest, at your brain
They take a shot
And they can't really explain

Hotels filled with lonely corpses
A beautiful face seems the only source
That might get you out of your mind
When you are sick and you are lying

Discover that the ones with blood on their hands
Are the only ones who take a stand
With their sins and knives behind their backs
And a smile, and a laugh,
You have to know where you're at

You spell an apology letter by letter
Yet the sky would know better
Than to clear up on a day like today
When it can strike your soul
So fragile and so frail
And your hands
So skinny and so pale
And your smell
So old and so stale
And your heart
I can almost hear it fail

There's no light at the end of that tunnel
There's no mercy for merciless gunner
Maybe next time they'll think ahead
Before their words shoot you dead

But right now I don't mind
If it stabs from behind
Eighty miles per hour
And I still can't race past my mind

And right now don't you mind
Of your hit and run
Are you blind
To the damage done
I hope the sound of the drums
Drowns your cries
Where my soul once lied.
                                             *p.t.

And you know, you never told
Of the time we took the old
Man to watch the sunrise over the lake
For the very last time before his Great Ache
I never heard you talk about
Last year, when we were out
Of town, and we brought
The tents to a dry hill
Overlooking the windmill
And all we did was drink and talk
And you clumsily sang “I Am A Rock”
So, did you ever mention when
We both sneaked into an ***** den
And the Indonesian woman stole you wallet
Right after you’d won that ridiculous bet?
I think you kept the secret memory
When you stormed out the car in fury
When your Beetle broke down on Lucky lane
And all we did before repairing was done
Was kiss and play knock-and-run
And I don’t mind at all
How we make our times together look dull
But what I love is that they won’t know
How our nights and mornings go
How the caresses from the moonlight
Over your face fill me with delight
The hummingbird kisses while we’re still asleep
And your callused fingers that linger and creep
And the love poems made out of moans and sighs
The love cage of our tangled arms and thighs
Along with the Oasis vinyl dying out…
They won’t know what we've been on about.
                                                                           *p.t.

Flesh, flesh, flesh, there’s too much everywhere!
No, I can't be seen like this
There’s too much flesh here
And here as well
I can’t weigh this much at fifteen!
Flesh on my thighs, flesh on my arms
I’ll never fit on the cover of a magazine!
flesh, flesh, FLESH!
I better use a razor, use a knife, use broken glass
Maybe the flesh will leak out, maybe I’ll be flatter
FLESH FLESH FLESH EVERYWHERE
How am I gonna be liked by the boys in class????
No no momma, don’t lie to me, I just know it matters
Flesh FLESH FLESH
ON MY STOMACH
THE ROLLS WHEN I SIT DOWN AND PLUMMET
Do you see it shake when I laugh too much?
No no no I can’t laugh too much
I can’t be happy now, do you see
I heard cigarettes make you skinny and poetic, momma
now don't you lie to me, momma, I'm going outside
I'll go have a smoke, with my FLESH on my sides
THE FLESH FLESH FLESH
It’s like acid, it burns like heartache
FLESH FLESH FLESH
I’m gonna make my scale break
No no momma, I’m not a pretty girl
No momma, this flesh belongs to the monsters under my bed
Who are turning into provoking voices in my head
Screaming FLESH FLESH FLESH
You disgusting little thing
You hog all the food, you hog all the space
You think you’d ever look good in underwear or in lace?
Disgusting little thing,
I can see through you dress
You are no-good-to-love case
I can’t love all of you
All that FLESH FLESH FLESH
My heart is not big enough to love you, girl
And all your FLESH FLESH FLESH.  
                                                              *p.t.

If we ever happen to be
please remember that I'm a daisy
and I will die of ******* love
if you keep the light from me
if you trap me in your shadow
or banish me and cut my roots
and tell me to live in your desert
to drink off my own tears
I will die of ******* love
if you keep the river from me
if, if, if, if, if, if, if...
                                          *p.t.

I run into you on lit-up Lovelace lane
On April seventh, waiting for the train
I take you to a restaurant for a glass of champagne
And as I drunkenly talk to you
Words come out, not from the brain, no, no
Not from the brain, not from the sane.

“Oh, the odds of seeing you here;
The coincidence that might appear
to be nothing more than god’s plans
or a coincidence made to rest in his hands

Angel,
I have seen the way
your eyes dulled upon their betray
Angel,
look at me, pure and divine
look at me,
like you’re a heart wrapped in vine
leaves and leaf by leaf I peel
and peak beneath your teal
dress and distress is an understatement
to myself as I stumble on pavement
And god-like would be more like an insult
to the way your laugh sounds; like a cult
of beauty
and feminism
and that lonely wind of sadness
oh God, bless your laugh, God bless

Talk to me,
these echoes are not enough
to satisfy my ears, I honestly can’t bluff
about the way I am desperately in need to hear
you talk, the words leave the lips, the words sincere
the words trail down the hips…
the words dissolve into clips…
the words fall like, snow
into my ears…
And…
I forgot how to think…
But you appear in the blink
of the eye, the sound of a cry
that brings me closer to heaven
and I am silent, I am the raven
I am deaf
to everything but you,
I am deaf

Between you and I
I struggle with rhymes
and I’ve never really loved how my words
were with a twist of the mind, paradoxically absurd
You leave me hanging on the
tip of your tongue
and crushed inside
the muscles of your lungs
please take me out;
there are still a few verses I haven’t
sung.”
                                                  ­       *p.t.

you are
a sunflower
colorblind
and out of your mind
i am
the sun
i am the sun
i am trapped
in the sky
i don't know
where to run
he is
a butterfly
see him
flutter by
and he is free
unlike you
and me.
                *p.t.

He told me
“Once you start,
There is no end
Your life will
Curl and curve and bend.
Doesn't matter where.
Must you go south,
North, east and west?
Then go, I don’t care
But I should warn you,
Never rest.
Must you leave me?
Must you drive,
Fly and sail?
I’ve tasted it once;
It’s only fair.
I don’t think
I’m mostly sure,
That your wild,
Thirsty heart,
Is grand and pure
And I don’t think,
I am oh very sure,
That you will never be
On the brink
Of becoming bored.
Go find all that’s
Hidden, untold,
Hunt for your own
Silver and gold.
Don’t follow the steps,
Dig through your own road
Fall in love once, twice
Grow warm and grow cold.
When you travel
You haven’t got a home
But be sure,
You’re never alone.
When you travel. Take it all in,
Open your eyes wide
To lights, bright and dim.
And merge with the ground,
With the water
The people, the town
Be the lost and be the found
Remember every note and every sound
Every street fair, yen and pound
Every story from every lip
Bite at the memories, tear and nip
When you travel
Remember well
The essence is not
What’s left to tell
It’s not in riches
It’s not in years,
It’s for you,
For joy, mourning,
Laughs and tears.
It’s to live
With every taste on your tongue
It’s to rust and grow old
With souls and mind so young.”
                                                       *p.t.

Perhaps
It is not the sounds of chirping birds I will lazily wake up to
When I grow up
Maybe
It will be because of my 6 a.m. alarm for my part-time job
Perhaps
I will not stay at home watching movies when I have the flu
When I grow up
Maybe
I will be forced to go out and buy medicine for the throb
Perhaps
I will not spend my money on clothes and candy
When I grow up
Perhaps
I will pay off the bills I will be drowning in
Perhaps
I will not travel the world and feed my wanderlust soul
When I grow up
Maybe
I will grow up and old and die and rot in my own skin

And perhaps,
I do not want to grow up anymore;
Maybe,
This life is a road that I should ignore.

                                                             *p.t.

I was waiting here, for that woman who gave me love
I told them she was my star shining from above
I waited and waited till the midnight bell rang
From my disappointment I sang
"Everyday I wake up from my dream
And say that was sublime
I wish the clouds could hear
And then they'd cry my tears
Those tears of regret
Just because you fell down and left
And destroyed our dreams and hopes
And all those empty roads
That I had given up just for you
Who made you leave tell me who
I guess I was living in a bunch of lies
Before I ran out of retries"
We used to walk to a church a couple of miles away
We admired the beauty and kneeled to pray
We liked to visit a park in early spring
I'd push her while she sat on a swing
I don't know what was on my mind
It was her love that kept me blind
The reality, I could not find
With her, I left all my problems behind
I remember the first time we met
It was at a party at sunset
We gazed into each other's eyes
15 years ago, how time flies
The memories pass in my head
I can't remember how many times I've said:
"Oh Lord, gracious Lord, tell me why
Why did she have to fly
I can feel her spirit crossing seas and rivers
Would you tell me why she left her lover
Without her I'm a blazing sun without calming rain
Without her I'm a man without the blood in my veins
Oh well I wanted to take her to Spain on our honeymoon
And maybe serenade her under the light of the moon
I turned her frowns upside down
She made me wear a golden crown"
And one winter I remember well
A first lovely snow fell
And after it had covered valleys and mountains
We went and hid in a small cave
Shared our love like we never did
And that ended our story forever
But I'm still waiting for her
Even after the midnight bell rings
I still need to tell her things
Still need to push her on a swing
Still need to gaze into her eyes
But I'm not a god and I have no power
So at her doom stone I placed a flower
                                                          ­      *p.t.

it's the twenty-fourth and every one's out
the streets are dead like the laughter that died out
lampposts light blotches of the road
and Christmas this year feels like a fraud
we hung out at the old bar on the curb
and we drank til the night was nothing but a blur
cruelly reminisced the days with bittersweet smiles
can you be jealous of your own past, you the child?
cheating husbands and bachelor loons
they're all wasted and it's all too soon
for a family to split and spend  Christmas eve
with a friend for a while before they get up and leave
and it's such a shame that a time has come
when you can only hear the roars of a gun
hell, do you want to hear what's worse?
tonight a couple million drunks will break down and curse
when their hangover sets before the northern star
and the ***** of words that follow isn't that far
for all we know we are slaves of a tradition
that seems so far from its own meaning in religion
but can you do anything, and hear over the masses
chanting rebellion against every traitor that passes?
can you really hear the chiming of church bells
when the world of humans is nothing but a living hell?
it's the twenty-fourth and everyone's out
to feast on a Christmas of pain and doubt
                                                                ­             *p.t.

What next?
As I wake up on a cold park bench
With pebbles being thrown at me
My clothes are torn and I smell a stench
Of alcohol reeking from me

Where to?
As I rub my icy blue hands
Over my hungover face and dark eyes
I wince as I try to stand
I double over and muffle a cry

What is she doing?
I hear the ***** whispers of passer-byes
With sideway glances and pursed lips
As if I was deaf and blind
To my worn out clothes and rips

?When's the time?
Asked the barista at 9 a.m.
"Living on the streets for months"
"Come on, you don't give a ****"
And I know he's smiling with smug triumph

What can I do?
I heard an old lady say from the corner shop
I smiled: "maybe a time machine would do
Or a job or a home or for the prices to drop
But you're too kind, I don't want to bother you"

So what is there to do
And what is the point
Of questions I can't answer
And people that disappoint?
Look at me, drunk and homeless
Who here did I not anger?
And look at them, fulfilled and blessed
Who's the obvious winner?
Could you ever shamelessly answer?
                                                         ­              *p.t.

the stars look down
at campers in the night
who are strong men
and brave
who will not renounce a fight
but the stars are high
nothing they haven't seen
that creeps in the dark
with ear splitting screams
so while we are beneath them
they may feel a sense of
duty and protection
to all men.
so in the eve
they gather up
their fierce fires
and soft twinkles.
finally, into time
standing disoriented
the shine, and at dawn
they falter down
and fly off to guard
another land of glorious God
                                                *p.t.

She had lost
The man she
           will only love
So she surrendered
           And lived off
Strong drink
           And weak men.
                                       *p.t.

one day
someone
will stop his life
and listen.
not only to you
but to every breath you inhale
every sip of warm tea your lips take
every freckled movement your hands make
every song your eyes sing.
he will love you;
every kiss you trail
will leave him frail
every word you speak
will leave him weak
and
one day
he will pray you
will never leave him, too.
                                             *p.t.

She had always
Been two-faced
Between the yes
                       And the no
The fast
           and the slow
The calm  
           and the loud
Until one day he said:
"sorry, but three's a crowd"

                                                  *p.t.

you are not very fond
of my numerous speeches
about how I wake up
and gaze at you in your sleep
about me pouring my
whole being to you
while you fiddled with my hair
how you listened
how you stared
but I will let you know
that I am in love with
the rare times
you truly speak to me
on a monday dawn
when your words
are as timed
as the beating
in my chest.
                          *p.t.