I should tell you:

I'm not rich
I'm different
I believe in love
I chase my dreams

I dream big
I look for the good in people
I smile even when I'm sad
I love the rain

I'm not normal
I love the cold
I set goals
I achieve them

I know we all deserve
Happiness
I love making people
Smile.

I know you're beautiful
Yes, you the one reading
This poem

                     Hey, Cute Person!
                              SMILE!

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sin's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule- altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.

Lord give me strength,
to fight the demons inside of me,
so I may be free from their tyranny.

Lord give me strength,
to endure the darkening skies,
to overcome and finally see light.

Lord give me strength,
to love those around me,
to smite all the hate and envy.

Lord give me strength,
to carry this cross I bear,
to endure the thorns I wear.

Lord give me strength,
to conquer these thoughts that possess,
to realize that this too shall pass.

Hero

In the lost words of language
In the gaping hordes of time
There stands a hero
He fights with rhyme
For the pen is mightier than the sword
His words we lean upon
In the maelstrom in the eye of the storm of silence
His words cascade like a fountain
A tranquil place in a sea of violent words
Great big man monsters attack him with verbs
Birds peck at his eyes with profanities
and troll him on Facebook.
But he doesn't care, he barely looks
For his heart is strong as is his soul
and he breathes in air
and exhales poetry.

I watch the music maker
and wonder if he holds his women
the same assured way he holds his guitar.
I wonder if his fingers memorize their curves
the same way they memorize measures.
I wonder what he does with his sheet music
when it has nothing left for him to learn.
If I were his, I’d insist he hand it to me.
Each stack I’d fold into delicate flying creatures
and send them off into the sky.
With their pointed wings,
they’d strum clouds and pluck stars—
making messages in melodies
to remind the world
why she chooses to keep spinning.

Why are the most beautiful,
& incredibly memorable experiences,
with the one that we love the most,
the ones that change us,
& move us from our wrong,
so safe inside those loving arms,
to feel that we belong,

Why are they always the most,
the very most bittersweet,
and those very perfect memories,
are just gone with you,
a ghost,

Why,
are they all the better,
when we are finally,
dead?

Cherie Nolan © 2016