I still can't give away
my heart without my pride

The mirror is silent
The room startled
In an altered state
Everything familiar
dissimilar
Would I hear more if
This one was mine?
If in this mirror this one is reversed
And I am stunned
Is the me beneath this face
Before the glass
As shocking in the familiar
As it is empty before me now?

Dawns barbed tongue
Licked regret off my face
And finally
It seemed as though the four corners of the world
Were finally coming home

My heart is a desolate castle
Upon a lonely, haunted hill
Its self grandeur misguided and facile
Empty yet infestation fills
rooms that beat in theory
but in abandonment seem still
Oh, my heart is a desolate castle
Haunted by its own free wil

Mouse claws on plastic; a scratching sound,
A small pallid face on a merry-go-round,
The wheel trundles on unstable ground
As the empire falls, a fresh king is crowned

Head spinning; hair thinning,
Revolution by minute is no beginning,
And now the man behind the lattice is sinning,
It goes around, and around
Swinging, we come around

Mornings follow familiar dreams
Afternoons clink with routine and caffeine
Evening curtains rise to the same static scenes,
And night rings out the strain of the machine
Round and around
Evergreen; never aground

Our scratches on the wheel grow loud now
Two more eyes swallowed by the shuffling crowd now
Despite strain, the steel walls unbowed somehow
By a thousand pallid faces beneath a thousand sallow shrouds
We go around, and we go around
The mice remain humble: the king has some proud vow
It comes around and back around
The world keeps turning; we all fall down

The closed door
That replaced you
Is lacking in your allure  
But in having a handle
It's much more secure

I made the walls my best friends
I told them my secrets
I shared myself
And I always listened
Until finding myself loyal to nothing else
I invited you to share their insides
In the hope of a breathing connection
But now instead I whisper with them
Behind noise or doors or duvets
Those words never said in your breath
Silence snaps when you shut the door
Magnolia reacts mildly
And sometimes breathing is intense

Stop telling the kids
That what you do is who you are
Stop telling the kids
That your work is the mark
Stop asking the kids
What do you want to be?
Or- start accepting answers of
‘Nice’ or ‘safe’ or ‘happy’
Stop telling the kids
What they want to do
Is who they want to be
You’ve confused the English
A verb where an adjective should be
Stop telling the kids
How they serve the economy
Is the same as their personalities
How will you make money for someone else
In your lifelong campaign to sustain yourself?
Is this what we ask at the age of three,
To know how to act socially acceptably?
Save the inaccurate labels of ability
For dinner parties and PTA meetings
And ask the kids
What kind of grown-up do you want to be
Or better, what would you like to see?
What’s it like being three and what do you dream?
What should I want to be?

Pushed to pillow
This morning
With musty dusted eyes
Your face was soft all over
But by lunchtime
It's all corners
And by nightfall
I'm petitioned with bruises