i've heard of my harshness
my entire life, the way
that my words dig tiny
holes in hurt feelings and
infest psyches with
second guesses until
madness consumes the
unfortunate recipient of
my terrible truths

they are only truths after all,
honesty is the best policy
plays on repeat behind
closed eyelids as i think
before i speak

none of this is senseless,
maybe it's that i suffer
from a seemingly sweet face
as an accompaniment to
my realism, or
perhaps you're just too
******* sensitive

i picture myself taking
sandpaper to my tongue,
spritzing my brain with
lavender extract, and
instead of word *****
i regurgitate daisies

today i woke and found what was lost
a day of hurt, a day of cost
a look in the mirror reveals what's known
i am the only place where i find home

i control this lonesome land
with naught but a pence thrown in my hand
but still control belongs to me
which should convince me that i am free

a drive of doubt fuels me forward
though my heels dig in, i move onward
a flash of what i know to be the past
despite my desire does not last

i take my hands and hold my head
without self control i'm better off dead
muscle memory moves me on
finding solace in the promise of a new dawn

i know that when my eyelids part tomorrow
there will be less of this god awful sorrow
but for now i'll allow myself to sink a bit
mondays really are nothing but ****

it seems the closer i get to my dreams
the less gravity pulls me towards reality

i wake each morning nose to nose with myself
floating above my still sleeping body

as my eyelids flutter i fall back within my bones
and breathe deeply as i recount the strangeness -

lost in the docks of antwerp desperate for evening attire,
watching robed friends don masks and sing of sadness -

my past follows me into the great beyond
and stares me in the eyes again and again

for some reason i can see and feel you,
but the familiarity is gone and your voice is no longer yours

i wonder if that's the first thing to disappear
from the recesses of our minds - the sound of love

my brain tricks me into thinking
that i'm the only woman
who's turned out jaded
after watching a man eat
chunks of my still beating heart

it's easy to place myself upon
this island, silent and sorry
while i sob under pine trees
and curse the planets for
making me endlessly desire love

i see you approach the shore,
the boat wasn't built with
your own hands, but you're
still a better man than all
of the ones that proceeded you

i speculate that you're here
to hunt weak and easy prey,
truth is that doubt and not loving
myself will be the only misfortunes
that bleed me dry

******* you pisces,
with your gaping emotional wounds
that rot slowly from the inside out
and your innate genuine self that makes
it impossible for you to pretend the
darkness of the world won't eat you alive
like the rest of us

**** your artistry and self expression,
the only thing you leave behind for
the rest of us to stare longingly at
and wish wistfully that there would be
one more poem, song, story, dance

most of all i **** on your sweetness,
the way you flowed through this world
filling one soul after the next and
never remembering that you can't
fill a cup once yours is empty

i wish i had known,
i would've filled you up

I wish that I had the kind of mind that would allow full release, but the truth of the matter is that steal traps have always been my ideal. I've worked hard to build myself an island, surrounded it with mines, and loaded myself with ammunition for anyone that manages to make it onto dry land. I lay at night and watch as the screen on the ceiling replays my greatest failures and losses. I feel your warmth next to me and can't help wondering what will bring our demise. I float above us and watch myself pull away, inch by inch. I place jealousy, hysteria, impatience, doubt, and desire between us in a neat line on the mattress that the last man I loved bought. Is this it? An endless loop of love lost? Am I so jaded that I'll never heal enough to allow truth and love to permeate every fiber of my being? I want to give myself to you, but I have this odd feeling that the cup is close to empty. I worry that I'm nothing if not greedy, pulling you towards me, all the while knowing that I'm incapable of allowing you all the way in. Maybe you're different, maybe I can be. I want to be, that's got to count for something. Right?

i wish i could tell you why i am this way,
why i see you and love you and still want to rip you to shreds

i look inward and backwards and beyond
and i see a young woman, a little girl, a grandma -
all of them intertwining fear and love,
sewing the edges together with stitches as they
sit by a fire and watch the quilts of their lives converge

each one beautiful, each one tragic, each one alone -
always wondering whether any outside eyes will ever
look past all of the complexities to see the simple truth -
we're all just looking for love without toxicity,
for love without contingency, for love without jealousy

i want you to look me in the eyes and see my faults
and love me regardless of the blood that drips from
my fingertips from pricking myself time and time again
with the quilting needle that's pieced together my sad story

i want you to know that my insides have been stolen
from me since before i can remember, and i may be
nothing if not afraid but i've learned that bravery is the
best mask out there, and that sometimes people are
worth trusting, and that maybe if i don't rip you to shreds
i might look into your eyes for awhile and find home

sometimes the cathartic ways of my slumber
invade the way that i walk this earth,
this morning i felt a cold trigger sit on
my warm *** as i moved 400 ks of coke in two hours

you said we should ban guns in dreams,
i said psyches deserve safe rest

the truth is that i liked being a boss
the feeling of that pistol in my hand was strange,
but the weight of a life seemed even more stagnant
as i laid there and lost myself in the life of a dealer

rest will never truly be rest for me,
but i have the luxury of dreams that will never die

on the eve of the night
when white people in this country
pretend to give a **** about the oppressed,
we watched puppets put a show on
for all of the fools too ignorant
to really open their eyes and see
the strings that pull at their sleeves

hillary took her sharp stick
and jabbed bernie again and again,
who smiled with graciousness
at each poke because his road
is the high one and people like hillary
need to be half villain in order
to fulfill their desperate attempts
for the young people's vote

o'malley was like dust under
six layers of worn out carpets
hidden under newly installed
hardwoods making the carpet's
entire existence completely void
to the outside world

ah, oh right - o'malley tried,
but that's all i can tell you about him

at some point we smoked a
baseball shaped spliff rolled with
three joint papers and i couldn't
help but watch them all and feel
the bile in my stomach wish for
escape, the idea that an old
jewish dude probably knows
what's best for my future is
an interesting one

lately there is a storm brewing
beneath my skin, deeper than
my bones, right in the very pit
of my soul, and i can feel within
it a great and forceful change

i think my body mirrors this earth,
this universe, this time, and i'm
waiting with baited breath for
the next great shift

these moments always stick out,
like the branches that would get caught
in the creek where i'm sure i smoked a joint with you,
but the truth is you remember more of me

i'm sure that this sensation is falling, but i can't recall
what it feels like to have it happen because
your soul reflects someone else's -
maybe i've never known that kind of love

you whispered to me about a party at joe's,
how it was your first time coming round and
i introduced myself, about a kiss i stole in a
dive bar, about sleeping with me in my tiny bed

i wish i could remember, but whiskey stole
those memories away when i was just a little
girl with no real understanding of what it meant
to hold a man and know i might hold him forever

when i lay my insecurities in the mossy beds of
the forests that make up our existence here, i find
you looking at me in a way that leaves me without
fear, and instead a peace that's bigger than all of this

the universe whispers to me while i sleep - sweet
sounds of a greater good, a love that lives within and
without us, an interconnected force that feeds the soul -
i find you amidst it all, your only wish, to hold me

skin slips off of bone,
the slow dripping of
the very essence of life
leaving me, an endless
moment after moments
that sped by quicker
than my vision could capture

i want to know why
everything is painful now,
why i've forgotten
how to care for my bones
that ache like they have
had enough moving
for sixty lifetimes

it may be spring, and i
may be a chicken, but
connecting the two seems
impossible  

staring in the mirror i
dive into dark circular
pools and vow to leave
my vices on the crayon-
colored table in our
living room

i am so used to being
saved, but now i wear
the thorny crown befitting
the savior, and the
blood that trickles down
my lips tastes like warm,
sad failure

i am afraid -

i am aware of the constructs that i have created within my cerebrum, but still,
i am afraid

i dwell within possibility and i drown within pessimism, persistent prodding tells me,
you're not ready,
you're not able,
you're just you

within morning comes the mourning of every moment i've misplaced,
the dreams that detonate day after day as i don't dive deeper,
the wistful wanting for wayward worship of words that have lost their weight

i admonish myself with apologies as august replays again and again,
the shell of you sits there and sings songs of sobriety and sojourned slumber,
and i find freedom in the fact that i find myself finite in my finale- finally alone

it's not the truth that brings terror, it's the tired tongue that trembles,
the loss of lunacy and the latching onto looming, languishing logistics,
the halt of the hum that once helped me to heave myself towards hope

you are no one,
you are everyone,
you are whoever you want to be,
the words that imprison me illuminate an interest in introspective idealism

i am afraid,
but still, exposed, enamored, and enraged, nothing stops emancipation, not even -

i am afraid

i wish i didn't give a ****, that you
want me just for my ***,
pretending to want to know me
just so you can **** me fast

i wish i didn't give a ****, that it's
easy to fall for fraud,
that trusting and allowing love in
makes me the classic, idiot broad

i wish i didn't give a ****, that
you touched me when i was asleep,
that i woke up with your hands
on me and i felt like the creep

i wish i didn't give a ****, that people
will feel real ******* bad,
but the truth is no matter how many
times, it's never the right amount of sad

i wish i didn't give a ****, but the
fact remains, i do
and i won't stop giving a ****
until you finally give a ****, too

i used to be a perfect bundle of baby smooth
skin, unscathed and innocent, but life
has become about staying strong
through whatever tries to tear me
apart and leave me a pile of nothing

i think back and the monsters that went
bump in the night are no longer the
truly terrifying, instead it's what my
brain projects on my eyelids

the truth is that memories are
nothing but stories that we tell ourselves
to stay scared, or to get free,
and lately i'm feeling impatient
waiting for my chains to fall off

strength doesn't mean **** if i
can't put the key in and free myself,
and you're dead wrong if you think
a single other soul in this world
can do the freeing for you

trying to reframe every moment
in my existence, reveling in the
realization that i always have a choice,
that i will never be lost if i allow myself
to live for what i truly love

i get that change is meant to hurt, to push
and pull at all of those bits that need it
i understand that i made the choices i had to,
that i'm strong, and that i live life for myself-
but the truth remains, none of this feels like love

i wake up cold and sweating, the echoes of you
bouncing around the room

sometimes i wish that folding was as easy as it seemed,
that we could climb back into my princess bed
and fight the chills with our body heat, that you
would wake me with kisses on my eyelids before
you caught the early bus to work, that you'd
hold my waist and dance barefoot with me as i
whispered old crooner songs to you in my kitchen

instead my backbone bends, but somehow the
weight of this loss doesn't break it

i know you go on living, but it's hard to define
what you're doing as life, i worry always that
the unknown number is someone calling to tell
that you've finally lost your physical self,
just as you lost your spirit so long ago

my strength isn't made for two, just me,
even though i lent it to you each and every
time your eyes became glued to the floor and
your body shook so much you lost your sense of self

i know now that i'm no jesus, that lover isn't
synonym for savior, that i did everything i could

there is no reassurance in reinvention, you see,
this time around i already know who i am,
the decision was long and labored, but came
about without question or hesitation

comfort doesn't come just because i could
see the fissure coming, instead the pain
is slow and deliberate, a dull ache in my bones

I live silently in the shadow of the Olympics, losing my center by one degree daily. Pounding through enchanted forests and taking in all of the negative ions I can before I return to my treehouse. I should come home and stand on my head, but lately I've been telling myself scary bedtime stories about everyone that loves me secretly not giving a **** anymore. I feel like I've locked my spirit in a cage that sits on my shoulder. I witness the strange and bizarre life of living outside of true self, but despite my awareness and understanding, I am still not whole. The truth is that living a life brimming with light, love and beauty takes daily dedication to the dream, despite what ego whispers to me as I drift off to sleep. I know how to float above it all, I just have to allow myself to become weightless.

there is something inside of me that breaks
in front of every broken person out there -
and if you can find me one person that's made it
through life without being broken, well then,
my earth might just crumble where i stand -
but like i said, it's as if i mirror them,
like their emotions crawl inside of my heart,
and start to occupy my mind, and leak their
way to my tear ducts and my mouth and my limbs,
and i lose control of it, i lose it

for that brief moment, a piece of them lives within me

my sister and i are the empaths,
that's what they like to call us anyways, but
i'd like to believe we're human,
that we should all share and feel each
other's pain so that we can sleep
at night knowing we're never truly alone

i wish i had realized sooner that feeling
isn't weakness, that i didn't need to
hide something we all share, instead,
someone whispered that message to me
in slumber and i woke up with the idea
in my head thinking it was mine

as i begin to unravel ego i realize that
my ideas have been circulating for
longer than i can conceive,
and the more i meditate on the notion
the more i realize that i've just got to
keep the current going, keep stirring
that *** and send the ideas on to
someone else who might be able to
find sustenance within them

i've always known i'd be a nurturer,
but i never thought i possessed the
nourishment people needed within
the fibers of my very being, that we
all possess just what we need, what the
world needs, it's already inside of us,
waiting for someone, or something,
to draw it out

15 years old:
invite a group of friends over
to sit in my empty living room
with brand new wood floors -
we’re renovating

proof: I’m not poor

16 years old:
hang out of my sister’s
bedroom window,
swing into wet mulch,
steal away to twone’s
to get hammered and
touch my first ****

proof: I’m not afraid

18 years old:
lament over the fact
that I’m the last senior
alive without a cell phone

you got the flip, *****,
happy birthday

proof: I’m one of you

21 years old:
rip six foot bongs,
squirt jaeger bombs
into mouths from a gallon jug,
***** black sushi sacrifice

proof: I can hang

22 years old:
get caught with drugs
in 90 degree Arizona desert,
make friends with drug dog,
tell the truth while you take a ****,
sit in a cell and make plans
to call brother for bail

proof: the truth won’t always set me free

11 years old:
go into a department store
with my auntie,
heavy footsteps follow,
head to the juniors department,
heavy footsteps follow,
turn round, see an old man,
think, ‘he must be shopping for
his granddaughter’

proof: innocence is blind

have to ***, head to the bathroom,
heavy footsteps follow
with ragged breathing,
watch as Velcro sneakers stand
just beyond the door my stall,
curl into a ball and
wait, wait, wait,
as my brain takes on silent screaming

proof: I am nothing but prey

hear the next stall door
creak open,
watch feet walk in and legs
begin to bend,
explode out of stall
into store,
find auntie and begin
hyperventilation and
true demonstration of fear

proof: I am a woman now

i am a hoarder of memories and monuments,
and lately i'm beginning to discover
i do the same with dreams

when i lay my head on the pillow at night
and enter the fitful in between
i often have 7 or 8 drifting through,
and the same affliction seems
to follow throughout my walking daze

i've always operated under the notion
that you're supposed to follow your dreams,
but the problem is this seems to ignite
a series of battles within that i like to
call the "this or thats"

to dive head first into this or that,
to give myself fully to this or that,
to let my passions lay with this or that,
this or that, this or that, THIS OR THAT

i wish that i had a telescope in my hands,
i would take it and shove it right into
the very center of my soul,
and i would lean forward and peek through
that eyehole and see the universe within,
after all,

we are all the moon and the stars

you see, i've lived a life so long in fear,
hands clasped over eyelids regardless
of whether the lights are turned on or off,
and now i must learn to pry each fingertip
loose, and with each digit dislodged
comes a lesson learned

i am proud to announce that with the
first came,

i am the moon and the stars

we switched the couch and the dining room table
and suddenly everything was different

spines became straighter, eyes locked with ease,
hands found old hobbies, and lost words lingered
until they were found

silence became a staple, but not in the way
that had made my palms itch before, no, this
way was like an overdue hug from an aunt who
painted your toes as a little girl, but stopped coming
to thanksgiving because she couldn't bear
the sight of everyone growing up

we sat on the couch only when eyelids couldn't
bear to blink and bodies bent in half, only then
did we sink into the oblivion that had claimed
the last three months of our lives

and when morning came, you lingered, but
i was back at the table, ready to dust off
another artifact lying somewhere within my soul

i imagine my soul
deep, dark and damp,
laying in the most serene
part of the wilderness within me

i walk here -
through the mazes of towering pines
and beds of succulent moss -
each time someone
too bright,
brilliant and bursting
for this earth
is taken away

for each of them
i carry a tiny stone
tossed into the pit,
which never elicits
the sound of pebble
meeting solid ground, instead,
they just float on
forever within me

now i take the walk
again and my brain
isn’t quiet and accepting,
and the stone that i
carry is so large
that my arms almost
can’t reach all the
way round

i stumble
and disturb any innerpeace
i once claimed –
snapping branches,
slipping down slopes,
losing my breath

the most difficult thing
i’ll ever carry is
your tiny, sweet smile,
your soft voice,
your big spirit,
the way you were so
determined to keep
up with your
sisters, and how
they were determined
to never let you down

your stone will remind me
that life is meant
to be conquered,
which you demonstrated
every day of your short
six years on earth

i’ll find stillness
in my inner wilderness,
and i will cry until
the ground around
me bursts with life,
and i will smile
because you are
still finding ways
to teach me –
life is meant for living

grappling with the idea of life
who i am, who i'm meant to be, who i've been, who i will be

the answer is always there,
playing like a psa
through the loud speakers in my mind -
you are in control,
you are a part of it all,
but without constant and
conscious effort,
true self cannot be realized

freedom is such a simple concept,
but a reality that is lived by few

when I smoke cigarettes
I curse them, not myself

I'm sober,
what excuse do I have?

other than the growing sense
that my sky is perpetually falling

my therapist says
I should try breathing

today i drove 3.72 miles
to buy a single 44 cent stamp
and a woman with hair
the color of a cement foundation
forgot my name,
so i pretended not to know
hers either

i stood in a line
of people with holiday
parcels under their arms
and i looked at my phone
to check the date
because i live in a world
where the days of the week
rarely flit through my mind,
much less numbers
from a grid written
on paper

(note to self:
don't worry,
you didn't miss thanksgiving)

i meandered slowly
through the zigzags,
all of us corralled
like cows gone to pasture,
or perhaps being led
to slaughter
by flimsy pieces of
polyester we don't
dare touch

the woman
behind the desk
broke my morose thoughts
with a joke about
the government robbing us
all blind

i imagined a swat team
breaking through the glass
wall behind me
and grabbing her
before we could even
blink twice

then a man
three times my age
looked me in the eye
and told me i looked much
too tired for a 20-something
and i told him, well,
that's because i am

we stood in the parking lot
for nearly an hour
and i told him of the dreams
that pull my energy away
just as i'm regaining it,
in the fitful in-between
of true rest and eyes wide open

i spoke of leaping broken stairwells,
chasing thieves on motorcycles,
finding true love only to watch
it be trampled by a crowd moshing
to the music that defines my days

i told him of my mother's theory:
that i was working out
the issues that plagued
me by day throughout
the night

and he scoffed and told me,
girl, your mother may be right,
but that brain of yours is a
gift and these dreams are
what's wrapped up within it;
if you know what's good for you
you'll figure out a way to use them

remember the time
i lost my mind back
in college?

lauran had to drive
up and get me
because i couldn't
trust myself to be
behind the wheel

you didn't know me
yet, but you walked
me around campus
to look at the art

you were always
comforting

when i got home
i was put on meds
and back to school
i went, but something
inside of me was
empty, like someone
had been stealing
scoops of my soul
while i was passed
out after my nights of
drinking *****
from water bottles

i remember the terror
i felt while i called
my parent's cell phones
and the house again,
and again, and again,
but no one answered,
it was 2 in the morning,
and i was convinced
that i would cry myself
to death in that empty
common room

sometimes i still feel
as if i could cry myself
to death, even though
i won't allow it, and i
don't always want to
drive because i know
that i'm not to be
trusted behind the wheel,
and there are times when
i feel like i am calling,
and calling, and calling,
but there's nobody home
because home doesn't
exist anymore

isn't that a strange thought?
there is no such thing
as home

i can't write anymore
and i know it's because
i am afraid of my own
truths

it's hard to find the
exact point where i
began slipping, because
usually it's with a whiskey
bottle in hand, but this
time sobriety haunts me

i become uncomfortable
at this point in a poem -
unsure of my intentions,
of who i am as a writer,
of my own ******* self

and so begins the anger,
the masking, the quitting,
the loneliness, the bubbling
of things that were once
dead and buried

and then i sit, and i don't
write in my head, and i
question it all with the
same intensity that has
lingered for nearly
two months, and i want
to take paper with my
words and shove it
back down my throat,
because this
is not
poetry

here is the truth:

i am an insecure,
traumatized,
hopeless
child at times

a pure product
of my upbringing
and of years
living out a strong
hatred of self

i am evolving,
as we all are,
and i hope that
despite my
constant attempts
to push you
as far away
as humanly
possible,
that you stick
to me like
cement on
a sidewalk

because

you make me
want to be
the best
possible
version of
myself

sometimes it feels as if
i fold myself up into
origami, each limb
littered with tiny creases
so that i can fit inside
of the box created for me
by society, my family,
and at times, myself

i become so small,
so easily lost and forgotten,
but i am always beautiful,
and perhaps, that is
the saddest part

i've spent my life channelling
my anger because the people
around me never accept
the words that i need to say

i am a selfish slob who knows
nothing, forever, i am a child
with a messy bedroom, a *****
who just doesn't know when
to stop, a crazed woman with
too many emotions, a drama
queen spinning out of control,
a brat with bad intentions

i know who i am - it has taken
strange and twisted roads to know
the face that stares back at me
in the mirror - but i do know her

i do not wish for anyone else
to know her if the knowing does
not come naturally, if it is forced
and unpleasant, then i would
rather be alone with her

for me, the knowing is all that
i have ever wanted or needed,
the most honest relationship
i have ever had is with myself

writing poetry daily,
hating you for not
loving me enough
to say it to my face
before i ran 3,000
miles away

i know that the bottle
grips your neck
and swings you onto
sidewalks, but let's
be real, that
excuse isn't one

this place is masterful
in the art of illusions

one minute the walls
are closing in, and the
next the doors are all
locked and there are
no windows from
which you could
leap to safer ground

i stand in the kitchen
and try to be helpful,
but when washing
sharp knives i have
thoughts that i can't
even write down

there is a man in
the living room, but
he mimics a robot,
spending his days
repeating and repenting,
trying to lure us
into the fold

i feel alone amongst
eight, like everyone
looks through me,
misunderstands my words,
forgets my intentions

fading into corners
and under floorboards,
soon, i will be a ghost

i know it's not
really my problem,
but it still *******
****** me off

your carelessness,
your selfishness,
your unending
appetite for
something i don't
even want
around me,
that's what
******* ******
me off

reel it the **** in,
man up, grow up,
get it together,
let go of what
holds you back,
then, call me

collision -
head on into
something i thought
i'd lost
before i found

finding doesn't
rid you of
loss,
but the weight
of it all
can either suffocate
or liberate you

the thing
we must always
remember-
we never
walk
without a
choice

we spent our days
locked away in room-
plywood levels of madness
with red lights lacing the top

i was always seeing double
through camera lens and
whiskey goggles

these were my friends,
the bearded boys that could
have passed for homeless men

butkisses and parades,
that's how we partied,
day in and day out,
sun up and sun down

when one left, he was
never replaced, but a cutout
of his face stood as a
reminder that we would
all eventually go

gloved hands held
cheap bears, and cassettes
filled up all of our fears-
did you? covered in
shaving cream, bras in
the oven, deep fried
monstrosities called
ice cream

we fell in and out of
beds, onto wood floors
filthy with forties, and
labels reminded us of
the difference between
windows and walls

hands printed memories
on flesh and fabric,
as organs were kept
alive in the attic by
a stroke of their keys

i could return to the
porch with no railings
and relive each moment,
each night that reeled
us in and spit us out,
sloppier than the saliva
that landed on the sidewalk

these were my friends-
wasted, wandering and free

i have always been slightly overweight,
watching the numbers fall and rise,
5 to 50, i've seen it all-
but as long as i'm healthy and happy
with my whole heart i can say,
i don't mind

i don't mind having thighs
that go bump in the night,
i don't mind giving my lover
something to bite,
i don't mind having a body
with valleys and hills,
i don't mind having an ***
that gives men chills,
i don't mind that i'm curvy
and fill out my clothes,
i am woman, i am wonderful,
and i don't care who knows

with stigmas and diets
attacking our sight,
i'll give you a body that's
not under society's plight,
maya taught me well
when she told us all
that women are their own
and women are phenomenal

i'm in love with myself
and i don't care who knows,
i am woman, i am wonderful,
and i don't mind

the comfortable silences linger
and i find nothing unsuitable
about sitting amongst ferns
and breathing in the mountain breeze

i want not for long-winded
words full of nothing but air

we may not always understand
one another, but you have taught
me to value something i had
never even noticed before

how can i ignore eyes opening
and lights being turned on?

i think of myself and i can't
help but thank you,
for now, i am free

why do I still care
that you dated a girl
with my weird,
half-shaved head, haircut?
I still wonder if you
asked her to cut her hair
that way
because you missed
the feeling of fingertips
on fresh buzz

I look back at myself
and I feel shame-
not for the things I’ve done,
or haven’t-
but for not loving myself
deeply and always,
for selling out to insecurities
and letting others tell me
what defined my essence of self,
for not seeing my soul
clearly, and for not
being my own
biggest risk and reward

the only thing you ever
gave me were ****** up
naval cavities and an
inexplicable understanding
of what it means to lay
in someone’s arms
and feel completely alone

I wish that I had written sooner

though I can still feel the warmth of
your smile, see the crows feet by
your eyes, and hear your deep laughter,
all of your tattoos have begun to blur

I remember seeing you and needing to
know you, or maybe it was that I
already did, the universe pulling
me back towards an old friend

you kept me alive with coffee and
grant slams and the reassurance
that I would never be alone in
questioning everything, and even
though you're gone, I'm not alone

I think of the moon and I see you,
I feel us smiling and swaying as
Kerouac took us back in time, to
a place where art was all that
lived and breathed, our bodies
just vessels for the unveiling

you will always remind me
that there is no such thing as
too late, that endings are beginnings
bursting with beauty and
that happiness comes with
full acceptance of self, and
above all else, love

I spend my days
thinking in poetry-
perfection never penned,
perpetually falling upon
my own deaf ears
and disintegrating into
the great nothingness,
only to be recycled
into bits and pieces
of other poems
never to be read

with each night
the words vanish,
one by one,
as I repeat them
incessantly, hoping
that I just might
recite a stanza
upon waking

I wish that my
mouth would open
and out they would
come, perfectly pressed
upon cardstock, fresh
with that inky smell
I swear still lingers
on my finger tips and
pillowcases

instead, I lay still
and silent, and watch
hopelessly as
they drift into dreams

I'm sorry that I can't
find the words to give you
everything that you want,
but that was never the point

with you everything is a point,
drawing blood with each
interaction and there is no
smile nor sadness in your eyes,
just glass

I wonder what you would do
with the words anyways, how
they might possibly undig the
graves that you sleep in when
you've forgotten what night is

I never imagined words meant
much in hell, but we'll say this
together now,

You've always known better than I

sometimes it's all too much beauty -
this slow swing of life, legs dangling,
rainbow kissed fingernails clutching
ropes that are nearly worn thin, lungs
throwing air out in neatly folded piles
of whoops and screeches, which explode
into messes once they've escaped the
long, damp caves through cheshire cat smiles

your head on my shoulder allows me to
spot the tiny surfer riding the corn colored
waves of your hair, and the pulses that make
your sleeping arms dance
comfort me because you are comforted

we spend entire weekends watching
petunias bought with snack money bloom,
and the spiders swarm our honey dipped
deck to show us their latest web innovations,
we smile and stare and see
tomorrow after tomorrow in the sprawling
forests and caribbean beaches in one
another's eyes

if I could breathe you in through one of
these death sticks I would, slow and deep,
and you'd curl up tight in my soul, and I'd
never stop singing Jonny Cash songs
while you drifted off to sleep

how do you draw a line
in metamorphic rock?
between self growth
and selfishness
all of the lines
become so blurry,
it's like sobriety
means absolutely
nothing.

I wish that I could
put my brain in your
skull so that you
could understand
just what kind of
mountains I have climbed
and how close I feel
to the summit.

these blurred lines and
rock giants are better
left unsaid, but that
does not mean I don't
wish that you'd ask
what I'm thinking.

today i hold
the hand of existence,
of self, of muddled
understanding, and
sight through scratched
and hot-breath-fogged
lenses caught between
sun and tsunami

i will be still through
torrential downpours
of doubt, desire, and
detriment, because i
must learn to be still
and to be soaked to
the bone with what
each storm i've born
washes over me

while skin may prune
and hold moisture, mind
and soul will hold nothing
but the breath which
never ceases to come
and go, whether in
this life or the next

to be alive is not to be
conscious, but to be
conscious is to be
truly alive

i wish to be alive
i will be alive

and all will
begin and end
with a breath

feeling for feeling -
fingertips, foundations, friends,
they slip, they slip

i know not what i once knew,
but for always and forever,
there is more to know

growth is the answer that i get,
to whatever question i decidedly ask,
it's roots deepening and branches reaching

and the pain, it's brief, but deep,
haven't felt it in awhile,
but i know it's the good kind

loss is inevitable, but so is strength,
and the buckets never seem to empty,
no matter how much is poured

so, i will swim, paddle, and float
my way to a better existence
beyond the ether and into a new day

we agree that it's the weather,
the never ending grey,
the sludge trudging

I wear blinders,
even in my sleep

days go by and heads hang low,
low, lower, and homemade
salsa doesn't bring smiles

I look for hands to hold,
but I make myself alone

time is nothing, and everything,
but somehow it's lost faster
than dollar bills

I want freedom without handcuffs,
without retribution for flying

lists, plans, goals,
they pour out onto paper, yet,
somehow dreams are stifled

I wish for upheaval of self,
a genuine understanding

it's work to be healthy, to be happy - good thing I am strong.

i take pieces of us,
of you, of me,
and i tuck them
between couch cushions,
into empty cigarette packs,
amongst sheets stuffed
into the crack between
bed and wall

i hide them in places
meant to be found

i'm not planning on
losing us,
on losing you, on losing me,
but,
there are times
when i'm unsure
of what to do
with the pieces

today, I was asked,
by a machine,
"what's the best thing
that happened to you this week?"
and, it followed up with,
"don't be afraid to brag."

I spent awhile wondering
how you might
compute and crunch
just what it means
to receive your first hug
from a third grader
who you're harder on
than most
because you know
behind the lack of focus
lies genius left unexposed,

but I'm pretty sure
that's made every
sloppy, sludgy, snowy
trek this month
more than worth
my while

i avoid pen and paper
i can't stand the sight of it
when i'm not able to get
the words out right

lately i'm an oldsmobile,
sputtering smoke and
coughing cogs as i
attempt to make my
way up a hill that seems
to have no end

i'm desperate for horizon,
but all i can focus on
are the next four inches

i picture my life
as a large coloring sheet
of peonies who've just
begun to bloom,
opened to their full potential,
and withered away as
they've seen enough
sunshine to last a lifetime

a rich tapestry of color
covers just a corner, but
so much is still left blank,
just waiting for the right
colors to fill the white spaces