the Romantic in me says:
"Maybe in the next life,"
the Logic in me says:
"Why not this one?"

the Pessimist in me says:
"I am everything that has ever happened to me."
the Optimist in me says:
"I can't wait to see who I become next!"

the Dreamer in me says:
"Happily Ever After."
the Realist in me says:
"To Be Determined."

the Quitter in me says:
"Please, God, can we go back?"
the Survivor in me says:

"Onward."

there's too many fingerprints.
too many smears of blood
and sweat
and spit.
too many bruises,
marks and scars i can no longer name.

i am now fragments, built in the shape of a person.
too much debris, and not enough woman.

and i haven't figured out how to fill it.

i will look for you everywhere i go,
just as i hope
i never see you again.

Do we create to destroy or destroy to create?

(Does it matter? Does it matter?
We bleed and burn for
art and music and poetry.)

And in between these trying times,
we learn to love, and love to live.
Does it matter? Does it matter?


(The answer is...

...yes.)

I woke up to find a lipstick print on my bathroom mirror.

I wondered which color,
which shade,
which shape,
would leave such an imprint.

I wondered whose aunt,
whose sister,
whose mother,
would leave such a gift.

However way it ended up there, I’ll say this for sure:
when I kissed the mirror, in return,
my print wasn’t a match.


(Whoever you are, I love you.)

i'd like to think that death is like love.

"to love is to rest," they say.

"to die is to sleep," is what i hope for.

i've been alive a long time. pain has dulled to an optimistic distillation.

but then there are those nights. alone, aching with love i cannot share. alone and abandoned to thoughts of "otherwise" or "elsewhere."

alone. alone. alone.

and afraid.


(i've been dead a long time. the pain never really goes away.)