That girl wouldn't dare see
Wouldn't dare know
The fate of another girl
Half-way across the world
Who tried to see

Despite all her misgivings
She did
She tried, she leant over
Bent backwards
And did her best
Stayed up all night
Unraveling those tangled threads

But she fell
She fell
She fell
She fell
You won't ever know how hard

She pretends to not see
Sometimes
But they come back
And they wave in crimson-tainted,
Guts splattered, dreams
They kick her
They wish she wasn't there

And sometimes.
Sometimes, she imagines giving up
Imagines living a life
Where she could hide

Hide
Behind her laptop screen her whole life
A life where she could sleep
Sleep at a time when everyone went to bed
Or if just a bit before,
Then nothing better

She wished she could hide.

Those falls left her lonely
Gut-clenchingly lonely
That girl is me.

I sometimes wish
This is all we'd be
Here is infinity
Nothing above our heads,
Nothing below
Too many moments gone by
Time to return to reality
Feel the solid ground below
*****, I hit it too hard

Wipe that powder off your nose
And keep killing those boys
With your poisonous emerald eyes
And those venomous blood red lips

Don’t let your nose bleed again
It might give you away
Rich girls don’t cry, remember?
Here doll take some of my Xanax

Drape yourself in luxury
Go buy yourself some diamonds dear,
Go get mama’s ****** refilled will ya?
Stop that frowning, you’ll get wrinkles!

You better marry that man
He's perfect for you, just look at that ring!
Aw my girl's growing up, her first botox appointment!
Don't worry honey, pretty girls are happy girls.

honestly,  i don’t see myself as
a poet -
i am a historian who
writes
in poetic form

as are you
readers
and writers

our eyes
record
history as
it happens

storing it
in our hearts;
ushering it safely
on passage through
time

trading it with blank paper
in hopes of not
repeating the bad;
and reliving the good

i hate the word poet,
i am a historian
and so are you

i am not sure
where the end of the road
will take me today
i hope it takes me, at least, away
away from this small town in this sunny state
away from these suffocating walls
away from the ghosts of the faces of those i thought i once knew
away from the memories
of when you walked out the door
of when you left me for good
of when you tried to come back
when i thought you never would
and away
away from that time when you chose that new life over us
away from your constant grasping, craving my attention
as if we switched roles
as if i am now the parent instead and you are the child, instead
away from the childhood i once enjoyed
away from the
me-mor-ies
away from what i thought i could hold as mine and mine alone
away from what you took from me long ago

She was a whirlwind.
A beautiful flurry of kindness and compassion and sympathy stitched on the wings of an angel never meant to touch the ground.
She was a woman whose outstretched hand reached out and touched the lives of many like droplets of paint on a white canvas.
She inspired, recreated.
She molded her children to become what she was - maybe to become what she always wanted to be.
But she was everything. She was the best she could be.
But the best was not enough to protect her from falling onto that hospital bed. The best doctors. The best nurses. The best medicine.
The best was not enough to heal her pain.
The morphine which ran deep through her rich veins and engulfed her was not enough to cure her from the ****** aching in her.
The oh, shuddering throbbing that raked and wracked her body. The throbbing that shook the empire inside her, knocking down the little soldiers in which supported her and made her who she was.
And all this. This hurricane unfolded, as the children she made stood by and could only watch in anguish.
In regret, her son slams his fist against the grainy counter, tears like floods erupting as if a dam had been broken inside him.
"I'm losing her!"
He screams and shouts, throat raw with emotion.
As her daughter can all but stare, a string seconds away from snapping and back lashing like a flashback of her mother playing in her head, slapping her in the face back into reality.
Because just a month ago, in the sweltering heat of June of 2011, her son had graduated high school. He did his best.
And her daughter graduated middle school. She did her best.
Their mother was proud, clapping loud and clear through the faces of those in the crowd who did not matter to her children.
But the best did not save their mother.
No text book or diploma or certificate from the children or degrees or credentials from the doctors could cure her.
The woman laying in the practically snow white hospital sheets with the eerie beep beep beeping of the only lifeline she had was not saved.
By the best doctors, the best nurses, the best medicine.
Not even the kids she considered the best things in her life could do much, either.
However,
She was my mother.
She was the best.

At the beginning the oldest man sat on the corner
      of the garden wall by the road under a vast
walnut tree known to have been there always
      he came back in the afternoon to the cave of shade
in his broad black hat black jacket the striped gray
      wool trousers once worn only to church in winter
with a cane on either side resting against the stones
      he said when your legs have gone all you can do
is to sit this way and be useless I believe God
he said that is what I am doing I am thinking
      and things come to me now when nobody else knows them
he was visited by the dazzling of accidents the boy
      who caught his hand in the trip hammer and it came out
like cigarette paper the man with both crushed legs
      dangling and the woman murdered and his father the blacksmith
forging the iron fence to put around the place
      out on the bare ***** where she had fallen I could never
be the smith my father was as he always told me
      I was good enough you know but I never had
the taste needed for scythe blades sickles kitchen knives
      we preferred to use carriage springs to make them from
in the forge outside the barn there and his were sought after
      oh when he had sold all he took to the fair the others
could begin I still have the die for stamping the name
      of the village in the blade at the end so you could be sure

What is courage?

Is it a sharp breath before jumping off the edge?
Is it the tightness in your chest
That pulls you up when everyone else is sitting down?
Is it the burning heat in your eyes
That smolders and boils
As you gaze upon those who oppose you?
Is that courage?
Or is courage the defiant silence –
The silence that watches your nose bleed
In the foggy cracked mirror?
Is it the child who says, “I love you”
Between the sniffling and trembling?
Is courage allowing the tears to come
When there are people around to witness your suffering?
Is courage looking up?
Is courage focusing on the next step forward
Rather than the hundreds already taken?
Is courage doing what you believe is right
No matter how much your palms sweat
Or how much your knees shake
Or how much your stomach twists
Or how much your lips tremble
Or how much doubt you feel
That anything you do will change anything?
Is courage a lie?
Does Courage exist?
A dictionary says Courage is
“The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear”
If that is truly what courage means,
Then there is no such thing.
Fear is not something that you can decide not to have.
Fear is deep.
Fear is psycological.
Fear is biological.
Fear is natural.
Fear is not a pebble in one’s brain that can be removed on a whim.
Fear can, however, be ignored.
Fear can be climbed over.
Fear can be conquered.
Facing a difficulty fully aware of the fear
Is what makes an action courageous.
Courage is speaking up
Acting out
Crying
Smiling
Holding back
Being silent
Knowing the punch is going to come
Knowing the insult is going to come
Knowing the tears are going to come
And the conflict
And the questions
And the darkness
And the thunder
And the criticism
And the judgement
And the violence
And the doubt,
Disbelief, and denial
And knowing that 3:30 AM comes around every single night
Regardless of whether or not you can sleep.
Courage is opening your eyes
Even when you don’t like what you see
Because you have to.
And you don’t have to just because somebody told you to
Or because you read it somewhere
Or heard it somewhere
Or saw it somewhere.
You have to because there’s substance in you.
There’s a third dimension to you.
You have to because that tightness in your chest
Isn’t something you control.
There is no Courage Switch.
You can’t cultivate courage.
Everyone has it but not everyone has seen it.
Not everyone has used it
But everyone can.

My dad calls me Little Sister.
I don’t know the reference
Or what part of me deserves that name.

Now that I’ve pretended to grow up
And now that I’M 18 MOM AND DAD IT’S MY LIFE
I can see where the “little” comes from.

Nobody ever had to tell me how to be a sister.
From Day 1 of what I remember,
All I ever wanted to do was make my brother happy.

I saw one day that my wish was fleeting
Standing up against the titans
Depression, Anxiety, Addiction, Hate, Fear, Anger, Confusion, and Violence.

I also quickly realized that
Caution is key.
I also eventually learned that I had roughly 45 seconds
After my brother and parents finish their scream battle
Before the battle came to my doorstep
In the form of kicking and fists
That was often one-sided.
Call me a passifist.
Who am I kidding, It was always one-sided.