Do not speak my name amongst my enemies,
lest it drip from others lips with vitriol.
Intention is everything.
I do not intend to feel invisible,
To remain a nameless face in a room,
To sit quietly in the kitchen feeling echoes of their laughter in my bones, yet here I am the unspoken joke.
Am I safest as a ghost? Cleaning plates and eating leftovers
after the party has ended?
Cleaning up their mess, your mess, leaving my mess for later?
As my body rots and decays, asking why I never choose myself,
why I pursue love and affection from those who wish me harm?
My body demands an answer I cannot provide.
I am a ravenous being in a constant pursuit of acceptance, acknowledgment. Screaming, “Notice me!” “Love me!”
"Aren’t I good?” "Aren’t I pretty?”
I was born of women who healed, whom were balms,
ails, champions of goodness, and light.
I was born of women who loved deeply
in a world that never loved them back.
The farther I ran from this legacy,
the more it consumed me.
My love for you consumes me, guides me, empowers me.
My love for you destroys me, tortures me, til I forget… me.
Now I realize,  breaking this generational curse isn’t about whom I choose.
It’s about choosing myself.
Am I too late?

Maybe I order from the low cal menu at restaurants

Maybe I substitute potato chips for frozen grapes

Maybe I stop drinking, completely

Maybe I take anxiety medication instead, like I'm suppose to

Maybe I don't cry in bed as much

Maybe instead I go for a run, or a walk

Maybe I do jumping jacks when I feel restless

Maybe I don't close my blinds on the weekends

Maybe I wake up early and watch the sunrise

Maybe I get fresh air instead of frustrated

Maybe I use ginseng instead of gin

Maybe I drink water when I'm thirsty

Maybe I use more coconut oil in my hair when it's dry

Maybe I show my tears before wiping them away

Maybe I choose you over this mental prison

Maybe I choose me over this mental prison

Maybe, tomorrow

Campfire.

The heat intensifies, growing, inviting, tempting me. The comfort, my safety, the risk, my danger. A temptation to reach out for more warmth, a recognition, that too much of a good thing is perilous.

It sounds like the crackle of earth reborn, again and again. Ever changing form, ever shifting elements.
The bright, bright light uncovering everything, everything encapsulated in ambers, yellows, and a haze of gray.  

It smells like a home, not a new home, but my first home, deep in my bones, my ancestors most treasured. A weapon, a tool, a gift, a new beginning, a sudden end.

The smoke, a haze, the smoke asphyxiates, the smoke, a warning, warning of life undone and come anew.

She lies there on her mattress
Eyes shut. Body still.
The blood pumping through her veins,
is all she really feels
As chaos leaves her head
Her visions fill the air
She lives a lost dreamer
Quietly in despair.
Reeking of unrequited love,
Crestfallen by her life,
She yearned to live in love
not under city lights.

Conceited
Masochistic
Everything in between
My blood boils
My eyes swell
The taunting is obscene
My fists will clench
and my heart will wrench
as the words keep me up at night
They're haunting my dreams
and ripping the seams in my head, like a frayed kite
What nests in my mind
are thoughts so malign
and most of the time, I'm caught in their bind
How did I create you?
Too weak to sedate you
Impossible to break you
Improbable to change you
it might be self pity
or could be self rage
but I call it acceptance for the choices I've made
I will never be perfect
I've accepted this now
but it's hard to resurface, with you bringing me down.

You know what's funny?
Going through life believing one thing, then waking up one day to find something completely different.
Even more so,
Going through life with nothing and waking up with more than you can handle.
That's funny,
when you don't know funny,
when you've never known funny,
when every other voice is a blur, but that of the one who sees none and knows all.
That's funny.
It must be funny, because all you can do is laugh.
Laugh until your ribs hurt.
Laugh until you lose your voice.
Laugh until you forget what it is you're laughing about.
Then you're back at the beginning.
Thinking one thing,
having nothing,
not knowing any other faces,
not knowing what funny is,
or Who you are.
Repeating history... until laughing just isn't enough anymore.

Someone wake me up. I’m dreaming now. It felt so good until I figured it out.
Your blurry face and your sweetest sounds,  I must be sleeping , you’re with me now.
I wonder how It got this way. Pulled the cord was a big mistake.
Now I’m stuck in my lonely blues, but your violent reds were killing me too. So what’s the use?

On top of the world is your voice like rain. Your face is the sun, drives me insane.
Running fast through the memories of you, but they’re slipping away and I am too.
Someone wake me up. I'm trembling now. I tried to stay to cool but you froze me out,
and as I woke cold and alone, I felt the woes of a silent home.
A couple of whites could bring me back, but there are sorrows in the light and sorrows in the black.

I didn't realize I loved you.
Not when you saved my life
Or when you drove me to hospital and stayed up with me all night
Or when you grabbed my hand because you saw my pain
When you knew I had troubles and helped me change

You were my family at all those soccer games
You always came and screamed my name.
I didn't realize I loved you, though you knew my whole life.
The only friend who looked at me with pride.
The only person in the world who'd seen me cry.

I didn't realize I loved you, no not at all.
Until that night, in the kitchen, alone with you last fall.
Watched you laugh at my stories, the ones you'd heard before.
Saw those eyes of yours that marveled and never seemed bored.
Heard you hum the same song you did every day and smirk when you saw me looking your way.

And when you burnt your fingers on the stove and put them to your lips to cool.
Never, have I envied anything more than those fingers, in that moment with you.
And you didn't pull away when I took them in my hands, and kissed each one.
Felt your heartbeat as I whispered in your ear, both us of coming undone.
I didn't realize I loved you but I knew it then, In that moment,
My skin on your skin, Whispers of love filling the room again and again...