a month ago, i got in a car accident that totaled my car.
i was making a left turn at a stoplight
and the driver of an suv was paying no attention to her red light.
she barreled into the front end of my car at full speed before i even saw her coming,
and then everything was shattered glass and metal colliding and screeching tires
and suddenly my airbags were puffed out like sinister clouds and my engine sounded like a death rattle.
when i opened the door to get out, the hinges grated like a scream.

but i wasn’t hurt.
i cried for six hours that day but i went to school the next one.
everything was fine.

it's just that since then, everything in my life resembles a car crash.

i smelled burning for weeks.
i still blink and see spiderweb patterns of broken glass.
i cried for two hours when i realized i lost the cd i made
just so i could listen to my favorite songs in the car.
when i hear the song that was playing, i have to turn it off.

my father picked up the shrapnel still on the street a week later
and gave me my charred, crumpled, unreadable gravestone of a front license plate.
he straightened it out and put it on my new car when we got it.

i broke up with my boyfriend three weeks ago
and as i left i heard sirens from inside his house.
the day after that, i was talking to another boy
and his promises sounded like ambulances with no paramedics on board.

last week there was a fatal car accident half a mile from my house
and i couldn't breathe for the rest of the day after i heard.

i have to turn left at the stoplight where my own accident happened every day
and when i turn i clench my fists around the steering wheel
like it wants to tear itself out of my hands and maybe it does.

i still check left and right and left and right during turns
even when someone else is driving.

call all of this a reaction to trauma,
but honestly i don't know what's wrong with me.

all i know is i cried with frustration, immature, pathetic,
when my mother and my father couldn't find a new car.
all i know is i grieved for my ford focus
like it was my only friend in the world.
all i know is i keep talking about this accident
even though i’m even getting annoyed by myself
and my fingers on the keyboard sound just like the policeman's as he wrote up the report
as i perched on a plastic backseat, shaking, face covered with tear tracks,
waiting, alone, for my father to arrive so i didn't have to be an adult,
waiting, alone, for an explanation of why this happened to me.

all i know is everything in my life resembles a car crash,
and there are sirens in the distance,
and i'm still waiting for the smoke to clear.

Get up,
Eat.
Go out,
Eat.
Come home,
Eat.
**Repeat

I love mess
living within it
I know I am alive

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!-
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!-
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,--
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,--
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

I have loved Thee with two loves -
a selfish love and a love that is worthy of Thee.
As for the love which is selfish,
Therein I occupy myself with Thee,
to the exclusion of all others.
But in the love which is worthy of Thee,
Thou dost raise the veil that I may see Thee.
Yet is the praise not mine in this or that,
But the praise is to Thee in both that and this.

I.

I was starstruck in
the dark
by
The Muse

illuminated yet protected by a brilliant
reflection; and
She was gone.

determined,
with The Muse in my heart and her sweet
song to guide me I crossed
the river

and entered the wilderness.




II.

My now fearless
heart found a path
and through it calmly imbibed
the unknown

and the sun began to shine.




III.

The light unveiled a
companion
traveling beside me all along.
"The sun forever shines
on this mountain", he said.

A fork in the road.

He gave me a calm, quizzical look;
acknowledged the sun;
nodded to the mountain before us;
and departed down the
path unsung.

I followed the muse.

Calmly I
strayed,
forging my own path guided by my newly
ignited, warming

inner fire.




IV.

A glorious
woman
sat not far off
the path
singing.

With a beautiful
voice, a beautiful
face, and a
beautiful heart,
she looked
the part of

The Muse

but her hurting,
tired eyes
gave her away

she was not

because no person could
be

and realizing this
I was no longer starstruck.




V.

The image:
The Muse had been
shattered

but I did not run.

I approached with
a smile and she
refused my offered
hand.

Without anger, without
pain, I turned my gaze to the
mountain before
me.

"Thank you", I whispered in her
ear

"Thank you for guiding
me
here, the sun always shines;
we
both can find our way"
and kissed her forehead.

And with the sun warming my
heart, I began
singing
that same song
The Muse within
me all along

and was off

to know the unknown
mountain and
glorious sun
by knowing
my mysterious
Self

I'm starting to wonder if these old ways I detest
are part of my flesh.
The cuts on my wrists, instead of healing,
become a playground for my demons.
Rid me of this!
Rid me of this please!
For I'm reaching a point of barely being able to breath.
Melancholic joy.
Irate surrender to the voices in my head
that wish me dead.
In desperate escape, I reach a barred door.
The pain would not be this intense if I had not tasted freedom before.
While I scream, they sing.
While I drown, they swim.
Never again.
I dream of never again.