When I was a little girl,
I thought the world was just for me.
I knew nothing of before or past,
So that's what I believed.

When I was a teenage girl,
I thought the world was mine to take.
A mighty strength I felt within,
I never thought it to be a mistake.

When I was a young woman,
I thought the world lay in his eyes.
So when he broke my heart,  
I thought love might be unwise.

When I was an adult,
I thought the world was my own home.
To busy with the kids and job,
So little did I roam.

When I was an old woman,
I thought the world to be deranged,
But as I looked behind me,
I found that I must take the blame.

1.
Because you are lonely too. And you know what it's like to spend hours waiting for a notification that someone values what you say. Verification that some of the people in your box of friends still walk through your forests waiting for trees to fall.

2.
Because you didn't understand the metaphor and so it must be deeper than your reach. Because people who appreciate poets are more approachable than poets themselves, and are far less likely to spend Saturday nights alone.

3.
Because the words look like family. Because when they pass your teeth it's as if your heart joins in chorus, and their syntax wraps cozy round your shivering bones. Because their eyes look like yours and because they know how to cut you, but don't.

4.
Because you are in love. And if a raccoon tore a hole in your garbage bag, ate last week's green chocolate cake, and returned it to your porch shortly after, you would see poetry in it. Because poems look like pies through rose colored glasses and it's really hard to find a bad pie.

5.
Because you hate this poem but won't tell me. Because our relationship hangs on your approval, and you know I'll expect you to make me feel ok about writing this. To tell me people don't appreciate real art anymore, and that's why no one else has responded.

6.
Because it doesn't rhyme, and there are numbers separating the stanzas that force you to read the last line slowly. Because it references Facebook and so it's something you can relate to. Because it's cliché enough to be memorable, and a little out of the box but still inside mine.

7.
Because you know why I wrote it. And you know that seeing your name beside it will be all the consolation I need. Because their is loyalty in a signature that even our forefathers acknowledged, and because it's the best way you know to take sides.

8.
Because the last thing you liked was McDonald's French Fries and you're looking to diversify your portfolio.

9.
Because you want me to remember you. Because we haven't spoken in years outside of birthday wishes and silence is a hard habit to break. Because neither of us is sure who the apology belongs to but because you're willing to take a step on faith.

10.
Because you know the impact an echo can have on its target. Because we all scream from stages built with fearful hands. We carry microphones in our pockets on nights too quiet to sleep and purge our lungs of their angst. Because this cave can not be empty. Because words are not like family unless they are spoken by someone we love. Because some nights all I need is a name to believe I still have my own.

I am the shadow on the moon at night. I am the lonely wolf howling, that makes your skin crawl and your mouth go dry. I am the hooting owl, I am the black cat. I am the fog, rolling in from the river, that covers your path. I am the wind that whistles around your window pane. I am the tap, tap, tapping that drives your mind insane. I am the monster in your closet, I am the darkness in the corner. I am the witches cackle, I am the soulful mourner, weeping in the night. I am the hair on your neck when a ghost walks by. I am the scarecrow  in the field, among the corn rolls neatly tilled. I am the spider that crawls over your hand. I am the silence that rolls over the land. I am the breath you hold, when you look under your bed. I am the blanket you pull over your head. I am the fears, never said, when you crawl in your bed. I am the dead, laying in their graves, with something left to say. I am your imagination, and I've come to carry you away.

Do not cry for me when I am gone into the dark.
Do not sing songs for me when I pass from this place.
Do not make speeches when I shuffle the mortal coil.

Weep for me, weep for me and show me that your hearts
are sad, not just your minds and your ego.