I guess you could call it poetic how by the age of 12 I had no recollection of what happiness tasted like on my tongue. Some would say it was tragically beautiful.
But it was not poetic, nor was it beautiful,  but it was tragic. It was so very, very sad, and that sadness is only doubled now that people see sorrow as glorious.  It is not glorious. It is not strength. It is a lump of iron in your chest and stomach and it eats you from the inside, out and you have no right to think that blood stained wrists are anything other than tragic. So very,  very tragic.

There's something beautiful about freckles and blemishes and imperfections before I'm made up in the morning. There's something right about naked in the mirror; flaws and scars and age that accumulates with the years. I am a story to be read. I've got skin like a song.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from whence wisdom comes
of the wisdom of the child, from whence it comes

she comes to me a
recognized believer,
a poetry rising star,
in private whispers,
to true confess,
a sixteen year old girl,
born to the role of
high poetry priestess

not asked but offered
to an old man
whose wisdom now
leaves his temples
with the scheduled departure
of each breath

she tenders
her secrets, her heritage,
her impositions, the sources
of her belief, and by and from
the vibrations of wall wisdom,
and inspiration retransmitted,
she is made even more tender

"the source of
what I know,
comes not from within,
but from without"

before she writes
she listens

she recites the histories
of her ancestors
stored in the walls

in the walls of every room,
whether painted flat white,
or fire-breathing breathless beige,
or good luck red,
cracked, stucco'd or spackled bare
even if in fabric dressed,
no matter, all whisper
to the child woman

of this, I speak,
of this, thee tell

the living and the dead,
their words recorded, deposited,
in a banque of brick
from past to future
given to her,
to be wise,
to be and by,
to share

in the train car,
in the hotel room,
all that ere spoke,
every predecessor passenger,
their words customized, bespoke,
she hears, she knows

this secret shared,
this greatest revelation,
the old man shakes his head,
weighted down with
grief and sorrow,
thinking silently to himself,
lest his walls' eavesdropping ears hear,

*poor child, she is wise
yet, she is cursed,
in exactly,
the same manner as me...

i have racked my mind
trying to figure this whole thing out
the staying, the going
the threads we claim hold us here
& the people who've stopped to play a tune on them
i sometimes relate it
to waking up in waist deep snow
in our former selves
the us we wish we could give one another
the children we've sat on the shelves
trapped, like the looks
we leave behind in snow globes
i sometimes imagine ships
dragging the bottom to the sea of "me"
for sleep & pieces of my old self
to sell to the new one
like history doesn't repeat itself
it gets me wondering
if you too want an apology from the rain
or if you dream of burning family photo albums
and wearing the ashes like perfume
if you're anything like me
how i hope god chokes
on memories of me blowing out candles as a child
i know i shouldn't reference my reader  
but don't you know, the only difference
between alone & lonely is you?
that if my hands could talk
the only thing they'd be able to say
is "dear god we've missed you"
and how can you tell me it isn't love
when even the rain refuses to fall
in places where i've kissed you
i remember the day
you found my smile at a yard sale
it reminds me of how you'll leave
i wonder if when you go
you'll tell yourself
the person in the rear view mirror
is closer than they appear

insanity is using the comfort of a pillow for suffocation

this: when your stomach
                                     hurts,
and you can't remember why you were ever happy and
           nothing is really even important,
                           especially yourself;
and you just sleep because you can't cope
                                                 and the sky is so beautiful,
but you can't feel sun dripping on your skin,
         and your bones are numb with electricity,
                             but it's just rubber,
               and you can't do anything,
ANYTHING.
           anything, because you're you and nobody else can be you,
       and the world is there to look at, so full of pretty things,
but, why look?

and it doesn't matter if there's somebody or nobody
                                                                or everybody, by your side,
because it's just this permanent moment
                           when the sharpness in your body is a droplet:
           it hits the ground and wrenches itself into shapes,
         patterns that coalesce,
      you are enraptured, the sight is burning
    into your retinas the emptiness that is
being.
   the glacier that is your soul tills white light and branches out,
      this creature that is cold and full,
               folly with soft ears and sharp teeth.

                             *****
                 patches of grass
         the birds are landing in your branches now
       congregational hazards
     social anxiety
       disillusioned, giving in
  but you don't mind the rest, there's only:
-you're on earth, and
-she's a star, and

stellar beings never come closer.

not for a moment.
they enjoy all views, from afar;
             witness your retching in a
          sad spectrum slideshow
       the bile spills out, tumbling
       across the sidewalk made
     out of her tied veins
   she is no god
we are free
   be empty
listlessly dragging stones
be empty