She squints her stubbornly sapphire eyes
            so she doesn't have to see
                        how sharp the edges of the world
                                    really are
She blasts music through earbuds
                        into her sensitive ears
                        even though it kills and burns
            so she doesn't have to hear
                        the truth about people
                                     or life
                                     or herself
She cuts scars in her soft skin
            that bleed the blaring music
            she forced into her head
                        so when they dry into scabs
            she won't have to feel
                        what dreams are really made of

Her eyes
            her ears
                        her skin
were a gift to her so that she might
see
            hear
                        feel
but the cruel, ugly world
is too much for her
            Why me?
                        she whispers
                        through hopeless tears and clenched teeth
            Why am I Chosen to see
                        the world
                        through the lens of raw reality?
She begs for
blindness
            deafness
                        no feeling
like the rest of them
It is too much for her
to be
truly

Aware

We were having dinner together
            the three of us
It was silent
except for the clicking
            of our forks on our plates
and dark
except for the dim orange glow
            of five little candles on the table
I should have known
            because there was
something deafening about the silence
something blinding about the dark

My father's fork stopped clicking
and he looked up at me
there was
            something crazy in his eyes
his irises turned to ashes
            and fell like snow
            from his darkened face
and he stood slowly
my mother and I with him
            as if drawn up by a magnet

She said his name
            slowly
            careful not to break the delicate silence
but he yelled hers
            his eyes flaming now
            shattering the silence
                        like the brittle glass it was
and he hurled the shards at her
            a thousand at her heart
She
        f
           e
               l
                  l
            with a dull
            eerie
            thud.
Something screamed
            and told me
            to keep the silence
so I stood petrified and said
nothing

But it was already broken
He threw a thousand more
            and added a thousand
            tongues of fire from his eyes
at me
And I fell too
            next to her
I gripped her ****** hand
            as we died together

            killed
                        by the shards

            of broken

silence.

I like the days when
I wake up at noon
            and crawl slowly
            from messy sheets
            to greet with blurry eyes
            the lazy afternoon sun
and eat breakfast
over the sink
at two PM

I make my tea
            lemon ginger
            with honey to calm the steam
and carry it upstairs
I sit at my desk
            in my pajamas
            half my face covered
            by my frizzy bedhead hair
and
squinting out my window
into the pink and periwinkle sunset
I pick up my pen
            with soft cold fingers
and scrawl onto a napkin
from yesterday's dinner
my poetry
in ink
the color of
            anxious afternoon sun
            steam from lemon ginger tea
            brown of unkempt hair
            and the
pink
and periwinkle

sunset.

I am the quiet poet
I draw my silk from
            the writhing aurora borealis
                        in the frozen sky
            and twist its ethereal light into dripping ink
            still wet on the page
You think you know me?
            you don't know me.

I am the serene night sky
                        and the boiling hot stars
I am the tempestuous seas
                        and the playful shallow shores
I am the relentless scorching desert
            and the soft smooth tides of sand

I was a prodigy, a freak
            I came into this world
with a pen in my pudgy little fingers
and a notebook clutched to my chest
I watch
as diamond rings fall like rain
onto the fourth fingers of my peers
            imprisoning them
but my female ancestors slew dragons
            I am free
            I will always be free
                        no man can handle me anyway

I am a captivated student
            of the authors and poets before me
books are my haven, my lovers, my dreams, my life
I am not human
Arms open, eyes shut, head to the sky
            I am but a channel
for the flow of the universe.

thin, shaky pink finger
           points downward
solemnly accusing
            the vivid violet
            and brilliant tangerine ocean
                        boiling beneath
of the ****** ******
            of the sky

Poets don't see what people see
          I'll show you a treasure trove
                    of pearls twinkling with metallic luster
and all you'll be able to see
          is rain
I'll gasp and excitedly point
          to mysterious black calligraphy
                    carefully inked onto the purple and orange
                    bruised back of the horizon
and the harder you look
          the more you will only see
          a tree that has lost its leaves

Poets don't see what people see
          but that doesn't mean what we see
                    isn't there
With knives of love
          hate
                    joy
          anger
     ­               nostalgia and
          agony
we whittle away at ordinary things
          until our poetry emerges
dripping with color and glitter
                    a perfect replica
                    of the glowing soul within

I know you
I know your sadness
The gleaming blue
          of your eyes melts
          washes into a snowy gray
          soft flurries float down
          and freeze your pale cheeks
          tightening your smile

I know your joy
The light ripples of your laugh
          brighten the very stars
          echo tones of purple
          through my hollow soul
          make the giggling brooks
          glare with envy

With one touch
          I would thaw the frozen fractals
                    in your pained smile
With one breath
          I would smile with you
                    and live in the frequency
                    of your angelic laughter forever

But now cold autumn winds of doubt
          freeze my smile too
          wash my eyes out with snow
          lock up the sparkling sprites
                    of laughter inside me
          as I realize
I don't know you anymore

I used to know
          your joy
          your sadness
they are as much a part of me as
          my living beating heart
but are you different now?
If I rip your eyes from my mind
          your laugh from my ears

will my heart stop too?

Imagine
       sitting in the endless
       pitch-black void of space
              lit only by stars
                    and more stars
                    as far as you can see
              and Earth beneath you
       reading the daily newspaper
and drinking coffee
       in an itchy old lawn chair
             day
             after day
             after day
Oh hi God how are you?
             the same
Hey Mom how've you been?
             the same
       every day
       every day
no period at the end of the sentence
no cover at the end of the book
no "CUT" to signal it's over
       I'm trying to believe
             I want to know God
             I want to love God
             I don't want to be
       the center of the universe
             I want to believe
       in that library of books
       with all its ancient pages
            dancing lead figurines and
       shelves that stand miles high
all the knowledge in the world
      there must be a book somewhere
in some obscure shelf
      maybe halfway to the Andromeda galaxy
            that knows what is best for us
            that knows we cannot live
for eternity

My grandmother has a pillow
on her couch that says
"God couldn't be everywhere
so he created grandmothers"
My grandma may have a slight hobble,
veiny, knobby hands, and
smile lines and wrinkles of every kind
but she most certainly is
an angel from God

She may have the marks
of a long life on her face
but she has the kindest blue eyes
like delicate robin's eggs

She may not have a model's skin
or figure anymore, but
she wears elegant, clean suits,
shimmering brooches  
on her collars,
and glittering little earrings

She may not have a voice
like smooth velvet anymore, but
upon hearing my slightest achievement
she raises it in ecstatic praise

Sometimes she looks at me in such a way
that I can feel her heart rise with hope and pride
for me and
for what she somehow knows
I am going to accomplish
she smiles a warm little smile and calls me
"the lady with the almond eyes"
pronouncing every consonant
as if each one is a delicate teacup
she is trying so hard not to break

I don't know how she knows
that I am going to make the world proud
but when she calls me
"the lady with the almond eyes"
somehow
I know too

Put your hand
here
Can you feel the rage in my soul?
The blood seeping under
the glass in my eye?

Do you see the sun's anguish
as she boils into nothing
beneath the merciless night sky?
She shoots her bloodcurdling scream
into the air before she surrenders;
it echoes behind her
a vengeful inferno on the horizon
whose smoking, dying embers,
with their last angry cries,
melt into the Earth
and cover all of us

The sun gave to us, her children
her rage
her fire
we burn
with the heat of her
wrathful flames.

Pearls twinkling                                                        ­  
Cascading waterfall
Drip drop                                                             ­                   
Higher, louder                                    
The pearls sparkle brighter                                          
Flowing faster                                                        
Dr­ip dropping down                      
Down                                                          
I­nto a box                                                              ­  
Lined with blue velvet                                    
Soft, delicate                                                
Intricat­e polished wood                    
Smooth crevices                                                    
Lock­ed                                                          
Click.                                                  
                                                                ­  
Suddenly I break                                    
From iridescent reverie
Eyes dart to the clock.
One hour.
Colors flood back
You're not
"dedicated enough"
"smart enough"
"good enough"
My hands sweat
My spine quivers as it
Sinks
To a tired hunch.

I shut my eyes
Clench my hot fists
Squeeze out a tear.
Fingers stretch back out
And I try to re-enter my dreamland.
Pearls
Hurled onto hard wood floor
Rough grey tattered cloth
Splintered black box.
My sweaty fingers slip off the keys
Shaky wrists locked tight.
Again.
And again.
My hands are hot and wet
My knees ache
My back shakes
And I slam down hard with angry red palms
The box of pearls
Shatters on the merciless floor
I curl upon the rock hard black bench
Bite my bony wrist
And cry
Tears like dusty pearls
Sweaty fingers track fog onto shiny black
I’ll never do it good enough.
Why did I ever think

I could play


An impromptu?

Sharp stinging tears bleed from my eyes
Betrayal burns a hole in my heart.
You lied to me.
But the truth is suddenly too painful to bear.
I watched you turn into a monster.
I watched that innocent, familiar face
Morph into an ugly beast
With empty sinister eyes that
I don’t recognize.

What have you done to me?
What have I done?
My purple childhood fantasies
Have been stripped from my soul
And it is freezing in the dark blue ocean
Of guilt.

I hate you but now
I hate myself more
For missing you.
Every day I think maybe
You have grown up
Maybe my deep scars have healed
Maybe I will recognize your soul
Behind the smokey curtain of your dark eyes.

But it doesn’t matter anymore.
I stay away from you.
You are my past now.
You and your twisted lies
And your empty eyes
And your psychotic smirk
Stay only
With the day you left me.

Time is the realest thing in a human life
But no human can define it;
Everyone can feel it
But no one can touch it.
What was it like
Before Time?
The universe was simply
There?
Simply
Existence?
Or is the universe linked to time -
If they are one and the same,
There would be
Nothing
Without Time.

Time passes.
That is the only thing I know
For certain.
No matter how hard I cry
Each tear that streams down
Wishing, begging Time to stop
Only for a while
As Time evaporates the futile defiance
On my face and puts a sting in
My tired eyes and
Makes the wet tracks cold.
Second after second.
Unrelenting.
I'm running out of
Time.

Time consists only of moments.
Every moment is real and alive
When you are living it,
But Time converts to memory
And those living breathing
Moments
Are now
Gone
Except from your imperfect memory.
Vanished.
A small voice
Echoing in a dark tunnel
Just a moment
You cannot be sure even existed.
I can only be sure of now.
One day I might not
Remember today or
This
Moment.
The paradoxical instant where past
Meets future.
We live in that
Indefinitely small moment
Where who you were
Meets who you are making yourself to be
With the irreplaceable aid of
Time.

“Enjoy the silence”
But we whose blood pulses
in tempo and
Whose souls dance
with melody -
We do not know silence.
We never sleep.
We cannot enjoy the silence
or ever stop
Imagining.

Lavender water ripples
Onto the dazzling golden shore
Pushing sequins into the
Ruby air to crown the sunset

Deep green silk ribbons twist
Into palm trees and
Bright orange stones line
The shell of an elegant turtle underwater

Scarlet and silver puffy clouds
Rain shiny white pearls
That click as they hit the sidewalk
And fill the street with snow

We fear silence.
Silence is deafening -
Dissonant tones that echo
“Alone”
Without music, we are
Nothing.
Vivid reds and blues drain
into empty grey.
Glitter turns to dust
Rhythm slows
And I fade
away.

I used to hear them breathing
Their shiny black eyes would
blink at me
cry with me
understand my childish mumbling
listen with undying patience
and reassuring sewn smiles
as I rambled for long hours on end
sprawled on the floor holding them above me

Even though they never moved
I could feel their heartbeats pulsing in unison
the warm glowing light radiating from their souls
I was loved and safe
Their kind thoughts like blue and yellow ribbons
in a magical whirlwind around me
protecting me from the world

I remember being so angry when
I was told they weren't alive
I cried and screamed in torturous agony
the soft purple dreams
that were sewn into me
viciously torn from my heart
I heard the white stitches pop
the seams broken beyond repair
my soul was bleeding
but deep down I had already known

Now I can’t even hear them crying
when I forget their names
I stare with stinging red eyes into their faces
for long hours on end
but I don’t remember
I know we had fun together but
I will never remember
our fantastical adventures in detail
I will never hear the comforting steady rhythm
of their heartbeats again
Now they are only stuffed spirits and
cotton hearts

The vast ocean of a winter night
outside his frosty window

tattered maroon carpet
beneath aching wooden legs

thousands of worn pages
drowning the room
in a sea of delicate ink pearls

he sits at his tiny piano
shoes melting into the floor
puffing deep thought through

his kaolin pipe rubbed smooth
by the years
that have now become as hazy
as his gray smoke

he stares with tired eyes
like dying candles
across the musty room

Monet’s blurred pink lilies sinking,
bleeding into vivid purple ponds
kept alive only by an old wooden frame

he tries to find himself
but sees only Monet’s mud
in the mirror

the fuzzy residual memories
of a colorful dream

his eyes drift down to his own canvas
trembling at the familiar wrath of
his veiny, calloused hands
and he dreams once more