We attempt rescue, unable to bear
the stardust-coated dragonfly
beat, beat, beating
frantic on the glass.

We entice him to perch
on our extended lifeline-broom
nurse him in a box, where he flutters
quivers, lies quietly blue.

My son cries bitterly
as we place a minute cross
upon the dragonfly grave
while intoning our final goodbyes:

We honor those who have fallen victim
to this fatal architectural trap, lured
by skylights of enticing white-light death
and the paned illusion of freedom.

In admiration of winged determination
and perseverance in the face of futility
we carefully tend the fragile, curved bodies
lay them here to rest under the mock orange.

years of gauze-weighted detritus
swept beneath these ponderous shrubs
a reminder - what seems like freedom
                                                         ­           often isn’t.

Pen ink gliding across paper
Yellowed by the sun for ages
From my fingertips bubble words
I do not yet understand
But they come from the innermost depths
Of my soul, never to be voiced

My words never wished to be voiced
Created to live on the paper
Found only in the hidden depths
Of my notebooks on shelves for ages
No one could understand
All my thoughts strung into words

My head is so full of words
That know not how to be adequately voiced
Themselves they do not understand
As flimsy and fragile as paper
Building up for what seems like ages
Into the sea of confusion they sink to the depths

How deep are my soul's depths
It's distance cannot be put into words
The extent of my thoughts goes on for ages
For ages they'll decline to be voiced
And one day I'll crumple them up like paper
Until they're too wrinkled to understand

I do not want others to understand
My thoughts, that I hide in the depths
Of my pen kept away from paper
I refuse to make words
That fear being voiced
To people of all genders and ages

I wish not to be remembered for ages
Most will not understand
My opinions seek not to be voiced
Before my soul implodes into its own depths
Devoid of all thoughts, feelings, & words
As blank as a white sheet of paper

For ages I'll stay in the depths
Of what I don't understand, the words
never voiced, smeared in ink on yellow paper.

The girl with the paper heart
Stood upon the hill and thought
"If I stand tall from up real high,
The wind will take me to the sky!"
She waited there for just a breeze
To whisper, lift her to the trees
And blow it did, a hefty whooooosh!
That sent her rolling into a bush

But up she stood and to the hill
With just a scrape left from the spill
She studied the branches softly sway
And waited for a breeze her way
And fast it came, a strength so grand
She swirled up high and crashed to land
Bent and twisted, swaying to a stance
She thought of taking one more chance

She approached the hill and climbed the *****
And once a top she laid her hope
And closer, near she heard the whistle
She let it go her heart without dismissal
Then up she flew, and down she swayed,
Before she was swallowed by the Bay

To the girl with the paper heart,
The love you crave was false from start
The wind alone can not be trusted
To take you to the love you lusted

Don't give it all away so fast
You'll find that kind of love can't last
You'll learn in time, the complex art
Of building up a stronger heart
One that doesn't scrape or twist
Or drown into a deep abyss

The heart you want will have a beat,
And keep you dancing on your feet
So take that paper heart at last
And keep it as a lesson passed

I'm scared that no one takes me seriously
That everything I say is labeled "stupid"
That they laugh when my back is turned
That I'm secretly "the joke".

I wonder if the people who get talked about
Know and don't give a ****,
Or are completely oblivious to it.

If it were me,
If I were the **** of those jokes,
I would crack
And crumble into shards.
And I surely would not make it out alive.

                            -m.m.

The mannequin faceless,
Clothed in gold
With hands pandering svelte,
Remains an admired inanimate,
Albeit, atop whispers to a girl,
A 4-foot flower 3-feet my right,
Fretting and stumped;
Extrinsic a label – “undesirable.”

The mannequin faceless,
Her and hollow –
A towering nose above, stands
Opaque ivory, scarred come
Synonymous eyes with a symmetrical
Soul, assumed plastic perfection
And more importantly,
Soon to be sale.

The mannequin faceless
Convinced her new friend,
Her lesser, lopsided,
And natural not-so counterpart
To consume,
“Eat me, “eat me,” “eat it all,”
And then, “binge some more.”

The mannequin faceless
SCREAMS,
“BUY!”  Amongst the other torments –
Born both fingers that can’t move and
The thumbs that shuffle, “One’s,”
To the girl that was never,
“Good enough;” so shared the
Tabloid’s mouth.

The mannequin faceless demands
And DEMANDS nothing less than to
Buy, starve, suffer and sacrifice
So that every “broken body,”
May embody polymer, and for a price,
A not so fair trade whilst
Considering old man gold,
The curator of conundrum
And the plastic he’s created.