Today is a day to celebrate, not to be taken as a given
 Nor take for granted the gift of this our mortal life
  To praise which is to pass from here onto life eternal
   Don’t you know? It’s a mother who forms the endless circle
    Where the circle begins and the circle should end
     She opens a door with a key held only by her hands
      Calling upon angels of heaven to grant her a soul
       She has known me from before the first kingdom
        When the Father brought light to our existence
         Even then, she knew my flaws to their very essence
          She welcomed me without an ounce fear or reservation
           In humility, in obedience to the Father, in loving kindness
            By our Creator’s love, by mother’s choosing, her bravery
Today is her day
                                                                ­                         My mother’s day

Same, same, same, same,
Same, same, same;
Words, words, words, words, words;
Something about love,
Something about life;

Copy // paste broken feelings;
Attempts at a deeper meaning;
Trapped with the same words,
Said differently;
Seven hundred plus posted poems,
Seven hundred more I scrapped;
But every one I write,
Feels like I'm on page one...

Steady thumping, thumping.
The boat travels downstream.
The water is brown, from silt.
The current is swift but calm.
Trees line the edges of the river.
Green foliage, thick on both sides.
The sky is blue with white clouds.
A bridge passes overhead, with cars.
Downriver, a large load is being pushed,
to the locks in the dam up ahead.
The water is deep now and dark.
An eagle cries out, and lets fly.
I bring the small vessel to a stop,
and watch all around me.
A train on the side of the water,
the barge moving away,
trucks on a freeway above,
the hum of shipping goods,
and the beauty of nature in one.
Tranquility, and constant motion.
I slowly begin to turn around,
and begin the steady trek,
upriver to where I began.

A quiet snow lined roadway.
A bird singing on a telephone line.
Footprints in the snow.
A path I’ve not walked.
Around another bend.
The song drifts off,
and a rabbit bounces its way.
The trees have icicles.
Now the world is cloaked in quiet,
but for the crunch of my boots,
and breathing.
Heavy breathing from the cold.
A few more bends.
Back to what I know.
Just a little longer,
till fire welcomes me.

Let me tell you once more about the first 24,
The lackadaisical blossom of a devilish spore,
The immemorial black of hearts lacklustre and cold,
The sensual grimace of an ordinary soul,
The last ember of coal within a beauty unknown,
The voluptuous shape of effeminate stone,
The incantation of the sun giving birth to the dawn,
An insomniac’s battle against the army of the morn,  
The poetic holocaust of a mind tortured and torn,
The endogenous torment of thoughts when a man is alone,
The sorrow of kings after ascending the throne,
The desolation of spirits failing to protect their own,
The pessimism of those afraid of leaving their zone,
The transparent mist in the eyes of those who intellectually mourn,
A simple metaphor for you to interpret and me to know,
All that and more, simply the first 24.

Its the deepest secret i hold, it is the key to my soul,
It is my rise and my fall, the darkest story ever told,
Add a beautiful 3 and my spirit is whole.
A divine metaphor.
Under a tree of sycamore,
A new story began called the first 24.

The accumulation of all the hate that we love to condone,
But also the strength we unearth when scares galore,
The falsely euphoric solitude of those who do not implore,
A dementia that is cause by the degradation of truth,
The delusion of humans, trying to hold on to their youth,
The illusion of art when sanity is loose,
The ambitions of an addicts fighting, escaping abuse,
It’s the elixir of life for those who denied unethical truce,
Its the umbilical cord by which mental growth is produced,
It’s the force within those who fight without an excuse,  
Its fluorescence of essence, its the efflorescence of spruce,
The greed of adolescence, asphyxiating your roots.

I know myself like the back of my hand.
I know my strengths, weaknesses, body curves and scars accompanied.
I know I am beautiful.

Like stained glass,
I dance happily as colors when the lights hit just right,
An entourage of beauty and serenity that I am
Unequivocally representing as the day breaks,
As yellows, oranges, greens, blues.
Everything was beautiful about me,
From the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
I am all of the colors.
I am a rainbow after a stormy day,
A beautiful gown form-fitted onto that of a powerful women,
I am a Queen dancing the ballet before throngs of people.
I dance to dance
And I dance to laugh
And I am beautiful to me
And that is all I can ever ask for.

When I met you,
I saw you as another version of me:
Stained glass, too,
Just cracked,
Needing a friend to glue back in the shattered pieces,
Help you be whole again, shine those colors the same way again.
And I loved you for that.

Glass can be seen straight through, though. Color or not.
You knew that.
You saw that.
You took advantage of that.
That,
Being my beauty, my confidence, my spirit,
My power, my naivety.

I didn’t know.
I didn’t know you weren’t here to appreciate the art
But to tear it down and try to repaint it as your own.
I trusted you to accept the me that I knew--
The yellow of the sun,
The green of nature’s embracing twines,
Even the blues of the leftover tears from the purple bruises of my bad memories.
I guess you accepted me, in a way,
But not how I wanted you to.
Not as me.
You manipulated me.
Told me that different wasn’t pretty.
I wasn’t pretty.
I feel like I am nothing,
puzzle pieces being rearranged to try and create a design
I wasn’t designed for.
You told me things that changed me.
I started seeing myself
As dried paint in the reflection of my mirrors.
I no longer danced.
I lacked potential.
I wasn’t going to turn into something beautiful.

And then I remembered,
After months of being clay shaped into your project,
That I am not a project.
I am not an object.
I am not subjecting myself to any more neglect.
I am in this body forever.
I look in the mirror and finally, after months,
I stare back at me:
I am a cracked stained glass portrait.
I vow to make something new with my broken pieces.
I tell myself,
I am beautiful,
Whether you can see that or not.
Every day, all day,
Months on end,
And eventually,
I start dancing again,
Leaping again,
Bouncing in front of mirrors and laughing and smiling again
and I stop making monsters into men
That I believe will love me for me.
I love me for me.
And all I need is me.
And that is all I can ever ask for.

I miss your kitchen window view
The effect I had on you
Your voice is lost in static waves
Erased by every day
I still watch the daisies you planted me
Every now and then I sit out side my window
After the rain I like to view the muddy soil
Your foot steps still echo through the walls  
I’m writing this as I paint your portrait