She sat beside herself and asked,
“Do you know where this feeling’s from?”
Her self stared back at her, unmasked,
And wondered who she had become.

Who but herself could ever know,
These things she thought that she once knew?
“I barely know you now, and so,
When was the last time you were you?”

The two of them, just her and her,
Each tried her best to understand.
Her self said, “Why are you so sure
You’re not exactly who you planned?”

“I wanted to be you instead,
Before you filled me with regret.”
Her wounded self smiled back and said,
“Perhaps you haven’t been you yet.”

life is but a cruel game
where we live each moment
always missing someone

I talked to a Serbian man
at the bus stop going home
told him my mom died
on the solstice this year
the longest night that never
would become day for her

he said his died when he was 50
that he wept like a child then
tears formed in his pale eyes

though this game seems unfair
that no one close to us remains
we only borrow one another
life is not a game played for keeps
we exchange time for experience
and life itself for memories

Poetry is the string
         looping through and
         weaving out
the needling pain

It knits a beautiful
         patchwork, coated with
         colorful patterns
our fingers trace

threads of our lives
         create designs
a shining::
shimmering::
or dulling
our emotions blend.

Static with words that speak the familiar,
Narrowest thoughts spoken so many ways,
Bare novel spark in the particular,
A tireless writer with nothing to say.

A thousand new words are no less banal,
When a writer is content just to be,
When the compulsion to write is his all,
He writes with no responsibility.

To lose that will is to lay down my pen,
To no longer betray the written word,
Writing not a thing until the moment when,
Something new inside deserves to be heard.

Unique thought must precede what is written,
Needing to write is to seek depths to plumb,
That awesome task with which I am smitten,
Is never to be, but always become.

my body is dynamic, in flux
you touched me and I was reborn
nerve endings rebuilt stronger
the outside changed too
hair colour through rainbows
makeup for every mood sparkled
sensory systems grew and changed
immortalized by your lips
with your fingers on my skin
connections newly created
yet so familiar and at peace
eyes wandering over your face
one I had loved so intensely
now my moon no longer recognizes
the wrinkles formed at the corners
when I smile or laugh or play
you loved me as I was, once
though every part of me replaced
shifted and altered to becoming
unrecognizable or similar
to when we had first met
I was made new because of you
while you believe I am the same
after everything had changed

Sweet sweet nectar of surrender
Of arriving home
Of peace
Of a nervous system coming to rest
Of hot tears that anoint and wash clean
That hold close the little one
Serious in her purple jacket
Beautiful
And so alone
Never inside
But outside
In a barren land
Of not being understood
Those big eyes
Taking it all in
Those big serious soulful eyes
That can now rest
Can now turn within
She could not stand the harshness
The discord
The loudness
The ugliness
The vulgarity
She wanted to vanish
From those lunch tables
It disgusted every part of her
That needed beauty
Harmony
Quiet
She needed peaceful gentle holding and seeing
For her sensitivity to be noticed
To be cupped like a butter cup
Softly, gently
Allowing the sun to bathe her in its golden rays
Her life has been a journey to those rays
Those nourishing rays
The warmth of the sun
The simplicity of alone
Of peaceful quiet and sweet surrender
Yes darling yes
Her exile was her becoming

...thoughts and feelings are soulless soldiers
bleeding my blackness like ink
leading the cracks to the brim
And do they dip deep, indeed...
they come out the other side thinning
and thinning still
and thinning
and seething my fabric
as my quietness parallels the tempo of serration
the wanting of you:
to flow and embrace
my every erasure
with the renewal
the slow violent blossoming
flowing and growing
into our fragrance
Our one world

How can you remember anything
when you’ve turned off your mind
How can you experience anything
when your heart is silenced?

How can you know who you are
when you’re a people pleaser
Smiling fasley
Averting your eyes to conceal your truth deep within

My words pour through me like clashing symbols
Desperately trying to make a statement
Seeking to grab my attention
But I’m elsewhere
I’m never here
Sometimes I subsist in reveries,
But mostly I suffer through nightmares
with eyes wide open

There is a sickness growing silently within me
But I’m not here to tend to it
I sometimes peel back my armor
and re-enter my body
when I’m with another person
whom I believe might be able to receive me fully,
Someone who could possibly see me and love me
But I’m left stranded
After courageously revealing my tender soul
I guess they were simply too blind to see
My pure, childlike beauty
So I stuff my real self down again,
Down underneath my false representative
Below the surface of my fake identity
Is the only place my real self will ever belong

But I can’t accept that,
It’s not my truth
Maybe social conditioning
tells me I must follow the rules
to fit in
But I don’t want to fit in anymore

I feel something rising within me,
Something latent that I’ve dismissed within me for so long
It is my battlecry,
It is my truest song
I just won’t allow fear to hold me back anymore
I’ve got this one life,
And what is it for?
I may have hit countless rock bottoms
But I’ll always rise,
For with every time I rise
I become stronger,
And wiser
And kinder,
Softer, more weathered
But humbled
With every instance my heart was cracked
It opened
Wider and wider

So you see,
I can’t be what you need me to be
I can’t go back to who I used to be
I must answer to this new life beckoning me
I must rise once again
To invite this process of becoming everything I am meant to be.