I remember stories, told through grey smoke
recited slowly, under shadowed eyes
as the old, dry toad croaked,
in a rickety melody by my side.
Forgotten romancers would carve
hearts into the husk of pine.
One was told,
time after time:
Two lovers, a yellow scarf,
we are both the same, headless and blind.

Lose all sense when we meet up
I pray you'll rescue me
chase away my sorrow and bad luck.
Rain always seems to pour most
once I'm building my shelter
my poor face as pale as a ghost
and my urgency, burns like a summer swelter.
I need you like the river needs it's bending
to love you is natural,
a broken bone must go on mending.

So take your weathered hands
lead me to the forest
I cannot see, but I feel its stirring.
The finch and the blackbird, chattering chorus
brain dead trusting, so alluring.

Sometimes we slip through the cracks
fall down a hole or trip into the looking glass
and never manage to find our way back.

Innocence is betrayed as it is parlayed into
the whole growing up thing that
we don’t want to do.

Playmates fade away as we lose yesterday.
Their faces blur then just disintegrate,
along with the games and stories we made.

Time becomes the anchor that weighs us down
as we struggle and drown in deadlines.
Playful pixies dust fantasies are lost to these
important and emerging responsibilities.

Teddy Bear hugs and fairytale love
become the stuff of forgotten hopes,
and with each romantic advance rejected
the dreamer dejected retreats to
the safety of a stale and scheduled reality.

Till the mirror reflects the inner sadness.
Our shoulders slump, skin sags, and wrinkles,
as our eyes lose that sly Peter Pan twinkle.

-2023

how do I tell you
that with you I feel safe
the child in me clings to you like you belong to me
how do I tell you that I'm not in love
that I'm simply still a child
looking for a home, for safety
how do I tell you
that I started building a home for you in my heart
and I lit a fire to keep you warm
how do I tell myself
you don't belong here
I have to learn to save myself
instead of waiting for someone to give me everything
to hold that child in me
how do I tell you, how do I cry
how will I ever learn to say goodbye

in a couple months I will be eighteen years old,
an adult.
I have yearned for this day,
years and years..
I hear a tiny voice in my head:
"is it over now?"
and all I can do is mourn the loss of a childhood I never got,
but we're safe now.
it's over now.

A photo, I'm six,

in the garden I bury --


a box with secrets.

music and movement
pretending to be a tree
in your pants and vest

(Why do you look at drinking as such a nasty thing?)

Oh, no reason.
It’s a silly little beverage,
That twisted and turned,
My childhood to shambles,
All because it was who ‘he’ was.

Oh, you’re right,
I’m just being dramatic,
It was just my innocence,
After all,
Silly me.

Pinky promises
and praying to goddesses
a picture of your friends on the sagging shelf
and I know I love you
so much more than you could ever,
ever love yourself.
We plucked wild bluebells
and got sick in the winter-time breeze
I'll pick you up
when you fall down
I'll patch up the scrapes on your knees.

Sugar coated candy
turned into your mother's brandy
still over indulged
but I will be here
year after year
you'll always have someone to hold.
Can't leave you out in the cold
no matter how angry you can be.
Takeout boxes,
a key in your locks and
always a place for me in your coral sheets
we roam the city in outfits too tight
we hold hands in the streets.

Only a fool
when I'm in your room, lose our cool
laughing as our middles concave
with your hand in mine
I've always felt so brave.
We were girls together
and that will never change.

There is a monster under my bed.
Hauting, screaming, hurting me.
It talks to me every night.
I believe it doesn't want me here.
It screams and cries, acts more like a child than me.
It smells of the bottles in the glass container.
It stumbles up the stairs.
It opens every window, let's the cold winter frost in and hopes it freezes time.
Instead, it freezes me.
I wait, behave, hope.
I stay silent so it doesn't notice I'm here.
Tomorrow it will wake me up.
Tomorrow it will attend a parent-teacher conference.
Tomorrow they will praise it.
"You did a good job raising her"
Tomorrow it will turn into my mother.
Tomorrow night, the monster returns.