To that boy
before he became the poor
specimen in a sea?

Drowning taunts
root the doubts.

His whims departed
long and prior
to the last age of innocence.

Clouds dance no more
than his weary legs
in halls of crowded isolation,
what role can exist here?

That once youthful spark
streams its last thin streak
leaving no more lines
left to draw.

There was a time that I'd forgotten
when the days were dark and blue.
Trapped within the crayon box
I wished for brighter hues.

Wrestled in a wrapper
I was labeled by my shade.
Treated like the outcast
Melting in their cheap parade.

I watched my morals bleed
Tainted as the colors blend.
Murky pools of semblance
Stiff and rigid afraid to bend.

"Do it like the others,"
The instructions that they said
Sinking in the sea of masses
Afraid to lead thus I was led.

I was the crayon soldier.
They knew me by my lines
Drawn by my integrity
Sharpened by my mind.

I feared they'd never see
The depth of my true worth.
For they only saw the color
That I've donned since my first birth.

I've learned to brush aside
The bitter darker energy.
Colored outside the lines.
Embraced my creativity.

Unwound my paper wrapper
Took my first free breath.
Learned to have real laughter
Plotted out my future steps.

Now I create life on a page
Giving peace to aching hearts.
This crayon has left the box -
Share my truths within my art.

I write to release what is swimming in my mind
All the time
Phrases are born
Pieces of poems and prose
While I am busy
And while I am working
I need a magical pen
Or time to create
Many times the words escape
But how lovely they were the moments they lived in my brain

She speaks in rhyme
Cadence keeping with time
Her words flow out in verse
Creating a universe
Her mind builds sculptures
That reflect while cultures
Her gaze can amass
Ideas for a canvas
She knows stories by rote
She never misses a note
She creates upon what she veiws
Artists, she's your muse

maybe if the
art store
that it feels like i spent
most of my lifetime in
had never closed
i'd be doing better

(maybe i wouldn't
but that's less likely)

and maybe there would be
a stack of canvasses
somewhere in my room
all covered in words

poked through by
needles and stretched
with yarn
laced and glittered
within an inch
of their lives

and i'd be crying
glue
and bleeding
paint

and maybe my
tension would be
strung looser than their
stretched and stapled frames.

i'm wondering if
we ever get
over our losses
creatively
or if we just find
alternatives
to abusing the
canvas.

my favorite occupation
has been that of
listening to silence

to give shapes
to music singing
with my hands

on top of the colors
that lay already there
to tiptoe in-love

slowing down
my responses
to evade darkness

into the beauty held
inside as the harmony
viable all around