Don’t leave your home.
Don’t cross thresholds and borders.
The boats are bottomless.
Even if the sea does not swallow you
and you find dry land,
your heart will be broken.

You thought the softness
of your flesh would protect you.
You’ll be lost in the crowd of foreigners.
You’ll be no one, a number
in their eyes, cool with mistrust.
Your high cheekbones won’t remind
anyone of your grandmother’s
and your name stripped of its meaning,
pebbles on the tongues of strangers.

You’ll lose your ground.
Grammar of the new language will riddle
your bones, hipbones and spine
won’t align to sit on earth.
You’ll long for the scent of jasmine and bread.
You’ll miss the gold fish in the garden.
You’ll forget the names of trees and flowers.
You’ll lose the key to your house.

There is no refuge, no sanctuary.
The boats are bottomless, vessels
to extermination center of the sea.
Stay where you are,
where you know the color of the hills
in winter, spring, summer and fall.

You shift and turn through the night
Sweat and screams you left behind
You moved and scoffed as you hide
You were safe but he was was still chasing you in your mind.
.

In a field
School kids
go to war,
In the field
Soldiers
go to work.

I will ride this horse
Until I'm shot down
And even then I will
Crawl along the ground
Until I lift my eyes
And I can see that right
Has won the battle
Against greed and might.

I will pull myself up
Through blood and pain
Until not one square mile
Of hatred will remain.
I will call out those who
Label villainy other names
And strive to make them see
That evil is just the same.

Up to that precious day
I will never rest quietly
Until peace in our world
Shall lie and rest beside me,
Until this will come to pass
I, the discontented messenger,
Will point the way to integrity,
And be its constant harbinger.

I like feeling like danger girl.
I like feeling like a shooting star
blazing across your eyes
and gone in an instant.
I love being the whimsical
day dream of a woman
I had hoped to be when I was twelve
and feeling trapped.
Listless within my own body
yet every nerve ending was electrified
like I was an overcharged battery.

Zip. Zap.
I want to dash across your heart
leaving no bruise or cut
but a stinging burn.
Icy me all you want
but I have already combust.
I live in my own scorched skin.

Zip. Zap.
There’s a ringing in your ears.
The whirl of wind
winding past your head
ruffling your hair
raising goosebumps
yet you cannot shiver.

I like feeling like danger girl.
I like free falling this role.

went inside the hourglass to pull apart
the flakes of sand and what was found
inside had passed since the time
needed was just spent.

walked along the acrobats
and models so of course right now
there comes a gap to have to get across.

a rope swing can only break when it’s
       tugged too hard // cut by the stars
the veins down my arms have traveled
too far

but,
with a good shelter,
nothing seems so bad.

Sugar is bad for you,
especially,
saccharine maple thoughts
that you cannot afford
due to the hazard
of overweight ego
dense with the aftertaste
of adipose fantasies
clogging the arterial bonds
that tether you
to solid ground

Stop the caramelized madness
from carbohydrating your soul
into victim obesity
causing the full
arrest of your spirit

The sweet is guilty,
distorted in mirrors,
a negative image
of a past feeling,
present reflection
born of the collision
of intentions and consequences