The light is dim, but I'm accustomed to working in the dark. Besides, it's safer this way. My eyes are not what they used to be, but it has become second nature to me - the pull of the needle, the tension in the thread.  

I stitched my first collar when I was six years' old, sitting on my grandmother's knee in the parlour of the old house at Innsbruck. ‘Isaac,’ she used to say, ‘you have your father's gift. Use it well.’

Ah, Papa, if you could see me now. Such expectations you had for my talent, but I assure you that the occasion for invisible seams and fine beadwork is over. Nowadays I work with a different fabric. A cloth perforated with ****** fire and riddled with shrapnel. The wounds - forgive me - resemble red Venetian silk embedded with black pearls; the bone like the baleen strictures of a dowager's corset. And the red dye runs. God help me, how it runs.

As I work, Papa, I imagine that you are standing in the shadows, your frayed sewing tape draped around your neck. I am praised for my quick hands and my ability to embroider life into abbreviated limbs. And I pray that you are not too disappointed in what I have become.

On the mornings
I woke up angry,
I would put on
a thick layer of eyeliner
before I left for school,
eyelids streaked purple,
a violet horizon backdropping  
the contour of my lash line.

I wore my makeup
like war paint
as if to send the message:

You cannot begin
to comprehend
this darkness I carry.

It is not an energy
to be toyed with.

I am not to be toyed with.

Don't you DARE **** with me.

Truth denied, Freedom,
spurned Lover's scorn.
Absurdity embraced,
not Despair but Dance.
Music in the Wind,
and Love shall not be denied!

I burn **** between my lips.
one by one.
******* them down with skill.
Skull to lungs,
ashes to ashes.
I am the smoke of myself that  
gathers deep inside
and prowls out, darkly
like faceless men at night
sunken in city pavement,  
pacing towards desire.
And so the word saunters and spirals,
clouding upwards
from my red hot tongue.
I watch it as it leaves me.
I lick my lips of the sting,
and ash drips on my shoe.
I take a deeper breath.
and look ahead.
perhaps smiling,
perhaps darkly.
As it twists itself into nothingness,
sinking headlong,  
like the private history that it is,
into the ignorant, pretty sky above.

She was a long lost traveller
with broken silence;
an unknown passenger
to darkness and defiance.

Time unfavorably moved slowly,
as if the oceans stopped moving
and life became ghostly
to each and every choosing.

Darkness became an everlasting hunger,
whose enmity was filled with surprise;
For she was left with wonder
of trembling unending surmise.

The love that was once known
became still and uncaring;
She was entirely alone
in this vast and empty home.

Defiance shook with trembling roars
as she made mistakes repetitively
and endlessly with her core,
a tiring soul left unwillingly.

She was a long lost traveller
who escaped treacherous ending
to find the world spectacular
and life itself worth spending.

By 20, I hope that I am happy.
By 25, I hope that I am happy.
By 30, I hope that I am happy.
By 35, I hope that I am happy.
By 40, I hope that I am happy.
By 45, I hope that I am happy.
By 50, I hope that I am happy.
By 55, I hope that I am happy.
By 60, I hope that I am happy.
By 65, I hope that I am happy.
By 70, I hope that I am happy.
By 75, I hope that I am happy.
By 80, I hope that I am happy.

she would not let anything nor anyone defy her
so when the sun shone his oppressive gaze down on her
she stared back with just as much power
until her eyes turned to ash and her face, forever marred.