please don't
doubt how
much love
for you
resides in
this heart
of mine,

and,

please take
good care
of the heart
that lies
in the palms
of your hands.

It's not the mirror

Making me wonder

If I am, or ever will be

Good enough.


It's the angel on my shoulder

Arguing with the devil

Who lives in my mouth.


It's my self-control

Tarnished as metal

Beneath a heavy layer of rust.


It's the unfinished books

Collecting dust on the nightstand

As I crack open another.



It's all the projects

That I will never

Bring to a close.


It's the time that I spend

In a room by myself

Listening to my family's laughter, —

An open invitation.


It's the things I don't do

That I once did.


It's the things that I want

But may never get.


It's the things that I am

That I'm trying not to be.


It's yesterday

Tinted a rosy hue.


It's tomorrow

Threatening rain.


It's today

Slipping between my fingers

As I sit here

Trying to untangle myself.

When the sun rests
and the moon takes flight
and the dawn of day fades
to dark of night
you will find me

though I strain against the hold
and tell myself that I am not alone
and convince myself that I will be fine
I will hear your haunting tone
you always find me

even before I lay to rest
and fool only myself in blunder
and pretend my bravado will hold you at bay
you lurk, waiting to tear my pride asunder
you find me, waiting not to wait

once I shut an eye
and the day rewinds like an ugly play
and the mind’s critics line up to give review
with me, already knowing what they’ll say
you are there

with the greatest voice of all my mind
and the loudest, so fur sure
and you drown out any hope I'd have
that you’d enter here no more
because you never really leave

I
must
just
trust

As the creeping doubt
Draws shadows of trees
Onto my mind’s canvas,
I silently look away,
Wishing the water’s reflection
Could distract me.

Rippling across the surface;
Distorting what I see.
The inkwell’s matte mirror
Changing what I’m to be.

Still searching for that solid centre ground.
Knowing that the only reliable thing
Is Unreliability
Just ain’t helping right now.

Eroded self trust is my foundation,
my bedrock, my stability.
And time and time and time again
The ever powerful waves of self doubt
Undermine and eat away
At what is supposed to be my touchstone.

No matter how quickly and steadfastly the defences are built,
Those cracks of insecurity fill with
The constant drip, drip, drip of
Muddied, toxic delusion until once again
The ironic inevitability of unreliability crumbles,
Washing away the solid, centre ground.

She kept her heart encased in glass
  Or elegantly displayed
     On a moldy old canvass
   For callers by of gilded
      Or passing note

Wrinkled skirt crumpled in the
corner of the hardwood floor
poised to take the stand
and testify about the madness
and the lines of demarcation,
    The hollow harrowing haunting
     harbringer of the haughtiness
     that once served her so well;

I thought I spotted her reflection
in a magazine,
soot stained pages outlining
the continental shifts in her veracity
and the keloid cracks
running along the base of her foundation
a wrinkled old romance novel
in today’s latest fashion,
pretension the wayward child of passion