Lucid dreams of a place
That seems unfamiliar,
But it feels like home.

I perform a barefoot ballet,
Sinking my toes like anchors
Into the soil.

Orchids and sunflowers
Stand guard like soldiers, giving
An aroma as strong as gun smoke.

The wind whistles its tune
As the leaves tango, resembling
Lovers brushing fingertips.

I reminisce days where
The garden was the universe
And words came easy.

Today I am speechless and
Amazed by all this vast
World has shown me.

question: why didn't you turn your work in?
                 answer: being alive and having to function as a human being day after day is an exhausting and unsustainable exercise that i don't know if i can continue forever.
                 answer: i get so depressed that i can't move, can't do anything but wallow in my own revolting, pathetic self-pity.
                 answer: there are messages on my phone, friends trying to reach me, wanting to know how i am. the thought of replying to or looking at them fills me with dread.
                 answer: i've been thinking about entropy and the eventual, inevitable end of the universe. one day, on a scale that none of us can even comprehend, everything will be nothing and time will be meaningless. human civilization, all of our monuments and cities and societies, will be gone, with no one and nothing left to remember them. every act of cruelty and of kindness, any anger or joy or sadness ever experienced will mean nothing when us and all of our everything will be returned to the dust from whence we came. it's more than me contemplating my own morality, it's me trying to come to terms with the futility of the human experience. sometimes i get so overwhelmed with this sort of inconsolable nihilism i can't sleep.
                answer: i'm scared and i'm tired.
                answer: sometimes
                answer: i wish
                answer: i was
                answer: anywhere
                answer: but
                answer: here.
answer, spoken: i don't know. can i give it to you tommorow?

I've cast a hundred
Smiles at strangers and
Loved ones and no
Smile back has ever meant
More to me than yours.

I've gazed into a dozen
Pairs of eyes, trying to
Spark my clairvoyance.
I'd yet to see the future
Until I dove into yours.

I've poured all my love
To only a few, and none
Have nourished my soul like you;
Like a fresh breath after April showers,
And I am in full bloom.

I wake in the belly of a poem.
Wading into watercolor
And a twisting labyrinth
Of Boston ivy.
I can't see through this fog
But it can see through me.
Words like pollen glide
On the wind and
Guide me like fireflies to
A sanctuary of wildflowers.
Here, everything speaks
To me, fluent in my native tongue.
Inhale, exhale, repeat until there's peace.
Bonsai at my feet as if
My toes are whispering to the roots:
"Grow, blossom, thrive",
And I will learn to
Take my own advice.

Words on my skin
Tightening of my throat
The words you shouted
And the things you spoke
Through your lens I’m
An object
Dangling
Taunting
Inviting
But I am a woman
Not to be used
Or abused
I shed your words everyday
I wash them away
I am not yours to be looked at
Or yours to be swayed
So take the words you have
strangled me with
And wrap them around your own throat
Till you suffocate

And if I love I do completely
And if I hurt I do alone
And if you ask I’ll say I’m fine
And I’ll wonder if that was a mistake
But you can’t carry the contents of my heart
Without folding yourself
And that’s just the nature of your gravity
That makes it so hard to trust you completely
So I wait for the day
Where I can give my sorrows to someone strong enough to carry them
And they’ll know what to do with me.