The way you play your harp,
effortlessly weaving your fingers
through those nylon strings
is oh so captivating.

The firm hold you have on your instrument,
secure, yet light enough,
being careful not to break
the mahogany frames.

The heedful ears you have,
used to listen to the echoing sounds,
your harp makes in response to
even the slightest flick of your finger.

The beautifully composed melody,
brought forth by the
dissonance and resolution
of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever known.

Wherever did you get the practice?
*Perhaps it was from toying with my heart.

Chained in the dark ocean
No life no sun no clouds no moon
Nothing there but darkness and gloom
Sinking into maddens I claw myself
If pain is what keeping me sane
What else is there for me to gain?
I want to break free
I want to be carefree
I’m I shouting, or I am I weeping?
As my head starts to kneel
Accepting fate for what it wants to be?
I hear a song, and sound that slowly appears
I squinting my eyes and look as far as I can see
Suddenly this angel appears magically in front of me
Her enchanting smile caught me by surprise
Who ever thought this heart could beat again?
White warmness all around her
Bring life into this fragile body of mine
She had Aquarius gems that were her eyes
Drowning in them
Her voice was singing
Her harp reached out
Her songs and arms warp around me
She broke me out, she made me shout
She was my angel that illuminated my world for me
Her genuine honest and good heart
Kissed me back to life
She is an angel, drowned in the bottom of the pool
She is that chick that is just too cool
People mistaken her for a fool
But if you close enough you’ll notice
That she is a jewel

tonight i explained to a child
why my lover let me go.
he told me he never loved me
because if he had, he would have stayed.
i explained to him that love is
giving up your entire universe,
even exposing your soul to a black hole,
to make their lives better.
i had to turn away a sobbing angel
on my doorstep to remove him from
my toxicity.
i begged a god to come back down to earth for an hour
only to realize he would be happier among the stars
than among the sheep.
you give up love to improve the life of the one you love.
i still drive down the same paths the angel flew down
and i still play the harp the god left me
love is selfless and beautiful
but it is painful and
you must be strong.

*(r.e.)

Every day
on the orange-line metro, she would wait;
wait with her lovely mahogany harp
and it's worn, threadbare case
for a dollar;
a piece of tangible hope,
as delicate strings of rhythm
filled her ears
and controlled her senses.
What people couldn't see
was the way her soul poured itself
into each pluck of a fragile string,
and how her eyes remained
fluttering,
as the entire symphony
harmonized around her insignificant tune;
vibrating through her chest;
booming through the auditorium,
which was really just an orange-line metro
and a lone woman with a lovely mahogany harp.
So the empty case came as no surprise
to anyone
except her,
as she shed a single warm tear
and stepped off the train into the cold, bitter night.

Playing the harp like our hands were on fire until a string broke and we put it aside. Knowing it was there but never took the time to repair it. We never got to play the last nodes of our love song.

It felt so right, clear
As a crystal lake in summer. The humidity.

Teach me how to breathe under water so that I may
Follow the current.
Through time and thyme, the scents
That drive me to ask.
Question everything.

Can I make this better?
Install a light switch in the sun for you.

Sleep, lion. I will not be the sheep
You devour. I will be the lioness you sweep away.

Could I be the one to trim your ego,
Your fragile mind into a sturdy rose bush?
Thorns protruding, make me bleed again?

Maybe I will keep you.
The steady strums of my heart strings calming my ears.
And I can not predict what we could discover in this filthy music,
Or maybe the silver harps the angels play.

Juliette's back
is a shapely cello.
Her hair trailing softly
plays a deep, sad,
mahogany melody.
'La musique malheureuse'
her soul whispers.

But in the morning
she will stretch out,
throw the curtains wide
and light will shine through her.
When she speaks
her harp-like heart
will play a pretty tune.

Jew harp, Plath hearted, dream seamstress
who sits in the dark.
Who made me live here.
In a small room inside my head, little dictator
and I lit this place with music, just for you
Where all sounds but songs are dead-headed
Just before they bloom.

Totalitarian angel, rage-filled fragile smoke
who censored my tower of Babel.  
Who tamed my very rivers of song
to breathe the moon-tones as vapor, until as a sun  
you’d rise to scar these rivers, every single one
wherever you find them, with your face.
No matter how they run.

Paranoid animal with an understandable
aversion to caress and kinetic poetry.
Damsel who births her own dragons
like the fertility of hell, again and again.
Life and love belong to the monsters
the monsters you make of them
but all of them I’d befriend.

and I wonder.

I could chew my pen hand off
snared coyote.

I could swallow my tongue
dancing to dead note barks.

I could visually inhale that sun.
Take in all I can.
To get the eyelid ink spots.
The branded silhouettes
busying my eyes as I sleep
each night as I sleep.

Without this allergy to identity
you could turn this world backwards in me.
That hell of a snow-globe you hold
if only you knew what kind of world you controlled.