i have nightmares like shattering glass
my thoughts are poetry that i can't chase down
i bleed black ink instead of blood
i cry hot wax
i smell like twisted *** dreams
my ribs crush my heart into diamonds
& my saliva drips like silk threads

Twists internally
Mirror bent
Shadow creature haunts me
Mind mental madness

There's a war raging between what I want and what I'm strong enough to handle.

The LORD is my shepherd.  I shall take it or leave it.
He watcheth me maketh my bed and then maketh me lie down in it.

He prepares a table before me in the presence of everyone I hated from high school
He has anointed my head with a migraine
And my cup runneth over

Onto my hands
All over the floor
Underneath the fridge

Surely anxiety and self-loathing will follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of my past mistakes forever

—-

I shouldn’t be afraid of your guiding hand.
Why don’t you look down upon me and help me make a stand.
(James Taylor too if you’ve got enough for the band)

In short, I think you’re a really great guy
And I’ll be telling you that until the day I die
But never out loud because I’m too **** shy
It’s nothing that a nervous laugh can’t hide

We say our demons are bad
We are told not to side with them
The rules are in place
To keep us from straying away
These demons that sit on my shoulder
That wander in my head
Tell me to go the other way
Say to take a walk down the other road
Make me question
Make me rebel
I feel a fiery pit in my stomach
as I look down the road
All the others are there
But should I stay here?
I am not to side with the demon on my shoulder
For it will do me no good
Except I can't help but feel a sense of wonder
A curiosity that pulls me the other way
An overwhelming of desire
Making me crumble onto the other side
You say not to listen to the demon in my head
But it has a way of drawing me in
With a crisp language that will never fail to entice me

B.Y.

You shout and scream
Angrily saying words that you don’t mean
And in the heat of the moment
You’re only looking to burn everything that you see
Because you my love, are an Arsonist
  
You and I are tangled in a web of miscommunication
Whereby you speak a different kind of English-
A dialect where I hate you translates into I love you
And the bruises that you cover me with,
Are just secret poems that you leave on my skin

I don’t understand the poems though,
For they were poems written in an ancient alphabet;
A one that is undecipherable to the rest of the world-

Only because you are the misunderstood lover
That is speaking in tongues that no one has heard yet

So I laid there bare as you read them aloud to me
All broken souled and on your knees,
And I saw the shame in your famished figure
While you stuttered and recited your apology.

You always told me that you loved me through a broken telephone,
Why?
And made me promises that I knew could not be kept,
Why?
I heard you say that that time, was the last time…

But all that your words are are simply tongue twisters
In a perpetual game of Chinese whispers

By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

Choose your conflict.*

                           *Internal

             ­                       Or

                            EXTERNAL?
­
                                      **It's gonna be one

Amongst the multitude of solitudnal whims
I carry within,
Down to you, forgotten.
A youth that's fighting,
refusing to succumb to the delicacies
of an aging core.
The dream of love renewed,
The ambiance of it.
The life of a thousand nights of falling star
wishes and programmed dreams.
A chance within our grasps.
Mirrors.

Desolately has my soul resided in this
phantasmal reality of dull referendum,
misunderstood.
Neglected, rejected, tortured, hurt,
and broken.
I remain hidden.
A cool calm collected exterior.
The world sees me,
or so it thinks.

Hilarious hideousness.
My deceptions so simple.
Smoke and mirrors, magician I am.
Humor the powerful blinding agent
of stares, opinions, and gossip.
I laugh internally as the world judges me.
Forms its superficial egotistical
repressed opinions of me.

Do you..... see me true?
Can you.....will you ever chose to?
Demonic presence ever near, trying to **** me.
Have I fear?.........No, I have no fear!

© Crystal Erickson  11/24/07

my mouth is wrapped in the tape of social conduct
my hands cuffed in handbooks and rules

I'm standing on this balcony teetering on social suicide and endless solitude
Running away into my pen and paper because it's the only one who can listen

Numbers and phrases you paste on my forehead like a bandaid, your words hold weight but not to the strongmen
Im on my hands and knees screaming myself raw and the clueless raise a glass and tell another joke

The castle I've built in your arms is tumbling down I'm under siege from my allies
It's a slow death being inches from your legacy and thousands of miles away in your sacred heart

When there’s more than the shallow guise
It’s a troubled heart that’s contending
With all those misguided actions
It’s hard to feel safeguarded
Cast your iron from within,
Forget those external supports;
Your fragile casing cannot compete
With the enemy inside
So lets drink to ‘one last time’
Say ‘it’s goodbye to the false victories’
Leave that torpid mind behind
Cause we’re fighting for those understated
As we march away from the crowd
To dance around and not within
There’s a perspective we haven’t seen
Those of the in-between