A small room
                       Austere
A sepia image
Retains a slender figure
                     In Silver frame

It rests
Upon a circular table
Where within fallen petals
A single barbed rose
Lays beside a Gillows chair
                   There is no vase

A newspaper
               Outdated
Placed with intent
On a chaise longue
Awaits a reply from
         An underlined entry
         That’s buried
         Within the lost and found

When I die
No one will mourn
There will be a funeral
Many will attend
mourning someone
That died when I was 10
The gravestone will be mistaken
About who I am
The people will weep
And mourn for long
But not for me
For they have it wrong
They will mourn the girl in the casket
A shell of who I once was
No one will mourn me
That is no lie
When I die they will mourn the shell
of a girl i once was
But the little boy inside
who’s always wanted to come out
No one will mourn him
Ace will be forgotten
He will be erased.

Splinters from a dead tree, afloat at sea,
burrow into my neck,
jolting me awake at sunset,
reminding me that the thorns serve
to keep us looking to the horizon
for a softer place to lay.

Maybe life can drift. Maybe it can float by,
like wood that forgot it was part of a forest.
I too was torn from the forest,
adrift without the ones
who once held me steady.

But then,
in the blur of a mirage,
I’d land on pain’s shore.
And I’m sure
that life, out on that log,
was gentler than this:
fire ants, rocky beaches,
the carcass of a beached whale,
and creatures that never found their way
back to the sea.

Isn’t It Nice to Have a Mother?
I write this poem to share a thought—

A reminder, perhaps, to offer extra kindness today.
Because not all mothers gave hugs,

Or left kisses along the way.

I had a mother who was my first bully—

The first to teach me to chase a love.

That was never mine to hold.

She taught me that love had to be earned,

That I needed to prove I was worthy of it.


The cost?

Low self-esteem, people-pleasing,

And a hunger for validation
In exchange for love she rarely chose to give.

She resented in me the traits she had been taught to hate in herself—


And now I see them,

 Reflected in my own insecurities,

In the body I’ve grown into,

In the weight I carry,
both seen and unseen.

Not all mothers are kind.

Not all are gentle.
Some are neglectful.

Some are cruel, 
In more ways than one.

So if I seem quiet today—
If I hold back on a day meant for celebration—

Please understand:
 It reminds me of the mother I did not have.

And of the mother I hope one day to become.

A white flower
Has bloomed on my porch
Small glistening raindrops
Fall below it
Seeping into the grass and its concrete
The morning sun shines
Over the horizon
Wishing better days
To those below
I think of you
As the mist blinds my eyes
As the crow cries at the mourning
Today the sun shines
Between the dense pillows
And masks the glint between my pupils

How thou art fallen, in darkness torn
That hath bound thee in endless mourn
Feelest how the moon drowns in sea
A song of vengeance, tenderly
Thou art in silence wearing souls
A sullen night where lone bells toll
Thy sorrow draped in veils so dark
Yet speaks wisdom as its art
Seek, o seek the path in dream,
As a dawn comes to redeem.

Phantom,
In your ethereal realm,
Alone in your deepest thoughts,
Do you remember me?

Phantom,
Show me those pretty white claws,
Tear into my chest and write out the contracts
Spare the clause, I’ll applaud
Knowing I’ll serve love like a cause
A refugee amid war,
Where the roses cut with their thorns
I’d bleed out to chase you down,

My eyes search in the bleeding pallid rays
Cutting through canopies -
Dancing upon the umbral silhouettes
Hoping that magic can make you appear
Tell me you don’t feel anything anymore
That it’s all a fantastical dream wrapped in fiction

Reach out to me, please, with your diaphanous touch
Soothe my unattended storms
Make the space between you and me less impossible
Where I can taste the air where your lips tease
Please take me with you.

Could the see-through glass
Weep a little for me one last..
I’m trying to leave it all behind
But we are like vines -
Twist as we twine,
Why can’t we tangle endlessly?

Phantom,
Tell me when you wake,
Do you even remember me?