Is something I can teach,
At sea or on land,
Use of a compass
And a parallel rule,
Dividers and a plotter,
All to find out where I am
Where I wish to be
And what course to steer,

In matters of the heart,
Also - as do we all -
I do my best to plot
A course to best effect,
But lately I have been
All at sea in darkness,
Steering by dead reckoning,
And raw blind hope,

A nerve racking
Time sailing blind,
Unaware how sands may shift,
How deep the seas or shallow,
How far away the land,
Until now at last the sun has risen,
The darkest hour has passed,
And you my darling destination
Are right across my bow

Tis the season to be falling
Tis the season to be gay
Tis the season to be flying
Higher, farther, away ~

Chains loosened she calls to her mother
An earthy musk, grains of sand, mud on her face. A scruffy mutt laying listlessly on the tarmac, ribs rattling with the effort of each breath. She is home.

Muted flames thrashing in its cage, raging in the midst of civilization, a crucifixion of sorts. Tearing at its hair wildly, the masses trickling by, mouth agape in a silent scream. Ashes mixed into pieces of scalp, begging to be found.

Oblivious to a sound like thunder, clapping in one's ears. Strangled scream lost in translation, a language so old none could decipher. Fear wielding urgency, a disguise of desperation, depression.

Refusing to be still.

To this day on
I have not thrown away your photos –
they have invaded the closet;

lie in the company of broken navigation
next to the meetings at places that are gone.

Focusing my thoughts:
I believe in wounds healed by time,
not sometime,
but sometime
I forget to take out the trash.

You'll never know how near the edge we came,
sailing past the world that's known to men.
Your ignorance, good Captain, was to blame
for the risks we took. You do not ken
how fragile was the ship, nor how the crew
was suffering in waters cold, beyond
our charts of isles and straits, the seas we knew
were far behind us, out of sight, long gone.
I guided us through danger, reefs and shoals;
the crew were stalwart, never letting fear
overwhelm their courage, though we rolled
upon our beam-ends, bringing shipwreck near.
You'll never know the gauntlet that we ran
to set your feet so gently on the land.

I really, really don’t want to be beautiful.

I want to make people tremble.

I want to walk into a room and turn people’s heads- not because I’m pretty, but because I walked in with such confidence that people go “****.”

I want the wrong people to be scared by me, and the right people to take me as a challenge, but I want everyone to be intimidated by me.

I want to be the woman no one dares **** with.

I want to be compared to Cleopatra- not in terms of how pretty or symmetrical her face was, but because she seduces men into her bed with her mind and intellect.

I want to be compared to powerful and unstoppable forces of nature, where they aren’t powerful Because of their beauty, but beautiful because of their power.

So this is why I get insulted when you call me pretty before you call me smart.

I think I made a wrong turn somewhere.
I mean, I guess- well, it's embarrassing, but I just kept following my GPS
even when the roads got rough
and my gut felt a little strange
(you know it, right?  That twinge you start to get when you realize you have no idea where you are?)
and before I knew it,
I was in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe the batteries are low,
though you'd think they'd install some kind of warning about that-
I mean, people are depending on these things, you know, to get them places.
They've even got them in phones.

Google Maps, I hear.

Anyway, I really...I really think I'm lost.
Could you give me directions?