Just when you think you're doing okay,
just when you think your life might finally be headed in the right direction,
someone from your past walks by in the grocery store.

They don't have to be someone who was particularly special or important to you or your life at any point.

They don't even have to be a friend.

Regardless of who they are,
they never fail to remind you that your life is not actually ok--
it's in shambles,
and suddenly that oh-so-genuine smile on your face
cuts into you like so much shattered glass,
because your life *****,

and nothing you have done up to this point can actually change it at the end of the day.

They claimed to have heard a voice in the sky
A voice that promised a civilization to safety and salvation
But maybe I was too deaf to realize
Or even hear that such a voice could be heard from thousands of miles up high
Maybe I was too ignorant and followed my own instincts and lies
But who are you to blame me, I was a young child
Eyes that have not yet been opened
Arms kept clean to the years to come, and counting
Skin left to reflect the admiration the moon has for its lover
And a smile kept genuine, that served as a curtain for the crooked teeth behind it
I was a young child at 9

Years passed and the moon still had a lover
The sun emanated its guidance and love for her
Yet the people still worshipped the voice above them
I heard they started building statues and churches, to which I turned the other ear
Because the only thing I believed was that they were soon to crumble
And become the origin of which is rubble,
A combination of corpses, offerings and slavery on top of one another
I refused to believe that such a voice could lead a civilization to destruction
Yet people were so deceived, their heads remained high,
Exposing their necks to a god that I called a murderer
But who are you to blame me, I was an ‘ignorant’ girl
My eyes were coated with the truth
I had stopped counting the years I was clean
And began to enumerate and name the scars I hid beneath my sleeves
Yet my skin remained warm from the radiance of two lovers I believed
The sun guided me and the moon sang me to sleep
I was an ‘ignorant’ girl at 17
The year when my genuine smile, disappeared

Now I am left with nothing else but to question
And in return receive an answer not worth my time nor the oppression,
That I experienced throughout this lifetime I chose to not believe in them
The 'them' who claimed to have heard the voice in the sky
And the 'I' that chose to turn deaf enough to realize
That there is no such thing as a perfect civilization of safety and salvation
I was not ignorant because I had my facts laid out in front of me and them
But they never believed a word I tried to verbalize,
How ironic for a nation of people to believe a non-existent voice from the sky
To which they turned their backs to the sun that kept them warm and to the moon of dimmed brightness and light

But now, I am left with nothing
So I went back to where it all started, the origin, and held my head up high
Revealed my neck to the god I believed was a lie
And for a split second, I thought my neck would cut open and blood would start coursing down my chest instead of my throat

I believed I thought I would die

n.j.

Dragging my head on the ground
No one, no one’s
I’m catching death on my lips

Sliver off my flesh
Heart’s beating bruises
Well, there’s nothing here but nothing
So give up

Won’t you wear me like a sweater?
Drape me loose across your legs?
Tie me to the bottom of your nothing head?

Kiss me till I turn to dust
Kiss me till I turn

I’ll believe in something when I’m dead
We’re all just passing over each other’s empty skin
Don’t pretend anything
Life’s as worthless as it seems

Swallow your glass whole
Nothing will
Burning through your open closed
Swing, miss, swing

There’s an empty grave beneath the park
Where smiling children sing hymns to a silent dark

Who was suffocating
Once here, or nowhere?
Yellow toothed maniac
Down, dead, dying

I’ve worn my neck right through
Thinking of you

I cherish no dreams of sand..
My head aches... my glass thoughts collide.

A ticking bomb... my blood turns to lava and i cook inside my skin...

drowning whispers lick my mind clouds...

a sour taste of discomfort sends a sickening twitch down my beating limbs.

Ejected into a timeless void between worlds..

Where planets eat one another...

A silent witness to the end of all things...


decolorized  and stripped of mortal chains

the sigh i have become...


I hold no dreams of sand...


But when life shows its fragile side....

I have no choice but to cherish the obsolete purpose...

Of our futile human lives....

I want to sleep..
I want to sleep and dream a dream
of falling asleep and dreaming.

I want to laugh..
I want to laugh at myself, my laughter
and laugh at the thought.

I want to live
I want to live a life and be immortal
and die to prove me wrong.

We were all raised on lies.
Santa Claus, God, Democracy,
all known to be untrue,
in the hearts of even the most earnest
mommies and daddies,
almost certainly untrue, all of it,
as they fed us, the society of lies,
one spoonful at a time into our innocent mouths.

Every mommy and daddy learns why,
as their guilty hearts realize why truth
can’t be told to the glistening, trusting eyes
of their most precious spawn.

Eat up, my dear thing.  Maybe
you’ll find someone else to help share
your burden, maybe to love.
Live long, and watch them all die,
Watch your every labor crumble and blow away,
just in time for all your precious memories
to rot in the ground.

The heart dares not tell the truth, even to itself,
dares not invite the question no
mommy or daddy is prepared to answer:
Why?  Why did you create me in such a world?
Because I wanted someone young to fetch me things.
Because my life was empty.
Because that’s what mommies and daddies do.
Because I’ll die first, so it’s safe to love you.