The cigarettes that left your mouth
Put burn marks on my arms
The words that left your mouth
Made no marks
But burned just the same

I recoil at the smell
Of anything burning,
Cigars at dinner or fireplaces
Send me into a dark corner of my mind
I lose myself, forgetting why I came.

The size of our suffer
Is relative to each other
Like gas between walls
It evenly falls
What fills our breath
Doesn’t seem to matter
Because between sickness and death
We choose the latter

*** tha **** outta’ hea

There’s no set way to elate
it’s all relative
we know that

(Thanks Einstein)

What makes you happy
now
make it a noun
persons places things

‘Being happy makes me happy’
is an acceptably weak answer
what makes my face glow?
have a reason
hold onto it’s grip

Parents to take our responsibility
Siblings to carry our roller-coaster emotions
Friends to co-create the madness we are
Relatives to form our extended safety networks
Spouse to satiate our mental, physical and lonely desires
Kids to give us those safe & positive vibes for future
Influentials and celebrations to realize our existence

But how about having one nameless relation?
One that doesn't mandate responsibilities?
One that doesn't burden expectations?
One that is Fearless, Formless & Weightless?
One that is 'Carelessly Caring' ?

She was 79 years old when she passed away.
She was my aunt and her name was Ina Mae.
When a relative passes away, it's always sad.
Ina Mae was the only blood aunt that I had.

She was special and she was Mom's only sister.
Many people loved her and many will miss her.
She was a wonderful lady and a loving mother.
She had a bond with her five kids who loved her.

She was a human being who can never be replaced.
She and mom are in Heaven which is a better place.
When she died in 2017, it was bleak.
Ina Mae was both special and unique.

I don’t know what I’m looking for
But I’m looking for something
And I keep ending up back at
“Everything is nothing”
Which means that nothing is something
And the thoughts refuse to stop coming
I know there’s no running

I cant escape being in this ring
Forever feeling like every direction is a haphazard swing
I can’t see a thing
Feeling like society’s puppet on a string
There’s a list I keep, sorta sloppy neat
But God tells me, “take a seat”
I yell back, “that’s no easy feat”

I don’t understand what all of this is for
Life feels like a game, except I can’t score
I can’t open the ****** door
They wanna say, “when life closes a door, it opens a window”
But all I see is a **** show
That’s not to say, I don’t see the beauty in how a river flows
That’s not to say, I don’t see the beauty in how the same river froze
You can tell me I’m dramatic, that I wallow in my throes
And yeah Lil *** told me, “that’s the way life goes”
But I’m fed up with everyone’s prose
I don’t want to believe that’s really how it goes

And so I sit with Robert Frost
At his two roads, curious at how he tells me he’s actually not lost
How it’s not left to the probability of a coin toss
That everyone just wants to be their own boss
Pretending that they aren’t nailed to their own cross

I don’t know what I’m looking for
But I think maybe I’ve been playing the game wrong
That there is no score which could lead to more
All I’ve got is a case of nothing being something
And that’s really nothing more
Than “everything is nothing” for sure.

.Digging for my roots,
Through fragrant soil,
Rocks scrape my wrists,
Moving deeper,
Entangled in the maze,
Rich with the past,
My ancestors are lost in the dirt,
Their names forgotten, but they are there in my DNA,
Marking me with their gifts, their trauma, their choices,
I am not one,
I am many.

11/2017 by Leah Oviedo @ ImpowerYou.org