I did not stop writing but I swallowed each word whole
Without remark, buried where I could not read them
Or myself. I could not stop having feelings
But I hid them away- spirited far- speechless
They spoke anyway. I tried to die. I did not.

I can't blame you, or anybody specifically
but I was afraid of what I was made of.
The thing that was growing- it was me,
wildly me, wild anima. Whirling and warming,
I threatened to metastasize. But I did not.

I only swelled and grew and hurt, really tried hard
to find a window, to make space, and a home.
Terrified the author and editor- no one will buy this.
And so I killed that thing. I cut it out, and discarded it.
No one noticed. The parade moved on. I did not.

I hid like a wounded fox. I turned myself inside out
away from light, from sound, and love, and trust
I erased memories, wrote better endings, kept it easy
And this suited many, but never myself. Because
You can't actually **** what grows. I did not.

There’s nowhere for me,
nowhere I can scream—
quietly, peacefully.
I can’t disturb,
the gentle, quiet Night.

These tears know, too—
They only know one home,
stuck deep inside.
They drown in the ocean,
wondering when they will
fly from my eyes.

The time comes.
I shake, I tremble.
My soul goes ragged—
with grief, with joy,
with guilt, with love,
with anger, with hope.
It’s wretchedly beautiful.

I raise my chin.
I shake, I tremble.
But only a crack
forms in the dam.
Only a stream
seeps into my lap.

I unhinge my jaw.
I shake, I tremble.
I try to *****
the full blue moon.
But not a sound disturbs,
the gentle, quiet Night.

I can’t hear myself.
But it's screaming.
It claws, it hungers,
it wants out.
But I’m not ready.

My heart has grown
too attached to the weight,
of this dead child
hiding inside me.

An ice floe made of gathered up snow
that fell over thousands of years:
The snow’s source water had achingly grown
from billions of sweat drops and tears

But now the floe turns and starts to flow
in rivers of thawed out heart-ice
and emotions once caged start to angrily glow —
An avalanche loosed from its vice

The glacier crashes, a tectonic shift
as mountains of blue-white burst the dam:
The inland is transformed by dramatic drift —
Who will find new order in the break of the jam

my heart is hole punched
hidden in the back of my folder
rings clamped tight
to keep it from fluttering away
and though i don't write in pen
my words still bleed
ink smudged arteries

sordid scripture,
warring woman,
both menace and coquettish innocence
—barricaded.

statues,
fountains,
and restraining orders,
filling the garden:
decorations of
sunlight on a clock,
and a view into tomorrow,

revealing the "texture" of her skin
within the realm of her navel,
as soft as lace,
as smooth as
the surface of a pond.

before diving in
gives an otherworldly radiance,
her shape and smile
compared to everyday realities
are solemn in the extreme,  
the dawn threatens
to break in the east.

her voice,
(a lungfully deep, sensuous purr),
is so distinctive,
come what may,
this could be happiness:

sullen, waylaid and capricious,
her urban sexuality hidden
in the attic of revolution,
suffused with the dreamlike, hazy glow
of colored lights and tinsel.

desire is like Christmas
—it always promises
more than it delivers.

Foreign bodies with foreign bodies,
unknown hands with unknown hands,
we said we are in love together,
but we don't know where we stand;
such is the torture
of ghosts loving ghosts,
you never dared to tell me who you were,
nor I shared with you who I am.

Look at us now,
just two shadows in love,
no wonder when the two converged,
they slipped right through each other.

A quicksand cyclones downward at the center,
A spiraling hole spun around by the sands that enter,
They scratch at the innards of my heart,
Pulling everything down and ripping it apart,

I’ve tossed so many things at it,
But they just drop into this endless pit,
Nothing seems to fill it up,
Instead everything just gets ****** up,

It’s like having my flesh sliced by scattered grains,
Spun at high velocity as it sheers against my veins,
Carving out tiny wounds accumulate into scars,
Blood seeping, lost and disappearing with its cause,

Cries are ****** up and then dispersed,
Scattered into pieces until it’s no longer heard,
Screams are silenced by a ringing vacuum,
Run through bleeding veins buried in my womb,

It’s like something wants to come up,
Like a volcano that’s ready to erupt,
Everything that’s been sunk and saturated full,
It’s getting ready to finally burst my soul,

I didn’t want to shut it all up,
It wasn’t my choice to have it all ****** up,
I tried so hard to pull it out with my strength,
But I underestimated the length of my pain,

It’s been loaded and treated with all its vice,
So I don’t know how to clean it up nice,
I think my exterior is too thick for it to ever explode,
But I think that one day, I am going to implode.