i wish i knew what the birds sang of
then maybe I could listen to music about more than heartache and the grief that accompanies.
are there any bards left in the world
who could tell me of the tragedies
the otters went through
before they learned to hold hands when sleeping?
so that I may avoid drifting apart from my loved ones, too.
where can I find the proud redwoods
who will tell me what the world was like when they were saplings,
and the lily pads in the ponds, who didn’t have time to worry about trivial things
such as taxes and eternal damnation.
i am so hungry for love, life, knowledge.
does the world today only serve watered down versions of that? or is it only me who feels so starved.
what trade school exists that can teach me the skills I need to know how  
to walk into a room and make it more inviting
to radiate the warmth of several suns
to properly clean and disinfect the baggage of those i love?
because every year the rain comes down harder
and everyone knows how the melancholy grows faster than the mold

Exhaustion is a thousand starving mouths;
Insomnia, a single gnawing doubt.

You cannot blame me
For when your stomach folds
If you keep coming
To my forlorn tree,
Starving.
Not when the poor man's fruit-bearing bush
Is just the other way
Within the same, short walking distance

Trigger Warning: eating disorder mentioned
Tell Me Dear,

     Will you remember the days when I starved myself to a spine? Then I needed the hollow bones to match my emptiness inside. I needed to shrink to bare to be seen. Because then I was afraid my emptiness had begun to expand. I feared it would creep from within the confines of my chest and bare itself to the world. And you see, that’s why I had to stop eating. I had to make room in my gut so that I could hold the emptiness back from the world. And when that began to hollow my insides, I felt nothing but pain. I had no room left for the joy, happiness, or relief that containing the empty could bring. Those I left to all of you on the outside full. Maybe that’s why you all saw me as beautiful, because I brought you nothing but good feelings while I sneakingly choked myself on the bad. That goodness I gave you made me an angel in your eyes. But don’t you know angels have to be lighter than air to fly?

With all the love and goodness I could hold,
     Your Empty Flight

I feel breathless at any speck of thought —an idea— crossing my mind. I am restlessly wishing for something, prying for crumbs, and my mind is slowly sinking. Breathing words for oxygen, concepts for nutrients. I am a starving girl in a desert of words.

Homelessness to evictions to robberies,
Why all the poverty and violence?
Why can't we share wealth, peace and love?
Is it that hard?
It shouldn't be so hard,
It's actually pretty easy,
You eating while your people starving,
What kinda person are you?
We can all eat not just you,
Treat our brothers and sisters as equals,
Not treat em like peasants.

It has to get better,
We gotta treat our brothers and sisters better,
If you eating then feed your family,
Never let your family starve,
There's more love to be shared than hate.

Our way of living has to change,
Things only change when we change them,
Change doesn't happen on its own.

Sometimes
when I look in the mirror
i'm startled to see
me

When
I scrub off the pen lines
odd bits of makeup
all that's left is me

I stand there
bare and trembling
these are the pieces of me
and maybe I'm starving

but at least
I can feel myself smiling
because
these are the marks of my survival