She was never one to grow wings and fly away,
She just can't leave her tree and be vulnerable,
She needed to be strong for herself,
Now she grow roots and became the tree itself.

-HIY

Over encumbered by burden,
She finally breaks down.
Screaming every pain and sorrows,
That had cling to her very soul.

Now she lay there helpless,
Feeling as vulnerable as she could ever be.
With questions of how it should be ...
Easier to just die.

-HIY

Peeling away layer by layer, I'm slowly becoming whole.
Wrapper after wrapper- will someone eat my candy heart when there's nothing left to hide it?
I'm so exposed, so open; the breeze wafts between layers, shaking them loose, and they waft to the ground like leaves.
Will this edifice be strong enough to stand on its own?
Built out of feeble candy cigarettes and held together by pink bubble gum, it's already been chewed up and spit out, more wrappings being formed to protect its' already collapsing structure.
Will it survive?
Will I survive?
**Chomp.

A little girl in handmade dress.
           Black shoes with  
White knee-high stockings.
                       Shy eyes framed
By and hiding behind
            Long  curly
            Blonde locks,
Waiting with me at
                   The bus stop
Each school morning.

Vulnerable  
             Protected from the harsh
Outside world.
               But nothing can completely
Shut out its
                             Cruel essence.

The outside
                       Can creep in or the
Inside holds dormant
                      Outside influence
Like the eggs of the proverbial tree
                      Lizard laid among  eggs in a
Bird's nest  
             Remaining dormant to eventually
Hatch to feed on the newly born fowl.

Faith soothes the pain
                     By daily standing
On the sidelines
                     Of the pantomime
Of the mundane

As lush dense
Ivy reaches
                         For the sky but must
First slowly crawl
                              Over a cold
Gray wall of stone  
                               Reaching
For dreams and ideals
                          Once clearly seen
On the horizon of the
                      Unobscured  plains
Of childhood.
                    A bit harder at the myopic
Foothills of youth.  
                       Now harder than ever

At the jagged  
                  Snowcapped mountains of
Adulthood.

The curly locked
                             Little girl still lives
After all these years.  
                             Lives on to
                         Balance the weight
Of disappointments
                    Compressed by daily
Reminders of that

Once dormant inside
                       Influence unleashed
In the innermost
                      Sanctity of trust.

Lives
In the security
                        Of ideals gradually
Becoming reality.

                       That place in the heart
That no one can touch  
                             That no one can
Invade.

Thank God that home is where the heart is!

                     ¤¤¤

Tell me death is just a passage way.
Tell me you and I are inevitably bound
to the same destination though not always
on same route.

Rest a thought at the edge of my bed;
I never minded the immeasurable,
nor the immensity of what a second can bring.
Whether the cracks in the walls can speak
(their mouths are too close to my ears,
their breath is too far into my subconscious,
too far into my unforgivable thoughts),
or the outside air can fill an emptiness not yet defined-
it won’t matter-
closeness and loneliness have never felt this similar.

Rest your being onto mine;
This is the last drop of vulnerability I dare give away.

The word itself
The word itself
The word is lost,
And I am
Lost
In its shadow, its very being.

On, the, word - open
The word itself
The word I shreek from
I want to stay from....

The very word, the word that I will never be close to, the word,

Intamate