a yellow fabric just
as vibrant and brilliant as the
golden tulips that grow in
the banks of the fields
in which innocence and
laughter roams.

A young woman cloaked in
such material searched for that
of her hearts content,
a romance that would file suit
in the realm of the books she
would read.


She was hopeful, and the
springtime was her catalyst.
The earth was replenishing,
coming back to life, the
tulips springing to life
and the days were longer,
the sun brighter and the clouds
less dreary and forlorn.

He skin was soft, untouched by that of
another, but she wanted to change that.
Her sheltered mind ached for the
touch of a lover, a prince of sorts,
and she'd wait for him,
no matter the length of time,
no matter the cost,  
no matter the physical
or emotional
transgressions.
She'd wait alongside the tulips,
alongside the budding of spring,
the scorching of summer,
the closing of fall, and the
harboring of winter.

She'd wait in her gown of yellow,
just as vibrant as the
tulips around her.

Two households warranted an aggression for one another for years,
so much so that some weren’t even sure what the Kingsley and
Callahan household feuded over, but among their vivacious
feud they also presented beautiful daughters.

Rebekah Kingsley, a woman of bold nature,
one with locks of hair as dark as that of freshly hardened obsidian,
skin the color of a soft caramel, lips plump,
and taunt cheekbones that seemed to have been sculpted
by the creator towards the heavens themselves.
She was a fearless woman, brave, taking others by storm,
but her passion and capability for love was ever so fervent.

Juliana Callahan, a woman of fine nature,
one with the need to adventure, and soft features that
delicately spawned from the swells of her cheeks,
her doe green eyes, and the petite frame in which she presented.
Juliana had hair the color of freshly fallen hazelnuts,
skin that was the color of a peachy cream,
and lips that were a natural shade of pink that mimicked
roses at the height of their first bloom.

Two women, two powerful components of the family’s
ongoing war found refuge in one another, hiding their identifies
at a masquerade, able to parade around as who they could be,
not who they had to be in public, and their affections were not
warranted, not in such a time period, but that didn’t stop
their immediate connection, the immediate spark of fire that ignited
even when the slightest brush of fingertips aligned
with one another’s exposed collarbones.

They talked, sharing a connection of one they had never found in
another companion, one they had never felt so deeply in
the swells of their hearts and the depth of their beings.
The were infatuated with one another, so lost
within a blissful cloud of desire, lust, and affection.

Their renditions of culture and rules had become obsolete since they
had laid eyes on one another. They had forgotten their rules,
the public strictures that were placed on them,
aspiring to talk to one another, to share words of
love, of affection, and of a deep connection, and they did.
They spoke, realizing that they couldn’t live without one another,
but such an infatuated love couldn’t survive with the ongoing
war between the Kingsley and Callahan family,
no love could break apart a feud that had been so engraved for years.
No love could be accepted, not in a society where
the romance between two lovers was considered unholy
if it were not between a man and a woman.

Such a feud lead to the death of the poor lovers,
one that was tragically poetic of their love, of their story.
Rebekah’s father had found out about the affair,
exalting his energy in kicking her out, shunning her,
making sure to never see her beloved once more,
but the two had already married themselves to one another
since the moment they laid on eyes on each other.
Rebekah couldn’t handle such an outcome,
so she took it upon herself to retrieve her own
means to end her life.

Rebekah harbored a poison, one potent and as strong
as the thorns that clip at ones skin when procuring
a freshly blossomed rose.

The Kingsley Lady let the poison trickle down her throat, staining her lips,
allowing it to seep into her skin.
Juliana found her lover, cold and hardened, lifeless
and inanimate. She kissed her to ingest the poison,
but it had been too late; the poison had layered itself
deeply into Rebekah’s lips.

A cry escaped Juliana’s lips, and then a whimper proceeded
afterwards, revealing the phonetic boundaries of her broken heart, for
she had nothing left, she had no passion,
no love, no desire, no want. Her lover, her supposed bride
laid before her, dead within her arms.
She was weeping heavily, salty tears staining the tenderness of her
rosy cheeks, so Juliana looked to that of her lover’s corpse,
taking the dagger which rested to the left of her.

She reached out, her shivering palm and fingers clasped
around the object, tightening her grasp as she let her eyes
remain attached to Rebekah’s body as tears streamed down
her face at a persistent manner; she brought the blade up,
uttering her love for Rebekah, telling her
“We shall not be parted forever, doth not leave me,”
she whispered with trembling and chapped lips,
plunging the dagger into her chest.

Lavender petals dust the
floor of the shop,
pearls of stems and beads
of thorns stick up from
the carrier bins on display.

Fingertips grace the
blooms of the pink and twilight
nuzzled petals,
so pretty, so fresh,
so ethereal.

A flower shop,
a vortex of learning and beauty,
one for joyous occasions
or forlorn ones, but
for occasions nonetheless.

And my occasion
for such a place with
such ethereal beauty
and flowers with
limbs of outstretched
support and beauty came from
loving and caring for you.

Wineglass

An hour to midnight
     low lit lights
     gentle undertones

    stained clouds of moisture
in a glass of wine
as thick
         as ripe layers of fog.

hums of symphonies,
          swells of low pitched voices,
              crescendos of conversation.

     murmurs, whispers of fine China
      and the newest editions of
       oil paintings from Italy

                                      Midnight at the gallery

Once
clear glass, stained with
lipstick and breath --
     Laughter, light and
     undertones of ripe berry
lingered on the tip of glass.  

eyes wandering
over canvases of
lavish art
While stained clouds
of  moisture

are as thick as
ripe layers of fog.

You wouldn't believe me
even if I told the truth.
You wouldn't see a darkness
in my soul which you have
painted as light, as pure.

My role is that of an
innocent woman,
that of one with mild
tendencies,
that of one with
of stinging words,
and deliberate opinions.

No one ever sees
how dark I am.
They see the flux of
light that I have to offer.

They don't know the secrets
which I keep.
I'm too kind, I'm too simple,
I'm too sweet, but that's my
stellar performance on stage.
It's where I take my blossoming
breaths, where I indulge
myself in act one,
enabling myself a
break before act two
and before
the grand finale.

It never ends, for the
dramatic monologue
is of a continuous cycle of both
expectations and mildness that
I uphold.

Darkness. It's there.
You just don't see it.
No one sees it with
people like us.

The most innocent hide
the most complex secrets,
The most innocent hide
the darkest secrets, but
no one sees them until it's
too late.

Sophistication,
is it determined by grace,
by stature,
or by class?

For sophistication is to
be defined by not what
a person has, but
by what a person can
accomplish.

Reassignment: Verses in Fragments


i. awake

Piercing, ruthless -- no maybe relentless is better. Awakening from a grasp so harsh, tethered to icy ****** of expectations. Words of coercion and malice ring, slamming like thunder, fluid with heterodoxy: you're an it huh? look at him -- it's a him you wanna be right?

    Laughs, indecent and rioting, and that ruthless charade of orthodox behavior hurt him. Hurt them. Awake to who they were. Hard to grasp, terrifying yo admit, punching the ticket to their own match.

    Tears stretched past the brims of swollen eyes, enduring each hurled assault of syllables -- how do I stop it?

ii. begin

Refuge in a screen, in the safety net of a bridge reality. Asylum found in the hands of similar misfits. The insults of it from verse i. -- it?

    Heard so many times perhaps it had been a level hard to be clear of. Bubbling and morbidly sticky at the surface of their own secret.

   Hands clutched to their skirt on Sunday for church, hands digging into the flesh of their thighs on a Saturday night. Under the escape of another human -- another person not from the retrospective circle of heterodoxy that suffocated them.

iii. epiphany

Saccharine puffs of fingertips bloomed on the bridged hips. Tears or resentment upon discovering the geography of an anatomy assigned without intervention.

   The revelation of gestured dreams, honey coated and dripped in the cloak of youth, cinched with the bodice of their crippling environment.

    What are you? -- Asked over and over, trying to present for a world of alienated oddities and and disorders. Clutch again. Fingers deeply dug into the hems of their skirts, in the fabrics of hidden flannels and binders wrapped in secret around the channel of their chest.

      Fluid. Changing. Unsure spoken in response.

iv. shadow

Hide behind the familiarity of cyclonic and disposed love and consciousness. Stumbling winds and scraped egos are less than transparent, seemingly an impossibility among the issues they feel.

     The dark cloak embodies the identity, the presentation and realization of being trapped.

     Monitoring the standards that wouldn't categorize them as the genuine way they see themselves, presentation the frugal decoration they dangle to the orthodoxy of society to stay hidden.

v. persona

Fingertips fidgeting with the sirens of noise, laughs and loud voices fill halls, centers. They weren't meant for this, meant to be so forced into the social structure that terrifies them.

     Pads of scarred flesh rooting from the bottom up, eyes glimpsing the possibility of others around them.

   Those saccharine touches of loathing and the journey for love and acceptance remains fragmented, continuous, and fluid.

A crack in my skin,
you glued it back together.

  a blemish with my mind,
you fixed it by force.

   a doll

that's what you wanted from me

compliant. complacent.

   easily doted in affections
and sacred anecdotes.

   you were devout to me,
but weren't you that way with all your dolls,
with all of your collections?

   I was promised to be your favorite,
but a favorite isn't pushed to the back,
kept in an attic with no golden rays
willing to shine on the broken skin.

   your favorite wasn't ignored.

   I wasn't your favorite, but perhaps that was for the best.

    you're a dollmaker,
a cruel one with
tenebrous standards, ehtics.

and help those who are your
f a v o r i t e creations;

as every day passes by,
I thank myself for
denying your quips any longer,
your routines,
the melodies of your lackluster
yet pretty promises.

   I was a doll, yours to be exact,
but pretty promises with no
density, and formidable
abandonment and ignorance
shall only go so far.

a world so crumpled in the folds
of black and white exhibit
no color, no individuality
or hopefulness.

  a world of conditions,
agreements, and contracts
dwindled the creative senses
of the budding youth and
the creativity of the
newly implied, fruitful minds,
but the youth never entirely failed.

   when pushed down into the
heaps of ranks amd despair, a
dew hopefuls remained.


  youth used the broken bits of
crayons, of whole pieces and
shavings to apply to the crumpled
corners of the world,
starting off with a few swipes of color
among the horizon
and the skyscrapers of the world.

  the once black and white world
began to blossom in shades of
violets and yellows, bleeding
down the white pages, smearing
among that of shades of
blues and greens,
creating a world that was once
referred by legends or stories
as being a
a world full of color,
a world so fruitful in love
and perseverance, and
it ended up being strong
enough again to become reborn
once more from the hands of the
youth.

Your touch lingers on me, it burns my skin in a way the heavens could never heal.

   Even the divine impunity of the whitest rays couldn't cool the blistering touch you left, for they weren't strong enough to win the battle.

   Your touch was that of darkness, but it had its own light of onyx, one so abrupt and real that it held me captive, for no one's touch could suffice to yours.

The boughs of a placid embassy
fall flat when the citizens
become the crumbling pillars
that hold up the already fractured foundation.

You broke me so you
wouldn't have to suffocate.
You tore me apart so you
could remain in one piece.
You stole my compassion so
you could be kind.

You were nothing short of a monster,
nothing short of a being
who fed off of sorrow my
and depression.

You fed such incorrigible
desires with your actions,
and I didn't see it.

   I was far too engraved
  in the very transgressions of my
illusions; the offense
of your brilliantly covert mind.

So manipulative you were,
yet I was so willing to listen to
your words, to anything
around me that involved you,
but you were a
monster.

   Nothing less.

   Nothing more

You dug your claws into my flesh;
you pierced your teeth into the warm fabric,
lapping away at the life force I had.

You did what monsters did.
You broke me.
You stole what you could from me.
You made me weak.
You made me small.
You kept me around for your own
persuasions and manipulations.

I was your means to an end,
just as any monster's victim is.

You chose me.
   I let you in.
I kept you closest to me, revealing
that of my darkest secrets and
fears,
but you used that against me.

Such intimate details were wasted
on a monster, and they only fed
Into your rough agenda.

Fear, pain, and anguish
that's what you
craved, and that's what you
received from me.

A monster you are.
A monster you will always be.

Nothing less.

Nothing more.

Everyone tells you it's simple
to get over a spill of depression.
That's what they think it is.
A
Spill,
but it's more than that.

A spill ruins what's around it,
the liquid often stains the
surface where the initial spill
happened, but emotions
such as depression can not
simply be summed up into
such a simple solution.

They tell you it can.
They tell you it'll get better.
They offer up the reprieve of a
swift conversation to make 'you'
feel better, but it's not entirely
the truth.

Such a conversation is offered up
at your expense.

They want to not feel neglectful.
A feeling of that magnitude would
weigh too heavily on their
conscious.

So, they tell you to get better.
They tell you another day
is a day to turn around, to smile,
to he thankful, but it's not that simple is it?

Should it be?
They tell me it should be,
but how can I believe them
when my body rejects such a sentiment.
My mind detests those words
because such a powerful mechanism
knows the truth.
It isn't a spill.

My body harbors depression,
letting it leak into my mind,
my thoughts, my actions, and
my knowledge.

It shatters away at the tethers
of happiness I have,
leaving them practically
bare and decrepit by the time
the process of joyful
malnutrition departs from
my system.

The system that they say
will get better.

They offer advice,
but no solution.
They act is if they know,
but have no experience.

Spills.
Can joy be considered a spill?
Can sorrow be considered a spill?
Can hate be considered a spill?

Spills are temporary.
They are overflowing,
lapping away at the sides of
the fixture holding it in.

Spills can be taken care of,
they can be forgotten, but
depression can not, and yet,
they treat it as if it's a simple
emotion, but it's far more complex.

It
Is
Not
A
Spill.

They didn't want to hurt me,
but I wanted them to.
They didn't want to break me,
but I begged to be broken.

Maybe it was me who was
the monster, but how could I be?
I knew what I wanted,
I wanted to feel something,
anything.

Pain, anger, relief;
I needed to feel something.
I was drowning in my
own mind, I was
loosing myself, and
I needed out.

Pain would have been
better then nothing,
and that's what they gave me.
They gave in, breaking me,
corrupting me, and replenishing me
all at once.

I was to be used at the
disposal of my own
dark whims and self denial
of scorching need and
brazen ambitions.

Such pretty words from such a collected
and soothing voice, a voice given
coherence by a pretty mouth.

Was that why I could believe your lies?
Why they were so beautifully constructed?

   So beautiful that even the most candor
of men couldn't tell the truth
from the fiction in your words.

and only I could see it once
your words became repetitive,
and the beauty of your lies
were too much to not go unnoticed.

only then could I label you as a beautiful liar.

Constellations

A roadmap of our galaxy,
Intricately placed to create the Orion belt
introduces  the --
Taurus and Draco.

Discovered: given
Names and epithets that act as
bandages of history and hope;
pillars of the past, broken and shattered;
not only good memories do the constellations hold.

A roadmap millenniums aged
and still cryptic, enigmatic.
There for the fall of the Roman Empire:
A witness of the fallen bodies and cracked glass
human hearts of Auschwitz.

Constellations: surrounded by onyx, stars doctoring the constellations,
creating stories -- undiscovered and renewed.

A galaxy of muted midnights, murky blues,
darkened purples, vibrancy and life present one day,
muted and cloaked in obsidian
The next.

Community,
they told me I
I was a part of it,
that I must comply.


We’re told to comply
in the way we speak,
in the way we interact,
in the way we feel.
Those who oppose,
those who stand
for a transcendental nature
are fitted with the title
of an Outcast.


An Outcast: A person
deemed unfit to live
amongst the classiest
of society. It’s a title
given out by the Elites.
They give out a title
under the predicate of a
falsehood and the personal
perpetual facade of laziness.
I am neither.


I am in the world, yet I am
somewhere that isn't Earth.
I am here, but I am not.
I exist, but my mind, my
opinions become a blur.


My mobility becomes a leisure,
and my leisure becomes my labor;
My labor becomes my profession;
My profession beholds my title.
I roam in the society casted by the
Elites, but I am merely a chess piece
to their game.


I am not an Outcast, I am not an Elite.
I am the class of the inbetween.
I am the silenced voice.
I am the history that’s repeated,
I am not a part of the community.
I am of the voices that
are disregarded.

Beauty is a fallacy.
It makes sense to us,
but who has the right to
determine it?

The majority of the
Population perceives that
they are given that right,
for beauty has been twisted,
manipulated and barbed into
a wire that is toxic and
vehemently grotesque.

Beauty is subjective,
Its core isn’t objective.
We like to think it is,
but in reality, in notions,
in principles, and in practices
it is not

For beauty is determined by grace,
by elegance, and most importantly looks.

Beauty of thought and process
is highly disregarded.
It has become but a mere
illusion, barren in both
the intricacy of reality and truth.

Beauty is subjective, yet
it is determined by predispositions
and implicit standards that
originated many years ago,
yet these originated ideals
still reign supreme today.

Beauty is far more than
an outward façade,
For beauty is truth,
beauty is compassion,
beauty is knowledge
beauty is humility.

their love isn't their own
it isn't a shared moment
like the rest who follow the
straight narrative.

they steal their kisses behind
doors, buildings, alleys,
places people wouldn't pay them any mind.
they flinch in fear.
Afraid to be seen, afraid to show
who they love.

their love is already decided.
They're birthed to follow
the straight narrative.
Having to be with someone,
their heart doesn't desire.
To be what others want.
To be safe.

Their love is too ethereal
for the people who hate them
to ever understand.

Their love is too different
for others to synthesize.
Their love is pure, wild, and spirited.
For they don't follow the bounds
or the narratives
Society has implemented.

As wild and pure and spirited as
their love is. They still
have to hide.
Afraid of isolation
and persecution.
Afraid of loving who
their heart aches for.

Grandmother had told me tales of the past,
Fairytales that we’ve all heard of,
The maidens in the scullery maid attire,
transforming to the princesses with the
embroidered and jeweled gowns; rivulets of silks and satins,
blue as the sea, greener than the highlands, more purple
then the dusky skylines, a true stamp
of royalty, poise, eloquence, and beauty.
And ensembles topped off with gold
encrusted and amethyst crowns.
Sure, the fairytales were what I lingered
onto during the years of my inexplicitly
innocent childhood, that I wished I still had.

I missed it, the tales, the anecdotes
that shaped my perception on love, hope, and faith,
far off from what I viewed in the looking mirror today.

I missed my grandmother’s hands, brittle and worn,
but kind and warm; I still thought about them
as I cleaned out the attic in which I’d forgotten existed.

And I grew up, my memories of it faded,
now covered in cobwebs and bristling wind
that sent a chill up my spine, but I found
much more than what my memory had allowed me to collect.

Amulets from what I assumed to be my grandmother’s youth
were stowed and tucked away in the alcove of a velvet shelf,
hidden by the splintered of decaying wood.

Next to the swell of the dresser, the door of the
furnishing remained ajar, revealing manila
colored increments of letters, some harbored
by the envelopes, some pierced out in the open.
The edges had crippled away,
flecks falling to the sandalwood bottom.

They were timeless, old, maybe not important,
to the wandering eyes of a stranger.
But to me - they held a mystery
that was waiting to be unraveled.

A story of my grandmother’s life she never shared with me,
just as private as she was open, perhaps I’d find in those envelopes
the same mindset I also had when I was young.
Perhaps she believed and dreamt of fairytales I had once done,
paraded around in the jewels and bangles hidden way,
basked in the ambiance of a sweet love
that was doomed to end in the decay of both parties.

Little figurines of silver and gold were placed under one
of the drawers parked away in the furnishing,
toys form her childhood, weighted by standard and price.

Her words I had adored as a child,
ate them up like sickly syrup and supported
them as if they were undiscovered treasure, but
now I finally got to “see” my grandmother’s
treasures deposited in her attic, the very place she
had hidden the most interesting stories that she
left for me to discover after she left.

The room we shared our
first laughs in, our first hugs,
our first touches, our first kisses.

   Wasn't it precious?
grounded in reality but
fulfilled through fantasy.

   the shallow breaths we both shared,
the way our bodies pressed together,
discovering one another
and learning the bounds of
our movements,
the curves of our hips and
tides of our love,
the way our bodies responded
to our words, our lips, our tongues.

  the bedroom is where we gave
ourselves to one another, the
place where we could share
that of our deepest secrets and desires,
the place where I felt safe with you.

don't you remember that?
you must, if not, maybe it
was im fact memories grounded
in fantasy instead of
memories grounded in reality.

The ink of my pen pressed firmly
into the parchment,
staining it with an idea,
with a thought that was
of my own mind.

The parchment was rough,
withered at the ends from the
lack of neglect that I had
spared it upon it during the years it
retained its fine age in my attic,
collecting the very dust that
bargained with time.

The pen, the parchment were the tools
I had at my disposal,
they were the tools I relied
on during a daily basis.
Such basic items to another
person would seem insignificant,
but were they?
Not to me,
but that was the price of it all.
The price of being mistaken
as something I wasn't.
There was a price of humility
that came with a passion,
that came with the dying
art form of prose, poetry, and fiction.

Those art forms
that express that of our
deepest desires,
concerns, and
problems.
Written words can express parallels
in the way that speech may not be
sufficient in doing.

That's where my humility,
my passion, and
my work originate from.

They stake a claim
on the spontaneity of words,
of sentences,
and the nuances of the
language that can convey
just what I forge them to.

Oh, how these kind acts of pleasure,
and these kind acts of movement
bring me both joy and sorrow.

The pen on the parchment brings me
into the realm of both reality and fiction,
giving me the ability to speak as freely as
I want to.

Chained down to such a society,
such a group of people around me
who entice me to strive in such a way
that contributes to the thoughts
of the inner dwellings of my mind,
lapping them up and laying them out
on the old, dusty, and fine aged parchment.

These thoughts are private,
and yet, they are very public.
They are for those who wish to listen.
They are for those who wish to ignore.
They are both a pleasure and a pain.

They are from me,
and they are given to you.
They are humility, and
they are pride.
They are local, and
they are foreign;
they are to be used with
the utmost intention of
fluid emotionality and
cordial necessity.

Tears weren't enough of a release for me.
They told me to cry, to get it out,
that it would heal me, but it only worsened
the state of melancholy I had found myself
to be drowning in.

A state that I had thought I wouldn't reach
once more, but that revelation had
soon shifted into a paradoxical
entity of truth.

Tears were simply an expression of
what I couldn't hold back.
They were droplets of guilt,
embarrassment, and inadequacy.
They were my tears, and I had felt
them trickle down my reddened and
sensitive flesh; they felt like home.

They were my physical rationale
for pain; a liquid that only
made an appearance when I
was weak enough to let it fall.

Pain was normal, but not this type of pain.
This pain was desolation.
It was alienation.
It was abandonment.
It was forlorn.
It was tenebrous,
and it was mine to bare.

It was on full display just as the
crucifixion of my emotions were.
The nails tore into the soft
rivets of my trust,
the wood planked against
my frame of my affection,
and the crown of thorns twisted
and entrapped my head of
kindness and docility.

Meldings of feelings aren't to be
recognized by me anymore.
All such inclinations to do so have
caused me worry, anxiety, and a forlorn
sense of abandonment, so why continue
with such harmful dues?

They aren't for me anymore.
Maybe in the span of years they will be.
They may be ready to be picked up,
dusted off, and cleansed from the
pads of my fingers, but for now
they shall remain away from me,
a distant part of my memory and personality,
not conditioning themselves into my life.
These inclinations shall no longer
harbor the need for love, for
dependence, for the sweet disposition of
feeling whole.

These inclinations aren't there anymore,
they left me a while ago.

Kind, they told me I was kind.
Forgiving, they told me I was forgiving.
Understanding, they told me I was understanding.
I was.
Such statements I can't deny,
but how can one remain the same
when such character traits only
harm them in the end?
How can I remain the same, how can
I remain kind when it is never
given in return?

Second chances have been spent, and
I have none left to give.
I remained exhausted in the practice
of self loathing and misrepresentation.


I can't remain the same.
I won't remain the same.

His hands were calloused,
they were home and a
remedy for the mixture of
my sickness that I never
could pinpoint.

Hands, such a feature
that could be the instrument
of a subordinate
and domineering teacher.

They are looked upon,
not given thought nor inquisition,
but that wasn't the case for me.

Those hands were
where I found my
reprieve, an unhealthy
and vindictive reprieve.

Those hands were
a paradox of all
things combined.
Those hands were a
paradox for the cruelties
and involuntary injustices
in the world; A world
that was filled with grizzly
reprimands and slurs for
those who spoke up.

Indeed, a paradox those
controlling and
manipulative hands were.
They were cruel.
They were kind.
They were abusive.
They were reassuring.
They were foreign.
They were home.
They were the origin
for my shred of sanity.
They were the origin
for my absurdity.

Oddly enough,
they were home.

A cruel world seals
its fate and its pearls.
It leaves the rarity of
oddities abandoned among
the normalities of abuse.

Among those normalities
and oddities were those
hands.

; –
    Keep me up at night with your
  praises and your melodies of sweet
  tidings, but let me sleep
   to the sound of your screams and
    angry sentiments.

Give me that of my own choice.
  give me the availability to choose that of
   which slumber I'd prefer from you.

Give me a bit of your love darling, burn the soft petals of my sanity too

Her own love isn't enough
it never is
not when she can't be what her mother wants.
tears of desperation fall and
linger below her eyelashes
and dry on her cheekbones

those cheekbones her mother gave her
those cheekbones her mother birthed to her
Yet,
she wasn't enough
not when her other children
are there.

One more time,
she tells herself
thoughts of hope and accomplishment
give her pride, give her validation,
yet not enough validation
to be cared for like the other children
not enough to be heard.

her mother's words caress her
endearing her that she's good enough.
But the truth that she feels is
so powerful and vivud,
she knows that she possibly
couldn't be good enough.
No matter how many
things her mother tells her,
she knows the truth,
even if her mother can't see the truth.

It's not enough.
Not when she can't be the daughter
her sister is; she
could never be for her mother.

Ruining her was a part of the plan.
It was a part of his prose that he
so deliberately wrote down.

   Ruining her was merely a
  fraction of his deepened
attraction and rooted nature
that was of his own accord.

One look, one simple taste
was enough for him to determine
his destructive path.

  She had no say in such a plan,
for she wasn't aware of such intentions
that would soon ruin her,
everything she stood for,
and the innocence and
compassion that
she prided herself in.

That vanity and that admiration
for her compassionate
conceit is what
drew him to her.  

  That's what he wanted.
A passionate conceit because
he so coldly lacked one.
He desired to have it, to
possess what was hers.


He wrapped his digits
around the
width of such vanity,
stroking it with
brutal gentleness,
and then
he ripped it apart,
tainting and corrupting it
until that very conceit
was tarnished.

   Ruined and stained,
  that's what she was.

That's what he wanted.
He could taste it on his tongue,
lapping up at the censure
flavor of power.

It was bitter and prudent,
and he expected nothing
else.

That varnished and
sour taste was merely a
reminder of what he had done,
of what he was relishing in.

  He was cunningly honest.
  He was vehemently kind.
  He was brutally gentle.

The moon child played
with the dark clouds,
the gloom and the light
of her mother.

She danced around the
pillars of fire and marble,
the heat wrapping its
arms warmly around
the moon child,

She feared nothing.
She wanted everything
by the noble method of
trial and error.

She was as resilient
as the night’s unsettling breath
and the moon’s lit wick.

Sweeter than honey,
you were always
on the tip of my tongue.
You were coated
with tiers of sugar.

You reminded me of honey,
sweet and palpable, yet
driven and resourceful,
never decaying or changing.

Thorns cut so deep
they broke through the barrier
of my hard whipped flesh.

  They were coarse,
they were harsh,
and barbed with
the ambiance of
torment.

They pricked at my skin,
ushering up trickles
of crimson.

   The small droplets and lines
  of such a vibrant color
coated my skin in the
philosophy of neglect and
malnutrition of empathy.

Thorns wrapped themselves
around my body, encompassing
them in a way that showed
no
mercy.

I was the result of such an action,
I was cut and bleeding,
and yet I remained standing,
for the pain and torment of the
lingering thorns and their
barbed prefaces became
a part of me.

My rights aren't mine.
My feelings aren't mine.
They're determined
by the bittersweetness
of anxiety and depression.

   Molten into shards of
gold and plated by
shards of onyx,
they entrap the very
essence of happiness,
an emotion that's been
so delicately
dessicated from the
veins coursing
through my body,
and the swell of my heart.

    The ***** pumps blood,
but it is
molten and
deformed into
pure gold,
plated by
shards of onyx.

Those ruptures
wouldn't depart.
They were permanent,
yet obsolete to that
of my future, but their
pull shall never leave me.

   My happiness was cracked,
corrupted by the indiscretions
of nature and the depressive
reprieve of sorrow.

My heart wasn't mine
any longer.

   The gold, the onyx
twisted the melancholy
of my already fractured soul,
tying the compounds of my
heart into the mix, holding
it captive.

There was no getting
it back, for I had to live with
those scars all to myself.

   Others couldn't see
the streams and fractures
or punctures of
onyx
and of
gold.

They were mine to bare.

My rights, my mind,
my joy wasn't mine any
longer.

   Such pleasures
were at the disposal of
the fractured state of my being,
and I wouldn't see them
again, for nothing
could be what it once was.

Divine.
He was so divine in my eyes,
but he controlled me in the eyes
of others.
His words were far too
harsh for the
epithets of my soul, yet
I listened and let them
label me.

His hold over me
was divine.

His words were
divine with a power
of control
I'd never fallen under before.

It's what I knew.
It's what I understood.
He was my culture,
his words were my cultivation,
and his abuse was my apology,
striving for that of which
I couldn't control,
striving for that of a false dream
that never would happen.

It couldn't,
not when the fiber of my being
offered up no escape.
Divinity was his, and
I was his divinity.

Time doesn't heal anything,
I know that from experience,
the only way to heal comes
from our own self awarness
of our consciousness,
our willingness to move on.

who are they to you?
a scapegoat
here to receive what
you didn't want,
here to accept the blame
they never wanted to claim,
the blame that wasn't theirs to begin with.

To you they aren't heard,
they aren't seen,
they aren't believed.
they are but a flicker of thought
that was forgotten beyond
      incapacitated dwellings.

They are solely to blame
for the misfortunes of others.
if you listen you may hear them,
you may not. their pleas,
their bargains of terms remain
embedded in history. Their identities are
      vaguely regarded.

They are rich with hope,
with pleas that
ring foreign to your ears.

What are they to you?
they are what you need
to feel moral.
they are who you blame
and for tendrils of time;
they remain that way.

Had I mentioned his divinity before?
maybe I had, maybe you skimmed,
maybe you forgot,
but I certainly
could not forget.

It was far too engraved
in both the sea of my mind,
and the currents of my words.

Divinity, a term that could be associated
with a greater power,
even something that could be
transcendental,
but divinity to him, to me,
was something far deeper than that.

It was something far more toxic,
something far more sinister
that I couldn’t control,
something that tugged
on my muscles,
bones, joints, and flesh
even when I tried to pull away.

But, his divinity won.
He won and ever so often
I promoted my self-awareness,
my emulating nature to succeed
as a way to win for once,
but I was against a force
greater than that of
the armies of noble,
vicious kings.

He won through one look,
one harsh gaze
that broke through the
cracks of my heart,
plunging its way into
the caverns of my *****,
and it made a home to
nurture the bitterness
and hostility of his
actions and words.

They all sliced at the swell of
my heart,
and even the flesh of
my body,
but divinity healed them.
He healed them even
when he created them.

The words seeped from my lips,
the pleas of admiration
and the pleas of fear
melded into one brew,
crafting a potent mix
that controlled me.

The formidable brew
originated from him,
and it was there that
his instincts were born.
It was there that those instincts
decided to mesh themselves
into my life.
It was there that he
decided that his
divinity was for him
and for me.

His divinity clawed its way
at the epitome of both
my soul, and the duality
of my faithfulness and
self-awareness,
yet I was exempt from both
freedoms
and burdens.

I was set aside by my own accord.
  I chose to live in a world of subtle   loneliness,
hiding who I was,
remaining hidden in the shadows of
ever green hope and dismal
sorrow.


I hid from love.
    I hid from affection.
   I hid in fear of risk,
    and I couldn't, for
  risk brought me too much pain.

My prowess kept me away,
it let me leave without as much
as a glimpse being slipped
back in the direction of
my betrayal.

****** and battered.
Weeping and crying.
That's what it took, but
you accepted that.
You embraced it for the
sake of my sanity,
for the sake of love.

    You gave in, and I
  wanted to run, just
   as I always had.

I prepared for it.
Your words frightened me,
but your actions only did worse.
Your kindness was beyond
that of another that I had ever met.

  That's when I planned to
take my leave, but when
I turned on my heel,
when I took a few steps away,
I
  Hesitated.

That's when you had me,
that's when I knew I couldn't leave,
but I had to.
Didn't I?

It's all I knew.
  I only knew to leave
when there was good
because sooner or later
there would be only be pain.

That's all there ever was,
and I was to blame.

You waited for me, and
I shakily turned around,
obliging to the pull
you had over me.

I'd been there before, but there you were,
and in that moment I knew I
wouldn't have to run away;
I knew you made
me feel something deep and raw,
something that only natural emotions
could restore in my fractured
mind and heart.

I risked it;
I wasn't afraid of the outcome,
for being away from you
suffocated me
more than any small space could,
more than any wave that rolled
over me in
an endless cycle could.