to the west of here
promising clouds are forming
they'll gift needed rain

the sun reclines
another dawning has past
day is drawing down

As a child I was taught poetry
the quiet writing of feelings reflections
often in a beat with a rhyme and a few examples of alliteration

I was taught that as a woman my feelings
should be hid and kept quiet
that when I liked a boy it was not my place
to ask him whether he liked me back
I was taught to look out for myself by not dressing slutty
not walking home late at night
I was taught that my curvy figure would make people
question my morals my virginity my character
I was taught that as a girl I won't be as successful in math or science
I was taught to give myself to other pursuits
in liberal arts or domestic dealings
I was taught that even if by some miracle I found success in the fields where I "wouldn't be successful"
that I would and should give it up in a heart beat to raise a family
I was taught that I must share my feelings
my emotions my struggles
but not in a loud and open way

I had to remain quiet cool composed

Poetry was to be my outlet, written in couplets sonnets and verse
quiet and held inside written on paper
stored away from the world
to be read inside the mind
by others- men, teachers, parents
in order to decode me
and learn how to
keep
me

silent

i swallowed the sun and
washed it down with a little inky night.
now wildflowers bloom in my heart
and light fills my mind. these
words are solar flares of a
fallen petal.

the price of it all--
welded lips of unspoken words.
now other people mishear
and believe i am speaking,
but it is only the wind
whistling through
my teeth.

now i find that,
being alone is silence,
but it is never quiet.

traveler of souls, a
looking glass shattered,
the infected cracks
murmur to my eyes,
telling me more
about myself
than the
reflection.

i see you in the silence
and the blanks of
mind. crazy how violence
says more about love
and its power. the contrast
is fading unlike your
eyebrows, and the last
drop of sanity hits the floor.
thoughts of you as
your actual presence,
because your absence has
finished its evanescence.

Hey, hey, hey
Shhh girl
It's okay, you're okay
It's okay, okay girl?

Relax, here
Calm down
That's better right?
There you go

Shhh  shhh
You're safe
You're okay
I won't let anyone hurt you

I know, it's strange here
You're not used to it
But I promise you won't get hurt
You can trust me

Come here, come on now
There, that's it
Good girl
You're safe, you're safe

I have stopped counting,
the days, for they are now
just seconds and hours that pour away
into the blankness of life.

It doesn't pain me because it is an
understanding that for you
love could never mean anything
more than a prolonged feeling of monochromia.  

You have fallen,
and fallen again.
Love is nothing more than
a chasing game for you.

But if I had never
come into your life,
what could, in your ways of life,
it have proved?

Nothing.

It was the mischief of the cosmos
that wanted us to be.
Else the weaves of the universe
would come undone.

We have our stories
already written
by a known
hand.

All we are,
are characters
waiting.
Till our curtain falls.