At night I now understand
that the sky no longer lunges
lies with it into the darkness, and
the clicking of crickets cannot
hush the stillness of despair.

At night I allowed myself to drift
in and out
in and out
of the lull of little lights
or the fluidity of my little dreams

drifting between serenity
and sleeplessness as a
cooling wind brushes my
warm back and keeps me from
simply falling.

At night now I stare,
As the darkness embraces
The ever illuminated lights.
Shielding them away from
The dismal dirt down below.

And at night, sometimes,
I wish
upon every star in the
moonlit sky that you
were among them.

She sweetened her tea
with frosting.
She trimmed her hair
with shears.

And all the while
she felt the same
she knew not better
nor just as much.

She laid her paper
over wounds.
Scratched her words
with diamonds.

Hoping
Quietly
To be better.

I was born with thick skin
and a heartbeat.

My mother read bedtime stories
that scared away the monsters
below

The rain fell heaviest
on the one who held the umbrella
above
all the while a drizzle melted my skin.

My face grew small,
and my hair smoldered.

And the funniest thing was that
they concerned themselves with
keeping
the fire fed.

I sit in my own embers
watching the charcoal
as it drifts and glides.

And I watch
I watch as others
drown
play
burst

And I feel
the sizzle and the sputter
of my skin that has long
since melted away.

And I wonder
if they notice
or if it matters
that phantom pains

plague my skin.

I wanted to write a poem about the silence of a snowy walk. I wanted to talk about the feeling of cold air on clean skin and the serene silence when no cars dared to crunch the quiet. I wanted to write about something quiet. Something calming. Something that folded nicely into prose and laid out before me on paper.

Instead, I put pen to paper and found anxiety along with that silent walk, and I remembered the opposite of what I wished to incite.

I remembered instead the coldness sharpening some mascara clouded
tears and a walk to escape.

I remembered the cool air fueling an anger and the glimmer of hope that someone would rescue me from the cold that was melted away by a silent phone and continued footsteps up the hill with none behind.

I remember a girl sitting under an outdoor roof, shielding her face from the falling ice, all the while realizing that escape would mean a return to fear.

I remember that you have subtly ruined happy thoughts: a family vacation, Christmas-time, snowy walks, the summer sun's now dismal rays.

And thought of all the whimsy, wonder, and excitement that left with the snowy days.

I cannot describe the
anguish
uncertainty
frustration

That I feel every
motion
step back
wave

That cycles through at the beach
with a gush and a rush
and a tumble and a blow
that knocks me down
only so I can stand back up
and feel my knees crack
beneath my own breath.

And I look back
towards the carnival and
watch as people jump on
the Ferris Wheel

As if this were a cruel
joke
game
ruse.

And they still laugh as I
circle
back
the same.

I guess this serves as a warning.
To the friends and the loved ones
members of an active social order
wanting a life of something more than disorder.

Poetry is not a breath.
It is not an escape into a lesser abyss
that leaves you scratch free.
Or an opening and interesting guarantee.

Instead
it grabs inwardly at you.
It coaxes the trolls from the deepest
corners of the forest that you had
long since banished and left behind
and wanted to rid your mind of and
never wanted to see again.

The fire that had been stomped out
is reborn.

The crashing waves that broke the ship
fight again.

And poetry reopens the wounds
that you had hoped would heal
with time and with suppression
that had once filled and consumed with aggression.

Poetry is anger.

Poetry leaves the poet
drowning
in a river of currents when it flows
but out in the baking sun when
it stops.

The issue is
for a poet to be happy
with her work

she must also feel the
unhappy in her life.