Take slow
deep breaths
and count
to three

Breathe in
Breathe out
and breathe
for me.

Inhale
the pain
and let
it free

Forget
the war
you lost
at sea.

Remember
the good
and I
guarantee

You'll join the
living under
the sweet
oak tree

And oh, the city
was not left in the flames.
the jungle and the savanna
no longer rose tall and red.

The Devil never liked
them very much. He didn't
appreciate that they have in to
his fire and succumbed to his
drought.

For instead he was seeking
vengeance. He was seeking
something to hate him
to scorn him.
Something to fight.

Instead, the jungle had
let the Devil win
and the savanna cared
no more.
So the Devil

Did what he thought
would cause the most pain.
He left the burn
but took the flames.
He left the sting
but took the warning.

No one came to the rescue
of the antelope and
snakes. Instead,
outsiders went along
unknowingly.

But little did the Devil
know
that out of the flames
rose something
strong.

For the Ember Lion
does not run from
her pain. Instead,
she carries its essence
with her.

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.

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.

Sometimes, I wish
upon every star in the
Moonlit sky that you
were among them.

In the heavens,
you'd rest.
Your soul would not
grow weary as it does on Earth.

You would no longer
drift away from the part
of you that was once loved.
You may not know it yet,

but the ones you would
leave behind were already
left behind the first time
craters broke plaster and

that first time you crushed
the finch.
You have been bereft of
life for a long time now.

But no one has been
able to mourn your passing
for your newly sewn soul
still spills out on Earth.

So yes, sometimes, I wish
upon every star in the
Moonlit sky that you
were among them.

But only because you have long since left.

I haven't written lately.
My poems are locked in a vault.
A vault that represents sadness and
a time

of nothingness.

I haven't been inspired lately.
Even know I don't know where this
is going or where it's coming from and
I am

just writing.

I haven't felt it lately.
I have felt a lot of things though.
The sadness of death and the fear of it and yet
there is

a void.

I haven't written lately.
The voice within my head has quieted.
I have stopped feeling the need to express
and I

I can feel its tug

Today I had a funeral
For a past life.
Her nails painted pink,
Eyes rusted shut.


They say the distance killed her.
The coroner had a hard time
identifying her.
Her heart had grown too swollen


then dried too quick.


I wish I had told her at
the time that
happiness doesn’t last.
But instead she went all in.


She had left nothing behind
Did not give herself any room
to fall
just fly.


So when the plane took off
and then landed
there was nothing to cushion
the fall.


Today I had a funeral
For a past life.
Placed in a frame under my bed
Hoping to forget.

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 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.

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.

There is a box titled
"useless"
that has been pushed into
the deepest
darkest

loneliest

areas of my brain.

Where silver lights
and crisp images
force me to think of a
better past and fuel a
sense of want

with the life I
used to live
and the people always
are smiling and I am always smiling
and the resolution is so clear you
can barely tell

it's fake

But there is a box titled
"memories"
that my mom keeps in
the room adjacent
to the fire

And inside are pictures
that are grainy and yellowed
and stained with caffeine
and ***** and hot chocolate.

The blurred image of my
brother's smile hidden in
his balloon face expanding
and stretching and cracking.

The worn candid of my mother looking
upon me as a baby
with eyes that scream for a breath
and yellowed teeth to remind me
this is no

goal.

It was simply there and now
it is gone.

I think now I know
that one day I will be okay.
One day the thought of my
teen years will not ultimately
be met with the thought of you.

One day I could hear your name
and not travel back to times of
darkness and fear and black skies.

One day I will not think of my family
as broken and my life as
distraught.

One day I will not get mad at our
mother for giving you what you
do not deserve or at you for
taking all we do not have or at m self
for letting you continually send me back
to places I do not want to go or at the thoughts
that have plagued my brain.

One day I will be okay and no longer
pray that someone will realize that
while my family has
moved on I have not.

And one day I will realize that
One Day is not today and that,
above all else,
is perfectly okay.

I am ready.
Ready to be alone.
Ready for the hug of
myself to rush from the
gaping mouths of those

who hate me.

who wronged me.

who left me.

I am ready.
Ready to be enveloped.
Ready to drift
in a cool pond of dark
rooms empty of those

who judged me.

who mistook me.

who made me unwell.

I am ready.
For what else I do not know.
But, what I do know is that
to fill my own heart is far safer

than to fill others.

I know we are far
apart with a chasm
between us that you
dig deeper each day.

I know that you are not
you anymore but each day
I look at the pictures
where your teeth were
too big and your eyes too wide
and everything was new and
you were innocent.

I look at the innocent
child and look to what
he became and realize
that if I were to wish upon

a star

I would wish that I could
go back in time and tell you
to stay where you are and never
grow up because god you are
going to get so hurt and you are
going to hurt others more
and a fog will follow you
and you will no longer be sweet
and your eyes will turn thin
and you would slice

holes in hearts.

I would let you live in
the memory of playing baseball
in a hat that was too big and
pants that were too wide.

I would make brownies
and have you fight with me
to lick the bowl and most of all
I would never let you grow into
who you were to become.

I used to dance
beneath the
strong


oak tree. I felt
its leaves in what
is

now empty and
thick with sludge and
what

used to be touched
by the roots of the oak
I

have long sense lost
it and all
hope.

I used to dance
beneath the strong oak tree.
To

Sing and to smile
and just to
be.

I never liked poetry
until I wrote it.

I couldn't understand
why stanza's split up
into three or four or 12
lines.

Why a poet
writes rhymes of sadness as if
it's a better way to show it

I hated that everyone
thought they had the answers
to leading a better life
because they were the ones
who took the road
not taken.

But then, one day
I pressed a
pen to paper

And the words that
were once kept inside
flowed out like those rivers
that the poets kept talking about.

And the stanzas
separated themselves
into groups at parties
that all mingled together

while also standing alone.

My words became physical,
The tears I couldn't press
out of my eyes
were pressed on paper.

And the poem became
a song
and the song became
a new life form

And everyday I look
at what I have created
and

Smile.

And at night I understand
that the sky no longer lunges
lies into oblivion and that
the clicking of crickets cannot
hush out the serenity of despair.

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

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

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 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.