Forget about all the things you know about yourself and imagine this instead

I. I touch the soft tufts of your hair along your neck and wish three times during that instant that I could take back every bruise that you have ever been given.

II. I feel my shoulder against yours, warmth beneath chaos, lying low in the gardens in our hometown. I know in that moment you will shatter every belief I have ever had about love and replace it with framed pictures of me kissing your cheek.

III. I feel your arm around my shoulder and know that this is safety. I have not been afraid in what feels like ages when I hug you, count each rib, watch your face bury in my shoulder.

IV. I love you is bottled in every stare I cast at you. I wonder where I left my mind.

When I first met you, your eyes shone with the beauty of the stars twinkling above me.
As time passed the shine began to fade, as I got to know you I learned of why.
Why, I ask...do people beat upon you?
It was as if I was watching your world burn
I lost you for a while, and for months on end I wondered if you were ok...
The next time I saw you, it was as if your heart was as cracked as the sky before a storm...
Why, I ask...do people beat upon you?
I wished to help you more than anything else But I never got the chance
Now as we sit here in limbo, I watch your heart bleed the tears your eyes will not shed.
It
kills me
To see you this way...

Long ago
Long before the dawn of his youth
Lived a boy, a young boy
A boy who had a dream
A childhood dream.
He would lay at the forest glade
And gaze, gaze in wonder
At the peculiar workings of the earth.
He would count all the birds of the sky
Wander into the dark forest deep
Stroll by the humming river
And paint with all the colors of the earth.
The night's inner glow,
The wild's cheerful tune;
All of earth's splashy marvel
Would prompt his thoughts
To travel the world
In search of a secret.
The blue waters of the Pacific seemed a decent start, he thought
Perhaps a swim in the depths of Waikiki Beach
Or a hike up Mt. Rainier
A stroll in the scenic wonderlands of Northern Idaho
Maybe a nice dinner in Broadmoor Hotel at Colorado Springs
Or build a cabin in Minnesota's lake country
A day picnic at Mt. Chocorua
A quick walk down Boston Common
Or a Tulip time at Bronx,
Drifted his mind.
Bend of Susquehanna, Cayuga Lake, Chesapeake Bay, Rehoboth Beach
Flashed upon his sight.
Then one day, not long ago
To his surprise
He found the secret
Veiled in one who owns his heart.

Go directly to go, collect 200 dollars,
That isn't really how chance works though is it.
I took a chance on you...fell in love, with you...
You didn't take the same chance on me,
It was like you were locked in mortal combat with the words pain and suffering, and I was the bystander.
I knew deep in my heart I could change that if I tried hard enough...
I'm sorry...
It wasn't hard enough...
I still remember the night you called me up crying because you'd broken up with the one you "loved"
I remember when you said you hated me, I remember when you called me on halloween night and said you loved me. Just how fast my heart went when I heard those three words. It was insane.
I was insane thinking I could get you...
But hey I took a

*chance...

Burn.
Step onto the embers of my
Secret weaknesses and
Impersonate the
Sword of Michael.

This longing for Valhalla
Won't see me alive much
Longer.
Take me to the nearest battle.
Let me die slaying a terrorist

Or intending ******.
Or should I pray to gods of a more
Peaceful nature than
Odin?
Love and let live.

Nah, this is in my Norwegian
Bones.
I'll die wielding blade.
I'll die laughing, opened up and
Spilling.

I'll "not go gentle into that good
Night."
So burn.
Be bonfire to my innermost of
Darknesses.

There are shadows there that
Demand chasing.
Make me proud to be
Midgardian.
Burst into flames and remind me:

Sticks and stones are feathers.
Buddha and Baldr.
Enlightenment and love. Well,
I'd rather be a warrior in a church
Than a priest in a battle.

Odin's one good eye
Is mine.
The other weeps for the weak.
May they find
Comfort in the daylight,

While us
Others sharpen our
Weathered hearts
In the cold, uncertain night we
Belong to, like water to snow.

Do you remember
The fairy tales we spun
On those blazing summer noons
When the road tar was melting
And we bunked classes
To be under the forest flame
Shadowed from the world outside
When we thought time would be immortal
As you wiped the sweats from my forehead
And with every thread of yarn
I would grip you harder
In an effort to prevent gravity
From letting those moments fall
Into the abyss of memories.

Do your eyes still see the Prince
That never took you away
When you tell your grandkids
The fairy tales?

paranoia of the 3rd degree
in 8th grade
when the boy i liked IM'd my friend
and said the shirt i wore to church made me look fat.

shaking nervousness in a 12 year old body
overweight
moving a fork from my plate to my mouth --
a true horror
listening to girls read calories
off a box of vanilla wafers

pinching my stomach fat
wanting to tear it off
an 8 year old who asked her older sister
to help her get thinner

decades i've wasted looking so close at every piece of me
i know how i look from every angle without a mirror
i've memorized every defect.
critical sections studied under a microscope:
i am not anything but scientific in my process.

i blow myself up to disproportionate sizes
and then wonder why sometimes i lay in bed and feel

huge.

and other times

so small.

after a while you'll begin to realize that the constant scrutiny and study of your temple is fruitless
that the hungry monster behind your ribcage
that eats dark lipstick and winged eyeliner and name brand clothes and highlighting powder and contouring brushes
that you sacrifice increments of time to every morning,
night
every prolonged glance in a mirror...
fuels itself off the notion that the images we see on a screen are the standard for cultural truth.

i turned 21 and decided to throw away the microscope.
to change what images i saw on my screens
to eliminate the photoshopped waists and fill them with pictures of normal, happy bodies
and i began to see the body that i exercised,
fed vegetables,
watered,
washed,
nurtured,
as not fat or ugly or unwanted
but as a perfect home for myself
and maybe someone else
if i wanted.

because the cultural truth lies in what you see in other humans
not dancing shadows on a screen in a cave
it lies in the gentle rolls of your stomach
and the crinkles around your lips and eyes
and the pimples on your forehead.
there is nothing garish
about reality.