You always knew when I wasn't okay
You could always tell with just one look
Then you'd sit down with me
And just listen no matter how long it took.

You were the only one
That would say, "Tell me the truth"
No one else has ever been able to see through this facade

Now that you're gone
I feel just as lost and alone
But even more because nobody's been able to see me
As you always could. 

You always knew
And found a way to cheer me up
Even though we grew apart
And had different friends. 

You always knew
And could make my day with just one hug
Just one smile
Just one small conversation. 

These people I call friends
Have yet to figure it out. 
I keep missing you
While waiting for someone els to say, "Tell me the truth"

You always knew
You always knew.

In the book Going Solo,
Roald Dahl wrote about a woman
Who refused to eat anything with her bare hands
Instead, everything had to be handled with utensils
Knife in one hand and fork in another
She described the satisfaction of fruit cutting
The inexplicable joy at cleanly cleaving peel from flesh
Skill precise as a surgeon
Cutting it up according to Nature's dotted lines

I tried it on the same fruit
Somehow it just didn't feel right
Too refined, too silent

Unlike the practised deft peeling with bare fingers
Fingernails digging into the fruit, both refusing to compromise
Until eventually, the rind gives way and a cut is made
And from that same opening, tearing outwards
Sounding like strips of velcro are slowly being separated
The uneven globe of translucent orange flesh coming naked
Its pith shielding you from its full bright glory
Pulling it apart by halves, and then quarters, and then tenths
Each crescent shaped carpel in its mouth sized perfection
Sacs accidentally bursting, fingers sticky with juice

That is how an orange ought to be peeled.

I had a lot of mistakes in the past

things that I should not have done,
words that I should not have uttered,
life that I should not have lived.

This is me...

know me well,
know me deeply,
know me.

But this is not me
pleasing others,
this is me
wanting to please HIM.

For I am nothing without HIM.

In the future,

It's all up to me,
all for HIM
for I want to hear HIM say
"Well done."

Know me well,
know me deeply,
know me...

well... it's all up to you.

I hold your life in my hands:
small squares of time, caught out of context.
Picture this! they say, tempting me to remember.
And I do.

I remember a chubby baby’s face, caught in heavy sepia tones.
My twin, ‘though of another generation.
Years later, Fujicolor would reveal our only real differences
in auburn hair
and emerald eyes
that I loved too well to envy.

An Ava Gardner look-alike,
who looked at me with a mommy’s eyes:
emerald eyes
that cried when I hurt
and sparked with a humor that never faltered.

I remember a strong-willed woman
holding a family together amid shattering dreams,
emerald eyes that grew jaded,
and a humor that colored your pain.

And I remember loving you --
‘though God knows liking you came hard!
Both of us strong-willed women
with nothing but a shade of hair and hue of eye to separate us.

That, and a lifetime of differing opinions.

And I remember holding your life in my hands
watching the light fade from your emerald eyes

and I’d give what’s left of life
to have more than their memory
and small squares of your life
to hold in my hands.

I'd give anything to be the blade between her teeth,
to be the irony that inspires her unease
As she drifts unwillingly
and tastes of salt and sea- foam dreams,
Stars fall upon our cheeks,
While she speaks in tongues like winds from east
and I sit quietly
sipping on every note that she can sing.

I can’t sleep.
My throat burns with the harsh smoke of a raw cigarette,
the same taste of  your tongue once encircling mine,
smoky breaths merging together in a passionate silence.
The cloudy mist of my late night thoughts
is what remains of the sweet desire that ignites my lust.
I feel the cold sheets beside me,
the dried sweat stains now only a memory of where you once were.
They replace your fingers running down my leg,
your other hand now a ghost, once pressed to your lips as you inhaled your cigarette.
I feel the burn in my mouth
and close my eyes.
I want to drown in your passion,
submit to your desires and feel your body melt to mine
but I am only filled with the emptiness of these inhales,
your love only the fog in my throat.

oh, sweet mistakes
how dear you are to me
i'd never know success without you

every skinned knee brought the eventual feeling of restoration
every heart ache whispers of future empowerment
and with every black eye - the promise of beauty returned
one must feel their weakest at some point
in order to ever fathom true strength

i've found myself in the heaps of rubble
left behind by what i'd never wanted to become

in ruin we are reborn

so let the levy break
let the water wash away what we've made
let the words evade me
let the type-writer's keys stick
let the ribbon jam
let all of my thought-out conceptions of what will happen
         never be
let it all go to ****
and get lost
and crumpled and bruised
let it all snowball out of my control
so that i can let go
and let it be how it's meant to be

let me rise from the ashes
dust off my wings
and cling to the hem line of the ever-twirling skirt of the sky

let me fly

it's been so long since i've tasted the freedom accompanied with the abandonment of the flight-plan
how i've missed the adventure of being lost
and the undeniable sense of self-worth acquired by finding yourself

i am new

a devilishly good looking man once told her
that her hair was like a waterfall of the colors of all the best beers

if she'd had another shot of whiskey in her
and there wasn't a hardwood bar crowded with regulars between them
she'd have grabbed him by the face and kissed his shoes off

it's funny
the things she considers sweetness
she's the bar keep who slips anyone nice free pints
just because it's almost friday night
all she wants is to see everybody happy at once

the last time that she went to the bar
the boy that she smiled at all night
slipped her a cocktail napkin that read,
"just because you're breathing,
doesn't mean that you're alive."

she still isn't sure how to take it
but she still knows that he's right

The pain you feel each day
Keeps building up to a peak
Until everything hurts.
You try to lose yourself
In other people's company.
Sink into a personality
That isn't even your own.
Trying to end the pain
of ten thousand swords.
Words cutting deeper
Than any sharp edged blade.
You said you needed him
To make the pain stop.
You need to draw strength from within
Only you can stop the pain.