the yuppies
shuck and jive
for a buck.
trembling reverence
to thrive

deference
for a buck.
character peripheral
regardless, you don't ****
trust
you don't ****

oh I love that film
that music, amazing
regardless of how dim
irrespective of how un-entertaining
for a buck.
don't even fret
you don't ****
trust
you don't ****

even when looked as lower
it don't matter much
you don't fit the profile
it's ok, still love ya
i'll wait and smile
with baited breath
until eternity.

man is fallible
he'll change his ways
just smile
and wait, with baited breath
for that wondrous day!
maybe I don't ****
I'll wait
for the sake of the buck.

My attire, flyer than a kite
Bellowing higher
Floating, but ******
Sober, I'm told
The only state I'm in
Ain't about sin
Just a means to avoid
a loose mind
Of a multiple kind
Where happy and mad coincide
Follow me through the workings,

Go inside.

Where the mood pendulates
side to side
With reckless abandon.

Manifest in a man
To have childish tantrums
Self righteous in  his self deprecating anthems
To spring one's phantoms alive.

This, I strive to evade
I hide, but to save
No one else, but me.

Everyman for himself!

The mantra (sadly) of anyone seeking to be Free!

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

I, (Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself)


how I would, honor this with ecstasy joy effervescent,
the simplest of methodologies, if only I,
reasoned how one safely permits  
to love myself, if only I,
knew how to love an
I

to self love well,
not a university course,
no simple answers like thirst, yet how I thirst,
hunger, burst, curse for this peculiar wisdom, please,
instinct me to navigate murderous shoals of take but give
I

who teaches this to the children?

I, parents, teachers, not ****** or pastors or
TV the great substitute for all of the above,
myself is not a selfie, no glorying got in I,
I, burdensome, never comprehended,
love thy neighbor better, love actually, no mere pretense,
if well executed, perhaps is when the trapeze line is at last

cleanly indistinguishable,

your I, my I,
both wicks will be joined, brighter lit for it,
one flame, one godlike burning, fusing,
with neither consumed, wax fusing,
but teaching easy loving
to explode the
I,

~

9:24am EST
6/2/17
airborne over the Western US of A

tender Spirit, tend my spirit
come in and make me new
drift me down a brook of right
the right that I must do

gentle Spirit, whisper peace
come in and give me rest
quiet all my demons now
provoke from me my best

loving Spirit, take my spirit
hold mine next to you
deep inside this mortal shell
place heaven's morning dew

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.

"I love you,"

I said.

He replied,

"Good night."

That night

I knew

what love was for me

was a dream to him