At a towering height it looms o're me
Hiding me within its shadow,
It bears the face of a phantom
with eyes that are dark and hollow.

With one jagged claw around my throat
and the other to my heart pressed
Its voice is a deafening static,
it will never let me rest.

It speaks with empty words that sounds so horribly like truth.
It praises distrust and confusion
while demanding the need for proof.

It feeds off the nervous breath that I breathe,
Its intoxicated by thoughts of gloom,
It ***** the life out from my lungs
and my happiness it consumes.

The shadow overwhelms  me,
now my body's growing numb
I wait in mortal terror
for the darkness to overcome.

Then something catches my attention,
is it fear in those empty eyes?
Its grip begins to loosen
and its static sounds more like lies.

There's a whisper moving gently
like cool water upon the sand
He  kindly beckons to me
asking that I take His hand.

The jagged claws have lost that grip
which once held me strong
Now I can face it eye to eye
as I should have all along

The shadow fears the Whisper's truth,
and it shudders in trepidation
the battle's won, the foe undone
now in retreat it hastens.

I inhale deeply and then a voice
with no language and no tone
breathes over me, saying lovingly
"You are not alone"

I see it, in my minds eye
how he, on a day like today
bowing so, in the way that he would
arm outstretched, would to me kindly say
"Care to join me for a walk?"
And oh! on a day like today
with the rain, falling just as it should
I would say, with his arm as my helm
"what perfect weather for a walk!"
we would tread, in the shade of the wood
'neath a gamp and the dripping of elms
with old leaves, as a path for our feet
and our words, as a path to new realms
on sundry things we should naturally talk
if we should, and we should, time will tell
on a day like today, time will tell

You worry too much
You worry too little
I convey my opinions
And violently spittle
Out what you should do
There your life, your career
What comes after that?
Well, don't worry my dear.

Soft, moonlit wings glide under the light of the moon,
while shadows dance on the snow below.
Flying into the unknown, breathing in whimsy,
she refuses to land or succumb to the fatigue.
But the frosty silence lulls her to sleep
with pinstriped stories delicately written onto her skin  
until her mind succumbs to the stillness

and she no longer flees from the snows embrace...

Close your eyes and listen
as notes of silence fall to the earth
playing their cool melody upon your skin
seeping through slowly, slowly
and soothing your thoughts

"I am enough"
She said to the mirror,
Dull eyes gazing back
Her reflection recreating regal
expressions
That coming so naturally before, now were cracked

"I am beautiful"
She said, with silver tears
Brimming in her eyes
In the daytime she was Clepatra
Aching for affirmation, filled with ***** lies

Standing in her own presence
No lines so sweetly versed
No role to be rehearsed
Fists clenched, lips tightly pursed
Oh beautiful tragedy! you lost your identity...
the ache is stayed with the plunge of a blade
breaching  the chasm which once held your heart

Even weeds bear beautiful blooms,
New and exciting, in colorful hues,
But the roots of an oak tree will withstand a tempest,
And each passing season,
Greater pleases the senses.

Those cotton candy summer skies,
Fade away
To clouds of gray.
The birds sang softly in the night,
Bye and bye
the songs must die.

The joy of childhood's bliss have past.
Silently,
It frightens me.
Now the days...they go so fast.                                                        
Time is up.
Fill labor's cup.

We are the rejoiceful few,
when broken down, we rose anew.
Our bitter hearts we threw away,
and fed them to our wallflower days.
Beneath the weight of hurt we bent,
and tempered every sweeping wind.
And when our time for vengeance came,
we loved our enemies all the same.

It’s really, truly morbid, how my vehicle came to me,
Twas’ the death of a friend of a friend of a friend
Of a friend who was close to thee
He was dead when I got your keys.  
I find that I’m quite infatuated, by your shining, crimson flair  
And your window that squeaks, and your faux leather seats,  
Stained carpets and central air
Who knew trucks could be debonair?  
Shall I name all life’s pains that mean naught in you?
Like that person who says, and then he says, and she says
They all say, and then it is true
So, I drive to find new points of view.
We will thrive on gasoline fumes and the human will
Until the ground is ****** dry and wells shot
Till then, freedom, adventure, and hidden hills
Will be ours, you and I, Bombadil.

Smiling, you bless every day,
A regular Louis I might say.
A jazz musician with a giant heart ,
Letting all who come take part.

Join the music! Jump in the sway!
Hear that jazz musiscian play.
Hit the notes by the lamplight friend,
Until with the night our revel ends.

I can't think, I can't think
go away I can't think
go away I can't think
I've been driven to the brink
Wrap your arms round me so
Now just go! Now just go!
Lead me on with your words
Empty words! Empty heart!
First you're warm then you're hard
Go away! Go away! I can't think!

It is a sticky night.
Like the watermelon that drips down your chin
Like the humid air that sticks to your skin
Like that song you can name when the first note is hit
Uncomfortable, beautiful
Like the clothes that stick to your back
Because you have clothes
Like the way that our messed-up families stick together
Because you have a family
It is messy, like glue
It is sticky, a sticky summer night
Like all of those nights, long ago
Like the blood that was shed for you, for me, by a stranger
By hundreds of strangers
It’s a legacy and it sticks
And we can only pray that nights such as these will
become a memory, something permanent
a fixed point in time, something that endures
We hope that, even just for a little while
It might just stick around

Forever pursue the unattainable horizon,
With each step growing more willing than sure.
Courage, faint heart! and lightly go,
Lady Fortune turns her back on those who tarry...

The sun hides his face behind gray morning clouds,
Like a tot playing hide and seek.
And at times from around those silver-lined borders,
His beaming face will peek.
He spies me there as I wander below him,
Lilting along my way,
And at once tucks his face out from sight again,
It’s a little game we play.
The westward wind is at once cheerful and lithe,
He tosses my hair to the sky,
Strumming the treetops like a God-made kazoo,
With notes that are cool and light.
The trees all awake to the sound of his tune,
Tossing gracefully to and fro.
Maiden dyads and naiads waltz gracefully on,
Swinging in time with their boughs.
The gravel laughs heartily beneath my worn feet,
In a voice that is deep and merry,
He tells the sweet tails of his long-forgotten trails,
And the travelers they have carried.
He can outline the best and the worst of mankind,
All the forks which have marked their paths,
Of the men who showed courage ‘gainst nature and foe,
And of the burdens on their backs.

One solitary walk for solidarity
gives me clarity on who I am

Independence is when my mind
lets all of my small musings run
freely before my eyes

There lived an old woman
In a tumbled old cottage
In the midst of the silent wood.
She kept figurines
And the most peculiar things
In her little old cottage in the wood.

Her vases were chipped
Her tapestries ripped
And her silverware bent like her back,
But beautiful was she
And her beloved oddities
In that little old cottage in the wood.

'Neath a cover of black faux leather
bursting with half-written verses
Lie coffee stains, old bird feathers
and lines of illegible cursive
the bitterness of heartbreak
on lines by brine besmeared
of victories and of mistakes
and thresholds I have cleared
This is my skeleton key
a glance into thoughts long passed,
for my broken memory
I hold a looking glass.

With the freshness of youth I  breathe in the world around me,
walking in an ecstasy of spirit, marveling at
bare feet
            and broken umbrellas
building faces
            and burning questions
Always seeking, living, bleeding, fearing that I should become remiss
and give to my memory this heavenly bliss.

Its funny how...
no matter how much I break
you still find new ways to make me shatter.

The towering oak dipped his crooked fingers into the sky,
His rich green leaves stirring the soft, rose-blushed clouds
Which draped themselves demurely across its glowing expanse.
The luminous half-moon pokes his intrusive eye through
that resplendent array of gold, purple, pink, and yellow,
forewarning the passing of this at once homely and sacred pleasure.
For a time, he must reign, bathing the sky in his stately silver glow.
Though the earth below is singing, the sky is all a’ hush now
and he pulls the veil of slumber o’er the land of that towering oak,
promising to remove his gentle veil one more come dawn.

How easy to love you in the nature Lord!
In these lands clothed in Autumn's ripe gold.
All living things pulsate with the life that You breathe...
You exhale pure goodness and into nature it molds.

All the poets and artists, we never do tire,
of praising Your hand in the beauty and growth.
The evidence of You is in every breath, in every step.
Of Your artwork no man could e're boast.

I have violent dreams
where vines of green
cover everything
spanning endlessly

Their violent bloom
Overcomes the gloom
Of this concrete doom

Newly Weds
      Shining eyes
But years will bring
       Only sighs

Bitter exchanges
         Make life hell
No turning back
          Oh well...

Love is veiled
          by selfishness
We took the course
          And failed the test

Some color themselves blue,
Blowing 'till they've no breath.
Others just pull out the fluff
And throw their wish heavily to the earth.
But then there are those who sit and wait
And the breeze gently carries the seedlings away
Granting that wish which lay unknowingly on their heart.

Flowers become gemstones
under a frigid blanket
of frost
Beatiful endurance
Reminds me still that all is
not lost

I want to be near you sometimes. As much as I love you
I wish that I could love you better, that he could love you better,
That you could love you better.
Its not about being bitter,
though I am, and it is
A taste of chicory coffee dark and thick as car oil,
Soiled.
And you can’t spit it out, the taste lingers around,
And just like coffee, I’m addicted, taking a new sip every morning,
Remembering his face, when he looked at you with a curled lip and recalling
Your face pretending not to know.
And I resented you both.
I took an oath,
Never to blindly bind myself brainless and loveless
Now I’m unwound,  
Trying desperately to learn how to knit
Because everything is in tatters.
-Tori

I want to be your friend
but I'm too timid to speak out now
I rather think I don't know how
To utter a word not penned.

And my spoken words are like feathers
Weightless and floating about in the air,
They carry expression and meaning and care,
But they sink to the earth silently.

It started with the word,
dragon,
and its synonym:
dad,
That man who started fires with the things that he said.
He didn’t breathe fire, he used words instead.
They were never for me because I was
Good.
Good, in definition.
In other words, I was
Quiet.
They were never for me because I was quiet.
And I was familiar with them -- the dragons.
I had a secret weapon, a word,
And the word was a
Shield,
And the shield’s name was
Indifference,
To the fire, the burning fire,
To the words.
From behind his teeth, below blood-shot eyes they came,
BIG words which rested on my head like a weight,
LOUD words that drowned out every other sound,
They were hot to the touch, BURNED like a brand,
Coloring my sight RED with the CURSES between syllables,
A SLEDGEHAMMER to the wall around my idealistic world.
I watched it crumble…
There was another word,
Sister:
Who only shared half of my blood.
The half-sister,
The one who never did say the right things.
A warrior
who never wore a shield, only purple,
Purple:
The color of royalty,
The color of HER
Of her BRUISES after battle,
From the WORDS and the FISTS and the BLOWS that he gave.
I wanted bruises too! I wanted to be    
BRAVE…
But my words were so quiet,
and I was scared of the dragon….
Black,
the color of a fortress,
a world in a word,
And a synonym:
my closet.
The silence was a friendly phantom,
Which stroked my scarlet hot cheeks,
lifting me into the delicate plumes of its dark embrace.
out of the world of an eight-year-old,
the coward.
Confused, scared, angry, I WAS A CHILD!
But I was a child with very grown-up thoughts.
Grown-up, a word,
And its synonym: serious.
White
was the color in my nightmares.
Filled with veils, bouquets, and pearly smiles
The haunting ivory of a wedding dress,
And its synonym:
a prison.
The couple would smile and say, “I love you.”
But that word,
Love,
Had a synonym:
Obligation,
And its color was green,
The color of the dragon’s face when it looked at other women.
And when long the years past, the coward child became serious,
I became serious, a word,
and its synonym, grown up.
I still carry my shield
For whenever I see
Dragons,
dragons, a word,
and its synonym:  

MEN.

Sing, little bird, in the amber of my leaves
Sing, little bird, at the beckon of the breeze
Sing, though I know, when the bitter night-wind blows
You'll leave, little bird, and make your home in other boughs

The summer left lipstick stains on the tops of trees
Breathing beauty and death in her farewell kiss

I'm just tired.
Because how else can I explain the gaping hole inside?

I'm not mad.
That's just my face, I promise everything's alright.

It's okay mom.
You've done your best for your entire life.

And so it goes.
Cause what I feel is just for me to know.

She couldn't get it.
The ripping and tearing leaves it's tear drop evidence.

I know it's stupid.
I have all I need, yet here I am
...depressed.

Sinking
Tearing
Ripping
Snatching

At all that I love and know.
Now I wait for the waves to cover my head
I'll drown to death, and when I'm dead
I'll think "silly girl, it's all in your head"

Yes it's in my head but it very REAL
Two realities, one that you FEEL
An anarchy I used to control
Oh God,
         don't let  
                   me lose
                              my soul.

Up on the cross he stands alone
Burdened by our sin, he groans
Where is someone to satiate my thirst?
Or weep with me and feel sorrows hurt?

This pain I feel
You felt
          It too

Happily will I
Bear it
           For you


The sound of the sorrowful is a battle cry
If they survived it then why can't I?

Rising
Lifting
Laughing
Shifting

Away from the lies and fears.
Oh most holy paradox.
Infinity hangs on a cross,
And the greatest weapons are forged in tears.