I am my home
There can’t be any other
Can’t occupy another
Distinct chromosomes

This home is not my own
It holds far too much clutter
And the walls start to mutter
Mostly when I’m alone

This home is all I’ve got
So I learn which pipes leak
Pull out all the weeds
Recall everything I’ve been taught

My home is now my love
Shower it with health
Happiness becomes wealth
And my home fits like a glove

~kb

Choice in trepidation
With every palpation
your chest grows close enough
to feel my rhythm
And I’m smitten yet cynical
Brain stutters on whether or not
to accept this kiss
I’ve felt this bliss before
And I’m scared
Terrified to admit my heart
is feeling more
than I’d like it to
This back and forth game
plays in my brain
and my body simply
responds
Flush filling face
Warm lips embrace
And I wish I could just
press pause
I don’t want to see how this
plays out for me
I just want to stay
right here in this purity
Nothing in the future
Nothing in the past
Don’t make this a memory
Make it last

~kb

She’ll touch places
you didn’t think could be found
in spaces you promised
no one was allowed
and you’ll carry her with you
without even knowing
what makes a shine to her skin
like she shines from within
and spreads a glow throughout
each room she graces
leaves light on faces
makes a home look richer
The best woman to love
is one made out of glitter

~kb

A lab coat and a perfect life
With a perfect job
Compounding toxic chemicals
to solve a problem your gloved hands
know nothing about
Dissecting my brain
when you don’t even know my name
And I’m supposed to believe
you truly care about me
as you compact and ship these pills
to a stale pharmacy
Rattling bottles on
a cold drive home
I swallow this world you’ve created
Now I get to wait and see
what this does to me
Can it relieve this pain
or does it make it worse
You don’t care you collected
Get stalled at an intersection
Watch my hearse drive on by
with no clue you’re one
of the reasons I’m gone
Stay strong
there’s many more hearses to see
Keep making your medicine
and join the long line of the guilty

~kb

I’m laughing even though
I want to cry
but it’s like my mind
needs my body to feel happy
as the pain comes out
or I’ll break again
there’s light in these bones
I promise
but I can’t stop falling
and these fractures keep on letting it out
I’m in doubt of this life
like a mistreated wife
I just want to get out
but I need help
We’re all simply suffering
just not on the same day
so if it’s your time off
please come my way
I could use the company
and a mind that’s not mine
and when my bones start to heal
It’ll be my turn in line

~kb

I don’t emote like you
I take emotion potions
to deaden the world around me
why should anyone be subject to this
no care so no care oblivious
to the stats even though they surround you it’s a secret like I’ve
done something wrong
because my mind wants me dead
and you say it will all be ok
but no one can tell me how it will all be ok and my body is tired and frail and worn and ripping at the seams
and for someone like me it just
has to be this way
I don’t want to stay
and I can’t leave
and there’s no other options
for any reprieve
take your meds go to therapy
wait for darkness try to survive
this is your life
deal with it until the energy leaves
and it’s a stalemate with
a bed and drawn curtains
certain this is the end
and then I wake up and cycle again
and I just want to know
when I’m allowed to be too tired to go on without guilt trip songs about
how everyone hurts if I don’t anymore
but what about me
I guess I’ll take the saddened states
of everyone while I’m alive
just so they feel alright and tell me
how it will all be ok
when none of it's ever been ok

~kb

Midnight gives beauty away to the cityscape
Skyline lights not even comparable  
To the space above them
The smell of plants opening for sustenance

Clouds pour down their dismay
Flowers appear in curious places
Fill desolate places with colors of promise
A smog filled fog threatens existence
The city destroys light’s beauty once more

Start the car and drive to distant fields
Surrounded by haunted trees
bellowing as the wind picks up
Set on fire by firework skies
Cold breaths and a colder chest
Burning trees a warmth to
frozen foliage and fingers
Fixated intently on the silence
The silence of being alone with the world
Calming as an owl’s call
And the most deafening absence of the city
Hoarding sparks thrown in the trunk of the
Car to save for those cursed blocked nights

Lay back on the bathroom floor
Load hoarded stars onto a skylight
Escape the city inside pretending
This tile floor is a field fixing me to it
Cut the circuit breaker
Bathe in beams of the galaxy
City can carry on in the wake
Of this makeshift nature
It’s fluorescence isn’t welcome here

~kb

Falling over this
made up line
one way or the other has our truth covered
and smothers
the humans we were meant to be
the intelligent
the artists
the teachers and preachers
all run from the projectors
in our brains showing features
subliminally telling us we need to change
we have to fit in
normally some way
while the universe keeps sending us signals
telling us to stay the exact same way
that your cells made you
they were made to create you
the you that comes through
when you let peace preside
over your abnormal life
Society is an oblivious liar
Normal is simply
a setting on a dryer

~kb

The pain of sickness
Knows nothing of time
But it surely finds its place

Snuggles deep inside
Warm bodies to grow
Has a distinguishing distorted face

People are scared
Of pain’s vast unknowns
No desire to become educated

Ignorance drives
Their initial responses
And it’s all become antiquated

Tell people you have
A physical ailment
They are driven to empathy

Tell people you have
A mental illness
Fear drives them to entropy


~kb

You’re lying

Take electronic words
Pull out their wires and rearrange them
Make new finished phrases
That only suit my suspicion
Haven’t spoken a single word
Yet blasphemy runs in binary
And I’m yelling at the phone
But sound waves don’t sift
From speakers to your ears
Hands pierce screen with screams
Typing as quickly as thoughts
Can make nerve connections
with fingertips like the tainted ones
You used to graze my skin with
***** and repulsive
Let the light loosen from the
Backs of my eyes
Place down the hype
And let nicotine smooth my
Stuttering mind
Stuttering thumbs pulse a glass table
Energy escaping calming rational ready

I think you’re lying, can we talk?

~kb

A newer spectrum
starts to develop in a once
dark room
The negatives finally create
something beautiful
Thin pod sprouting roots
trading grey for green
Life moves like a
movie scene
Unknown unexpected
Grab hold little vines
Take pictures for proof
Keep time and patience
Wait for new gradients
to be revealed
Soul healing in color
Body healing in sound
Feet firm on the ground floor
of this home
New tones
New visual and harmonic bones
Relationship strong between
plant and soil
And the spectrum changes intentions

~kb

She has never cried wolf
But she cries so much
The sheep are starting to scare

Even the wolves
Pull back a touch
Her howls are much deeper than theirs

This visceral scream
No one knows what it means
But it shakes and haunts the town

The people don’t seem
To need to know what it means
They just know they let her down

~kb

This path in front of me
may not always be what it seems
or what I dream
or what I want
or what I think I can handle
or what I think I can’t
it doesn’t even care what I
think at all
or if I’m scared I’ll fall
or afraid to get up
or stuck in a rut
or down on my knees
All it shows me
is exactly what I need
I get to choose how I proceed

~kb

Calendars fall from
Vibrating walls
Hear fireworks in the distance
I sit alone on my patio
Trying to find some resistance
To feeling cold and alone
Usually I’d be out with friends
Had a boyfriend for years
So I always had someone to kiss
And I can honestly say I do not miss
One bit of dressing up or
Making small talk over
Warm ranch dip
No
It’s fitting I start a new
Number on these pages alone
Hang a new calendar
New instructions
Make life my own
All this negativity can happily leave
Instructions
Day one:
Just Breathe

~kb

I’m not changing anything this year
That’s my resolution
I’m letting go of taking control
Seeking an informal absolution
I’m letting me forgive myself
And letting the world forgive me
I’m not following any direction
From the wrong energy

I’m letting my journey
Unfold like a letter
Knowing the story
Will only get better

The lines are written in invisible ink
More will be revealed
I will change when I can turn the page
And rest to best be healed

~kb

Suffering scales fill the page
Angry tones and recorded rage
Violent words come out sharp
Raises flat phrases and
a furious heart
Only get to play with
the instruments I’m given
Off key notes
are all that’s being written
You can undoubtedly hear that this
*****’s out of tune
Crashing the symphony between my ears
someone needs to fix it soon

~kb

What I wish was a beige ocean
is a darkened tan lint filled
swamp
of mismatched socks and
yoga pants in every color
White hairs tether themselves to
black clothes
making the world look pretty grey
A guest to the canine
Empty orange glazed bottles
with white caps fill gaps
between clothes
Orange cones that hold chemicals
diverting traffic in my brain
A working pattern fails to come through
And workers turn their fingers blue
day and night trying to
form an intelligent route
Cars just keep
colliding in the meantime
A sanctuary of sorts
At least the walls aren’t padded
though a missing feature on drunken nights
And I’m afraid
if I leave this safe dark place
I’ll never come back the same,
or worse, I will.

~kb

Softest fingers pull my chin
up to meet her eyes
They burned with love
and anger
I wept on her hands as they moved
tightly to my face
She stared soul bared
and glistened cheeks
‘Don’t you ever say that to me again
I don’t want to hear it
You are my child
You will never be a burden’

I tend to highly disagree
Family tortured because of me
because of terrible fears
that fill my head and get spewed out
as actions I instantly regret
And everyone hurts
All because of a terrible disease
For seventeen years I’ve been
on my knees praying
for any kind of relief
I just want to fill this
hole in my chest

She looks for my eyes again
Holding my hands she makes contact
and says
‘You are my daughter
My mission until the day I die
is to get you better
You shouldn’t have to live like this’
The moment she embraced me
the loneliness left and I’m right
where I’m supposed to be
with the most selfless
angel
in front of me
Loneliness continues to be smothered
as love coats every part of my soul
Her commitment as my partner
let me know
that maybe I can fill at least
half of this hole

~kb

When you look at me do you
worry about your daughter?
That she’ll be the same as me
and **** someone like her father?
A vile man fifteen years older
preying on little girls that are
lost in their own worlds
you say you like em’ young
but would you like your
daughter’s tongue in the
same places mine have been
on other men with thin skin?
You’re a creature at best
But I stick around because it’s
not the best *** in town but
I get free drugs and
free hugs from a sweet little girl
that I hope never grows up like me
and never looks to her father
for integrity or compassion
All she’ll get are lies and rejection
She sticks with her sisters
she’ll having a fighting chance
Oh sweet baby girl
get out while you can


~kb

There’s a couple of owls
That sit near my house
Every single day

There’s actually five
I’ve seen them before
But only two seem to want to stay

There’s nothing quite like
Sounds of owls at night
Calming cool dark air

The pitch and the words
Of this ineffable bird
Warms my heart beyond compare

~kb

impatient arrival
the gloom and dread
dead thread sewing
stories together
when I sleep
i read them better
awoken brain taken
to familiar places
claustrophobic spaces
and my face is
now a dark tint
from insomnia’s bruises
taking their energy
trying to use it
to step over dark
that seeps through cracks
same as the last ones
that broke my back

~kb

The coyotes are howling oddly tonight
Sporadic woes in various
Parts of the field, off tempo
Maybe they know the tone is changed
I’ve been alone for so long
The flow of my sporadic woes
Is off tempo, now that you’re here
I become quiet and wander
But the moon strikes my heart and my chords to let a howl soar
But you’re in the kitchen
So my cries become a muted whisper
And secrets I once shared
Float in the air above me
And I wonder if the moon
Still loves me, now that you’re here

~kb

Past becomes sole happy moments
As future possibilities entice my
Present circumstance
And I’m sure this dance
Is forbidden
Smitten with attention
Darkness acquires my arm
Impulse shows no objection
Intellect is blurry
And I seem to be in this
Unsure hurry to sabotage it all
Mind goes blank and strings
Attached to me
Pull it all down
Yet I’m fully unaware of everything going on
Around me
This sound please
Just make it stop
It’s drowning me

~kb

Every Christmas morning
I wake up
Alone
I have for years
Just me and my dog
My family comes later
From miles away
And I pick them up Christmas Day
But there’s something strange about the way
Being alone on this morning
Is so absolutely peaceful
I sit outside hear kids laugh with their
New toys and new lease on life
See the couple nestled gently
On the couch
Sipping tea and admiring their tree
And I admire it too
Each sip of coffee the world is no longer
So deafening
The sounds have changed
If just for one day that’s okay
Because it’s quiet now
Rare and ineffable
Every sense is grateful

~kb

Pain:
The same meaning across lands,
yet each being feels it differently.

~kb

Barrel of gun to temple
I turn straight so it’s between my eyes
If this is my demise let it be
There’s no connection between series of me
This episode holds my demise
I told you, between the eyes
Push closer and hand wavers
Supposed to be my savior
and you’re doubting yourself
Reach hand back to distract
Kick up gravel with a quick shift
And a pedal to the carpet
Escape one death still seeking another
I’m leaving this place dead or dying
I have no emotion attached to either
Crazed in experience and falling deeper

~kb

Scattered incomplete sentences
Eyes search backs of eyelids for guidance
Thoughts act as adversaries to thoughts
And the crossroad brings no punctuation
A quill without ink is just a feather
A mind floating on light breeze
and blank words is just a tether
Kite in the hand but glass eyes lose height
Nothing to be written here
I can’t see the imagery
And blank stares don’t speak much

~kb

Vague, this peace is temporary anyway
Search for logical sense,
so much hay for such a small needle
There’s nothing logical here
Tread through straw
find cold ground the sound
of loneliness has filled this home
No fairy dropping in to leave a dollar
and take the pain
Groundhog Day
Drop sustenance into sputtering machines
Triple layers, unable to get warm
Take in sugar and light and nicotine
and, I can never make sense
of this brick pattern
Sit hours with sun and pen
Occasional interruption
Waiting for the night to turn
animal instincts into visual resistance
and drunken written phrases
that are surprisingly good

~kb

Simple like rose petals and rain drops.
Not enough brain stimulation.
Don’t start a fight with intelligence,
just because it’s belittled.
Can’t keep going backward in life
just because, it’s belittled.
Be little before you dream big.
Master complicated bearings
so you never lose direction.
Be largely modest, trust your shadow,
and know
you humbly hold the key
to liberation and complete downfall.
Step lightly with heavy thoughts and
choose locks simply,
like rose petals and rain drops.

~kb

Hair catches light and shines
a violet prism on pages
Sage bushes push their scent from
the edge of the garden
Watch hummingbirds
sip through small straws
Dogs sing songs
of annoyance while wind chimes
fight to be louder
And only a few orange ornaments
remain on once flowered foliage
Life and death grace the same soil
and have everything
and nothing to do with one another
Shift from relaxation with nature
to thoughts of the nature of life
Been set aside in that regard and
in the survival of the fittest I’d lose
Pen warmed to overflow
Start writing a
survivor’s guide to a poet’s mind

~kb

Almost forgot how to do this.
Concealer then foundation,
or the other way around?
I shouldn’t be doing this this isn’t me.
What am I
thinking?
Ugh, just get ready.
No wonder this takes so long
it’s filled with too much dialogue
and thought.
Criticizing every pore on your face
takes time
but they need the pep talk to act right.
Brown or blue... who
am I kidding? I’m not the owner
of some symmetrical bone structure
I don’t even have eyebrows,
how could I think blue would be an option?
Smokey eye and lung
put out my smoke on my tongue
while I tease a last little hair in the mirror,
like it won’t fall
exactly where I don’t want it to again.
Like I won’t fall
exactly where I don’t want to again.

~kb

***** fingers
hold dirtier habits.
Back track, of course it would
be the same outcome.
Deaf ears, the usual.
Butterfly ***** its wings in some
time, space, symmetrical shift,
and my life’s still ****.
Give me truth like a belly laugh:
undeniable, and exactly what I needed. Fixing broken parts with forgotten arts. Always forget how it starts and fear
the way it may end.
What if the work I put in isn’t enough?
Where will I be then?

~kb

You play me sultry
Down to a fragile state
From my salacious waist
I’m ready for lust to drift into
Your lungs as you inhale me
And I invade your bloodstream
And the blood in your
Veins starts singing my name as it
Pulses in and through your brain
And ****
Everything about you is liquid
Rush in around me
Immerse me surround me
Filtrate me through the
Fluid movement of you
So I can move as you want me to

~kb

One of the hardest things
is wanting to know the answer to a question so badly,
but also knowing,
the answer won’t change anything.
We fear the unknown,
but we also hold onto it,
because, we can’t accept that,
maybe there’s a reason
we don’t know the answer.
Maybe we’re being protected
so we can just move forward.
A little white lie, cover up
from the universe.
Just another reminder,
something greater is in charge here.
We just put in the footwork,
and are rewarded beyond measure.

~kb

On a killing spree you’ve made a
skin of me. Settle down relax to see
if it fits ok. I don’t want it anyway,
there’s too many memories dressed up
as scars that even stars can’t heal,
and you’re far more wounded than me.
You need to graft your own wounds,
stop continually stitching them up
with slips of thread that just won’t hold.
Take my mold and add it to yours
and you won’t need to be afraid anymore. And I can be free too,
knowing I freed you.

~kb

Lies line breaths like prison stripes
Barred up behind a story to memorize
Shifting eyes scream louder than a bullhorn
Wring hands red and rags to sinful water
Soul starts to drip disdain into veins
Inject a bit of guilt for good measure
A visceral polygraph deserving of reverence
Vanquished when eyes conclusively meet
The deliberate intent to deceive
Judgement that peace can befall only one
Biding time and ignorance
just to sacrifice both
Threads of trust fray and split
Left with life unraveling and
one knot to save it
Too busy cutting ties to learn

~kb

Thought, idea, word.
Bunny ears and first steps
Linguistic infant
Stumble on low terrain
One foot by one foot dance
Path blind but revealing
Thoughts hold hands with scenery
Eclectic feigned phrases
Turn the page
Tumble down rock and teachings
Start at asystole
Pen shocking to hands
Old writings reread and revived
Thought, idea, word take new shape
Teachers molding their disciples

~kb

Scan silent aisles in coursing thought
New cartographer
and orange arrows with lines
Cracks in memory prove dangerous
Various scenarios push the levy
Chance encounter
energy bars deplete some
Don’t forget the blinders
keep the horse hushed
Finish line home tile and ***** windows
Surviving another day with nature

~kb

I’ve realized
Many poems
Are about love and ****.
But not one poem
About the love for themselves,
Romantic counterfeits.
You can’t love someone
If you don’t love you
So step on off with it.
Write the deep
Dark parts of you
Stop narrating your hypocrite.

~kb

You can turn anything into a positive
Whatever makes life easier
follow that logic
But don’t go turning red flags green
Don’t convince yourself they’re nice
just because you wanna be mean
Don’t get trapped on the Xanax and lean
Because it helps make positivity
a nice little screen
Between you and real life
And the desperately obscene
Positivity makes everything look green
It can change lives and distort others
False ideals create
fallen sisters and brothers
People that thought they
could live like another
Don’t be naive and let
false truths be covered
Be true to yourself and if it’s not you, run
The shadows still exist in the sun

~kb

Everything at my disposal
And that’s exactly what I do
Throw away your help and advice
And then blame my garbage life on you
You don’t know that I can’t see
Any lines on this Snellen chart
So when I squint to hear you speak
I end up in the dark
It’s not that I don’t want your help
I just don’t comprehend what you say
I follow the mental recipes
But it bakes up different every day
My white flag’s been up a while
But I get mad when it’s flown half staff
When you tell me just to smile
And show the world that I can’t
You expect me to fail but hope for the best
You’ve exhausted energy and time
But those are things I don’t have at all
I’ve hit the end just before my prime
I’ve wanted guidance for so many years
How to navigate these paths
Of the black labyrinth inside my head
Leaving bread crumbs to get back
But it’s already been said
I’ve heard the truth:
‘There’s just nothing more
we can do for you.’
So I’ll eat my bread in fear
Instead of dropping it as I travel
I’m forever sentenced to this labyrinth
Mind’s already slammed down the gavel

~kb

What would truly be
poetry
for me
is if I could write as fast as my mind thinks.

~kb

Resentments can ****,
renting their space
in a head full of anger,
a desperate place.
They attack all cognition
and leave you left with impulse
at those who leave you
disgusted and repulsed.
But the only beat down
to your death is done by you.
Only you hold fatal anger,
they haven’t got a clue.

~kb

I’m having a difficult time here, you see,
my mind keeps bartering my reality
for a few hits of bliss and impulsive bruises
and a subsequent list of bad excuses
I’ve been here before it’s what diseases do
But I know the cure and who to talk to

I dial my friend with vibrating fingers
A sweet soft hello gently lingers
My voice box has shut off there’s no remote
Streams of tears down to my throat
“What’s wrong honey are you okay?”
No I say in an angry way
I’ve ******* up again and can’t get it back
This life is just one vicious attack
I don’t know where to go or what to do
She softly laughs, “Yes you do.”
“You’ve felt this despair before
But I have to laugh at what you look for
You have conquered this demon in the past
Stop ******* about it and get off your ***
Start doing the things that bring integrity
Start going to places you used to find peace
But stop blaming your disease
Just beacuse it brings you more ease
And please start letting
Something spiritual in
Let go of false control and gain some new
Enlightenment.”

I hung up the phone nothing to say
Tomorrow will be the newest of days.

~kb

Seek your approval but
looking at it all wrong traveling
to the wrong places
end up in tight spaces
claustrophobic and regretting
once again the choice I made to
let you invade
any part of me
because now I see that what I seek
was never in you and was always in me.

~kb

I’m numbed out by all the meds.
My creativity’s in shreds
It feels as though I’ve lost part of me.
Sure it was bad, but now I can’t see
the imagery that comes into view
when darkness comes passing through.
But people get a different cue
that this time I won’t make it through.
So they drug me up and leave me be,
a catatonic version of me.
I’m sick of playing a pill popping puppet.
I’d rather be sick to my stomach,
purge your pills until darkness returns.
Free of your drugs creativity burns.
This darkness is where I’m meant to be.
You can be concerned, but know I am free.

~kb

The vibration of the cello’s chest
Has my breathing skipping vital breaths
Imagining notes jumping lines
Rhyming fingers keeping time
Bow slides slick like it never touches strings
As I listen nothing seems to be touching me
Except the stale scales brought to life
Bars cut with precision by the composer’s knife
Cut fingers press out the staff’s life
Play so hard the horse hair breaks
Emotional forte it’s all I can take
As I set down the bow
Eyes still closed
The breath still seems to be taken from me
And I never want this music to leave

~kb

I lie awake again in bed
The same worries fill my head
That kept me up the night before
Any problem I’ll look for
They’ll pop in my head drives me insane
Keep pressing the light switch
To try to shut off my brain
The strobe light attempt
Tells my brain it’s exempt
From having to overthink or worry
Just let my head go blank and blurry
Let me sleep just one night
Let me gain some strength to fight

~kb