Please don’t leave me destitute
Standing here without you
Please don’t walk away
Forgive my aching plea,
I hate the smell of desperation on my skin
I despise the long fall from standing straight
To the depths of sinking to my knees before you
Heed the cry of my soul to yours
Have mercy on this yearning heart
Don’t cast me away from you

Take me under
Take me down
Baptize me
Beneath the ground
Where there are no others
No material or wealth
Let me die
Die to myself
For as I go under
Dripping with sin
Life will flood my being
And I shall live again
Live new
Live fresh
New life attained
Through this death

Forever I’ll be
Your dark romantic doubt
The one who lingers in your mind
When all the lights go out
I’ll appear in shadows
When you thought I was gone
You’ll replay every inch of me
Even if it’s wrong
You’ve moved on
Of course that’s not a sin
But I’ll haunt the deep of your soul
As you realize, you’ll never find love like mine again

Jasmine oil ran thick and yellow
Down her wrist
She dabbed it on her neck
And it flowed like honey
And smelled like summer
She adorned her fingers in rings
And tied her hair
In extravagant clips
And combs
Her youth radiant
Her pride swelled
Her rich black hair cascading

Then...

She felt the years slip through her fingers like sand in an hour glass
Wasted sand
Wasted time

She spent her youth
Spent her beauty
Spent her health
And stood withered before her mirror
The reflection was strange
The image starring back, foreign
An alien,
The black dye in her hair faded
Her hair frizzled from years of tormenting it
Her face heavy from years of drinking
Her figure altered from excessive party’s and feasting

How she wished
She could turn the hourglass
But it was immovable

It’s a disheartening feeling when,
Your “very best”
Is their “not good enough”

Saintliness
Bought at a fee
Unconditional
Love Xs three
So blind eyes
May finally see
Held him there upon that cursed tree
There was a penalty to pay for you and me
For our willful wayward wandering and
Our depravity  
He came to set
The captive free
heal the broken
Calm the sea
Release us from
Our treachery
To show us all
That we can be
When His holy feet
Touched history

It was his mistake,
He tried to embrace a girl
With fire woven into her hair.
Of course he got burned.

Of course it was painful letting go,
But holding on, would’ve been a death sentence.

Forever I crave those I shouldn’t
That’s why I’m addicted to you
Plagued by the Capulet curse
I’ll always want the Montague

In a room full of men
Of brawny size
Winning smiles
And confident eyes

If they all had wit
And clever charm
Were gentlemen
Who’d offer a girl their arm

And if they were all
Impeccably dressed
Suits and ties
Their formal best

Intelligent
With a high IQ
In a room full of men like that
I’d still look for you

I want to run away to Italy
Live with you by the sea
We could spend all our days
Twisting up spaghetti Bolognese
Pack our bags don’t tell a soul
Leave our problems and some notes
“Sorry, but we had to go”
Turn into a couple ghosts
I want to snuggle up on the warm sandy beach
I’ll feed you grapes and kiss your cheeks
Get tangled in steamy sheets
I want to run away to Italy
Live with you by the sea
Live a long life with you, happily

I had a dream a few months ago I was riding in the passenger seat of your car
What a strange coincidence that’s exactly where I found myself last night
Next to you,
Talking about pains and passions.
A dream fleshed out into reality
Who are you to me?
What does it all mean?

I stare at the black and white picture on your tombstone
Your face stamped into the earth
You left imprints in my heart
Occasionally some other thing will come along
Vying to fill the gaps you left
But I never let anything into those incisions
For though there are deep empty spots in me
They remind me you were here
The lingering spaces left by you
Are my last reminders you were really mine once

I yearned for a garden
So I purchased a field
Planted seeds with hope
And anticipated the yield
My garden grew
Rich and green
An opulent crop
Surpassing what I dreamed
My garden was so fruitful
I had so much to spare
So I gave and I gave and I gave
I gave until nothing was there
I gave so much, I had to borrow
From another’s crop
So I could maintain the giving
And filling up others cups

But the harvest dried
All I had was gone
And those I’d given to
Had all withdrawn
Winter arrived
I considered the sum
I had thrown feasts
And received only crumbs
I had moved mountains
Spending more than I had to spend
I did this for love
I did this for love of my friends
But in giving I forgot the Giver
He who gave first to me
He Who laid down His life for His friends
The Shepherd who sacrificed Himself for the sheep
He who gave the field
He who made it grow
He who brought the rain
And multiplied what I’d sown
I did it wrong, pouring out to these who consume, but don’t stay
Now only for Him, the Giver of givers
He has given me more than I could ever repay

I am an inhospitable, icy expanse.
A vacuum, incomprehensibly vast.
Like the universe, stretching my infinite arms,
Embracing an incalculable oblivion.
You’re an astronomer. Wildly obsessed
Drawn to my darkness and immeasurable breadths.
Chasing twinkles of starlight, there in my eyes.
Studying bits of brilliance, in my dark skies.

Her soul was too big for her body
Her spirit was too large for a small minded world

She wrapped herself in his words,
They fit her perfectly.
She danced in front of the mirror,
In her pretty new ensemble.
“This is what he thinks of me”
Is what she painted her lips with,
The cuffs that adorned her wrists,
A silken robe that glazed her curves.
His words were, a grand jewel hung from her neck.
& she was so proud to flaunt them.

I don’t ask for much...


Just to be your dark, twisted fantasy that begins as a small thought in your brain and escalates into a full fledged obsession that renders you dizzy, dazzled and beguiled beyond logical comprehension.


Is that really so much to ask?

“Don’t cause a scene.”
Don’t give me a reason to

She smears on her reddest lipstick
Pulls on her heaviest coat
Stuffs her hands in her leather gloves
Mounts her Vespa
Rides away into the stars
And never looks back

She is many people..
Good luck ever trying to understand her

There has indeed always been a sense of magic in the old house. Especially at dusk, as the setting sun steeps the estate in golden hues. The land was wild and luscious, seemingly unmaintained, embellished with wild chamomile and daisies. History wrote itself into every wall, every blade of dense southern grass, every calcified window and crackling chip of paint held, each in its right, a weightiness, an undeniable depth of bygone years. Martha stood in the old servants kitchen and sipped her coffee long and thoughtfully. The chairs weathered by time and countless night family sat on those cushions. Laughter still echoed in the rooms, ricocheting  off picture frames and pinging off Marthas near deaf ear-drums. She felt the years in the walls, she felt the years in her bones. How she would miss this home.

“Why don’t you just leave him?”
Any addict will tell you
It’s not that easy.

She’s got a face like a renaissance painting
The voice of an angel
And the demeanor of royalty
And she will haunt your every step
For the rest of your life

You had an immense gravity
So strong I was ****** right in
But you’re no star, you’re a black hole
And there’s nothing for me here but destruction

We descend a little deeper
Into the dark vaults of each others minds
The shameful promiscuity's
We’ve encountered in our time
The recesses of drunken escapades
We’ve long since escaped
Kissing prostitutes
And laughing in Gods face
Yet how the years have broken us
How we found each other in the dirt
How fiercely we love each other
Because we’ve both been fiercely hurt
How the years melt away
In the cool evening of our love
How a garden blooms in our heart
A garden that grew out of death & mud

My heart is not easily won.
So believe me when I say I love you,
I mean it with every fiber of my being.

And
the stars rise trembling
Sparkling like fixed diamonds
Set in concrete, black marble
How they set my veins afire
How my heart trembles with them

When Joshua crossed the Jordon River
God told 1 man from each of the 12 tribes to set up 12 stones
A memorial, to remember that God parted the river for them
The same way He parted the Red Sea for Moses when they were exiting Egypt
And Israel feared Joshua, the same way they feared Moses

Jesus stood in a boat with 12 disciples
Afraid for their lives when a mighty storm hit
Jesus arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was great calm, and the disciples feared exceedingly, saying to themselves “who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

God parts seas, and God calms storms.

She asked me to tone it down
But that’s just not in the cards
I only get to live this life once
So I’m gonna live it large
“Small” is not a word I like to use
“Shrinking” or “serious” I don’t dig
I lean into the dazzling life that’s worth living
And it’s worth living big

You stabbed me in the back
Betrayed me with a kiss
But you forgot, when you take a shot at the king
You better not miss
You’re not my friend
You’re a Brutus
You’ve never truly loved me
You’re a Judas

Not a day goes by
That my heart doesn’t whisper your name
You are woven into the fabric of me
You’re a strand in my DNA

Tell me that out there,
In the jungle of skyscrapers,
Mangled mazes of streets
And billboard lights flashing
Blinding you with hypnotic twinkling
You’ll remember me
Tell me that while you’re on top of the world
And your pockets are filled with gold
Promenading in an expensive winter coat
And dropping coins that clang in a beggars cup
You’ll think of me
The one who loved you from the beginning

Down she fell in dust and ashes and hit the ground like lightening carving through earth as she landed.  
They relished seeing her subdued. They loved telling her she was undone.
But their hearts trembled, as they beheld, from beneath the mound of soot and torched ambitions,
A faint glow began to twinkle and glimmer and burn brighter,
She emerged from her burial place, with her wings set on fire. She burned hotter than she did before she fell.
She laughed, for they were faint at the sight of her. She could not be overcome. She rises stronger with every blow she receives.
A Phoenix.

Spring this year, has come gently.
It came on the heels of a historical amount of snow for where I live.
It came on the wings of butterfly’s, drinking nectar from flowers.
It came in heavy rains, drenching the earth with much needed water.
It came in warm sunshine.
It came like a silent symphony of photosynthesis and pollination.

Kiss me in the defeated darkness
Kiss me as the light goes out
And nothing is left of the day,
But us
Skin to skin

I used to be afraid of wolves
Until I realized I am a lion

She looked to the earth
And then to sky
The ground was too dull
She longed to fly
She pulled on her coat
And her soul spread it wings
The air in her heart
Grasping for higher things
Her hand reaching for heaven
And though she met her untimely fate
Her courage lives on in the hearts
Of all those who attempt to do something great

I would’ve cut open my chest if he needed a heart
Wrote sonnets with my tears
Harnessed the thunder just to impress him
Bathed in starlight to entice him
Tread through shadows to get to him
Died to prove to him
I love him
But I realized I was burying myself alive
For a boy, who wouldn’t even visit my grave

I cannot deny,
The man could materialize anything I wished for.
A passing fancy, an eye catching item could and did appear whenever in his finacial power to do so.
I could have anything...
I knew it too.
But in the end all that fluff was to compensate for his lack of emotional richness.
The lack of any character depth or owning a strong self-identity.
I was never hungry with the man.
My belly was always full.
But my heart was always empty.

He was a lonely planet
Orbiting some distant star
Set on an isolated course
Full of duty and deadlines

And she was an unforeseen meteorite
Who slammed into his world
And left a crater in his heart
She was the icy space rock he needed

It’s not that I haven’t made an honest attempt
To translate my heart to you.
I’ve tried. God, have I tried.
To get through to you
To connect with you
To hold onto some spark of hope
That one day it’ll click for you
And you’ll just get it, you’ll suddenly have an epiphany, a dazzling revelation
And you’ll understand who the hell I am
But the spark of hope continues burning in my grasp and the fire is never put out and it’s torture. Absolute torture.
To come to the stark realization that there are parts of me that must always be inaccessible to you.
Parts of me that must always remain untouched by you.
Though I’ve led you to them, grabbed your hands and attempted to apply them to those places I desperately wish for you to see and to feel and to have and to hold.
But there are some things that simply will never be.
There are some wishes that simply will never be granted.
And there are some of us doomed to be perpetually misunderstood.

Sometimes the expectation of the storm
Is worse than the actual storm

The gavel slammed.
“Guilty of sorcery,  conspiring with the devil, and being in possession of magical potions under guise of medicine.”
Elizabeth fought for her life
“I am no more a witch than you are a wizard! This is unjust!” She screamed, pleading.

That night they hanged her.
They congregated in front of the white church house. Rejoicing that they had rid themselves from the vice of the sin of  divinity infesting their beloved town.

3 years past

And The old white church
That lingered for years beneath
The mossy trees
Rose in flames lapping at the night air
And there they saw only her dark silhouette standing in the door.
And then
She was there no more.