When I was young
I learned of my inky blood
My paper bones, and graphite mind

When I was young
I wrote to please my family
Who loved words even if they were mine

When I aged
And the world grew strange
I wrote for me to understand that time

When I aged
And those words were for me
I was scared to share those precious things

Now I am old
And am starting to share
The words that have been trapped inside

Now I am old
And still young at heart
Wondering if others will appreciate my art

My world didn't end when we did


We both got an "after"


The only difference is yours is happy


And mine isn't over

"If you love something let it go,
If it love you, it'll come back"

An idea all must try
But what if testing the theory
Leaves me terrified?

One go is all I have.
Failure means a future
Blurred in the unknown.

But I can't live everyday
Ever wondering
if she can't love me.

So I look her in the eyes
Across the mirrored divide
And I let myself go

I let go of my grudges,
Of my criticisms,
And my cynicism

I let her take all my hope
All my confidence
Willing to suffer the consequence

Let the door to my heart
Hang wide on it's hinges
In faith that I'll come back

Your mind is an artisan of words,

Infusing the mundane with fantasy

Crafting dreams to reality



So pick it up like a pen

And write yourself a better story

You changed the climate

With just a passing compliment,

You were the rain,

That fell on an arid desert plain

Your kindness fell on me

And it no longer hurt to breathe

What part of the words on the page
Unravels my confusion
And extinguishes my rage

I could just succumb to sleep
Or peruse a book
Or fall to my bed and weep

But forever and ever I return
To paper and pen
To work away the burn

Should I give up on the right way,

When the easy way

Looks to get me there so much sooner?

I live in The Somewhere
Between here and there
Between indifferent and I care
Between always looking away and long stares
Between brave enough to speak
And if only I wasn't scared

My heart aches in The Somewhere
Between a couple and a pair
Between this is okay and it's not fair
Between broken and repaired
Between brand new to love
And worn-out with ware

Trapped in the middle...I tear
Between being a 1st choice and a spare
Between hold my silence n' clear the air
Between joy and despair
Between a green light and a red flare
Between I'll take this risk by loving you
and really I don't dare

"Home again home again
My my it's been a while"
My old demon sneers
With his sickening smile

"Hope you didn't dream
I'd never come back"
He scowls and snarls
"You're not lucky 'nough for that"

I shiver in shock
Then shatter and shrink
I thought I was free
The only thing I can think

"You aren't free at all
Never were, never will be"
He says, his shadow surrounding
"Never enough to beat me"

Deep in my darkening mind
A little light doesn't give in
Stalwart and small, it says
Not by much but we're stronger than then

The little candle isn't enough
To dispel my old demon
But enough to build myself on
A hope to believe in

Tell me again
Where I am safe again
The house I'm within?
In the crowd of a million?
Anywhere the sun is shinin'?

Do you really believe this?
Because I really believed this
'Til I met those who readily dismiss
The rules on which we subsist
Who turn safety into an abyss

Because that's the thing about being safe,
We aren't the only ones who get a say
And it's not hard for another to take it away

You'll never see tomorrow's sunrise.
Were you afraid it wouldn't come?

Was the darkness too empty?  
Or the night too long?
Was last night for you this lonely?

Would this horizon have made you smile?
Or one more worry for the list?

Were the demands on you too great?
Was there a tipping point I missed?
Or something that could've made you stay?

Once I wondered if I show give my poems to those whom they are about

To show them the pain that leak out of my pen in between the anger and regret

I wondered if giving them my anguish cloaked in paper would free me

Would the ink from the page seep into their fingers and stain them, like they did me

And I want it; I want it like broken glass shards want to cut, to give the pain away

As if additional pain ever made a glass cup whole again, able to be filled again

But then I remembered that I was the victim not perpetrator and I never will be like them

So I will show my pain to the world not in vengeance but anonymity

I know you had to leave
So thank you for leaving
Pieces of you behind
In everything you loved

I'll seek them like a treasure hunt
And they'll find me when I fall
And they'll make smile with my heart
Until we meet again

I want to stay in the place
Where the wind holds sway

Where I can whisper my story
And with a whoosh he'll wisk it on it's way

From my cheeks, he'll brush tears
And with my hair he will play

He'll whistle a quiet tune
Until I drift to sleep where I lay

Would that I could see the world
Where the wind wields its power

I'd spin with the sprites in the leaves
And sway with the tricksters in the trees

Find friends in the fairies wrecking fences
And follow wisps that whistle from windows

Hitch a ride on a hippogriff in a hurricane
And be blown back home with a history nobody will believe

Once a upon a time
Starts a story into motion
A mild mannered man
Or a witch brewing potion

The story continues on
Weaving a perfect tapestry
A villain gains their power,
A detective now deep in mystery

The last few pages are come
Through all the plot's bending
We know what they will say but stay
Because people seek an....

I wonder,

For those so talented and so seen

That they seem to stand above and apart

Do you wish the distance between

The world and stars, wasn't quite so far?

You need this mountain
This new trial, this next "what then?"
Because a year ago or a few,
This hurdle would've tripped you
Then? You'd have given up or quit
Now? You're strong enough to surmount it

Proof comes in trials every so often
Of how we changed and how far we've gotten

It gives us the strength to keep climbing
To never give up, to keep on striving

I'm so glad God
Didn't give me what I wanted

Because what I wanted
Was so much less than He gave me

Because I never could have imagined
Someone as wonderful as you

So I thank God that you
Were the miracle that I needed

Here I am again
Hiding from the world again
Watching Joy smile in the distance
While Empty keeps me company

Far away Life laughs on
Would I be safe with her?
From Pain who follows me
Where Anger is a stranger

I've seen people abandon Sadness
And cross to the other side
Where Greener tends his grass
I watch start to end and still can't comprehend

Did Chance teach them how?
Was it Faith who boosted them over?
I'll bet it was Love who held off Fear
If I listen close, maybe one day, I'll hear Hope

When I was with you
Everything was confused
I can never recall
The during, just the fall
When everything shattered
And suddenly nothing mattered
I didn't think it possible
For it to go so Holocaustal
It was only after dust settled
And you were long gone in revel
When I was no longer smothered
That I finally discovered
That you were toxic not I
And all you words a lie
And even though you're gone
My heart still seizes at your song
And wonder if there's a place I belong
When I carry the scars of your wrongs

If you ever wonder how much I love you?

Remember I saw that cliff
Long before I jumped off it
And believed that you would catch me

But you didn't and I broke
And there your heart awoke
And oh my love how you grieved

You put your everything
Into my rebuilding
Until I was whole again

Now I knew the pain
But also how you've changed
So I jump, for belief in a different end

You say that I don't see what you see
When you look yourself in the eyes
And you're right because
You've only ever seen a monster in disguise.

You think somehow you've fooled us

You only know the critic, the judge,
The jury, the executioner,
The unimpressed, impertinent nit-picker
And then you look at you and wonder
How anyone can love her?

We don't.

We love the girl who glows
When she sees falling snow
Who wrinkles up her nose
When you offer her tomatoes
We love the girl who chose
To be kind in the face of foes.
Who encouraged others to grow
And become better as they go

So no, we DON'T see what you see
We see more, we see clearer
And we will love you as you deserve to be
Til one day you see the same in the mirror

Warning:

Crossing a writer's path
Means becoming part of their world
It means being apart of their words

Maybe as a muse
Maybe as a shade
Maybe as the home
We return to everyday

We do not forget
So rest assured sure, for better or worse
You are somewhere
In all the words we've written

What is a perfect storm?
Something beautiful? Something wonderful?
Something tragic? Something terrible?

Do you wish it had never wreaked havoc?
Do you wish sometimes it would come back?
Was the magic worth the madness?

I wonder and wonder and wonder
When you left, If you were worth
The world you tore asunder.

Today I saw a strange, silly thing
The oddest woman I've ever seen
With the tips of her hair dyed all green
Braided and tied at the end with a string

"I love the way you've dyed your hair"
"It's not due to dye" she laughed as I stared
"How did it turn then," I said as I glared
"A forest of evergreens" she said with flare

"Well anyway I love how you did your nails.
The nail polish, all blue like a fish's scales"
"It's not nail polish, it was a blue sea whale"
As if I could ever believe her tale

"Regardless your blush is as good as it gets"
She opened her mouth, to argue I regret
"But wait let me guess, it's not makeup I bet"
Oh that," she laughed, "I blame the sunset"

With green hair, blue nails, cheeks of sunset
And, I saw also, a paint splatter locket
She walked away, a spring in her sprocket
And ten paintbrushes stuffed in her pockets

Everyone fears pain and death
And after it's over, what will be left
But don't forget tragedy
Can bring us some clarity
About what really matters
When the whole world shatters
Because nobody could care about
The color of your skin if they believe
They will never see you again
We can't argue about sexuality
When we are worried about mortality
We can't put work before family
In the midst of this anomaly
There's no fight, democratic vs republic
When hospital beds are the home of the public
How could we ever fight a war with guns
When a virus is killing us all, old and young
When the war is inside our very lungs
I think we can afford to bite our tongues
Because to strip away contention
Is to leave only compassion
How much good could we do as a whole
If only we thought with the heart and soul
We're born to do good and live to be better
So when we die, we rise with a soul unfettered

I know that I did this
That I chose to leave

But while it only took an hour
To pack up all my things

It will take longer to fill in
The places, where you used to be

To remember it's not worth it
Even if now my heart's a little empty

A patchwork of her past
Where pain and joy overlap
In stretch marks and stupid scars
In laugh lines, and inked art

Every sun-kissed spot
And Marilyn Monroe dot
Speak of habits and genetics
Of insecurities or aesthetics

So ask her for the stories
Some funny, some boring
From "I slipped and split my chin"
To "that dare I had to win"

And for others, she flinches
Stories measured in miles not inches
Scars that trace back to the heart or mind
That maybe she'll tell you another time

We may wish some tales weren't written
But nothing's real without dimension
So for all the obvious or obscure we can see
Maybe we should rethink the term "skin deep"

They say you can't judge a book by its cover
It is arrogant, and stupid and blind
But I can judge a book by its name
Don't object, let me explain my mind

An author wrote this book and these lives
They penned theses glorious victories
Let us and the written experience joy
Then created the following tragedies.

They gave life and adventure
They gave love and loss
They showed what we should treasure
And showed us the cost

I know I can judge by title
Because it is more than a shame
A crime really, for an author
To give the work a half hearted name

Because for every work of art there is
One perfect word or one resounding phrase
But can only be found by skill and soul
One phrase amoung trillions takes the day

How can I not love
the God who gave me wings?

And then

How can I not change
when all He asks is this one thing?

Dear You of the spotlight
At the center of everyone's view

I hope that among the glamor and glitter
There is someone who sees what's true

That in your endless music they hear
The piece of you that you've disguised

That while every loves the perfect you,
They'll love the real you you hide inside

That when you trip along the way
They'll be there to catch you at those times

That as you wonder, "can I do it all?"
"You can and you're not alone", they'll chime

And finally,

That as everyone takes something from you They'll give their everything to you

From: The shadows
To: you of the spotlight
At the center of everyone's view

Tomorrow, for me, was scary
The root of all my worry

'til you traded your tomorrows
For the high price of "it's all over"

So now I spend every one of mine
Loving those who think of trading time

Trying to give them moments you missed
Hoping somehow I can make a difference

I used to think the worse thing
Was feeling my mind dying
In the blackness, in the pain
But there's something worse than that bane

It's the shifting gravel below me that begins
   To trickle off the cliff, into the wind
       Knowing that I will follow in stride
         And nothing I can do will turn the tide