Dear monster in my head
I want to see you
Really see you
Inspect you
And understand you

Dear monster in my head
I promise if you come out of the shadows
I'll push away my anger
Desperation

So don’t worry
I’ll clench my fists

Dear monster in my head
I wonder what made you this way
Why you seem to hate me
Why scream these dreadful silent whispers
To me almost constantly

Dear monster in my head
I’ve only seen your beady red eyes briefly in a dream
And I want to observe the rest of you
For if I can’t always control you
I want to understand you

..

Is it you that see now?
Are you that figure coming out from the depths?
I can’t breathe
And I’m crying
Sobbing
But wait a second
...
You're stunning
Not like a sunset
Or a pretty girl
You just feel that way

Dear beautiful hurt in my head
I am so sorry I called you a monster
When you were just in pain

Dear beautiful hurt in my head
All bruised
With tear-stained cheeks
And terrible memories

It turns out that those beady red eyes
Was just the blood bleeding from our hearts
And that you actually have green eyes
That have some yellow near the iris
Just like me

Dear beautiful hurt in my head
I forgive you
And I hope you can forgive me one day
For making you hide in the shadows
Out of sight
And in my mind

Dear beautiful hurt in my head
Let us feel this pain out loud
Together
Holding hands
Watching good and bad days go by

Dear beautiful hurt in my head
I love you
Even though sometimes you make me cry

you can learn much
about love from waterlilies:
openness and trust,
seeking energy from the source, the sun,
and reaching deep within
to float above all chaos
swimming below the surface.

On my walls hang two pieces of art;
large canvases boldly splashed
with colour, stroke upon stroke formed vivid arcs.

I wish I had kept my father's paintbrushes,
they were tools of masterpieces.
From them, my strokes could have made faces flush
and inspired songs and poetry; love?

*
But, perhaps ‘twas a blessing to create with unique expression and freedom.

From my new book, Poems of Ancient Rome and Greece, available in paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as eBook on Kindle, Nook, and Apple Books:  https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Ancient-Greece-Christopher-Saitta/dp/B0DS6933HB?ref=astauthor_dp  

My mother the sea,
She woke my sandy eyes,
Just to tell me she had to leave,
Draw past the markets where the fish are sun-dried,
Snarled by the coral-rough hands of divers deep.

My mother the sea,
She left her running tab
Of the grocer’s choicest greens,
Thumbed the velamentous rinds and spiny scarola,
Her xylem and phloem are the slow moving cruciferousness of a breeze.

My mother the sea,
Charwoman of tides,
Who dips and delves upon her knees,
Who scrubs her brothel-coves with chamber lye,
Cyprian mistress of the salt-stained sheets.

I have looked for you, mother,
A scugnizzo amid the striped awnings of the marketplace
~ like sails to the sky ~
Where the fishmongers hawk their pride
Of conch, cavallo, and black sea bream.

I have looked for you, mother,
Walked sun-forged along the boardwalk,
Amid the neon-mascara of signs,
Hand-in-hand with only the ladyfingers of salt and vinegar fries,
Toward the crisp syllabub of pebbles and sand.

A beach is window-warmth spread free, cosmopolitan,
The longeur of eyes crushed in the glass-dust of cities.
And in the sputtering of the frosted spume of tides,
Held broken seashells in my hands like broken needles,
Heard the pump-click of the ventilator through your mask of sand.

My mother the sea,
A naked convalescent,
Whose ever-turnings have taken
A turn for the worse.
Who will know her by her death, who but me?