I just found out after years
of light and loving laughter
that you've hated me all this time.
It's crazy the number
of masks in your collection,
happy and caring and loving masks
that were, in the end, too good to be true.
Just thinking about you makes me think
about the masks we all put up.
It's like every morning we wake up
to go to a huge masquerade party,
and instead of taking
our masks off at the end of the night,
we sleep with them on,
always lying, always deceiving
even when the party's over.

In the days of seafaring yore, in a candied littoral time, my parents shared a love for wingsails; propelling their craft on the surface of gentle waters.

It was here my father navigated me into existence, by taking my mother for a long enchanted boat ride.

And like a hook and eye, they so clasped and rowed into the boundless deep. The tender rhythm of their waves stirring a rivulet that would come to be called me.

Floating in this colostrum bed underneath the heart's thicket, I settled to sleep; dreaming of cradle song and breastmilk.

My unborn hands and feet routinely practiced swimming toward the open shore; until that day when a familial voice called.

And there in the dilation of a growing current, I sprang forth; thirsting for their love from my very first cry.

Red flags disguised
amongst the roses

I can’t lie
i was distracted
by
her many poses

Quick

water down the fantasy  
can anyone
being some hoses

For

My dry eyes

had me thinking
“This is great”

Until I met her gaze
and realized
like the rest
she’s the same

To one day
meet
a kinder love

So I won’t
have to
feel
the loneliest
in my pain

You twist the truth
into boy scout knots
and put them on display
for all to see.
"Look at me! Look what I did!"
and everyone believed it,
while I sat in the corner, quiet,
because people only want to believe
the story that sounds the most interesting.