when you're 18 going on 9-5
and you watch the volcanic birth of the rest of your life
rise from a still ocean
you almost wish
there were resignation letters
for living.

She showed me her pain, hidden
Under the scars she wore so
Perfectly, while she cried afraid
I wouldn't love her for the who she is
That once loved a knife

She showed me her pain, no longer 
Hidden in tantrums and fits 
Feeling scared and ashamed, I 
Told her I loved her even more, I 
Wouldn't be a salt to her wounds, I
Kissed each scar and searched all over
Me for one and I couldn't find so I
Carved her name into my heart
My stronghold, I let her in
And as I cried from the pain, stubbornly 
Fighting the tears, I
Told her and I said
Now I have a scar too and that's the kind
Of love I want to have.

TABLE D'HôTE

Appetizer
Wrong Tons With Me Soup
cooked worry
seared in a teary onion broth

Hors D'oeuvres
Slow Roasted Fear
fresh over-analyzing
crushed with loneliness

Main Course
Stress Salad
tossed with insomnia
marinated in a vertigo dressing

General Trouble Chicken
battered uncertainty
gloomed to perfection
sitting on steamed danger
stir fried in an overwhelm sour sauce

Dessert
Choked Volcanic Eruption
mountain of OCD
topped with whipped depression
glazed with self-loathing

Expresso
prepared with frothy guilt

(C) Jl 2016