I was once a young girl,
cast aside by my father.
No gift was I to him
instead, merely a bother.

The man who should have been
the first love of my life,
he took half my heart in hand
and cut it with a knife.

For years I denied the theft,
content in my mistrust.
Yet the rest of me died at my own hand,
in leaving my heart to rust.

Ages I spent mourning this death,
never having been more wrong.
Now I see my heart remains,
my true love was me all along.

I could punch myself in the face
or I could grow up.
None of us, or any of this
is perfect; it's okay to not
measure up. Measure to what?
The beauty of life is
that the definition is all my own.
No one can tell me what it is.
I am sitting in the sun.
I can smile.
I forgive myself.
I love
myself.
This is the best poetry I could write.
The beauty of poetry is
that the definition is all my own.
No one can tell me what it is.
I am a pearl, however misshapen
I may be the world is my oyster.
It's mine. It's mine. It's mine.
I could get used to that.

And yet again, I care too much.
It burdens my shoulders
and suffocates me everyday.
Thoughts of everyone, everything,
efforts to remember,
it has consumed me
as would a storm.
To think that they-even you,
never wanted me,
it was always her.
Compare us
and I will always come up short.
And? I shouldn't even care.
It is dangerously shallow water to swim in;
but I cannot yet let it go:
I wish terribly to be
just one person's first choice.

Stone by stone,
stacked with Roman concrete,
the wall must be built.
If I build it,
some part of me will be lost.
If I do not,
some part of me will be crushed.
My own vanity and pride
cannot withstand
the passing whims of others.
If only I could dig a moat
around my heart.
I feel dramatic,
but I will not remain
encumbered
with this nonsense.
I have always longed
to be a warrior,
to fight, to defend that
which I love.
But until this day,
I failed to love my heart.
So I must be a shieldmaiden for it.
To protect myself, yet know
when to raise the gates.
Perhaps I am too immature,
I ask for that which
only comes with time.

I have grown beyond you.
I could play your trifling games,
but I prefer to burn this bridge
and watch it fall in flames.

I have an illness of anger,
burning at my mind.
I fought at your side as blood,
only to be maligned.

Once where I saw my friend,
I only see a snake.
You are behind me,
I leave you in my wake.

Stepping out into the yard,
my curvéd bow strung tight.
Thereupon my driveway,
three blackbirds share the light.
The moment is opportune,
it must be now, do or die.
I've got thoughts of my belly
filled with hearty blackbird pie.
"What did they ever do to you?
They're not a threat in the least."
Yet should I die in my own yard,
they'd pick me for the feast.

I am the last soul in the universe,
sailing a ship that will find no shore.
The souls that came after me are no longer,
as are the ones that came before.
The sea around me is a dark abyss,
and the island I seek, a star.
Here I am the loneliest soul in the cosmos,
dreaming I am watched from afar.
I built this ship of shadows,
and hoisted sails from fallen dreams.
I am the last captain of the stars,
praying darkness is more than it seems.

You cut right through me.
I am the dying man in films,
gasping and choking on my own life,
shocked at what was always coming.
How is it that death feels so very alive?
I stumbled in a world of darkness
when you found me and cut me down
and all was clear from there.
You, who I thought least of all
taught me the best lesson:
weakened, and losing blood
my heart pumped stronger than ever,
raging and fighting for life
as it never had and I knew then:
I was happy to still be alive.

I was once a vine,
clinging to you-my tree.
When you cut me loose I died,
and in that I was free.

In this life I am the tree,
and you my dear, the vine.
Now it is I that need let you die;
cruel are the paths of the divine.

Another life, I pray,
comes just around the bend.
Yet if we do not meet, know,
your memory can not end.

The bane of courage was upon me.
I gathered myself
in the darkness of the truth.
You are not perfect, nor shall you be.
You are not always right.
It cut and burned like ice.
Shackled in the dark, by my own acts
I screamed and cried and fought,
as all Children of Men have once done.
Digging through the earth beneath me,
there lay the glowing key of Faith.
I had oft heard of such a treasure,
only when blinded could I see it.
Tears trickled through my smile,
tasting of acceptance and sweet catharsis.
Light was not at the end of the tunnel,
but here within my hands.

The throbbing headache and nausea
I can endure; I've had worse.
Right now I could cry,
such a raw hope consumed me
as I thought about you, desperate.
It was still dark for me then,
when I needed you. Now it's day.
It brings a true smirk to my face
to know you are nothing more
than a night of binge drinking:
a foolish part of my youth,
a consequence of boredom.
I could not hold your liquor,
I vomited all that bile you said to me
in the hedges outside. Don't fret,
this is not a bad memory, in fact
you might never be a memory at all.
I am well. I will drink better and
far more dangerous poisons.
I am today, you are only last night.

I feel you in the wind
wrapping around me
like blankets your mother made
yet you are ever intangible.

I see you in light
filtering through leaves
that spread upon branches
like veins of the sky.

I hear you in songs and tales
written of others.
Deeds both great and terrible
They speak to me
knowing that I would
one day weep with a smile.

These are things
unceasing and present
yet I am glad to keep you with me
Through these mediums
I know there is no death.

In moments of my life
I lie, I do admit.
I try and guard my heart
with my rancor and my wit.

In moments of my life
I gave a piece of myself,
for nothing in turn.
There's always another woman
for whom a man's heart will yearn.

In moments of my life
I doubt I will have a one and all;
one who understands me
when I cut and when I crawl.

In moments of my life
I try and run from my fate.
Yet as I've found,
with growing dread,
I'm already too late.

There is something within me
something I cannot say
the song of my soul steps forward
but I cannot translate it today

This song moves within me,
of love and choice and grief,
it stabs and bleeds my mind,
a sword without a sheath

The song of my soul is true
each of us finds it in time
yet until that fateful day
this poet struggles with her rhyme

A glance from you is a seed of kudzu.
The madness spreads,
wrapping around each tree,
gripping it in a panic.

This is not healthy.
I use you like I would pop pills
to forget about things
I don't like about my existence.

Can you lose yourself
within yourself?

Sometimes,
when I sit alone,
I wish the forest of my life would burn.
I would light the match,
and I could once again
see the sky.

I write letters to God and burn them;
the smoke is my prayer.
Each day brings salty cheeks
and a recurring headache,
the circular path of pain
that storms in my head.
Lightning strikes my nerves
and thunder shakes my shell.
The two are cackling twins
guiding me on the path to Hell.
I've led myself here, and they know it.
Fire and smoke are my hope,
burning scrawl is merely history,
and wounds are only moments
that will cease to be.

Here I am.
There's what I know and
where I've been but it doesn't
seem to matter here. Somewhere
In this I cease to exist, in and out
of dreams and reality. All I want to say
are words of milk and honey
that somehow glisten gold, if only
for you to listen. If only I could
wield a beckoning pen and somehow
let you see the story of my soul.

Tonight, love holds me.
Tonight love pours out of me
as wine into a glass
before an anxious eye.
I have enough love for all
I can rain it down from the sky.
Tonight, if you find yourself
without love you can share mine.
If you find yourself adrift at sea
I will cast you out a line.
Tonight, love holds me.

You are loved.
I know you have forgotten lately,
and it feels like no one is home.
The room is always dark,
you cant catch your breath,
and tomorrow will never come.
It will. Tomorrow will come
with bright eyes and foreign skin.
Drink tomorrow's liquor,
and you will be renewed.

I find myself angry with life.
A low, simmering rage
only too close to a boil.
Once, my mind was
the sharpest of blades,
nothing could stand before me.
Now, it is but a vestigial sort of thing,
a relic of times better remembered.
I am rusted by the monotone
my life has become.
The repetition of every day
comes on as a flood;
I will succumb.

At some point I knew,
or thought I knew,
that I was the only one
who could really look out for me.
How am I so terrible,
unable to trust?
Even the ones that love you
will let you down.
That thought burned over me,
molten metal, hardening fast
into some twisted selfish armor.
Protecting me from pain
but also love.
I have trouble taking it off.

A- A part of you know that you are special
B- Because you know the part of you is in there somewhere
C- Clueless, disgraceful, and obedient
D- Depressed over the bad things
E- Everybody has their own feelings
F- Farewell to all the people who are unkind
G- Graceful sometimes you want to be nice
H- Healthy brushing your teeth, kids say no vegetables for dinner
I- I see you all the being good sometimes
J- Just be yourself
K- Kindness to others always
L- Love always have love for others
M- Mind always, expand it, if you don’t use it you lose it
N- Never say never
O- Orange that little container of medication
P- Punctual, don’t be late
Q- Quiet don’t be loud
R- Respectful, respect your elders
S- Smartness, use your head
T- Textbook, that little book in your desk
U- Be Useful, help
V- Venture the world one day
W- Wannabe the person in math class who’s taking your boyfriend
X- Xmas, Christmas, the presents
Y- Yard, no better place to play
Z- Zero, Nada

A block in my heart angers my hand.
I cannot write, I cannot write!
I fear i'll find no respite tonight.
All of my letters melt into sand.
They are a black hole: everything and nothing.
We are but star dust the Sun sheds off his skin.
We struggle through our lives fighting our original sin.
I cannot write, I cannot write.
I know i'll find no respite tonight.
My words are everything and nothing.

You are quite a gifted surgeon.
In fact you cut me so clean and sharp
I barely even knew it at the time.
Waking the next day in my hospital bed
was where I met my pain.
Being with you was like anesthesia:
I was so grateful for you to help me.
You were the one who weakened me.
My senses failed: your scalpel cut
clean to the core, and then I just let you
sew me back together. The nurses say
I am very lucky, that I had a good doctor.
I know better. I was once a person and
now I am Sally Stitches, or better yet, Raggedy Ann.
I am no one's operation game.
Letting you in brings only stitches and needles,
and it was I who checked myself in.
I need to learn to stitch myself at home.
Consider this my checking out.

Thinking tonight,
I never thought
Our love could grow
as a living thing,
even in the winter season
I feel that my heart is in spring.
I will love you beyond
the fall of mountains.
and the drying of seas.
I love you,
and through you,
I have more love to give.

I was frozen for ages
afraid to reach for the sun
Battling myself with myself
and neither side has won

I am she who battles demons
I am she who prays for snakes
I am she with many fears
I am she who never breaks

I am sharper than obsidian
I am stronger than steel
No longer will my head hang low
because of how I feel

How strange it is of life
to love with no love in turn
How strange it is of life
that a cold shoulder can burn
How strange it is of life
that you bring a tear to my eye
How strange it is of life
that you let me pass you by

I was stumbling in a field.
Firelight in my eyes,
Burning bright red
in the camera lens.
It wasn't a trick of the light,
the drugs or the beer;
it was a glance of love.
I was stumbling in a field.
Red-eyed and smitten,
Crossing minefields to you by choice.
Perhaps that is the only way
to walk the course of love.

My life is changing
the past is gaining speed away
the girl I once was
is becoming something more.

I miss my family
yet if I do not cast out on my own
I'll never know what my life is for.

My yearns for my mother,
to be that girl again, head on her chest.
Yet that girl is long vanished,
and I remind myself it's for the be

The fire inside of you
will you let it burn?
I sharpen the knife in my gut
You bring the rain.

The words of my mind
bleed forth, on and on
through the mire of self-reproach
I am here as a flash of lighting
the worry of thunder

The end is nigh
and we change naught.
It is as it always was
the moral of the story
was a dream

One step forward,
two steps back.
Every day brings
another setback,
another backtrack,
another reminder
of the things I lack.
My mind never quiets,
I can't take the feedback.
An eternal panic attack,
I should double the Prozac,
it's making a comeback.
One step forward,
two steps back.

My analytic mind
can not define
that which is truly you.

You may take my body
break down the parts
weld them back together
but you will never find me.

I am an engine
of ever-burning fuel
I am a howling wind
unseen and out of reach.

I was not created
by any understanding on earth
and thus can not be destroyed
by anything we know.

I am finite and infinite
vulnerable and invincible
I can only be touched
by soft hands and sharp nails
of love.

This morning I made my shield.
Last night I knew it must be.
Laying there after,
I knew.
Never ask a friend in the sheets
what you mean to them.
Especially not after.
But foolish I was,
yet this fool turned pain to wisdom.
I woke and dressed, looking back with an ache in my heart.
It always comes back to this:
my vanity,
my need to be important,
to someone, some man
rather than myself.
It is the gap in my armor.
I strode out into the yard,
there I sacrificed myself to myself.
The blood painted the wood
the color of my heart.
I nailed it with heartbreak and rejection,
and polished with old tears,
it shone.
Battle ready, fear left me.
The shield was new
but the strength was old.
Upon my arm it would ever hold.

There is a vanity in me
not to think well of myself,
for I have yet to achieve such
but to please others,
to like myself more
through their good opinion.

There is a fear in me
in my mind, every night
the love others feel for me
is erased, set back like a clock.
Every day I must work,
earn their love all over again.
In the trappings of my own mind,
love is so easily lost.

There is a doubt in me
with my friends and loved ones.
I trust no one, not even myself.
It is as unfair to them as it is to me.
I decided young, perhaps wrongly,
That those who claim to love you,
even those who truly do love you,
can and will leave you behind.

There is a desire in me
to liberate myself, to love myself
as I have never truly done.
I fear that in loving myself,
I will become something foolish.
Even still, despite my intent,
with a complete lack of trust
I am still that arrogant fool.

You and I were the tree and the vine,
I was yours and you were mine.
I often felt that I was the tree,
for all the roots that came under me.
You were the vine, beautiful and light;
I loved you best for never clinging too tight.
You said that all along it was I who clung,
and then and there something died where I hung.
This tree of mine had changed its leaves,
and grown contempt within its eaves.
And I, the vine and parasite
was bid a prompt and cold goodnight.
By the time I fell to the forest floor,
life as I knew it was no more.

You are a thought terrorist.
I can't go on a walk
lay in my own bed
or have a conversation
without you there.
You have hijacked my eyelids
you linger in my mind
-its maddening!
Maybe with these words
I can cut you from my head
and trap you in paper.
You can not become
my background music or
the rhythm of my soul
-its MINE!
Yet still, I think of you.
Why do I do this to myself?
If you are the terrorist, I hope
I am not the plane going down.

This heaviness in my chest is a grim room.
One cherished by a fool,
something that will never come to light.
It is a constantly dim room,
never lightening,
only strangled into night.
There is a lone rocking chair
in the room, cast out of yew.
My madness here is aplenty
and my silver thoughts a few.
My heart is made
of gray rotten walls
and deadly nightshade.
Maybe one day,
when a certain light
passes though the curtains,
I will walk out the door.

I know a few things
no one cares to see.
It's a terrible realization
that they're not so far from me.

The sun never shines
equally in all places;
some of us live outside
glad for the moonlight on our faces.

I know a few things
for which no one has a care
it is my toil in the shadow
that gives sunlight to your hair.