Here she is
again, totally feeling she is under some kind of hypnosis
or orthosis
or haplosis
or maybe moral epilepsis.

Hands on chest
like she should not be at her angriest.
Keeping her still under his mouth arrest
like she should not feel at her awfullest.

Her brain started a coup
then her defenses echoed a coo.
Shampoo all over that bamboo

Lust has a wicked heel curve
desire's stepping on her last nerve
satisfaction killing all her reserve
he got what he did not deserve.

Next day,
it was all over the internet.

Gamble -a risky action undertaken with the hope of success.

Derived from the 18th century English word gamel, meaning to pay games.


Remember the players we left behind…
The strangers who you held one night friendships with on evenings where the sun refused to shine.
Remember the fairy lights. Remember the benches outside of Bodega and the smuggled bottles of wine. People seem so much more friendly when they drink.
But hey, if it takes a glass of poison to make us all less toxic then we can pass out happy…
We’ll creep out of sobrieties bed knowing it’ll be the angriest alarm we wake to as the sun tries to steal 5 of our 40 winks the next morning.
But you know.. Gotta risk it for a chocolate biscuit.
I’ll trade in sleep at the chance I’ll be dealt a more interesting night. Break ice with strangers at hope we both share a bit of over lives.
Trying to to create a story worth telling is a gamble.

And I feel sorry for people who fall asleep at half 11. Seems like such a wasted day.
Like if life composed of options and outcomes there must be a better way. I slay the idea that each night we have 8 hours of sleep debt to pay. Because in those wee hours of the morning, those are when demons make music videos, those are when normally vacant balconies play host to the half drunk couples finding comfort in each others bodies. That’s when the parties get quiet. When the humans have intoxicated themselves into lullabys and start softly singing their lives into the ears of a friend willing to listen and I will bet you have something I wanna hear, and I bet I'll have soemthing to give back, and while you and I are here we'll keep betting. Each syllable is a chip on the table. Each sentace is an opportunity to double down. The bar will not close, the roullette will keep spinning and we'll grow a little ritcher with every new story we share.

I make bets with time and breath.
And if you spend time with me then you will to. You the few who have paid you admission fee into my conciousness. You who throw dice with me on the empty streets where street lamps themselves begin to sleep. You who I will one day come to love.
It's risky. Risky like petting stray dogs. Risky like telling your loved ones that you've been seeing demons in the mirror. Risky like getting one knee and offering your life to someone. It is risky.... but that's fine.
I will teach you how to gamble.

IT RESONATES JUST AS MUCH


    
ON LIFE AND LOVE



Ever since I was small, smaller than I am now, I sought out the feeling of companionship and the mutual respect that comes with healthy friendships and relationships. Upon seeing the travesty that was my parents shattered marriage: the endless fights, the bruises on my mother's body I saw in elementary school, the anger, taunting jealousy, and tension that never ebbed. I vowed to find something that made all of that seem impossible to comprehend.

Seeing the tired strings that attach my mom and dad: their children, grandchild and 27 years of dysfunction I shudder at the thought of slipping on my mother shoes again, as I did as a child— prancing around wobbling from balance to stained carpet. It is the scariest thing I have ever done.


"Don't do this in front of the kids, Phil."
"You make me do this, Shannon."

I had an inner turmoil of wanting to be alone and be in the presence of others. My 12th birthday party, (probably the biggest I'll ever have) I had a total of ten girls from my grade stay over. A couple of them, I believe just came for the cake. We had huddled into my parent's expansive living room, painted our nails, braided each others hair, giggled at things 12-year-old girls giggle about, and watched movies. I do not talk to any of the girls from that party now, 6 years later. Not really. They all, one by one, faded in the picture we took the next morning before the storm rolled in. I remember standing in my driveway the following morning with the few laggers from the party, I spotted a few figures appeared in the distance and I had realized it was a few guy friends of mine. They were coming to say happy birthday. I had laughed to myself and felt warmer than the lingering girls. Watching them merge together, the boys and girls. The girls, twirling their hair, nervous. A familiar feeling.

The first boy's hand I ever held with the intent of affection was the year after. I was with a friend at a play put on at her father's church. Heaven and Hell: Melodramatic rendition of sins. The boy was lanky, with long, shaggy hair, tall. A few years older than I. I looked him in the eye, he smiled. My stomach dropped. His hand slipped in mine and we stayed like that for what seemed like the eternity they were talking about onstage. We eventually got in trouble. Scolded by the pastor because of my age. I cried the whole way home, scared of what my parents would say. His smell lingered on my clothes. Terrified my mother would hug me and smell him on my skin and then the secret was out.

"Mommy, I love you."
"I love you too sweetheart."

I eventually got out of hand holding, basic affection. My first kiss was a dare and that dare ignited a different feeling. The shaking of my hands, the flutter of my winged heart. A bird caged. The songs overheard on the radio about love held a different tone to me.


I ran back into the girl from the Heaven and Hell drama at the local skating rink by chance. Met a friend of hers. I watched him long before speaking to him. Quiet. long haired, skateboarding scars fractured his skin. Sitting together, I found myself drawn to him, leaning into a stranger. while others talked of gossip, we kept quiet. I didn't even know his name. I confessed at the end of the night that he was "cute" to my friends. word traveled. We exchanged information and so the experience of my first love began. The weeks after we talked for hours, giggling. Looking back, it was so elementary. Puppy love. The shyness. Timid, mousy girl tried too hard. Same story. Same ending.

My first real tragedy occurred that fall. When it happened, I felt unreal.

"I found your tapes, I'm leaving." Those brave words spoken quietly in a small kitchen.
Bags packed from weekend/week at Nana's, walking down the street, not even crying.

The phone call after, my mother in the background, keeping quiet, watching me clutch the phone, knuckles white:
"You're a beautiful girl, Lindee, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." Ineffective apologies and quiet confessions of intentions.
"What, you didn't think I'd find them? You thought that this, what you did, was okay?"
"I wasn't thinking."
Silence
"...How could you do this?"

"You are not to see your grandfather anymore." She said after, holding my hand. her voice held the tone of a loved one passing, finality.
"Why would I want to?"
"You two were so close."

Repeated questions, mostly internalized, even now. Doubts.
"Maybe it was an accident? I don't know. Nana thinks so."
"These things do not happen by accident, Elizabeth."
"Oh."

Words were thrown across a long table with an attorney of video tapes, avoiding a house three doors down from my own, a registry he had to apply to, anxious knocks on doors, and other girls like me. My adulthood holding him captive. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt(y). Him, losing his job, me losing a father figure. Privacy invaded.

"Men do that. It's not uncommon."
My grandmother stayed with him.

"I'll leave."
"No, don't. Nana needs you."

"I love you. "
"I don't believe you. Goodbye."
A goodbye lasted 4 years. I wish they had burned my pictures. They didn't.

I ventured further into affection, losing my virginity at 16. High school exploration. I was fairly unimpressed with the hype of the teenage obsession of *** and "getting some". I liked it sure, but everyone said *** was meaningful; I didn't feel that meaningfulness. It just felt like everything else I did: strictly pleasure. Something to make me feel.

I remember my mother and father talking to each other late one night.
"You don't love me anymore."
I stayed up that whole night trying to figure out what that meant. Not only as a sentence by itself, but for my family, my mother, my father, my sister, and my brother. My world crashed down thanks to two "final" signatures on a paper. Stamped and dated.

I stayed out too late, they complained. I was absorbed with myself, skipping class most of my tenth grade year, smoking bad **** and cigarettes with my friends in abandoned gas stations on rainy Tuesday mornings. Running the streets of the dreary downtown, skies overcast. Stopping by the diner next to the high school my friends and I escaped from through alleyways. Drinking coffee at Benson's, eyes down low, paranoid that a teacher would walk in at lunch and question us. Glory Days. Our *** appeal never was quite what we had imagined, attracting flies.

I met a friend of a friend and we shortly began dating, sitting atop the ferris wheel, fireworks lighting up the summer sky. Everything was just as I had imagined a perfect relationship to be.He was older (a common trend so it seemed) but not by much, intelligent, witty, nice. He appeared as a direct mirror from myself. We were inseparable. The mirror broke though, and revealed cardboard behind it.

"You are worth ****., No wonder your grandfather did what he did. You probably enticed him."
Silence.
"I didn't mean that. No, you're my world. Look how you make me act. You. You. You."
Silence.

"I love you."
"I know I love you too, it's okay.I shouldn't have done that."
Guilt nonexistent. made-up. Fairytaled,

"I'll leave." He said one night.
"You can't. I can be better, I'll fix this. I'll be better, I am so sorry."
"Alright."


Cycling. We crashed from in love to betrayed (Him) and angry (Him)  and scared (me).  I had discovered the root my sexuality earlier than  and became ashamed of who I was before I had met Him. All the previous relationships were unimportant and to be ashamed of. I had no skin. The relationship, paternal and biting, lasted two years. My mother finally stepped in, after seeing the harm that was being done.  Seeing me slip into her own habits: excuses, dependence, and pursed lips saying, "You don't know Him." and said it was not healthy. The whole family had noticed my change in behavior. After several attempts, his threats on his life, I finally ended the relationship with help of family and friends. Told His parents He needed help, recommended the place I was then going to. It's end resembled a natural disaster. Debris scattering, mainly harsh words. Something I was used to by then.

"I love you." Him on the last night.
"No, no!  You don't. How could you? Have you ever ******* loved me, Michael?  If so, how could you do this. After all the **** I've been through. Look at me, ******. Look at me! Look how I am ******* acting. This isn't me. I don't do this. You're hurting me. What am I to you? The ground you walk on? *******. All of this is ******* *******. I am never okay. Stop, let go of me. Let. Go. I'm leaving."
The angriest I have ever gotten with Him.
I felt like screaming, shaking Him, pointing to all the roadsigns passing too fast screaming about the danger. I think I was more angry at myself though, at my shaking whispering voice and it's cracks. Deceit of ownership.  
"Don't. Please."
"I'll never do it if I don't now."
I never felt bad for slamming His parent's front door that day. Tired of the quiet of his house.

I still have repercussions. A constant doubt, lingering. Eyes always searching, straining, sometimes even creating sighs of disappointment, a slight shake of the head in disapproval. I picked out everything wrong about me and my past. I gave the specimens to the professionals to diagnose me with a disease. Showing them the wounds He made. Almost begging to be infected. The results came up negative and I was angry, told them they were wrong. Wanted Him to be right. They patted my head, lab rat, and sent me off to a behavioral hospital. Outpatient. there, I was supplied with a magic wand: intensive behavioral therapy to realign my thinking. To reconstruct myself.  Breathing exercises I could never grasp. Too many questions, long silences, ahem.

"Did He hit you?"
"No. I almost wish He did. I feel like that would have been a lot easier. We wouldn't have lasted as long if He had. "
"You'd turn out like your mother."
Silence. Fear.
" Well, at least you're coming to therapy. That's a big step. Admitting is always the hardest part."
Long pause, watching the grass sway in the window, wishing the clock would say I could leave. Scared of her questions.
"I don't think so. I feel like the hardest part of this is not knowing it was happening."
The healing process requires a sort of truth, not even torture can bring out. The truth you don't even know about until it slides out of your mouth into the air.

Constant reassurances were require. I bit back the urge to call my therapist my whole senior year, fighting through waves of panic attacks, wanted to tell her triggers were strung out in the hallways, reflected in the tile floor. Everyone looked at me and knew. Even the people I didn't know, somehow knew. I found myself rocking back and forth in the back-row seats of classes scared a bomb would drop into my lap, as it did before.

"What happened to you?" Teachers asked when my grades waltzed to no mans land.  
"I don't really know." I had said this flatly. Lying. Tired.  All my emotion had been siphoned out of me.

I remember sitting on the living room floor, phone in hand, hearing Him scream into the receiver; unable to open my mouth to tell Him to leave. That all the things He had said to me, I had carved into my skin and I hated it. Wanted it to stop. It was always my fault. Always. I then went back on the highest dose of anxiety medications and sleeping medications. Things to help me function. Things I would not and could not do otherwise, spoon-feeding me stability. Things I thought I would never have to do again. I had managed to escape them for a year or so when it was happening. He had always said prescription medications were bad, that I could handle my problems on my own. I followed suit.
Good girl.

"You're showing symptoms of PTSD. It's like you were a prisoner of war. You're staying so strong though. " My therapist had said to me. I smiled in response and said thank you quietly as I sat on my trembling hands, an effort trying not to bite at my bleeding nails.
Gulping back the words "When does it  end?"

But there I was, jumping at the backfires of trucks, looking for His car everywhere, avoiding a certain side of the town.. If only she actually knew.  I had to be soothed to sleep numerous times, mother by my bedside, reassuring me the doors and windows were locked
. Safe. Ha. Despite the safety, I always woke up screaming, not remembering my dreams. Regression to childhood night terrors. Never answered my phone if it rang, for fear of a gunshot being fired on the other line. The last threat He posed. Scrubbed myself raw, trying to get the guilt out of mouth and pores. Chain-smoked, He hated that. Constantly checked the driveway through closed curtains expecting His car, Him. Lurking. I contemplated moving, changing my name, not going college although already paid for, staying home huddled in my room, becoming one with my twin-sized mattress. Perpetually cold.

I was my mother.

Eggshells scattered at my feet; wobbling in her brown, close-toed kitten heels. My friends, dwindling badly then and still now, asking me if i am/was okay, the response was always a no in my head. How could you be when your head was constantly swimming? Drowning.

Running into Him the first day of my freshman year in college was the hardest day of my life. Nevermind the courses of court dates, family distress, traumatic loss of trust in the 8th grade: finding the video tapes my grandpa had recorded, watching them, seeing myself undress, the cats running through the house, the sickness afterwards, 3 divorces, two remarriages of a broken home, the late nights lit up with red and blue lights, being ripped from my home.
It all paled in comparison to seeing His face after so long, the causal way He walked. wondering if anyone knew what He had done. What I had done.

I had passed Him in the cafeteria. His eyes lingered on mine, predatory, daring me to say a word. I looked away, kept walking as if it never happened. as if my insides weren't strung up higher than telephone wires. As if I wasn't standing in a room with the person who was my own personal earthquake. I ended up collapsing in a bathroom stall, slouched up against the wall, hands trembling like Haitian sidewalks, not even 5 minutes from the passing. I called crying to my mother to come and get me unable to complete my next class.
"I can't do this, Mom." I  wailed, "I can't see Him."
She came and got me, understood, thankfully kept quiet. I was a bit inconsolable, and shook the whole **** way home.
All the hard work I had done in therapy, the hours of crying, tearing up Kleenex, rebuilding myself from the infrastructure collapsed as I did. The fire I ignited inside myself was burned out; gasoline and matches were unobtainable.


My mother told me to keep a stiff upper lip. She faces her version of my  demon everyday: my father, sleeps the same bed as him, Still holds his hand, wears the ring and the finger with it’s history. She didn't collapse, not yet. She was stronger. Ankles more fit to wear the shoes of abuse, inner destruction.

"I'm going away for the weekend."
"Are you coming back?"
"I don't know."

My mother exited in November, in her kitten-heels and bruises and secrets. Came back a month later and was blinded with a cold front storming out her youngest daughter.

Her choice to leave. My choice to leave. They mirrored each other. She never slammed the door though, left more quietly than I could.

I still have no skin, I keep peeling it away, in hopes to show someone something a little deeper than my shallow body, my bruised knees and the coldness that lingers

I stay substantial though, iridescent, like the tide rolling in. Falling over myself. Finding myself shrinking and rising.

i knew i had to leave him
not because i didnt care, because God knows I did.
but because he didnt inspire me
no words of love came to me when i looked at him
i did not think it was adorable how his nose was crooked
i did not think the way his hair flopped over was imperfectly perfect
i did not think that even in his saddest, angriest, or generally unhappy states that he was still somehow wonderful in a jaw-dropping, ‘god youre still so perfect even like this’ way.
i write poetry, thats what i do
and all i could write about him was how supportive and comforting he was.
it became one sided
being near him was draining;being with him was a chore.
i was becoming the type of person
that he would be writing the sad words about
i was giving him the distance
he could feel in his heart
even when we were together.
and i couldnt continue on like that
i couldnt let myself become a monster to him
one of the monsters even i write about at night.

I’m not one for writing about things that are useful
Things that can shape the world
Things that can help someone get on by.

I’m not one for writing about things that are relevant
Because whenever I write
You seem to have that presence.
That kind of presence that tends to etch itself on to the letters written
That kind of presence that tends to draw itself on to paper whenever given
And I hate it.

Hate it because your existence is all I’ll ever think about
Whether I’m busy attending to my own needs
Alone with too many words screaming in my head
Or anywhere in between
Hate it because you are the only one that seems to make it right
That seems to quell the angriest of storms
That seems to bring out the sun when the clouds hide it away
That seems to continuously extend even when I’ve given up reaching
Hate it because I never loved the idea of love

You’d think with all the love poems I’ve written
About how lovely it would be to wake up to your horizon
About how lovely it would be to walk upon sandy material with sea breeze all around
About how lovely it would be with our fingers intertwined
Because we both know yours fits right in between mine
About how lovely it would be with just you and me
That I would somehow love being in love
That my heart grows fonder with every moment spent

But I don’t
Its reckless
Its Foolish
For even the wisest of people grew without a heart.
Because they knew in order to live without pain
They would wish the bonds untwine
For they do not want a “yours” and “mine”

Yet somehow in the midst of being a cold-hearted *****
You found a way to stay and not ditch.
I’m too afraid to admit how deeply in love I am
Because I’m too afraid of losing something I had no idea I had
So please,
Let me let you know,
That I’m not one to write about things that can throw a life line
About things that can get you to say “You’re mine.”
About things that can be of relevance at this time
I’m more about writing about how much of a useless romantic I’ve come to find

What is music one may say?
Is it to hear the sounds of the broken hearted and the soft sounds of love?
To think of those who have written before what we have now?
Or to hear the soft sounds of those who wish to express their feelings towards others?
What does music mean?
Does it mean to be sad?
Does it mean to be angry at something or someone?
What does it mean to listen to music?
People say that music calms the savage beast but does it really?
But what can music do for you?
Can it make you laugh?
Can it make you burst out into a joyous song?
Or can music make you see what is real and what is wrong?
Think of those who dwell in the past and they only had the voice of music.
They close their eyes and think back to the time where they once heard the most beautiful sound.
A sound that everyone wants to hear again.
The sound of music that can calm even the angriest man.
So I say again. What is music?
Music is hope and wonder that fills the hearts of little children.
Hearing them laugh and play while they sing songs of joy.
Of hope, and of peace and of wonder.
The adults may have forgotten what music means to them.
But in the eyes of a child, music means the most to them.
Why? Because music makes you think of those who rose and who fell.
The child learns about them and the music they created and they think that same question?
What is music? And what does it mean to me.

Something is burning in his heart
his wicked soul
An endless desire
hungry for power and fame..
to be the sole owner of the mother nature
There is  fire in his evil eyes
Its his desire... his greed...
A land conqueror he will be
Try to disobey and
  play your own rules
With the angriest fire
he will set this world on flame
with his fierce desire.
and you will succumb to his wants and needs..
surrender all your possessions...
to this lord of the forest, the jungle and the land...

He sets this land to blaze at last
hate, rage , jealousy, vengeance
The forest is set on fire
soon this forest and the entire land
will be  his...
The devil on fire.
There is a fire in his eyes
Fire in his spirit… fire in his soul
It keeps burning … his hatred accumulates
  burns with his deadliest desire
spreading like a forest fire
This fire is ever burning so hot..
The devil sets the world on fire...
  The unbearable hell fire on earth...

**** dribbled down
the shaking leg
of the angriest dog
in the neighborhood.
He stood
whimpering and
shivering within his
own fear driven
*****.

She paid him
no mind as
her presence
brought
a chill to the
otherwise warm
Southern California
night time breeze.
Her shadow engulfed
the cockroaches,and the
mice as they scrambled
and attempted to
flee.
She left them belly up
on the concrete
as her darkness
move on.

The teen aged
lost boys and girls,
****** harder on their
spit glued
joints and
their generic brand
cigarettes
as they silently
watched her stalk
from
across the street.
They would all
be dead
within days from the
infections
her presence brought
forth.

A Flock of
screaming birds
exploded from a tree
as she moved her
darkness beneath
their night time
roost.
The moon sighed
as the fleeing,
panicking birds
began to fall
from the sky
like stones
and land all
around her
as she floated
forth.

The clouds up ahead
retreated into themselves,
and the Milky way
grew tighter
as a new born star
forced its shine away
and took refuge
within the dark
empty matter
of the heavens .

All of the Earth
and the
living Gods in orbit,
all moved a
bit more carefully
as news of her arrival
began to spread.
Spread like murderous
wild fire across a dry
and parched
landscape.

The city blocks
did not stand a chance.
Their concrete
cried beneath her
bare blank lined
feet.
Tiny clouds of
dust and
fear trailed her
like broken bodies
across a losing
battlefield.

The skinny lady
with the line-less palms
and the timeless existence
made her way
toward the sea.
All at once the
Pacific receded into
an unexpected
low tide
as she began to
cross the empty
sandy beach.
She bowed her head
and watched as the
grunions flopped
and died before
her.
Down the beach
two smiling dolphins
beached themselves
as the waves
brought forth
a drowned
sea lion who had
suddenly
forgot how
to swim.

Sadness she
knew nothing
of ,alone was
the only way
she had ever known.
Her duty on earth
and
in the heavens
took precedence over
all.
She knew only
one thing about
the living,
they all lived
in order to
die.
Her duty was
to gather the living
who were ready
to enter her world
of the dead.
A world more
filled with the
empty then any of
the living had ever been
told.

that have ever made you cry, or have ever hurt you.
you mean the absolute world to me.

i don't ever want to let you hurt again.
never want to let you feel like your feelings mean nothing to me.

i am beginning to truly understand the quote:
"hurt people only hurt people."
i don't know what i am hurting over, at all, anymore -
because you have made me feel so wanted and loved over
these past few months. i think this is the most love anyone in my
life has ever shown me - never have i felt so appreciated and beautiful
and smart and like a someone since you.
maybe i've just been too scared to show my emotions for as long
as i could remember, without realization even striking down;
i have my fair share of too many sad nights crying to myself -
wishing i could reverse time
just dreaming about how things could be different
if i was just someone different
in all of the aspects that make me who i am -
and hating what i've been reduced to, hating the faces
i make when i cry, hating the sounds that gurgle in my throat,
the loneliness around me when i wish someone would grab
me and say, "it's okay to not be okay!!!",
detesting the way my shoulders shake when i cant stop
the tears that come pouring out of my eyes.

baby, you have loved me in my darkest blacks and blues,
my saddest grays and silvers, my angriest reds and oranges,
and my crazy greens and purples.

i am so sick of hiding from you, being dishonest in my feelings -
it's not that i didnt want to show them to you, i was just
terrified of how you would react to them -

now i'm beginning to understand that it's probably because
i never fully acknowledged your love for me -
i've always been so paranoid that you'd laugh in my face
and pick my heart up and go once i decided to fully give it my all.

is now a wrong time to believe that you love me?
is it too late? i beg to god that it isnt, because i will love you
until my ******* heart explodes.

the other day you were infuriated with me because of a stupid joke
i thought would be hilarious. instead,
i made you feel stupid - made you feel upset - made you worried -
and i belittled your feelings entirely.

entirely.
i cannot believe i had ever tried to stay ignorant to your feelings,
it still hurts to think that i ever did that to you.
i love you much more than that, but still, i sit here and
let myself hurt you without even trying to change who i am,
for you.
i am so in
love
with you.

i cannot believe how much i have put you through, it completely scares
me
that i have the power to do that to you. the power
to make such a sweet boy like you CRY, and WORRY, and HURT,
and OVERTHINK.
i can do that to you, too?
i am beginning to realize that it's not all about what you do
for me, to me, around me -
no -
love, it has a lot to do with what power i have over you, too.
it has to do with how i can hurt you, because of who i was
before you - and how i so eagerly WANT, DESIRE, and CRAVE
to become someone better, so that i couldn't ever let another
tear crawl down your face.

i don't ever want to hurt you baby.
but deep down,
i am PETRIFIED to be hurt, too.
this is what love must be -
sometimes i wonder if it's worth all the headaches and all of
the tears, all of the paranoia, and all of the hurt that we're banking,
and then you're wrapping your limbs all around me in the cool darkness
of my room,
whispering, sleepily, into my hair with your
warm breath and husky voice, "...pretzel."

and i can't help but laugh and spin around into your chest
before your kisses cover my forehead,
and you're groaning forgotten and sleep-infused 'i love you's into my
bed head hair.
you never catch the way i smile cheekily and stare at the front of your
sleeping eyelids as your teeth grind momentarily and you sigh,
pulling me closer into your body.
"i love you, baby." you will always say as i open my mouth to say it first.
"i love you." i will always reply. in every other life, and forever, ever more.

She is the sweetest
The loveliest
The warmest
The kindest
Person I'll ever know

Who never wavered
In the weirdest
In the craziest
In the wildest
Moods and rotten days

Who holds my hand
In the the darkest
In the scariest
In the toughest
Times I've ever faced.

She dives the deepest
She goes the furthest
She fights the fiercest
Holds out the longest
For her prince and princesses.

That's why she is
The angriest
And the maddest
And the saddest
When I keep settling
For less than best.

She cheers me on
With a smile that is the brightest
With a love so selfless
With support so endless
That never changes
In every rise and every fall

When everything is hopeless
Her faith is the biggest
Still so fearless
Points to the Greatest
Who is the Reason for it all

She cries the hardest
She hurts the deepest
She's the most imperfect
The most human person I know

Still I'm using all the superlatives
Because she deserves the best
She's my mom
And I love her so.

After all the years of service
Your mom deserves a rest
It's her turn to be the princess
And remind her that she's
The sweetest
The kindest
The loveliest
The warmest
The noblest
And that in all these years so tireless
Countless lives were touched and blessed.

“Good morning, love,” you whisper.

It has always been the sweetest sound I always hear before I formally open my eyes for the new morning. I could not imagine, waking up one day not to hear your voice beside me. It is like a melody of hope and love that even my imperfect days become brighter and sunnier. A chilly morning always lulls me with your mint breath that puffs like a cloud of smoke in my face every day.

How I could forget, the way you undress me with my favorite red Elmo shirt and teases me for my unsymmetrical body. I hate it when you laugh at me, comparing me to the human body systems you have studied in your Science class. I hate myself being half-naked and shivers in front of you but you always pull me in your chest and incubate me like a baby. That makes me feel safe and enough.

Your fingers then begin to wander around my body starting from my head down to the end like a thin map, locating the bones you have not known. You have memorized the number of ribs, the hiding-place of my moles, the width of my waist, the length of my thighs, and the weight of my brain when I lose myself in the fantasy you make. I know you will kiss me after that. A warm, obsessive kiss as if I belong to you. Like I am only made for you. You own every little thing about me as you sealed every edge of my body with your lips and hands.  

In this room, you always play your favorite Taylor Swift’s song on your phone and sing it to me foolishly, in out of tune while looking me in the eye. You would ask me to sing it with you the best line of the song: you are the best thing that’s ever been mine. This makes me laugh, blush, and even makes me cry in such unfathomable bliss I feel every time we do this. I forget the things that make me scared and worry. I want to hold you forever like what you did whenever I fall head over heels for you.

You are not actually my type. I never dreamt of loving the exact opposite of me. You hate the smells of books and will never pull me in a bookstore just to read George Orwell’s or Harper Lee’s. You have never been to art galleries or even museums to look for paintings and sculptures. Mostly, you never read my paper-scented poems and short stories peppered with similes and metaphors. Those things make you fall asleep. But, you always show up and try to understand my world.  

Our story is nothing but a cliché.

Sometimes, we both sail through the angriest storms that left us unguarded. There were days that our rooms were jam-packed with simple misunderstandings that ended up with spicy arguments. Those nights, when we sleep against our backs with wet pillows and separate blankets. We fixed things, though, before the sunlight peeks through our curtains. We entwined our hands again. New and fresh like there is no scar at all. In the next months it’s been always benn the same. We usually run in circles – a cycle that we never break.

The room succumbed into the silence that was once smeared with laughter and dreams. The heavy tension surrounding us, expanding more each day. From our bed to tables. The distance between our hearts stretched to a distance beyond our reach. I do not recognize you anymore as you have metamorphosed into another being. A different stranger.

As much as I want to save you from drowning, you were already trapped in whirlpools. I firmly hold the thin string of hope to battle it out against the current. I pulled myself together and swam harder, as fast as I can do. I can already feel fatigued. Without a word, you unlatched your hand and let yourself adrift farther away from me.  

I was lost. I traveled all alone in the cold sea, looking at the sky. That made me realized that I was already defeated in this battle before it had started.
____________

My head spins like hell. All things are blurry and indistinct. I am staring at my phone waiting for a text message to pop up. I notice the dried red rose on the vase. The books on my shelf are dismantled and seem like some are missing or misplaced. The printed shirts and my pants are scattered on the dusty carpet. I caress my much-loved red Elmo shirt as if I am searching for a lost memory. I drink the last glass of beer, staring blankly at my phone.

Funny how all these stuff occupy every space in my room yet it still feels so empty without you in it. I forced myself to stand on the floor and decided to open another bottle of beer.

“Good morning, my love,” I regretfully whisper to your absence.

im angry.
angry at society
for making people afraid to be who they are,
for making people feel inferior and unimportant.
angry at the human race
for having greed swimming through their ice cold veins,
for having no regard for nature
for only thinking of themselves.
angry at my parents
for not warning me about the dangers of this dark world.
the dark alleys
the walls caving in.
but im angriest at myself
for not paying attention when they told me.
for letting things make me angry
things cant make us angry unless we lwt them.

My favorite cat is very sick
I did, I spent, to find out what is wrong
to help him, my heart is breaking and I walk,
hike around Briones Park, even though I haven't hiked in over two months
and the hills are steep and the anxiety is great and I take quarter pills of clonozipan
along the way as I finally get the courage to call the vet for the lab results
just like last year when I walked three hours before I could stand to call and it was worse
and I know now and walked on, finished all those clonozipan and made it up the steepest hills
adrenaline driving me and I have no more money and I could mess around at the loan place
but finally I get the courage, as usual, at the end of the four hours, to call you
and there is the first shred of concern and then the deluge and you are hurling accusations
at me and this is the price I pay always for your help and I know I am not perfect
and I know I must live within my means but my cat,
I begin to cry and sit down on the mountain side, a child again
and you lash into me, for my huge problem with cruel words that make my psyche bleed and
you remind me so much of my X husband, as I sit and cry and hikers and joggers go by
and you make your point but that is not enough, you must drive the dagger deep
deep into my sternum and twist it around until I am reeling and bash my head
against granite and I know I will be reeling from this conversation for days and why,
why couldn't you ever have this passion against the people who hurt me, at this job,
in my marriage, why did they get such respect and peace when I am bashed against the rocks, blood in my eyes, salt water stings, tangled in seaweed and a wave crashes over me
please stop I beg you.  stop.  you don't have to be so cruel
which makes you angrier and the angriest you ever have been in my life has been
over money, why, such a Jew?  Like your mother, like my X.  This has taken on a meaning
as I drift away from the conversation as one does when pain is so intolerable that the body shuts it out and dissassociates, and I am up high floating now above the city below
an ironicly beautiful landscape and you lie, yes father, you lie and say you are
struggling in your million dollar home with season Opera tickets and trips all over the world
and I think, I feel so at home, just like my X, so much like my X.
And yet, I am changing and a  voice inside me, drunk now from being knocked in the head, I tell you to stop, that this is not the best way to talk about this as I did
to that guy I rejected who hurt me, and my boss, and I feel, I am changing
and I will fight for what I value, what I love
and on the way home, tears in my eyes, I buy the medication to keep my cat more comfortable and he responds and I think, this is worth it
I am worth it, and you father, may never change, but I can
and I can change most importantly, my opinion of you

You have taught me so many things

You taught me:
how easily a stranger can become an acquaintance that brightens your day, a co-worker that makes work a little more exciting
how abrupt that pang of disappointment can be when I didn't see your face
how maddening it is to keep your feelings to yourself
how rewarding it is to get those feelings off your chest, because you felt the same way
how crazy butterflies can be - when my stomach would turn in anticipation of seeing you
how childishly young I can feel, giddy with hopes of hanging out with you or getting a text
how both electrifying, and paralyzing, a first kiss can be
that love can grow seemingly overnight and that your whole life becomes consumed with thoughts of the other
that hearing "I love you" whispered from your dear one's arms is what would probably be described as Heaven
that I deserve to feel special, and beautiful, and wanted, and happy
that holding someone's hand or cuddling can instantly make you forget a bad day
how heart-wrenching leaving you miles away could be (even if we were only apart for two weeks)
what the first hug and kiss after getting off the plane should feel like
how nice it is to feel stable, comfortable, and make plans for the future

How quickly everything can change
that sometimes people won't include you, even if you're there for them and even if they love you
how drifting apart can make time stand still
how many tears a single person can cry
that wondering what the other one is doing can drive you into a form of depression
how realizing he's not ever going to be the perfect boyfriend again can hurt
that doubting everything you ever did isn't healthy, because it's not your fault
how not being a priority can make you the angriest you've ever felt
how distrustful I become of believing those words...I love you
that I still feel crazy about you
how it's possible to be upset and mad at someone and still want to fix all their problems and give them everything they want
how hard it is to let go
that sitting at home isn't going to help anything
that thinking about the golden days, when I knew you loved me so much that it was unbelievable even to me, isn't going to bring us back together
that you have a lot of growing up to do and things to work on
that my wonderful prince isn't always wonderful
that I also have growing up to do, and much more to learn
that a few months with you were some of the best of my life and I've never felt more special
how a real relationship should feel - and even though it wasn't perfect, I still feel like it was

And finally:
you won't be the one I have that relationship with, but you taught me what to look for when I'm ready

And for that I'll always be grateful

You became the light on this darkness that is me
Like the power the lighthouse has over the sea
You burst into my life so unexpectedly

Your smile chases away my angriest clouds
My anguish can no longer scream out loud
At the sight of you my demons just cowed

I get lost in your sea of blue
Sparkling my way in the brightest of hues
Your eye's fall on me like the sweetest dew

Your kisses are smoldering and cool on my lips
Our passion becomes an eclipse
As your gentle touch lingers there on my hips

What a beautifully experience you have become
To your magical way I've succumbed
I marvel at all you are helping me to overcome

You are the light to my darkness
The smile to my sadness
The strength to my weakness
With you my nights will never be starless

I've never had luck with blondes.
Well,
I've had lots of luck
falling ever so
deeply
in love with them.

With their eyes
of bright hues in
blue, green, and greys.
Going head over heels
for their charming smiles
that make your eyes linger a little longer
that what's permitted.
Dying
to feel their
godlike
comforting
powerful
touch.

That was easy.
Horribly easy.

But what surprised me,
kicked the backs of my knees
and made me crumble to the pavement
were that those handsome
heavenly faced blondes,
have no soul.

And I am sure of it,
because every
single
******* time,
they leave me...

Alone in the dark,
confused,
disoriented,
with not a single word.
Which leaves my thoughts
to echo in the emptiness,
rummage around inside my skull,
looking in the hollow cabinets
searching for clues
and slowly growing
frustrated
and angry,
angrier,
angriest.
But not at the blonde boys.
At myself.
As of what I did wrong?
Why did they go?
How could I let this happen again?

And every time,
I can never find the reason.
Those blonde boys
just appear in the rays of the summertime
with their golden locks of hair
and leave with their icy dark souls
in the cold breeze of the fall.

And I know,
they will be back next year.
With the sun,
and happiness
and my stupidity.
Until then though
I'm stuck with the abusive markings and stabbing aches.

E,

  i don't know if this is a letter or a rant or just a bunch of mixed up thoughts that i've been keeping in my head for far too long - so i'm just going to ramble for a bit. i firstly want to say, i would have loved you so well, and for a while that fact haunted me to the point i lost sleep and the desire to eat. i'm better now. i'm better than i've been in a long time. and i don't blame you even a little bit for all the things i chose to do to by my own hands. but for a really long time, i was angry at you for leaving me. that's as simply as i can possibly put it. just, angry. so angry. you came out of nowhere - and swept me up into the most intense whirlwind of emotions i had ever experienced in my nineteen years of life - and then, just as swiftly as you entered in, you departed, leaving me with not much more than feeble lines like, "it's for the best" and "i'm so sorry". i was very angry, and even more so confused. i think the problem was that you thought i would fix you or complete you or give you a purpose or something - i don't know. maybe none of that's correct. like i said, i don't know. (there are lots of things i think, but few i know).

  you nearly loved me (i say nearly because we never quite got that far). i seemed to be your answer; or some kind of beacon that maybe you thought could be a guide. but the moment my cracks started to show, i think it scared you. i don't think you had ever loved a sad girl. or maybe you loved a sad girl and she hurt you. (i don't know). all i know is that i tried to talk about the train, and you told me no. i wanted to tell you about the things in my head and what they wanted me to do, but as soon as i tried, i was met with, "don't be stupid." i understand that you didn't. as much as it hurt. i think what made me angriest was your initial reassurance that you were different and you were staying. i knew better than to put faith in promises formed by hands of human flesh, but i had a lot of hope. so like i said, i don't blame you. and i've grown a lot since that time. i'm learning more about myself every day, and it's easier now to keep my head above the waves.  i do not resent you for your inability to stay.

  i think that if i had tried to write this all those months ago when my wounds were still fresh, i wouldn't have been as composed as i like to think i'm being now. i'm actually sitting here, as i type, thinking how ridiculous i'll feel if this entire thing is off and i've misread it all. but anyway, this isn't necessarily something i need you to read. but should you choose to, or maybe someday stumble across it, i hope that you understand. and i hope life treats you well.

warmth,
- m.f.

I own a good chin to lift
a look that threatens from a distance.
The shield I never thought I’d get in the mail is here,
name written on it and everything.

So I walk out, shield up,
and yet
I shiver if I only get a hint of

A scent,
reminding me of someone
who ****** me with no permission.

Sometimes, I forget the amount of my anger
But, if it bares meaning,
I understand it.
Not only mine, the anger of many women, who

woke up in someone’s bed, and
left there smelling of a body
they didn’t choose to smell of.

Don’t tell me I should’ve said “No.”
Because sometimes the mouth doesn’t listen to the body,
body doesn’t listen to the brain,
the brain is not aware that

six years later you’ll be sobbing with the realization that
you’re afraid of the man you trust most of all

because he produces testosterone.

Six years ago, it happened too fast.
I didn’t say  “No.”
He didn’t give me time to do it.

As I was leaving, eyes clenched to my feet
I let him kiss me and say:

“I hope you don’t regret this night.”

That’s what makes me the angriest.

I want to write a love story

And, but

So help me out of this so angry tale of a want to be
For there is no such thing

And ouch it!
Now that so truly hurt me.

And why did you just slap me?

And the angriest buzzing of all bees ever
Now come down and assault me for even trying to think that I could ever be loved.

jo.