I stretch out my wing;  
The Pin you placed seems
to be holding.  Your Mercy
was the thing,
which held me aloft
until my heartbreak oft
had been forgotten,
until my diaphragmatic
flight had gotten
ground free.

How could I ever know the thoughts in my head,
Pursuing for the sake of sanity, Vanity's own identity.
But I've never been one for superficiality,
An Honest Abe down to the top of my hat.

I keep fighting, making friends, making fears
After all, I feel better having just one than lost
Hiding from my loneliness, from solitude and anxiety
I keep seeking, searching for the man inside of me.

Just the King of Paranoia, afraid of his throne,
And the hounds bound to the courtyard floor.
Use those diaphragmatic breaths to calm your panic,
Therapist may teach you her magic when you seek medicine.

Sleepless nights alone with those thoughts,
The person in the mirror is ambiguous,
A fanatic for The Game, a Worshiper all the same
The twilight shade comes through the window
The King's cape catches the light of the dusk
The King's crown glistens in the dark of dawn.

She wears an old fashioned shawl
laced wool of camomile
flecked with seeds of apple pip brown.
Wading shin deep with stork length legs, though lacking all brittleness,
she hems the thirsty sand line of shore
that's forever sipping foam
and swishing froth from the sea's diaphragmatic shifting.
The drag of each stride breaking
v's in their wake
all too soon dissipates
only to be replaced
with every surge and **** and lull.
She recites a poem as she treads the shallows
Hardly a whisper above a whisper
Blending lullaby syllables with the rhythmic surety of the tide.
Every word a billowed sail
carrying the craft of verse upon ripples and surf
back to the memory of one long lost across the sea.

Light illuminates
my dis-entombed thoughts
on gilded kite

prodding dust patina
mellow mote drifts lilt

hoping not to puncture the membrane
– I run –
attempted lift

fresh soil turns under foot
tread and gait escalate
pocked path reverberates
my insistence to avoid puncturing

Deceleration
Halted earthen assault
I ****** with machination the aerial apparatus
prior to complete stagnation

Decrepit deceit eschewed
Again – I run –
taut paper snap
sheet lift
weightless message intones
in knotted vertebrae, and closed palm

my chest lifts in unison
diaphragmatic sigh punched hollow
rhapsodic finesse

privy to atmospheric secret
my hand translates the ethereal
smooth fluttering undulations
oscillating tugs, dives, and slay

Calligraphic flourishes echo the linguistic menagerie
Byzantine illustrations
Pellucid canvas drunk with dye

Evinced in muddled thought
The ink bleeds down the twine
indigo echoes of entombed vein 'neath flesh

Translucent pulse haunts taut string
furling arc – tensed tissue
acrobatic hydrofoil
tugs – glides – taunts

Ostensible horror conveyed in clenched palm
The ether curtly responds
Swift redirect

Sliced palm
Tethered scream evocation
cochineal deluge concedes

Deep purple liquid clings
Congealing - between sodden twine and palm

Whispering currents furl saturated line
into fresh groove, disturbing the clot
The wound bucks as flotsam

Relentless onslaught
I yield -
I release you

Your ethereal message tattooed into my palm
Some things were ne'er meant to be restrained

I.
Put a hand on your stomach.
Diaphragmatic breathing eases anxiety.
So does counting.
I count how many times my stomach rises
until my pulse lowers.

II.
Grounding keeps your feet on Earth,
your mind in the present.
It's called 5-4-3-2-1, but I never get to one.
Five things I see:
starting with all the ashes of things I've burned -
cigarettes to incense to old pictures of us;
posters haphazardly taped to my wall
threatening to fall off at any second;
feathers of my dreamcatcher tangling together;
my ceiling fan rocking from side to side;
an emptiness that fills the room,
painted in the white on the walls.
Four things I can touch:
grasping at words that are working against me;
the oils of my sweating hands,
nervously binding me to my human exterior;
everything else is too far away to touch.
Three things I hear:
the drumming of my anxious fingers
on anything nearby;
the scribble of my pen;
my thoughts demanding to find something
that will get me heard.
Hush, please. Hush.

III.
Your name still carves itself onto my tongue
and settles in my dreams.
You always were good at making yourself
feel at home.

IV.
I am the type of girl whose entire body
becomes whatever color I am dying my hair.
Today, I am red.

V.
I don't feel the words slide off my tongue anymore.
I barely notice them.
I watch them jab at you,
and I feel bad.
I don't mean them.

VI.
"You aren't looking at the whole picture."
The canvas is too big.
I'll take a step back.
My therapist says I take too many steps back.
I'm just trying to see the whole picture.

VII.
The foggy weather proves that I can keep my feet on Earth
and my head in the clouds.
I feel my eyes wide as a deer
as I remember my first love telling me
deer are the most stupid animals,
that they deserve to die,
hours after telling me I remind him of one.

VIII.
That sinking feeling in your stomach
doesn't only occur on roller coasters.

IX.
My head rests in the space behind closed eyes,
the one where shapes and faces appear and disappear
as they please.
I see a door floating in that space,
and I lock my emotions in there
since you hand me the ones I should feel
as necessary.

X.
There are days I see people as people
instead of the feelings they give me -
dread, anger, fear, love.
Their ****** features soften and become more human.
Today is one of those days.

XI.
Today, I see you as human instead of the feelings you give me.
Your ****** features harden,
the look you give me is literally shocking.
I feel more fear than love.

XII.
I fear the sound of slamming doors.
They sound like you.
They are rough,
and I am weak.

XIII.
She showed me a song while singing along.
I wanted to hang onto that feeling,
so I listened to it alone.
It's not the same.

XIV.
I'm talking right now,
but they're unimportant words.
They'll be forgotten in the next five minutes.
Would you believe me,
saying that I once had gardens in my mind?

later, legs laced in rapture,
hinted in the heated swell of your
fleshy diaphragmatic release,
urges thickening as lungs re-expand,
stop short and sweet,
sound escalating with each
irk of the sheets –

inexplicable and evanescent
electric sensations,
an instantaneous flood of
radiating submission,
intoxicating ecstasy
you ignite in me.

The surroundings are broken
Black, torn, ripped, cold, dark
Trying to reach a diaphragmatic breath
You can see their breath
It’s cold and it’s only getting colder
Is it fight or flight that’s keeping them
There’s a place for them
There’s also a place for us
For you, for me, for our future children’s children
What do they add to their cauldrons?
Lust, greed, ignorance, malevolence
Can we defeat this?
Do we need to defeat this?
What would happen if this was defeated?
They’re all starving,
They going to turn inhuman
Barbarian idiocy, it’s all the same
They will not only eat you alive,
But they will also eat your soul.
At one point they were all roses
They are currently ashes.
Next, they will be dust.
Then non-existent.