A bonnie  
with lingerie
now ecstasy
but soul
envelop standing
while her
phone snoops
coals with
her man
there will
join in
best time
with aster
glow bare
only to
unwind alight
with score.

When the end of eternity arrives, you shall be by my side awaiting the dawn.
The Sun rises bringing newfound hope to the denizens of a light and airy realm,
Our spirits reanimate, rejuvenate, resurrect; intercept weariness of heart.
Doves above the high plains carry our love across the infinite sea of the Universe.

Stars and twinkling celestial bodies swirl around the center of all creation.
Pianos, my threnody has become a source of lament and bemoaning but in time a love song will revitalize a deadened soul with a deprivation of cosmic oxygen.
I want you to breathe newfound air into my nostrils, fill me to the brim with your breath of life, toxicity to the bones.
Being able to stand in your midst will be an impossibility.

My knees will give out and as I fall to ground you will tightly grasp my hand and pull my body into yours.
“Amplify my heartbeat with the sound waves of your voice.”
“Ensconce within the warmth of my body, feel the heat rise when we begin to caress each other softly.”
My blood becomes frigid smoke when I’m in your midst.

Nothing but cold heat courses through my body.
I’m frozen, stuck in a cube of time and space where you and I reside in comfort and abysmal enamorment.
-Ardent passion-
This is where my heat lies.

The inferno that burns beneath my wary skin is a tempest of sequestered affection.
“I’m afraid to be touched.”
You are the element of freedom.
You are the most sought after and desired material in all creation.

The materialistic nature of this world has accosted me with a cannonade of ****** bullets, pleasing in a forbidden way…
Gazing upon you with my eyes is a sin.
A transgression.
But the platinum heart in your possession is my desire.

Daffodils and roses surround us in a floral sphere; a yellow tinged bubble..
We transcend gravity and float above the ground.
-Fragrance-
An aromatic barrage of iridescent fumes intoxicates us as we rise past the stratosphere, mesosphere, troposphere, and conscious- sphere.

Being with you is a higher plane of existence where your every breath is vital to my survival.
Magic courses through my veins when I hold your arms around me.
Aqueous bombs descend from my eyelashes when you depart.
A deluge of tears has accosted me.

My body contorts and I crawl into a corner; this is my cloister of trials.

Those seemingly eternal eons during which I endure the withdrawal symptoms of your narcotic love…
Maybe you’re a hallucinogenic?
Lying on the cold and sobering concrete floor beneath me, I **** my thumbs in the fetal position.
I’m an infant after you vanish in the thick and noxious puff of smoke that lingers long after you are gone.

You are a master of the arcane.
You are nothing short of extraordinary.
Even when you disappear it is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I feel the love spells from your tome of seduction blast my fragile spirit till’ I begin to lose my sight.

I clench my forehead with the back of my skull pressed against, being caressed by these sanguine reds walls that seem to cave in.
I can’t hold my head up any longer.
I lie in darkness as chaos consumes my soul.
The murky and dank ambushes me from the corners of an unknown dimension.

I’ve slipped into an unknown land.
A myriad of ravens with ebony wings surround me until I am no longer visible to another human soul.
They latch onto my skin, grapple onto my thighs, weigh me down with despair and push me six feet under.
When all is dim and lost?

I realize this is figment of the imagination, a fabrication…
I realize this is all a dream.
A dream of what could be.
A dream of a narcotic love.

I have yet to jostle that unknown creature who lurks at the threshold of the limitless skies.
When I reach the stars in my spaceship of galactic love then I will find you.
Obscurity runs amuck in the dimension that I now reside in.
Dark clouds loom above the skies…

The sun is nowhere in sight.
A storm is brewing as lightning begins to crash.
In those brief seconds of illumination I am bombarded with visions of your face.
The complexion of your skin, the feel of your flesh beneath my fingertips.

I hope that your touch will unbind me, loose me from the disillusionment that I’ve been threatened by all my life.
I beseech the heavens to shackle me with iridescent chains to the stars so that gravity will never pull me away from my dreams.
I will hang above the terrene never plummeting down the sea of the skies, never being incinerated by the blaze of freefalling down the atmosphere.
You will be my reward.

That glowing gift box with a celestial wrapping.
A diadem with the most extravagant gems and diamonds shall be waiting for me beneath the cosmic plastic wrapping and the golden ivory box that surround this gift.
When I open it, this crown shall begin to levitate and a human silhouette made of light shall begin to transfigure itself from naught beneath it.
Skin will slowly attach to your luminescent body.

Your metacarpals and phalanges will appear.
Your ribcage will expand and a platinum heart will begin beating within it’s confines.
-The heart that I’ve always wished for-
I will finally be able to gaze upon your face.

I will hold onto and never let you go.
We will grow old together and when we near the end of our lifetime, we shall become nebular gases.
We will then become one with the Universe.
The remnants of our love will last everlastingly even after the spark of passion is long gone, when our corporeal vessels no longer exist in a physical form.

“I don’t…I have nothing else to say but that I will be waiting.”
“I will wait for you to materialize in my midst.”
“My heart ails for you but my malady will dissipate once you arrive.”
“Every heartbeat leads you and I one step closer to one another.”

“You will be my remedy, my panacea of love.”
“I love you but I don’t even know who you are!”
“The reason why is unknown to me.”
“I will be waiting darling.”

“I will be waiting for your earth-shattering kiss.”
When the ground beneath us begins to crumble, we shall plummet beneath the lithosphere and asthenosphere till’ we reach the core of the planet.
We shall become the inferno beneath the ground.
Our passion will burn so brightly, so fervently, that an eruption will take place above the surface of the ground.

The world will know that when we make love, the air will be ignited.
Our passion shall heat up the Universe.
You will be in my Universe  and you will be my Universe…
Maybe then?

-I’ll become yours-

To my Future Lover, to my moon, sun, and stars, to my Universe,
By, Iridescently Efflorescent

The essence of true beauty
Lingers in all-encompassing rainbows
Of your joy and laughter

You hold my hand and smile
As we ensconce ourselves in our world of fire
Our love is all there is

I touch your face
Your gentleness astounds me
I'm held in the honour of your love

Then overnight, the wrold truns suor
61 mInnIts past the ELevenTHH HouRR
I'M A L 0 N E

I've had my eyes on you
Don't ask how long
I just know you've got it all wrong
I can see in your eyes
You use your smile as a disguise
In every congratulatory gesture you make there's a cry for help
Yet you don't let anyone know your true self
Run away or learn from your past
Hide your demons with a laugh
Why let yourself long for breath when there's a hand to pull you out of your suffocating bath?
Trust is a knife you sharpen with every word
I promise this blade we hold will not dig into your back

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity—
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desart,
And this my hand, against myself uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part.
    To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
    Since why to love I can allege no cause.

Mary,

don’t leave me.  
The things we’ve seen,
the perfectly serene
tranquil hours,
thick, sweating, hazy bliss.  
No.  
Stay with me.  
One more day of
nakedness in the park.  
One more night of you
late and deep and
infinite in the dark.  
One more breath of you.  

You *****!

I should have tossed you out
with the cigarette butts and
the empty bottles of *****.
I should have buried you
in the back yard where
no one
would ever find you.
I should have
handed you over to
those shady *******
who moved in down the block.
I should have sold you.

Oh, my love!  

These cloudy afternoons are
cloudy for us, tangled
in each other.  
Lost!  
Maybe I could live with
never seeing you again if
I could just always taste you.  
I understand you  
so perfectly.  
The lovely flower,
Delicate,
an intoxicating
fragility,
I will hold you
so delicately.

You *****!
  
I will eat you.  
I will take you down
in restrooms;
on the beach;
on the side of the road;
on the steps of the church
with the clergy staring
upon us,
possessed and hell-promised,
in the middle of
room full of people.  
I would burn the
******* house down,
Mary,
just to elicit
the tiniest bit of
glow from you.

My everything!

I plead.  
I entreat.  
I command, beg and weep and
I find a little more of you
absent each and every day.
Like you have dried up and
withered as
the direct result of
me loving you too much.  
Words and want and sentiment
do nothing
to keep you here and
so what do I do?

I ensconce you
in plastic to
preserve you.  
I roll you up carefully
expelling all the air and
secure you
with a cord.  
I make room for you in
the freezer
so that you will never change,
so that I might take you out for
a few moments
at the end
of seemingly endless days and
finger you
on the kitchen table.  
So that I might breathe you
in moments
when another heartbeat
seems too painful.  
You help me like that.  

You are looking quite
green but
that red hair, oh!  
So carefully I keep you
these days
not sharing you with
anyone, ever…,
well
almost never.  
I mean if the right girl
were to come along and
if she was of the mind
to understand,
open enough to
mentally grasp
the sort of relationship
that we have then
maybe we could
allow her just a bit
of the madness we share.
Or maybe if I had a really,
really good best friend
I might allow him a
taste of you
now and again.
Friends share until it
hurts to give,
don’t they?

All we have been through,
so many close calls like
that time in that
dank little apartment
downtown
when the authorities were
mistakenly busting down
the door next door.  
It was a terrifying experience but
I giggle a little now
at how
when things quieted back down and
darkness fell
I scooped you up and
shoved you
in the trunk of my car and
we drove and drove
and drove.  
It was summer and
hot as hell and
the next day you
started to smell a little,
reek actually and
your odor saturated the
interior of my Chevelle and so
I made sure we
traveled at speed no more than
ten miles per hour
under the posted limit,
totally paranoid with
the situation and
still as happy and rich as
I have ever been with
so much of you
bound and tied and
packaged for
no one
other than myself.  

And still,
look at you.  
Everyday diminishing,
dwindling,
evaporating into
nothing and
enough is never
enough.  
Every time I resolve myself to
quitting you,
to leaving you behind and
moving forth
I pace the floor
sleepless,
my mind traversing a
monotonous loop that
circles every reason that I should
cast you out but
religiously returns
to the need that is you.

Mary, don’t!
Don’t leave me,
Don’t.

walking under the sunset
while talking in riddles
we share stories
made out metaphors
and as we pass
down the memory lane
we discovered
closets we owned
with all those skeletons
and full of masks we used
to hide our true identity
to sodality that
extirpate individuality

I'm melting
Icicles crashing
snow fashioned animals
melting from beneath

melting
this ice carousel
******* breaking
cant you hear hear me

I shall hibernate in the eyes of winter. Torpor in the wake of fall.
Crucify the image i made of you
Mount corpus delecti Ensconce The carcass on my ceiling wall

I’m reminded now of that creature when i sleep or i wake
I need this stone of guilt wound around my vertebrae
So it hangs so it hangs so it sways with the weather vane
So it hangs so it hangs
So it slowly brings feelings again

We need this Contrition On the roof of our eyelids
To the struts of our mouth guilt through your body infest

Every nook and cranny

I crush all these blown glass animals. They all try and creep to my brain hiding in the amygdala
Take shards of them
Ingest them
Carve your likeness in my arms

No beat can hit me hard enough
No stone breaking bones could slough
How this carnival creature menagerie
Has destroyed all my self conscious stockpile
Esteem was a book that sold millions of copies and mine burnt up
The firemen. Came and disintegrate the pages in a pile a mass grave of individual triumph

Carousels destroy childhood

Holding hands destroys manhood
Just when you think you can finally stomach the ride
Those fingers course up your arm down your throat and pull out your insides

What is that which looms on the horizon?
My own response so carefully crafted.
Designs that I have embroidered eyes in
to see my own hand-sewn chaos drafted.

Your stitch-in, flowery language lacks work
and your seams seem to lack proper binding.
My dear, I can't accept mangled patchwork,
it's clear that you needle more reminding.

It's funny how you tailored your response,
yet you didn't know of the fabric's face
that laughed as you fabricate and ensconce
yourself in lies as delicate as lace.

You have barely weaved a good running stitch
Don't curse the seamstress who seems less stressed, witch.

I watch each of them eat
i watch each of them drink
i watch them all sink
i watch them sleep away
while walking,

zombie,
with the same placid easy
expression
ornamenting their face, handing chandelier face paint

a sconce on a wall i am
or in a chair
as they ensconce themselves into another job
another school another group

talk, about, important ****!
like a book
a clothes piece
a hair dye
clouds
universe
opening wide

revealing a void of absence
this makes me not closed
no closure

i want all their minds
to be present, i want

a
few people, around me.

they're stumbling off a plank of, mind, intellectual existence into

an ocean of jobs cars new ethics and things they wont get.
i'm trying to jump out of a swimming pool of truth,

out of,
existence.

requiem, black
ink, darkened pencil-
tips paint the air.

lethargy is a
green that defies
autumn.

its darkened
palms (once open,
once layering you in

cold) gently remind:
we'll all ensconce
in ground.

Such a trip this is
      Together on this tour
     Heartily I toil
      For this is no great chore
      But I ensconce away
    Once the grouches
     ***** their inveighs
     Safe from fools abrades
   with no thought
    and little aide
      My pencil strokes are laid
        So heavenly on the page
      It tells us not to run
      Stand against the shadow
       let it not dislimn the Sun
         The Machine The Machine The Machine
        It gobbles away all our fun
  
Gus
                                              My skin be-jeweled
                                                      ­                                         In this prizm Lake
             Just be here                
                                                  -             ­      Don't be fake
                                                            ­                                                        Don't loose your love  
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                               in daft's wake

                                     Let loose your love
                                                            ­                 Eyes wide
                                                                ­                                                             awake


                              No rush


                                                          ­                         I'm cool


                                                          ­                                                                 ­         Out here floating

                                                               ­                        in this pool


    Dust just scatters

                                                       ­                                                                 ­                its own way



                                                     I'll be here

                                                           ­                           just swimming

                                                       ­                                                    Cleansed n Sane

Autumn racing red and gold
behind half-open eyes of icy blue.
27th Fall. Step into cold
          and race through
          alleyways I've known.
A crunching stride, solitary breaths.
               Staccato notes
banged out on sidewalks' grey scales...

               ...I'm every inch
          of this softened ground,
these shoe treads, hieroglyphics...

               ...My town appends
                      its runic fate
                                    onto
              my story's granite page.

Crisping air, engulf my lungs.
Ensconce my face in drowsy weather.
Sleepy eyelids, sliding down
to Main & Dow Street. Watch me hover
                                         along the margins.
These last 4 months of quiet aching
engraved in me come roaring out now.
               Autumn streets stay silent.

And Kendrick Park
               has whispered low
                              in bashful rustling;
I climb the boardwalk,
               my thoughts are gilded,
                              responding slowly.

The breeze abates,
               it's halfway warm.
                              Bellevue & Lewis
I am a statue;
               smooth, cold marble,
                              still in November.

And, soon, the Summer comes with angry glares.
And, soon, this stony face will disappear.

These months will always linger in me.
Does my ghost haunt this place already?

I'll return here every Autumn when

October signs off on the Summer's death.

And I'll be tracing all your features with

forgotten footsteps' ancient hieroglyphs...

Give me the chance
To show you how to paint the wind.
We’ll be streaked in marigold and
Calypso blue, acrylic staining our
Hands and our faces and our legs and
Our lips.

Give me the chance
To teach you constellations at night.
I’ll point them out for you, each
Star comprising Orion, or Cygnus, or
My favorite, the Little Dipper;
We can trace them all with
Our fingertips.

Give me the chance
To dance with you in the rain.
Water droplets glistening in hair,
Lashes, as we twirl silly in
These sopping clothes— still tight,
Our grip.

Give me the chance.

Give me the chance
To whisper something in your ear.
A delicate sensation, like lace or
Light embrace, my words
Fluttering into your mind like
The butterflies we caught when
We were kids.

Give me the chance
To look at you a little longer than I’m supposed to.
I’d forget I was staring and then you’d
Turn towards me and I’d turn
Mad red because I was caught, and so I’d think to myself,
“Look what you did.”

Give me the chance
To get lost in your voice.
Language becomes a different entity when you speak;
The way your words wrap around me is
Mesmerizing, and each cadence strikes some
Chord deep within me that I thought
I hid.

Give me the chance
To ensconce myself in your heart.
I know I am small, and obscure, and odd, but
You are a Divine Truth, and before you
I knew only lies, and deceptions, and a bland and colorless world which now
You have blessed.

Give me the chance
To think about you every hour of every ******* day;
My entire being revolves around your existence and
Your beauty and your overwhelming goodness and
I try to stop but
These thoughts will never cease because you are you and
I am obsessed.

Give me the chance
To love you with every fragment of my heart.

Give me the chance.

So long, I've sung a solo so lonely --
An art already ailing of any amour --
Verses varying vibes of vague luridness --
Every note echoes a screech; erases all reason.

My mortality is no longer mine:
Enemies forever ensconce in every expectation of .

This is my side of
the bed. I have
lain here my whole
life. I daren’t
cross the threshold
to the other
side, which remains

spotless, impressionless,
free of wrinkles
and other signs
of life.

I lie like the lifeguard
tells you to lie in
the waterslide:

feet crossed at the ankles,
arms across
the chest.

I lie in perfect
coffin etiquette,
shaping myself within
intangible confines,
cozy and secure.

I have lain here my whole life,
and in my dreams
you are next to me—

I have prepared this space
for you
my whole
life

and I am waiting
patiently
for a sign
of
life.

I am waiting
for the sheets
to wrinkle,
and a mass
to take shape,
and the mattress
to indent,
and the pillow
to sigh—

I am waiting
for cold feet
to shock mine,

I am waiting
for strong legs
to ensconce mine,

I am waiting
for a torso
to touch mine,

I am waiting
for an arm
beneath my neck,
a hand on my
cheek,

I am waiting for warm breath
on my face,
and the silhouette of a face
to taunt me in
the shadows—

I am patiently waiting
for the day
I cross
the threshold

into occupied
space.

A husband -> a wronged wife

"My dear take a chair
Your affair is unfair
I can't stand
A suffocating air
This way you and I
Could no longer continue
A loving pair
Soon to my parents
I must repair!
How come for love of a ****
A marital vow
You thwart? "

This way since
You decided me desert
For what I did spurred
By transient lust
Chagrin my soul has hit.
As usual in deep slumber
When I extend my hand
To ascertain whether
You have slept sound
And stir you up
So as we sleep entwined
Yet get awake to a tragedy stark
That I but draw a blank
My heart indeed
Incessantly bleed
From the loss it incurred
Your obeisance and love divested.

If you can't find it in your heart
My folly to forget
Forgive me my dear
For without you near
My life turns insufferably sour.

A wronged wife—>A husband

After your body you befouled
And proved a down to earth cad,
After your spirits perfidy you debased
Impudently you demand
As before I should you hold
An esteemed husband.
Indeed this I will not!
For rancor laden my heart
Bleed incessant
It mustn't!
Away to my parents I fled
For you failed to abscond
After what you did.
'Once bitten twice shy'
Forgive you how could I?

A husband—>A wronged wife

Your forgiveness but
Nothing depurate
The blot
In your eyes
Down me brought.
I hope
Forgiveness is the least
Your impeccable heart
Me could grant.
Even the ocean of tears
I wept
Whitewash me still not
My dear there is a second
Man goes wild
And commits a deed
He condemns absurd,
My perfidy to nothing but
To this folly could be imputed.

Man is prone to err
So you should consider
What matters is his bid
Improprieties away to clear.
So my dear
Give me a chance second
To prove, you loving husband.
Your forgiveness will be a credit
That surely you catapult
To ensconce
In the apex of my heart.
A forgiving personality
Is a virtuous quality
Besides your heart
Me 'love' that taught
Which is also on me soft
Won't follow a policy
Watertight and
Once for all me smite

A wronged wife—>A husband

Raving ans volleying
Boisterousness nay, nay!
You stultify
Must not I.

My mind is bedeviled
Since you I missed.
On your misdemeanor
Brood I shall no more
To night
Come to the cathedral
We first met
As a jump-start
Together out
We have to spend the night.
The night's Zephyr wet
Will wipe away
Our disagreement!

Alchemy beckons
I once saw him scribing pollen on bat's wings.
having long strolled the  flattened earth
to capture mischiefs wonder,
wading through patented spell books
he obsessed on Death Cap Mushrooms as a panacea.
Once he levitated a Friesian
for no greater nocturnal purpose
than to mock the knowing Moon.
I had long sensed it was in his power to grief
stranger's dreams
but his ensconce was that of an Artist
rather than the Master of  Misrule.

i.

Ensconce we shalt do
Queen so true;
In the new heaven, and new earth.

ii.

An epistle I do leaveth thee
By the portal of tangerine;
Wherein we shalt meet, hovering the satellite's.

iii.

We shalt during these moment's
Haveth epiphany's;
Of all knowledge, no wickedness, no enemie's.

iv.

As thou layest
Thine brow upon mine rib's;
I'll feeleth the holy spirit, engulf me in holy matrimony bliss.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane nagley dedication

i left the spigot dripping last night
and now the whole home is submerged —
archipelagic scraps of tatterdemalion
things line the floor like dead bodies
and poesy atrocities. but i have not
in mind, this disfiguring lament.

1     Take for example, a fine line
       darting towards your *******
2     And bend it towards the direction
       of genealogy or analogue fire
3     Henceforth commend contention
       and differentiate beyond hapless
       extensions of body to body
       mirror to mirror
4    Where all axioms define the universe
       and there is an epistemic
       afterthought looming past the
       arithmetic of things such is that
       of a steady punctuation mid-birth
5    Take the corporeal and eat Suns,
        thrash the Moon like how a bed
        is meant to be whacked by the
        spanked edge
6      Cold resuscitates flame and flares
        congeal all frigidity — or at least
        arbitrarily, remember it by whim
        caprice and then fade out
7      As misery clots in the same vein
        pulsing with different blood
        which we shall ensconce with
        laughter — a drunken hilarity
8      And then oppose the dictum
        that forced us to the point
        of recalcitrance, rousing hungered
        heat with memory of waking ice
9      Recount what I said about
        such opposites complementing
        each other in precise farce
10    In this exact exhibition faint
        upon recollections — going far
        inverse to poles only tells another
        distance covered by wide strides
        and a place nearly forgotten
        rekindled by newer ones.

The soul is the fire of the body,
burning through its small supply of fuel
in search of the unattainable.
Hunting, roving above the dark waters
and rolling fields of its mother.
Faster and brighter the flame glows.
From time to time it mingles with the light of others
until the shadows begin to grow colder
and reach out to ensconce
that which was once so full of life.
Now drained into a colorless husk.
Ash to be blown in the wind.

I found myself en route from Egypt
But I found myself enmeshed
What could I do now I thought
But all I found were shreds
For seventeen years I engaged myself into a fight
And all those who saw me said I was shrewd
But I ask myself were they right?

What’s that which is enshrouded?
That is only seen by night
I need to ensconce myself, but how, Lord?

Everyday that’s coming seems to take everything
Of which it was designed to bring something
Year in year out, I'm fishing
But I find the waves disturbing
And all I get are floods of tears
Tears so hurting even to passersby
How more to my close relatives

Yes there is mist there & mist there
So it’s going to rain there?
Why not here?
Then I find myself moving there
But it ceased to rain
Nothing would enliven me
'Cause I've been weakened a million times and what could I do?

This is the truth
I will forfeit all because of these
These and other difficulties
Difficulties that are arising daily

A patty
in the
garden rose
and he
can lure
herb and
cater his
whim to
fancy those
gimbals and
freckles on
faces of
a widow
to ensconce
an offing
he drew
in wear.

trouble finds me
I control my response
hear my crying plea
to Your will, I ensconce
to this very minute
with intention am I here
feeling lost along the route
Lord, incinerate my fear
trusting in Your direction
I don't ask to take away
but rather provide me protection
as I navigate the gray
With boldness, I proclaim,
"Lord, glorify your name!"

in my arms
they're the blanket
to your soul
throw out all your troubles
allow them to float
weightless in the air
lay your weary head
upon my chest
close your eyes
drift away
slumber in peace
ensconce in my arms
nothing can get to you
no one can do you harm
swaddled in my love
my breath a gentle breeze
rocks you in a cradle
of elongated limbs
nestles you in comfort
before another day begins

You compel yourself to rise at the break of dawn,
yearning for a day
wrought with promise,
aspiring to evolve
into a finer version of yourself.
After a few gentle reassurances,
you become acutely aware of an amiable
yet slightly alien sensation—Happiness.
You relish this ephemeral joy,
cognizant of its fleeting nature.
However,
the instant you pass through
those well-trodden portals,
you seamlessly metamorphose into that polished,
ostentatious facade
that society demands.
You squander invaluable energy upon others,
along with your dwindling patience.
At day’s end, you find yourself utterly spent,
clutching the scant remnants of vitality
you valiantly preserved.
As you extinguish the lights,
you descend into a vast abyss of darkness,
relishing fleeting tranquility,
only to swiftly confront the bitter truth
of your exhaustion—
exhausted
from being fractured,
deceived,
belittled,
and loathed;
wearied of existence itself.
Gradually,
you retreat into the recesses of your mind
where you have lingered endlessly,
surveying the dimly lit room
as each object
dissolves into nothing more than shadows.
Then, silence envelops the world,
Poised
for your next act.
The solitary sound that emerges
is not of this earthly realm;
it is a voice—
one that might be deemed
Otherworldly,
insidious,
ghostly,
and extraordinarily compelling,
twisting tender words of comfort
into nefarious fabrications
aimed at your undoing,
and yet you embrace them,
soon feeling the anguish
of fresh wounds
as the warm crimson rivulets trace your skin.
Your body, finally ceasing its tremors from indignation,
becomes inundated with remorse.
You adorn yourself in fabric to conceal your suffering,
and with every sharp sting that the cloth inflicts,
you reproach yourself for your capitulation.
Your eyes brim with tears
that your weakened spirit cannot shed,
as you ensconce yourself within your sheets,
ensnared in the turmoil
of overthought and
relentless regret.
You surrender to slumber,
devoid of dreams or visions,
merely enveloped in whispering darkness—
another fleeting experience you cherish,
knowing you shall awaken anew,
resurrected with courage,
fully aware that this cycle
shall perpetuate with
relentless,
cold efficiency,
ad infinitum.

if I'm not the same
as you. If I hit a trigger examine it,
reflect a bit. Ask how I evoked
the response. Don’t ensconce

yourself in venom or stew. I haven’t
a thing over you. How can you live
if you can't forgive yourself for
the woman you are. Every star

shines. We don't
sparkle the same. Every woman
has a given name.

The angel of peace
settles on earth
to inform us
of earthly worth

So much to learn
to ensconce our differ
we shall resist
at whatever trickster

The path to peace
lays onerous to thought
we ought not fear
the trend to be caught

We hope to instill
those who will listen
that peace is vital
for a life to glisten

Let us harmonize as we trek
on the pathway to still
as we ration our divide
strengthen our will