i met her    
in a waking dream    
as i walked beside    
the sylvar stream    
whose chattering laughter    
shifted suddenly    
into a sylvar pool    
of enchanted silence    
a mirrored glaze    
in muted    
misty
dawning rays    
    
her cascading mane    
a crimson flare    
sea-green eyes    
alluring stare    
my heart stopped    
to see her there    
reposed    
'pon a verdant garden lee 
beside    
the misting sylvar mere    
'neath    
the weeping willow trees    
    
dahlia lips    
whispering desire    
vermilion plunder splayed    
spellbound 
by her charms    
heart pounding    
thundering    
captured    
i stay    
an' wi' faire
lithesome beauty lay    
'pon a lush an' vibrant field    
beside    
the misting sylvar mere    
'neath    
the weeping willow trees    
    
we lay there    
lost in time    
locked    
in the silence 
of kindred minds    
an' i knew her name    
tho she spoke it not    
sipped i then
the misty morning dew    
from precious lips
that from me drew    
all that i    
ever thought    
or felt    
or knew
'pon the grasses lush and green    
beside    
the softly glowing mere    
'neath    
the weeping willow trees    
    
soft sings    
the whippoorwill    
the meadowlark    
an' mourning dove    
their voices weaving spells    
for lover's yearning hearts    
in the meadow    
by the way    
where my love an' i    
do lay    
entwined  
'pon the gleaming sylvan shore    
beside    
the shining crystal lake    
'neath
the weeping willow trees    
    
alas    
the dawning days    
were passing
when came malevolence    
within
a thund'ring tempest    
lightnings flashed
in ragged gashes
'cross the heaven's    
stygian passes
an' from those
gnawing caverns
spewed
a raging
howling
demon's brood
an' down flew they
by the sylvar stream
where my love
and i
entranced
did lay
beside
the mystic sylvar lake
'neath
the weeping willow trees
    
then from my arms    
vile creatures tore    
my lifesong    
my heart's blood    
my one    
and only love
her scintillating form    
they ripped    
her silent
piercing cries    
bleeding    
thru my soul
an' took her they  
far from this    
battered    
desert shore    
as her soundless    
painful    
chorus fades    
an' leaves me
here alone    
to stand    
'pon these shifting lifeless sands    
beside    
this sylvar lake of tears    
'neath    
the weeping willow trees    
    
the meadowlark    
her spellsong sings    
thru ebon winter's    
weathering    
the silver stream    
her laughter froze    
this heart    
once fire    
a soulless stone    
    
so now this raven
winged    
doth fly
to scour the bruised    
an' shadowed skies    
to find my dove    
an' bring her home    
to lay
'pon these frozen brittle stones
beside
the darkened sylvar tarn
'neath    
the weeping willow trees    
    
thru timeless age    
an' dangerous realms    
i followed    
her silent    
morbid    
ravenings    
as her grisly    
mewling pleas    
hollowed out my soul    
'til at last    
i found her    
chained an' bound    
lost    
deep within    
peculiar planes    
an' baneful realms    
far from    
the laughing sylvar stream    
far from    
the weeping willow trees    
    
her lament    
of bitter tears    
an' fear    
sliced    
thru my defenses    
a doomed    
pernicious heart    
she was    
wandering    
thru deepest depths    
where madness reigns    
all hope destroyed    
hell's minions    
reveled
unconstrained    
    
my dove    
called i    
my love    
'tis i    
once more    
thrice more  
time  
and time again    
till finally    
she hearkened    
to my voice    
    
true love    
recall us    
you and i    
dancing    
thru ageless realms    
consider us    
twirling    
under heaven's wings    
she
spinning
at my fingertips

an' i  
drew her then    
breathless    
into my arms    
ambrosia lips    
her sweet alms    
from her dark pain    
i did drink    
of her    
malignant sorrow    
i did partake  
my questing    
thirsting hunger    
willingly  
did i sate  
gathering all    
her shattered pieces    
from those altered    
blighted    
reaches
    
chains    
now broken    
i carried her
'pon wings    
of true love's    
sylvar light    
far from    
these darksworn legions    
into    
the dawning night's    
farthest regions    
    
an' there    
close by    
the laughing    
whispering    
sylvar stream    
lay her gently    
'pon the verdant flowing shore    
beside
our gleaming slyvar mere    
'neath    
our weeping willow trees    
    
under glimmering    
starlit heavens    
sing    
the whippoorwill    
the meadowlark    
an' mourning dove    
whose soulful songs    
compose    
for yearning lovers    
charms of hope    
where pools    
the laughing    
sylvar stream    
whose mirrored gaze    
draws us deep within    
celestial    
starlit    
wanderings    
  
as the wind    
whispering
sighs    
thru our hearts  
as we lay entwined    
'pon a verdant garden lee    
beside  
our misting sylvar mere    
'neath  
our silent    
weeping  
willow trees    
      
p j upchurch

My scars don't look like
Anyone else's-
They're more careful,
Organized, precise and
Exact.
Not light, but
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough.

People always ask why
I do such pretty patterns:
Because this is the only thing in life
That I can really control
Control
Control,

And I find it so beautiful-
Though, not so much tragic.

My scars are not chaotic like a
Car-wreck,
They are consistent like a
Coma-
Proof that I was awake
The whole time I was sleeping,
And I could feel everything
Even though I could tell no one.
No one.

That this
Unconscious obsessive compulsion
Demands order
Order
Order, it
Insists by instinct,
An intricate simplicity.

Still, I will 'ever envy
Those stitched gashes, once
Gushing
Gushing
Gushing with surrender and
Serenity...
Each raised and rough coarse collagen fiber
To form a white flag
Forever etched in flesh;
To tell the world
They, were a slave to freedom-

I am only a slave
To *myself.

I think I was alive once
But I don't believe I am any-more
There are a few gaping gashes on my upper thighs
That keep telling me that if I am
I won't be for much longer

I tried digging my aches out
I tried burning my aches up
And cutting them open seemed to be the only viable way
Of letting them all escape

There are a few gaping gashes on my upper thighs
And they won't stop asking me questions
"Did he really mean it?"
"Why would you do that?"
"Why are you such a monster?"
So I dig a little deeper
Into the gashes in my thighs
And yet again
I find no answers in the droplets of blood

You see the thing is
The sea will never stop asking me for a kiss
The rope will never stop telling me to make it a noose
The gashes on my thighs will never stop asking me questions
My phone will never tell me not to answer your call
And I don't think I'm strong enough
To resist those poisonous addictions

I think I was alive once
I think I died a long time ago
I think my thighs are a mausoleum of dead flesh
I think my thoughts have finally stopped processing
I think everything is finally over

Paper thin top soil
Cracks seep through
Red dirt.
Bloodless gashes
Simmering summer soil
Baked turf.
Rolled gold haze
Aches as the
Country stretches its skin-
Near breaks
******* teeth
******* itches
Red earth fit-
              To burst in a
Dark cloud of dust,
Choking soft as to soak
The moisture fresh
From your lungs.

Blinding blue sky
Set for worship
On a tall horizon
Too far, too high
For common souls-
                  To float on a      
Breath of sweet dry air,
Eternal journey to sunset
Small piece of a dream
To chase a grey cloud
From sky to west.

Where subterranean
Creeks used to slip by
Rise in a ***** of land
Where water once carved
                          Its roam
Now the winds sweep
All traces away
Back toward the sea,
And fair beyond
The aching dry eyes
Of the sons of
This red earth,
A mist lies awake
And prays for rain.

This addiction is bad
These injections will change your life
It is everything, it is nothing, it is unexplainable
Like being stabbed a million times with a knife

It burns my whole body
Inside and out
I want to stop so bad
But it fills my mind with doubt

I become obsessive,
Sometimes I'm in rage
Even saying something simple
Will put me on a rampage

There are bugs in my skin
I get constant heat flashes
I can't stop itching
It leaves me with gashes

Your friends become enemies
Every family member is now a stranger
No one can be around you
Everyone is in danger

I'm loosing my body
I'm loosing mind
This specific drug,
It's the worst kind

I can't feel my body
Now it's all down hill
I no longer shake
I am completely still

My vision is impaired
Feels like it was injected into my eyes
I lay here stiff as a board
As my body slowly dies

Hey
I’m sorry if I interrupted your class with text messages
because you hate putting your phone on silent
it’s just that I should be there with you
laughing at your confused faces during Calculus I and
staring at your look of sheer concentration during Creative Writing
You were always the poet, not me
But it’s 1pm and I’m stuck in Calculus with someone else as my partner
who doesn't get nearly as confused as you and puts me to shame
which ****** me off because you would never correct me in Calculus
and so I can’t help but wonder who your new partner is
Is she smarter
Is she funnier
Do you quote Shakespeare to her like you did to me?
Is she better than me?
There’s no doubt that a. I ******* it all up and that b. you’ll move on from me
because you were always the popular one, I was the antisocial outcast that most people barely
tolerated
For some unknown reason you decided to become my friend that faithful day in
Calculus I
and ever since then you became my 3am conversations and midnight laugh

I depended on you much more than you did on me
I cared so much more
and maybe that was my fatal flaw
because if I hadn't cared so much
then maybe I wouldn't feel like screaming and throwing my partner’s textbook
at the teacher
but I did
I cared too much; against all warnings not to and now I’m wrecked
then again, I always was in a way
I just didn't know it

You told me that it didn't matter
that they couldn't separate us; no matter what
that you would never let me go
and you kept your promise
but I can’t keep mine

The words “I’m sorry”
come to my head
but those aren't the right words
because I’m more than sorry
I’m bleeding
I’m crying
I’m devastated
I’m torn
I’m broken
and perhaps that’s why I can’t keep my
Okay?Okay promise to you
because no, I am not okay
and you deserve so much more
and this is not okay
me lying to you through a computer screen is
not okay
me putting my gashes of regret on my arm is
not okay
me making you wait only for you to find a fraction of the girl I was is
not okay

and that is why
today during Calculus I
I will finish this ****** poem
and excuse myself and go to the girls’ bathroom
and cry my eyes out after sending this to you

I should end this with a ‘goodbye’
because there’s no use giving you false hope
but I can’t bring myself to end there
so I’ll just say something
and hope that you still remember what it means

P.S. I’ll always love you

(h.l.)

THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun-I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and **** ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and **** and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

My heart feels numb,
I’ve lost all motivation for anything I’ve ever done,
or maybe it’s just laziness,
God, I’m irritably bleeding out my gums,
biting down my lips till,
gashes, gashes.
What have I become?

Knuckles bleeding,
but I’m numb,
I didn’t see the cuts increasing,
my fingers might fall off,
along with my mental stability,
which has run off.

I can’t think anymore,
I just don’t care anymore,
gashes, gashes,
my wrists are bleeding,
I didn’t see the self-destruction,
but I’m halfway in my grave now.
What have I become?

Can't you let me see my own reflection
I don't wanna be so hateful
Of this vengeful aggravation
Of which I'm not acquainted

Or at least I haven't seen it
Since 1 a.m. a few years back
That's the last time recollection
Serves me without lack

But this feeling of which I was once familiar
beats my cheaply painted willow door
In panic my conscience cowers
I pray the concrete hardens
The fear I feel's a flower
growing gashes in my garden

Straying from the straightened path
Its as easy as it gets
The voice inside telling you no
But the enticing idea of leaving is too much
Like leaving the trail of the woods
Once you wander far enough
Only then do you realize your lost
The dark and cold of your soul
Matching the night sky above
The ones picking you up when you fall
Are back on the sunny and straight path
That you can no longer see
The only company you keep
Is your warped thoughts and your past
Your loneliness causes inner demons
It leaves you bitter and wounded
Cynical and dead inside
You have only you
To mend the permanent damage done
Because off the path are thorns
And those thorns cut little by little
But after a long time they leave gashes
And those gashes never fully heal
They only scar
I'm still wandering aimlessly
I no longer know the direction of that path
That I left long ago
So let this poem be a warning sign
With big bold red letters
To those leaving the path
That this isn't where you want to be
I could've been king of my path
Yet I ended up a pawn in an evil game
So to those of you out there
Rise up and become more
Because the woods are very dangerous
And its so dark and cold here

I tell myself
Think of him
Another red **** on my arm
He doesn’t want you to do this
Another one
He loves you
Again, this time deeper
He will worry for you
I waver
He will see them
Don’t care. I return to the fluid motion
He will ask you why
The blood drips down my arms
He will want you to stop
I want to stop
He will help you if you let him
I don’t need anyone’s help
Yes you do
I know
So get it
I can’t. I will fix this myself.

I won’t make anyone else deal with my ******* problems

he spends his time
rowing through the
rugged, blockaded channels
of my catharsis,
the bitter staccato
of ****** habit.

his love
can be as jagged
as gashes in an
Elvis Costello record
thrown against the wall--
the frayed words of the last love song
Billie Holiday ever uttered.

he is two
exclamation points lit on
fire, kerosene pumping through
tautly wound muscles and
caressing our funny bones with
sandpaper.

he is
dulcit woodwind melodies
and jilted viola strings,
epic poetry and grindhouse theaters,
McQueen gowns and thrift store bargains,
the kiss on the forehead
and the nudge for a *******.

he is a double helix.

he is the beginning
and end of every sentence.

Chapter 1
A man wearing a black suit and tie stood at the pew of a church. He had an anxious look on his face. Where is she? He thought. It was his wedding day, yet the room was strangely empty. Not a single person had showed up so far. Not even the priest. There were no flowers, no music, nothing. All there was were empty chairs and an occasional cockroach scuttling across the floor. Maybe I got the date wrong...No, I doubt that. We talked about it all night. Just then the large mahogany doors creaked open and he saw her. Her dress…god it was gorgeous. Pure white, not a speck of dirt on it. It flowed around her shoeless feet. She appeared to be walking on air. He was utterly stunned, not able to say a word, not able to think. She was so beautiful…Her eyes, a deep shade of blue stared back at him and they became all he could see. But as he stared, something in them died. The light just left. The glimmer she always had disappeared. They looked more and more like glass eyes on a doll than the ones that belonged to his lover. Dark circles surrounded them as a thin film covered them and took away every bit of life that was left. And then they shut. The next thing he knew, he was standing over her dead body, crying. The soft velvet lining in the coffin turning the tears into little beads that rolled down the creases.
Chapter 2
My eyes opened and I took in my surroundings, wondering where I was until I realized it was just my own room. My pillow was wet with tears and my hands shaky. Then I remembered, she died. But that couldn’t be. It just wasn’t right. I rolled over in my bed too see if she was there. Much to my relief she was, her brown hair resting on the pillow. I reached out to touch it and took in the soft scent of lavender. It felt like silk slipping through my fingers. A soft moan escaped from her throat as she rolled over and faced me.
“Hi,” she whispered in a voice that was scratchy and barely audible but **** at the same time. I just stared back at her deep blue eyes and felt the tears build up behind my eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked a pitiful look on her face.
“Nothing, just another bad dream.” I replied nonchalantly.
She sat up in the bed, stroking her hair. “You didn’t take your sleeping pill last night did you? You were tossing all night long.”
I just stared at her back. We both knew the answer. I hadn’t. I’d been skimping on my meds recently. I was getting married in a week and needed to give the meds time to completely wear off. I didn’t want the pills taking away my feelings. I wanted the full experience. Besides I thought I was getting better. There were no more voices whispering my name and I no longer talked to my dead sister, who apparently was just a hallucination my mind created to help deal with the pain of losing her. They said that it in no way meant I was insane. They called it a defense mechanism. They said it was my body’s way of protecting me. But I saw their thoughts in their eyes. I saw how frightened they were at my insanity, how they kept their distance from me, avoiding me like I was infected with the plague.
I remembered how healthy, how happy she had been. She’d had her whole life ahead of her but when she was nineteen I had taken her down to the Gulf of Mexico with Kasey, my fiancée. I couldn’t have one without the other. It was through Sarah that I met Kasey and through Kasey that I saved Sarah. I had figured that I would take the two most important people in my life to the beach for spring break but now I regret it.
I just remember Sarah’s smiling face, mocking me and Kasey as we held each other on the shore, our toes tickled by the gentle water.  Without warning a scream escaped her mouth as she was pulled under against her will. She didn’t leave the water until the following morning when her body washed up on shore. A shark had bitten one of her legs clean off. Her face was pale, her eyes open, not seeing through the milky film surrounding them and her lips stained a dark blue color. For so long I had been convinced that she had escaped. I saw her on the streets, in my apartment, in my car everywhere. Sometimes we just waved or said hi and we went on with our days but sometimes I had long drawn out conversations with her. I remember the day I proposed to Kasey that she had been waiting for me outside the apartment and we had talked for hours about how happy I was going to be with her and how I am so lucky to be able to have someone like her. Even seeing her body in that black coffin surrounded by white lilies didn’t bring the truth to me. It just felt like an insane dream when I stood up and recounted our good times during the eulogy and when I held Kasey tight in the cemetery where she now rests. I was absolutely convinced that she had lived. She couldn’t be dead I saw her, I talked to her, I hugged her. But all those psychologists said she was. They all said the hallucination was just how my brain was choosing to deal with it. Instead of becoming clinically depressed, I just chose to deny it.
Other than the hallucinations, I haven’t really dealt with her death. It still doesn’t feel real; even if I don’t see her anymore. Although she’s six feet under next to our parents, I can’t believe it. I’m just waiting for the day it hits me. The day I’ll want to do nothing but look at pictures of her as I’m locked in my room crying. But surely it won’t be soon. I’m marrying Kasey in a week and then everything will be perfect for a while.
Chapter 3
The weeks before our wedding was spent running about the streets of St. Augustine. Kasey boasted to me for days about how gorgeous she would be in her dress and how I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her. We were having a small wedding, neither of us really had a family left and we didn’t have too many friends being as I could never keep one job for too long, let alone live in one place for a while. I usually ended up working as a waiter somewhere or in a small store. I really relied on Kasey for most of my money though.
Kasey had modeled at one point in her life and still had some money left over from it. I kept telling her to get back into it but she always said no, claiming the people in the business were shallow and ignorant. A little over a year after we’d met, she was getting pretty well known. Her agent was a scumbag who would milk absolutely everything he could from her, even if it meant turning to pornographic modeling. He was going to get as much money as he possibly could from her so he paid, literally paid, a new male model to date her. His name was Jacob Fischer. Apparently the guy was stupid enough to tell Kasey that he hadn’t been paid enough to take her anywhere really expensive. I remember when Kasey showed up at my house drenched in rain, crying. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible in my dinghy apartment. Apparently all she needed was my love. That was the first time that we admitted how much we loved each other. The only other time we admitted it was when I proposed to her. Our wedding day drew nearer and nearer until the night of our rehearsal dinner.
It took place at the Sun Dial, where I worked. We were all wearing our dress suits and the ladies wore dresses that glittered and shone in the dim lighting. We sat and drank champagne as we watched the city of Atlanta revolve around us. You could see the street lights and malls and other buildings. From our view the Golden Dome looked beautiful. I sat down sipping my wine and letting the constant chatter of the place engulf me. I was completely lost in my thoughts as Kasey sat down next to me and everyone began clapping. “Go on,” She whispered, “it’s time for the toast.” I stood up and the volume of the clapping increased.
I cleared my throat. “I can’t tell you all how flattered I am to be able to have Kasey’s hand in marriage. It’s very rare that a guy like me ends up with someone as beautiful as her,” I paused, listening to the dead silence and continued, “No really though, I am honored to be able to have her become part of my family.” I looked at the very last table and saw Sarah sitting there smiling at me. “And I’m sure that Sarah is excited to have her as her sister-in-law. Isn’t that right Sarah?” There was no reply, only stunned faces staring back at me.
Sarah was gone. I could feel all those eyes boring holes in me as my face grew hot. Kasey stood up and took my arm, “Will you excuse us please?” she pulled me of the rotating floor and towards the door of the restaurant. “What is wrong with you?” she was practically yelling. I could see the tears welling up behind her eyes. “She really was there. Sarah was sitting in the back of the room smiling at me.” I tried to tell her the truth. “No. No Parker. You’re the only one who saw her. She’s been dead for over two years now.” She looked me straight in the eyes, begging me to believe her. “You can’t just quit taking your meds like that! Normal people don’t see their dead sisters at the rehearsal dinner and most of them don’t talk to her during the toast!” I couldn’t say anything; I just looked at her. “I love you Parker, I really do. You’re the only person in this world that I feel truly understands me but you’re insane! Nothing will bring her back. I know you don’t understand that she really is gone but you have to move on. It hurts me as much as it does you. I loved her too and if you would just pull your head out of your *** you would see that there are so many other people that did too but we’ve all dealt with it and moved on.” I could tell she was trying really hard to hold back the tears but they just kept rolling down her face, painting it with bleeding mascara.
I reached out and hugged her. “I’m so sorry Kasey. I just don’t know what happened back there…” she pushed me back and stared at me in disbelief.
“You know what? **** it. You’ve completely lost your mind. How do you expect me to be able to marry someone who talks to dead people?!” her chest was heaving with effort. She was yelling at me louder than she ever had before. “Just…Just come find me whenever you find your ******* mind.” She shoved me away from her slipped in the elevator just as its doors closed.
“Kasey! Wait!” I called desperately after her. I stood by the window completely dumbfounded. My breath fogged up the glass that my hand rested on.
Chapter 4
I lay in my bed that night, staring at the water stained ceiling. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about how I had hurt her, of how she had run away and how I had been too stunned to go and face all those people that had just witnessed me talking to a hallucination. I hadn’t done that in so long…What happened? Why did she blow up like that at me? It’s not like I meant to, I mean just because it’s the first time I’ve done it in a couple months doesn’t give her a right to get so mad does it? I’m not insane…at least I don’t think I am. But maybe she’s right. Maybe I am. Insane and depressed. I thought as I rolled over in my bed and brought my legs up to my chest. My eyes landed where her head would usually be. I felt a wave of extreme hopelessness rush over me as I thought of her. I really did love her. But maybe she just can’t make herself love me. Maybe the insane aren’t meant to be loved. We’re all destined to a life of loneliness and tears. All those who try to help us don’t really care. They all just come and go like birds in the change of seasons. The world never stops changing, never stops moving. Neither do we, but we never go up, we only fall deeper and deeper until we’ve lost it completely. That’s when we start sitting in a rocking chair all day mumbling nonsense to ourselves. By then no one cares anymore; we all just become lost causes. There is no hope anymore. Not for us.
It felt like someone had ripped my heart right out of my chest. That was how bad it felt to know she didn’t want to be with me. I would rather her have died knowing that she loved me than have her living knowing she doesn’t give a ****.  This way she was dead to me, but only me; just like my sister was dead to everyone but me. She told me to come find her when I found my mind, but how do I find it if I’ve never lost it? I just can not believe I’m insane. Surely she would come back to me if I could just talk to her. She had always loved me no matter how crazy I got. What made now different? I had to make it up to her. I would find her in the morning and hold her tight for the rest of the day. We didn’t have to get married if she didn’t want to. If she was just looking for an excuse not to marry me, why didn’t she just tell me that she wasn’t ready yet? That would’ve been easier for me to take than this. Anything would be.
The beast that had my heart in their hands rolled it around, feeling the warmth and stickiness of blood on their hands. They held still for a moment and then squeezed it until it burst, gushing blood between their fingers. I screamed into my pillow and then succumbed to the unavoidable sobs.
Chapter 5
Sleep never came to me that night. I just lay there; thinking about her, imagining her, missing her. She was all I thought about. She was the only thing I thought about as I slipped some clean clothes on and headed out of the apartment that smelled like mildew.
The streets were too crowded for me to take my car and after ten minutes of waiting for a cab, I decided to walk. Besides, I didn’t even really know where I was going yet. I tried to think of where she would go if she felt like she needed to get away. Then it hit me, Oakland Cemetery. She would probably be visiting Sarah’s grave. I flagged down a taxi and went to find her.
Upon stepping inside the cemetery I became aware of the ancient graves. In a way it was a beautiful sight. The headstones jutting out of the ground; it just brought me a feeling of peace. A thousand souls rested here, many centuries old. Most people find it somewhat creepy, but it’s fascinating to me. There’s so much history buried beneath this earth, it just astounded me to think of all these people coming to rest all in one place. I could just imagine all the things these people did, all their accomplishments. I walked up hill towards Sarah’s grave. There it was. The graves were more modern here, no headstones stuck out of the ground, they all lay parallel to the bodies beneath them.  And just as I suspected a human figure was kneeling on the ground. It had to be Kasey, I mean how many people go the cemetery this early on a day when the sun shines bright and a light breeze tussles your hair? No one. No one would want to come here this morning.
I quietly crept towards the figure, whispering Kasey’s name. There was no response from the figure so I drew nearer and nearer.  With every step I took I noticed that something wasn’t right. Their backside was bare, and so far as I could tell, so was their front. They sat there, no movement at all, trapped in one moment of time. From the back, they looked like Kasey, they had the same hair and lying next to her was the dress that she’d worn last night. “Kasey?” I called out, waiting for an answer. Nothing stirred except for a couple of squirrels off in the distance. I reached out and touched her on the shoulder. I drew my hand back immediately as the awful stench of death filled my nostrils. I stood there stunned as the body fell back into the grass with a thud. It was definitely Kasey. She lay there, on top of Sarah’s grave staring up at me. There were long, deep gashes up her wrists. A knife clutched in her right hand, she had died, staining the earth with her blood. Her bloodshot eyes stared up at me with an eerie emptiness. Her face looked pained; you could almost see her last thoughts on it. Life isn’t worth living anymore, I’ve been betrayed one too many times so I’m just going to end it all right now and stop waiting for someone else to do it for me. My mind and body went completely numb. This wasn’t happening, No, I would wake up and it would all just be a dream. She couldn’t have killed herself, no, not her. She had always loved life. Always loved to go somewhere new, to get out there, try everything, and live life to the fullest. So why would she **** herself? It couldn’t possibly be my fault. I had never done anything to hurt her. I never could have. I had loved her way to much. I couldn’t be the re

Stage Design/American Drama


Down front on America’s stage—
awash in a universe
of light arranged by
the ultimate technician.
Come closer.  Anticipate
spectacle.

First sun-splash
on these shores fashions
fool’s gold of surf that heaves against
foam-smoothed, lobster black,
slick rock beaches of northern Maine/
bubbles about black rubber boots of men in boats—
another day, another dime,
shivered away in ancient rime—
adrift in fog on the black
                                          glass
                                                   harbor
                                                               surface.

Grand Canyon sunrise
          EXPLODES
               copper and white/
                    orange and green/
                          blood red/
over many thousand pounds
of brash brown
        dirt—
in every direction/especially down.
       Soldierly shadows armed with swords
       of slivered sunlight hack through scrub
       like so much meat, to each day’s final
       battle at the canyon’s rim/
while a mile below the torment
called the Colorado
turns silver and gold,
black, blue, and
thundering
mud.

Louisiana bayous trickle chlorophyll caramel over twisted hickory sentinels, monumental elms and sycamores—even the alligators.  More mystery here than far-flung nebulae—and everything fighting back ***** green kudzu.

The Badlands of South Dakota, striped like the surface of a ***** peppermint planet—sizzling in the sun, bone cold in the shade—knobby tan canyons wrapped in ribbons of rust that dribble sounds one can neither recall nor reproduce.

Same phenomenon frames dawn over spongy folds of tall green cilia ocean called simply The Plains.
Kansas, Nebraska, horizons so far away thunderstorms creep along like dark, threatening slugs.
Distant night fireworks laden with punishing hail hide tornadoes and winged farmhouses in the horizontal gloom.  In the morning—those sounds again.  Critters?  Wind.  Ghosts, maybe.

Spectral mists of the Great Northwest cloak clear-cut sores on Nature’s sacred,
fragrant, deep green shores, falling steep to the creamy Pacific.
Light's a plaything here.  Big Sur
renders color to gem, sparkles
down the coast
to rusty Golden Gate and grimy LA,
where the sun goes down brown
and the rain shines
like gun metal.

Georgia soil—
homicidal redheaded cousin running loose, looking for trouble—
grows swampy hardwood groves/
leaves hung limp from humidity/
masking antebellum secrets/
offering sanctuary to voodoo practitioners and moonshiners alike.
Magic, danger, ******, and ghosts
of slaughtered slaves wander tight-packed old-growth forests.
Some say the soil is red from ancient conflict,
unanswered pleas for mercy drowned
in the drenching rains
of hurricanes
strayed north from the Gulf of Mexico.
Others claim tears of countless mothers will never leave
Civil War blood completely dry.

Northern New England foliage--
master maples drunk on fresh cider/
psychedelic finger-paint exhibitionists high on
the year’s last harvest,
intoxicated by Nature’s largess/
symphonies of scarlet, tangerine, lemon, even purple--
regal birds migrate over lakes so blue
you could chip your teeth on them,
and a diehard hemlock conducts its final green opus to a sea of primary colors.

Iowa is quiet and corn, obscuring whole towns and the lives held captive therein.  All the green on Earth is planted here; all the sun, all the sapphire sky feeding knee-high-by-July crops, bleaching spare white churches, white picket fences, white-on-white generations and all their vanilla dreams.

Linger beneath Montana’s cobalt crystal canopy to know why it’s called Big Sky.
Stark, Crazy Mountains chase stuttering clouds above treeless, tumbleweed towns,
bathed in the same blues as Wyoming, blown through a wild man’s horn.

A wink of sunlight
mirrored in unseen peaks
perhaps hundreds of miles away—
snow so white/Rocky Mountains so hard and gray—
behind a universe of wheat flatness beckoning the eye to infinity, slowly,
slowly, the Continental Divide rises
from the horizon like a monster parade balloon filling with gas on another continent.
The Flat Irons--majestic stone slabs lounging against Boulder's nearby foothills--
were cursed by ancient observers.
One peek at their precarious slopes compels you to return.
Been back three times and I’m still not sure I believe it.

Southwestern deserts’ blaze,
haze, and halo—spotlights hot,
focused on towering sandstone totems.
Deep gashes of flowering canyon, adrift in the flat and barren,
rage water, mud, and death during summer storms.
Scrub and sand, dust and desolation, land unfit for demons.
Get thee behind me, Arizona.

Endless, straight, lonely two-lanes
carve the lunar landscape of west Texas
into parcels of wasteland, miles marked by
bleached carcasses of ranch animals
and their predators, some hung
on fences as a warning
that people really do
live there.

Cities have their place,
                    their places,
                    their placement--
but my heart can’t pound to the beat of traffic
like it does to waterfall spray.

Turn your back to the fire in sufficient twilight and a mountain range sharpens into a line—
coyotes prowling, howling on the perimeter.
To spy on a wild animal lost in thought.
The sight--and sound--as swans alight or leave a hidden pond.
Northern lights and swamp gas,
everywhere the stench
of Earth.

This
is what matters—
all around us—
this alone.

Not politics,
not religion,
not countries.

Just this—
stage.

Hanging from a Star
The girl sat on her star. The dark towering flowers around her, cast shadows over her blank face. She walked around the side of her star to the grass so she could watch the fiery sun and look down at the fluffy billowing clouds in earth’s atmosphere. Lying, hating thoughts floated up from the beautiful blue and green planet below. The girl had been watching earth since it was first created. Cain’s first thoughts of ****** were heard by the girl. She watched the black plague wash through the world, killing millions. The hell of the holocaust burned through her mind like fire across her own skin. Sometimes she swore she could almost smell the melting flesh and boiling blood from the sick world below.
The girl nestled down in the warm grass and focused her guarded mind in preparation to listening in on the earth, like she did every other day. “Her nose is so ugly.” “Why didn’t I do more today?” “I miss her.” “I need to put at least ten percent in savings if I’m ever going to retire.” “I hope no one else notices this huge zit protruding from my face.” “Why didn’t I just kiss him?” “The sun is burning my eyes.” She made her way through selfish minds of the shallow population and then moved for relief, to the newborn children. Images of parents, lights, and bright colors flashed before her eyes. Each new child’s face seemed to be surrounded in a beautiful clear light. The girl wished the children had never been brought to that terrible planet.
One child in particular tugged on the girls thoughts, making the girl want to focus entirely on her. The light around the child was brilliant. The baby’s ocean eyes were open and focused on the one beautiful flower in the room. The details of the daisy were perfect in the child’s mind. The baby fell deeply in love with the white petals that curled softly around the bright yellow center. The girl’s mind was entranced by the lovely child. The girl named the perfect child Claire and sent heavenly visions to entertain the child’s thoughts as the hospital buzzed around her.
As Claire grew, the girl watched her red curls flourish and darken with each day. Her blue eyes bloomed as she turned into a happy toddler and her pale skin stayed radiant and cloudless. Claire’s mommy was a large, reserved woman, but loved her little girl with all her heart. Her mommy sang her to sleep each night and gave her everything she could afford to. But the floor of the trailer where they lived was layered in mud, cat feces, and tobacco. Her father’s face and clothes were covered in stains and the beard that he never remembered to shave had remnants of chewing tobacco that he hadn’t spit far enough. Every night, his drunk, angry voice roared throughout the house, cursing at whatever he could get into his hands first. Each time this happened, the ******* the star poured daisies into Claire’s mind as Claire buried her china face into a soiled pillow.
After a sublime day of school filled with telling time and and reading silly stories, Claire  skipped back to her hostel under the warm autumn sun. She opened her front door to find her mommy in a pool of ***** and blood. Claire screamed in horror and fled back down the steps to the closest residence, trying to see through her own flooded eyes as she tripped along the avenue. Claire’s father never even went to the hospital to inquire about his wife. The hospital gave up calling him, and she was buried in an unplanned graveyard, under the cheapest tombstone.
Claire became the subject of her father’s wrath. Several times a month he would take Claire to bed with him and **** her. She cried silently as he seized her tiny body, leaving large dark bruises where he should have left kindness. The ******* the star filled Claire with exquisite thoughts as he blemished her, but a child may not always be calmed in a situation of pure agony. Tears streamed from the star, watering the daisies next to the trashed trailer.
The ******* the star watched as Claire grew and learned. Finally, Claire vacated the ***** trailer park, on her way to a brighter future. Then Claire met Him. His thoughts were black. Though his eyes scoured Claire’s body, his smile seemed sincere. The ******* the star tried to keep Claire away from him, but Claire was in love with his kindness and moved in with him. The bruises seemed to appear again on a larger scale all down her arms and across her stomach. This man’s hands were harsher than her father’s, but his constant words of kindness drew Claire in, melting her heart into his ice cold soul. Claire dedicated herself to the man, and just as she did, his temper turned fierce and there was fire in his hands.  Other girls seemed to appear in their small apartment dressed in scant ****** and smirks.
One night his fingers skimmed like sand paper up her frail arms and the smell of alcohol breathed down on her face. His fiery hands hit her over and over, slamming her into walls, bloodying her hands and knees, and knocking her out cold. He left her there, sprawled out on the floor, bleeding freely from several gashes. The ******* the star could not reach Claire. Her mind was gone. She thought Claire was dead, so in the path of the drunken abuser, the ******* the star put a murdering thought into a killer’s mind. The abuser was shot in an alley where no one would find him. Angry wailing poured down onto the streets.
Claire woke up and posed in the apartment for weeks. The ******* the star perceived in dismay, that Claire’s light was out. Claire drank whatever alcohol was left there and sliced her arms from wrist to shoulder. The apartment turned grimy along with her blood and oil matted hair. Some of her wounds became infected and her face was no longer a china doll, but a red splotchy entanglement, smeared with dirt and tears. For those weeks it rained steadily as the ******* the star wept. No pleasant thoughts were sent to any human’s mind, but the daisies grew tall and out of control.
Claire’s blackened spirit left the cool, ***** apartment one morning. Her tiny body abandoned in a corner, was huddled in the fetal position, covered in dust bunnies. The ******* the star made a noose from a black daisy, and for the first time, the sky rained blood on earth. Each morning thereafter, the ******* the star walked through her forest of black daisies, retied a noose , and hung herself from the bottom of her star, overwhelmed by the appalling nature of the world below, blocking earth out of her mind with her own pain and suffering.

A fragile little thing. Xylophone ribs that heaved as coral reefs beneath a hurricane, and a prominent spine, a mountain range down a plain of pale white. Mountain range cutting against a pale plain in sharp and jagged ridges, a volatile and fearful structure, shifting with the quakes that came from the planet's heart, a flighty beat. Gashes in the land, deep fissures in his earth from tremors of stress in his core, bringing more fractures and gashes in the delicate white frame.  Two brown moons, always wide and full. He was a dying planet, orbitting a dying star that pounded within, a ticking bomb awaiting a cataclysm; and such a force came to the withered shell of a planet. A supernova burst forth, and the fragile planet crumbled into nothing, thin fragile bones blowing away as dust among the stars, along with his brown moons and plains of sickly white. This was a death, and a beginning, too.

From the dust of his bones he reformed, the gashes of his tremors and quakes becoming hills and gentle ridges upon the healthy soil of his new skin. His spine no longer an unforgiving range of sharp bones and discomfort, now settled comfortably beneath his earth. A true structure to be relied upon, one that will not bend beneath force. His brown moons are warm and quiet, calming the tidal waves and vicious tremors that once stormed in his core and tore fissures upon his coasts. A living planet, one that could give hospitality and withstand forces unknown. It took a supernova, a death so loud all the solar system tembled in its wake; but from that, he was reborn. Greater than the sickly planet and fragile core, he became a system of stars and comets, constellations in beauty marks upon a thriving expanse of healed skin, a new being, strong and resilient.

Do not be afraid of the end, because more often than we may realize, it is a beginning; the one we have always needed.

America, rollin’ its dice,
hurlin’ ‘nades on the ice.
what're we lookin’ for?
who’re we huntin’ for?
whether it’s a score to settle
or another lie to peddle
where do we go from here?
how ‘bout that future we held dear?
gone, done, buried, shunned.
eat crow, *****, retch, and—
run?
don’t run. can’t run.
these colors don’t run, I’ve heard.
though maybe they flow against
each other like water and
oil in a grating chemical fash-
ion that can’t be calculated
or be sufficiently integrated
like we dreamed they would.
and dream we do, for America
and her future, or so I hope,
given that each year that passes
leaves bruises and gashes
in that fabric, so fragile, I hear.
sad, wrong, and crooked;
Trump’s America.

Vivacious, atrocious
Super capricious
Precocious and ferocious
Precious and gracious
Malicious and facetious
Long lashes
Gory gashes
Fiery slashes
Tunic mashes
Souls igneous
In the end, it’s all ashes, just ashes...

Oh ****
Oh ****
Oh ****
This is the deepest wound that I've cut
My skin split apart and the blood's dripping out
And everything's starting to turn dark

I'm scared.

But I guess that's what razor blades do
The imprint you,
They scar you of every battle that has formed you
Broken you.
They burn remembrance into your blood
And it just pools up and it floods
Exiting through the gashes you've made
Actions reflected from sorrow and self hate
The cuts were just a twisted form of fate
And they are and they will be
Just an escape from the world for a second.

But only a second.

Because once the blood flow ends,
The flow of thoughts take it's place.
Even while its bleeding your mind is there thinking.
The words come from events
The inspiration comes from the cuts
The blood
The bandages.

And then there's the pain.

But I guess that's what razor blades do
The imprint you,
They scar you of every battle that has formed you
So you can never ignore them
The memories are scared into your skin.
But scars must come from healed wounds
And healed wounds must come from self injury
And self injury must come from self hatred
And self hatred can end your life.

I hate myself.

She dragged her nails across pale skin, digging
into her flesh and relished in the the pain, curling
her fingers across punctured plains.
She bled crimson but it didn't satiate her guilt.

dense, warm air and sticky grins were prominent during those sunny summer days
tripping over our friends and muffled laughter
grass stained shorts and muddy fingernails
wet, curly locks of dark hair and bare feet squishing against the grass
kids are known to be careless
a big bowl of fresh strawberries is placed onto the plaid blanket spread across the prickly grass blades
and we shoved our hands in quickly to see who could get the huge strawberry in the middle first
some blades of grass stuck right through the blanket and poked our legs hard enough to make it sting but it didnt phase us
neither did our grimy hands as we devoured the delicious fruit.
we were messy kids. the juice dripped down our arms, creating a translucent river of rosy red juice
you licked yours up but i stared at mine, intrigued as the river followed my veins and settled in the crooks of my bent elbow
i couldnt resist slurping it up eventually though
strawberries were always my favorite

several years later it isnt the same
the red river dripping down my arm, following my veins and settling in my bent elbow didnt taste the same as the sweet strawberries of summertime.
the gashes on my arm werent from an intense game of tag with a friend
or from rolling around in the grass too roughly
these gashes were more than just booboos
mommy couldnt kiss these and make them all better
mommy couldnt make them disappear
i couldnt make them disappear
i made them appear
they are here to stay, and not some sticky juices from a summertime delight
they were sticky juices from a wintertime despair.
a twisted mind
a long sleeved hoodie in 90 degree weather
a sad excuse as to why it was a hoodie instead of a t shirt or a tank top
a bit lip to hold back the tears
a friend who tried their hardest, but couldnt notice and brushed it off
a forever tainted mind

whenever someone offers me strawberries
i take them, even if i am filled to the brim or sick of strawberries altogether
because maybe if i overdose on strawberries
my mind will blur
and all the memories of the thick, dark red river of wintertime despair
will all become replaced with strawberry juice
and i will wake up
and it will have been nothing but a fever dream.

Mirroring what's bright
With dead unassuming eyes,
Its life dwells only out of sight.
Swallowing  the blackness of the room
It appears to writhe, silently shifting,
A child's gaze on a rotting face
Waits patiently for something
It doesn't know, and absently scratches
Deep gashes into its cheek.

as you jiggle
nervously
in your seat
during therapy
i can only imagine what
is eating at you haley

no that’s not true
i know a little bit about it
for instance your mother
drains the medicine cabinets
instead of sink
the last months’ worth of dishes are still *****
she takes her pills with *****
because they are her water
rubbing her stomach clean with alcohol
yet she has never picked a rag up
to scrub the sickness from her house
red stains on your blouse
haley does she even know
what grades you got this year?
haley did she ever notice
when you dyed your hair?
to feel like you fit in somewhere
when you didn’t fit in her lap anymore

you come home from school
with scratches on your arms
and she never asks where they come from
so you tell her:
you feel like in a past life
you were a dartboard
because at school your peers play bullseye
with your forehead
and sometimes when they break your glasses
and you skip classes to do lines on your skin in the bathroom
with your walmart scissors
you just tell her you tried to kiss a stray cat
on the way home
and she actually accepts that because
she’s the one who taught you to play dumb

and at thirteen you’re still
suckin o  your thumb when you think that no ones looking
and though you don’t know it
the reason you do that
is because you’ve been drinking from a bottle
since you were a baby
and she never even attempted
to breastfeed

haley doesn’t understand
when i read her stories about the buddha
she just knows my voice
is comforting
haley doesn’t know
she has this inner peace
and all i want to do is
gather up her gashes
and put the pieces back together
haley doesn’t think she is lonely
but she thinks that i’m pretty
and she subconsciously wants
to make a mother of me

so at the end of the hallway
when she’s crying in the corner
because she misses freedom and light
i ignore hospital rules
and rush past the nurses
to hold her tight
and i teach her to breathe with her nose
close to our open window
and tuck her in when the bars
make shadows on the floor
in the moonlight

we sleep in beds of ashes but i know
that someday haley
will rise from this and grow
out of suicide
because in her sleep
she still hears me in her periphery
whispering of siddhartha cross legged under the bodhi tree
and how he discovered
life and death are not separate
and they each come accordingly
and right now she should just
focus on her breathing

and before i close the book
i also add that she’s beautiful
because it’s an important footnote
hermann hesse would want her to know

when i left she hugged me tight
with a tearful mumble goodbye
and when i walked into the sunlight
the two of us had dreamed about together
haley was still just a patch of phoenix ash
an egg hatching but i know her
and it’ll happen fast
but someday suddenly
she will realize she is
full of fire

You slam the door in anger, in frustration you mutter my name.
You pound your fist against the wall, I cringe and feel your pain.
My words dry in my mouth, a word against you I dare not speak.
My body shys away from you, I feel my knees getting weak.
You vent your fury in a whirling rage, leaving devastation in its wake.
Your words leaving gashes across my face, carrying on not realizing your mistakes.

Hot off the press as in I finished this piece about thirty minutes ago, any advice? I love and appreciate all of you beautiful people. -Cyril*

I yelped when the third blister popped and David shouted to me from a few branches above, “if the blood flows you have to make your mark here, Jacob.” Frustrated, I pull out my dulled Wal-Mart knife and notch Old Pine where my blood broke this time. I look around for my notch from last week and spy it a few feet below my right foot.
“You’re getting higher each week! I know you’ll make it to the top next time. I can just feel it, man,” David said. The hope in his voice always kills me.
I’m higher than before but still not high enough. I look up Old Pine and see the circle of deep notches where David stands, dyed red with generations of my family’s blood. I wrap my left arm around the base of Old Pine, skinnier at this height, and I close my eyes. The taste of iron and winter fills my mouth as I gingerly take the corner of the torn callus between my two front teeth and rip the rest of the dead skin clean off. I let the blood pool up until my palm is full and I smear the puddle into my moist notch in the tree. My ***** red blood mixes with the pine’s regal, green blood. I pull my hand away and see the two bloods combine. The smell of blood always makes me dizzy up this high, but I can’t show weakness in front of David. Not at Old Pine.
“I’ll see you at the bottom. I’m done for the day.” I say and before he can reply I leave. I begin the climb back to the ground, dodging empty crow nests and old scared over gashes in Old Pine’s skin, pushed along by cold fists of wind. The blood sneaks through the hole in my palm each time I push it into the spiteful bark along my descent and I try to ignore it.
I dangle from my one good hand on the bottom branch and fall to the dying grass below. My hungry toes feed on solid ground again. I sigh, grabbing a handful of the kudzu that grows on Old Pine’s base to put in my mouth, and I plop to the ground. The breeze here licks my sweaty neck in an apology for its merciless stepbrother who, sixty feet above, whipped and spit across my face. I hear a light thump and feel a breeze behind me and as I turn I see David gracefully landing on two feet.
“You were almost there this time. Just a few more climbs and I’m sure you’ll breech the top.” David’s determination is the only reason I come back with him to this god-forsaken tree. I do it for him, not myself.
I spit the chewed up Kudzu into my palm and mash it into the red holes to help them clot faster. Father taught me about Kudzu’s medicinal uses when we used to hunt together before the fall.
I look up into Old Pine’s green canopy above my head and feel the silence between the three of us. Old Pine is our father now and David thinks it’s his fault. Old Pine is the tallest tree on our farm and the only one infused with generations of our family’s blood. From the very top you can see all of our family land. It’s a view every man in the family has to see when he comes of age. Dad took David up when he was only fourteen. It was on their climb down that he fell. I was nine.
“It’s the view, Jacob. The view is like nothing else you’ll ever experience. Holding onto the rusty-red notch circle and looking out on our land, it’s almost spiritual, man.” I don’t look at him, but I know David is crying.
We looked up to the canvas of green and brown and David asks if I can hear Dad’s whispers, but I all I hear is the creak of old branches.

Look in the mirror and what do you see?
The same gleaming girl, who anyone could be?
A boy with bruises, everyone fails to see?
Or a '****' who's home life is shrouded in secrecy?

How about a girl, with a painted on smile?
Who's silent cries for help could be heard for miles.
The scars on her wrist are all just a part,
Of healing the gashes all over her heart.

11/11 rolls around, 
All she wishes for is one less pound
Picks at the food she was given for dinner,
Hoping one day she'll finally be thinner.

She cries over that guy she thinks about,
Who'd kiss her in private but never take her out.
She is manipulated day by day.
She knows this part but, of course, she stays.

Everything he says to her, makes her sore,
But somethings he says just make her heart warm
She'll never be good enough for that boy or her peers.
If she isn't good enough for that girl in the mirror.

Let’s talk of love,
Of sunsets,
And peace,

Let’s talk of roses
And romance,
And full glasses of champagne.

Let’s,
Talk of joy
And having a baby,
And windchimes,
And feasts,
And,
Well,
Anything.

But let’s not talk of hate,
Or war
Or crimson rivers;
Wounds crackling with pus,
Popping scabs,
The sizzling gashes on my face.

Don’t speak of lost soldiers with forgotten limbs.
Don’t think,
Of discrimination,
And sorrow,
And divided skin.

Don’t waste a single breath
On misfits,
Outcasts,
Or widows.

Ignore conversing about infants
Left in the gutter,
Or orphans without arms,
Or bombings,
Or fire in the streets.

Don’t mention parents
Who **** their children.
I don’t want to know
About ******,
Trauma,
And ****.

Don’t look at the spires
Constructed of bodies,
With insects crawling out holes,
And eating out frowns.

Absolutely never speak,
Of anger and sadness
And anything in between.

Why bother with illness
Of mind,
Body,
Spirit.

Forget about the times
When liberty bled.
That’s not on my conscience.

Why mention families,
Torn,
Apart.

Why speak of agony,
And brokenness,
And death?
Don’t speak,
Of suffering
At all.

But let’s talk,
About anything,
And everything,
Anything at all.
As long
As it’s not,
You.

Oh, dear girl
How beautiful you are
How kind and colorful
I see your pain
I see the gashes underneath your clothes
The angry lines on your precious flesh
You burn your pain
Away into smoke
Crimson eyes
Not just from the tears
But from the blunt between your fingers
How I wish
To take your hurt
So you don’t grow up with faint white crosses
On your pretty limbs
You deserve to have your lovely smile
Displayed for all to see

warm, bright words don't reside in your heart.
an ice wall blocks the way as they depart.
a shy, humble smile, "oh, it's no big deal,"
and those words are suddenly forced to kneel.
the icicles ***** your weary shoulders,
forming gashes, leaving you so much colder.

too much warmth? you burst into flames.
too little? you're frozen and maimed.
your hands, scarred and worn,
rub in vain, ready to mourn
as you look over the wall
to stare at the glow that enthralls.

Mama it happened again
He did those things to me
made me feel ashamed
shh, it’s our little secret

Mama, don’t leave me with him
What if he comes close
If I can feel his breath on my skin
Shh, It’s our little secret

Mama trenched gashes caress me
but I can’t feel it anymore
Come a little closer, can’t you see?
Shh, it’s our little secret

Mama, I cut a little too deep,
took too many pills
Please let me fall asleep
Shh, it’s our little secret


Mama, I see you crying
"Beloved daughter and friend"
I’m not sorry,
I was so tired of trying.

Shh, it’s our little secret, our little secret, our little secret.

Explosions of blue and purple cover my skin;
like fireworks where raining punches have been,
and my scarlet gashes are dolorously healed;
harsh memories of my war on the battlefield.

Someday you’ll wake up next to her and you will feel the same way you woke up alone,
Someday you will stand in the front of the ocean with hands folded and knees trembling,
Someday your skin’ll be marred with fingernails of a face that you can’t see.
Someday a rebellious gypsy will refuse to abandon your silence and you’ll be homeless forever.
Some nights the wild silhouettes of her will dance on your ceilings and all over your face.
Some nights you will see lights flickering and your heart speaking gibberish.
One day all the venom will wash away
Your skin left all scarlet,
One day all her hounds would runaway
Your sanity abut the forest ruins.

The audacity
that you would write a ***** a love letter
That you would in so many words announce your affections for a *******
Thay you would pour out your heart
to a harlot

But here in hand i have it
written in blood turned tan from time travel
caligraphy cornerstones that mark the foundation for forgiveness
lithography laden with agony for the cause of love

It's as if even now, i can watch your quill
as it traipses across parchment
fabricated from your very own lamb's skin
still marred with scars
rough and red
tears at it's edges
and holes torn by gashes

the audacity of that "I love you"
scrawled in the crucifix cursive of the creator of the earth and its
universe
unfurled to cut the mundanity with meaning


The audacity...


I am wordless.


My soul is far from speechless.

wicked thorns on wicked wings
they fly and pierce the sky
the gashes open wide
the liquid life
pours
out

blessed words from blessed tongues
they soar and mend the wounds
the holes close up
the simple strife
floats
away

when we leak the color red
we feel alive although we’re quick to die
when the truth is spilled right
we know our pride and we’re ready to die

last meals, first truths
last loves in kissing booths
the world you need to get to is inside
godspeed and goodnight