There was a story hanging there
from the edge of my bed
but its teller I didn't want to know
so the story went unsaid

I thought I could ignor you hanging there
leave you to gently be
but after days you're still there
I'll admit you terrorise me

You crawl in through my eyelids
to my otherwise peaceful dreams
you mock me as your silence
seems to amplify my screams

and they keep on getting louder
because I keep them locked inside
and so they rage right through me
until everything I once was has died

They ***** my dignity
disemboweled my calm
tortured vociferously
my very entity
after knawing through the logical side of my brain
so that the only part remaining
is the part that is insane

Now as I swing from side to side
from the rope you've spun for me
I see you joyously scurry by
maybe we're both now finally free

And from my perch in heaven
If I ever look back down
I look at you and reflect that
I'd have done it differently second time round

I'd definetly heard you're story
I'd have given it a chance
maybe we could have been great friends
and we could sing and laugh and dance

There's plenty of your kind in heaven
and they're all great dancers too
I regret I didn't know you before
but now I look forward to meeting you

Crystals of white for a childs first kiss
***** is temporary bliss
Eyes like lace and teeth like coals
Coughing up bruises and spitting out souls
Breaking waves that bury the sea
Swallowing down all its debris
Fingertips shivering up your spine
Caskets of pills and velvet devine
A mother with shaking hands
Only a whispering brutality understands
Seven for the morning
All to make life slightly more adorning
Pale skin and sleepless nights
Veins covered in cloth while the frost bites
Hollow bones and painless cries
Blood vessels knawing at her thighs
Embroidered pleas
A religion to throw you to your knees
*Black lace and the codeine scene

Sometimes I think I’m crumbling from the inside out. I can feel a parasite knawing at the coffin encasing my soul and exposing the pretense of overconfidence for what it truly is- dust.

There was a time when a smile from a man on the street made me feel special. Now it tenses my muscles and knocks on the bedroom door of fight and flight. If it came down to it, I know that acceptance would win.

I once saw a TV special about how coffins are becoming larger and larger because of obesity. When I was eleven, my brain was overweight with the awareness of the novel I would write and the ballet company I would star in. Lately, the obesity of my dreams is directly related to the size of the graveyard residing in my brain like an icy sea frozen mid-breath.

My best friend hurts herself because she doesn't think she’s pretty. I renounced my faith a long time ago, but I always pray that she won’t be among the one in four women who are ***** because a man told them they were pretty.

The leering, drunken man outside the movie theater built my coffin. The disease of his hand stroking my shoulder put out the fire in my brain like malaria kills 1.2 million people each year. Like the 1,871 American women who were sexually assaulted today. My skin still crawls where he touched me and my mind still recoils when I catch myself wondering if my oversized sweater and Converse sneakers were too provocative.

And 2Morrow  


Today is filled with anger
fueled with hidden hate
scared of being outcast
afraid of common fate
Today is built on tragedies
which no one wants 2 face
nightmares 2 humanities
and morally disgraced
Tonight is filled with rage
violence in the air
children bred with ruthlessness
because no one at home cares
Tonight I lay my head down
but the pressure never stops
knawing at my sanity
content when I am dropped
But 2morrow I c change
a chance 2 build a new
Built on spirit intent of Heart
and ideals
based on truth
and tomorrow I wake with second wind
and strong because of pride
2 know I fought with all my heart 2 keep my
dream alive

B.C.
B.C.
“Change is one thing progress is another. “Change” is scientific “progress” is ethical change is indubitable whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

Our dealing with change is a little less studious more to do with feelings the hold memories evoke
Before change or B.C. I guess we should start with a king B.C. King was before Ridings the one stand out
Memory was a kid who was sponsored by Mopar I remember his side kick Strawberry Austin but way
Back then he raced like a demon and BC and Mopar fit the bill as before mentioned Glen Walters was
On his own I don’t know about in Nashville but around here on his own and out in the front all the time.

B.C. It was Tanners junkyard now Roy’s everyone has a Harry Tanner story how I miss all of the Tanners
My story we walked out past the scale through the gate stood there on the road Harry in his old suit and
That familiar hat he seemed to always wear he had his hands behind his back he looked at his iron
Stacked across the road he said I don’t know we ship this across the pond to the Japanese and then they
Shoot it back at us I don’t think he was trying to be funny but he hit my funny bone.

B.C. It used to be the liberty gas station now BP I don’t gun them for the gulf I just remember when gas
Was twenty five cents a gallon no hullabaloo just a small little friendly gas station the price was right
Back then when there were so many exciting places to go in our home town.

B.C. The Dutch Mill had everything and then some you could get main line goods or some things
Bordered being off the wall I just remember the pleasant good feeling I would get just walking from one
Section to another one they of course weren’t the mighty Wall Mart nor did they have to be we did live
And quiet well before their arrival I bet we would make it if they left don’t panic the rumors are not true
They will be here for a long time and the future generation will hold fond memories just like we do of the
Dutch Mill.

B.C. Remember the wedge in the family mother father and son they had the concision stands at the park
Ball field and pool they use to freeze those zero candy bars like a rock man there is a whole lot of
Knawing going on you had to go to over to the little standard gas station for pops Grapette almost ice
Cold and a Great visit and conversation with Mr Johnson he was so pleasant a true ambassador for all Who paid a Visit.

B.C. I know this is more of a guy thang but anyone remember those great tennis shoe adds P.F. Flyers and Red Ball Jets hopefully they had ladies shoes.

Hail unrequitted love,
ancient poetic rite of passage.

The bullet-burn of countless ant bites
knawing, devouring at young and tender flesh
empties soup-bowl eyes of suppose'd might,
a ringing scream sprawls out of each biological mesh.

You have never felt anything this full-of-feeling.


Never have you been so overcome
with nausea that you have no out
but to *****.


You have no choice but to cry:
Yet your sacred spillings prompt
your pen to fly.

In the depths of my being
In the very core of my souI can feel something stirring
It’s snakes it’s way through me
There is so much of it now it hurts
Hope hurts
The hope that maybe we could be together
Across the sea
You and me
It is an irrsistable thought that nessles itself into my subcouncious
Rearing it’s beautifly stupid head when the very thought could break me
Somewhere inside of me hope lies
And no matter how much I would like to rip it out of my chest and fling it at some fool willing to listen to its soft seductive voice
But alas, I cannot
Because somewhere within me it is stirring
Cooing my name softly
Waiting for me to bite
Not I though
Long ago I fell for its tricks and charms
Now I lock it inside a box inside my heart
Sealing it forever inside me but never in control
Blind it stumbles in that box for a way out
And it found it
When you called me love
In shock, I dropped the key
Right infront of hope
Now it is free and is infesting every cell in my body
Taking over me
Knawing at my insides
So much hope it hurts
Stupid hope
Stupid stupid hope

There's far too much
to say about our
invisible electricity, our complicated
simplicity that fills me
with just enough joy
to last me through
my day of toxicity.

To make me hunger
for your sweet, stubbly
kiss that fills the
little hole that was so
viciously knawing
at my soul.

In love, I can't pretend
in life, my bestfriend
I can't stop the emotions
that slowly creep up
expand and distend
foreign feelings, I am
able to happily follow
yet not comprehend.

feelings

feel so cold, nothing seems real
feel like i used to feel
when the wheels in my head
stopped going forward
went backwards instead
so many things in my head
that shouldnt be there
shouldnt be anywhere

mabye inside the mind
of some poor ******* that couldnt find
his way through life
clawing, knawing, at his own bones
all the while thinking of home
mind wandering
like mine does all the time
quoting some line
from a film or a song

convincing yourself
thers some hidden meaning in it
for why your life died
and went so badly wrong
and turned to ****

feel so lonely, if only
someone could take my pain away
pain visited me such a long time ago
and stayed
feel lost, feel the cold frost of life
sending a chill down my spine
feel numb
feel like i want to strike out
at anyone and anything
feel like my body isnt even mine

stare past my window
far far away, eyes stray
eyes discuise, the person behind the mask

eyes lie
mask wears me like a second skin
mask hides the people that are within
my head
today my mask will be; don, dedus, donna
mabye someone else instead
feel frightened
feel like i just want to be held
in the arms of someone
that can keep me safe
keep me out of my own hell
thats in my confused mind

feel like my barbedwire thoughts
are so kind, feel blind
unable to see even me
feel like i wasnt conceived
unable to believe i even exist

in this manifestation
cold invitation
of an existance , that is my life
feel like i want my wife, to sort out my life

feel like i cant feel
feel like i want to strip the skin from my bones
feel like i want to go home
feel cold, so very cold, feel old
feel alone

Every breath of poison laced with a thought
The chill of the night so full of bitterness
Each passing drag a constant reminder
Forgotten lyrics and discarded melodies dance through my mind
Each line a memory and every tune a moment
Swirling like cold bath water abandoned after use
Consumed by the paralyzing loneliness that only 2 AM knows
Each cloud of smoke an escaping cry from my lungs
My stomach gnarled lurching to be free of this anxiety
The star laden sky looks down on me
A constant reminder of a more pleasant yesterday
The winter winds howl at my cheeks, knawing at my limbs with its icy dead fangs
Suddenly your number illuminates my phone
The algorithm emblazoned into my soul
Goosebumps and shivers emerge from the thought
That maybe you are breathing this poison too

wholeness is just out of reach

then it hits me
I am still seeking something
external to make me whole

Instead I now go inward towards
my knawing emptiness
and I make friends with my
suffering and pain

now in my heart there is good soil
for seeds of hope and love to grow

I'm so tired of always being the one to ask,
I'm so tired, knowing it won't change
Unless I stop putting myself out there
I want to know them all

Why does the world seem so big suddenly
Like it's so hard to grasp the reality of
How life used to be, before I went away
Before I remembered what living really meant

Those days seem as simple memories now
Memories though which will never vanish
And cannot seem to leave me be
Constantly poking at my back

Knawing wholes wherever they can
Like worms, they've been eating my body
Along with parts of my soul I thought
Were most profound and least to weaken

Or is it exactly the fact that I envision
A weakness in me I never had before
A softness in which I have found kindness
And a love that dropped all my barriers

What if everything I thought I knew
Was but a deception that I left myself
To fall so tremendlously for
Each time I stopped praying?

How many of the things I did
Were really selfless opposed to
All the times I did those things
To really make myself happy

Rather than all those around me
Rather than the ones I love or
The people that I thought I fought for
What if it's all a lie?

The lie we feed ourselves in order
To be able to live with ourselves
While half the world is at war
While more than half is starving

I thought if you help your community
You do your part in the world
No matter if nothing will ever be enough
Yet.. somehow I have this sense

A sense of incompletion everywhere I look
Or is that simply...because I fell in love?

You were like a wild animal
Starved of attention
Self and worth
Knawing at its own limbs
Though your bonds had long been cut
Plucking out each ****** feather
Fraying the edges of freedom
While I watched still holding the knife

It makes me crazy,
Those knawing pops of color.

Welcome distractions!
Abstracts.
Plentiful letters stuck
To loved ones.
Characters
With layers.
Annoyances
to empty minds.
Friends,
Faithful and familiar.
Electric acquaintances
Jolting perspectives.
Careful and considered.
Almost silent.
All purpose.
Niche.
Violent.
Hypocritical.
Invaluable.
Unnecessary.

­Soft.

Solipsary.

I'm back and knawing
At the throat of my youth
Torn between branches I've grown
Lifted and then thrown from atop

Dances, I danced with wolves
Howled till the break of dawn
Sorrow when another leaves
Broken when another's taken

I'm here now what, in human form
Will I live to make something
Or will I be just another mistake
We all know why I left, now here

Home: it's a love form that dwells
That never gifted, never sells
Never tries to be more or creates
Now I mourn what I'll make

Repel repel repel
I will make it beautiful
I will try, that is all
I will be, try, make it all

this obsession creeping into my veins
your ghost screams so loud sometimes
never forget

it's been a year
you've festered and grown
knawing away at my resolve

the one that got away,
the warmth you bring to my broken soul
a comfort i'd wish would leave like you

Three times in the hospital
sitting near the window
ds screen illuminating
distraction
years going by
and the rising anxiety
that very soon the end
feeling too grown
at the same too young
being a mom
and a grand-daughter
a sister and a housekeeper
riding in an ambulance 10am
playing translator
stupid scale pain system
empty stomach
awkwardly standing aside
she's all that's left
others are working
stuck at home afraid to go out
scheduled medications glued to memory
and panic when forgotten
and still too childish
but no longer a child
pre-mourning pushed aside
cause shes still here
still guilt
worry
knawing
shut up
shes still here
shes still here
shes still here

Guilt is:

The knawing depth of knives buried deep
Kindling obnoxious desires of letting go
Forlorn thoughts of forgotten promises
Drowing you from the inside
Unescapable

Uh-Oh.
My drug abuse has broken loose

Where's my white flag
Wave of truce

The thought of certain pharmaceuticals has me knawing at my cuticles

Not Advil or Tylenol

But the ones that make me feel like I have it all