Please, do not touch me.
I am fire, and darling I burn.
Do not stand too close or you will be consumed by my flames.
Because I have grown tired of being restricted to just this pit of self-doubt.
I am tired of failing at being adequate in a mold that I was never designed to fit in.
I have let my self-worth be defined by those whose only aim is to put me out.
My flame has been kept for years locked inside of myself
Losing the oxygen it takes to keep it growing
Fighting, surviving, growing dimmer so that I would not shine.
Because the brighter the glow, the more attention it attracts.
And it is was easier to just be invisible.
But this light of mine has taught me that no matter the circumstance,
It will keep glowing.
For years I told myself that if I could only put the flame out I would be safe;
Never having to worry about what they had to say.
Eventually, fire would become ash, fading into the background.
But I realized that no matter how dim the flame, as long as there is chance for a spark, they won’t be satisfied.
In the heat of the moment I rose up from the ashes.
The pressure finally broke and I let myself become who I had always been too afraid to be.
More brilliant than ever before.
A force to be reckoned with.
I broke through the pit and burned down every insecurity.
Growing only stronger
Forever.
My friends,
Do not let them smolder you.
Every word said out of hate,
Out of envy,
Out of lack of humanity
Do not let it run like ice through your veins.
Consuming the fire within.
And if you believe you are too far gone,
Don’t worry.
Fate has taught me that even ashes can rise up again.
It only takes a spark.
To ignite the flame that has been burning your whole life.
It is there, everyone sees it but you.
If they didn’t why would you be such a target?
Use the words they sling at you and use them as kindling,
Relighting the fire inside of you.
Because you are capable of being brilliant.
As passionate, strong, and self-willed as a forest fire.
Escape the pit.
Let your light shine like the sun.
And burn like nothing will ever put you out.
Because unless you let it
Nothing ever will.

1.

An escape beckons,
A slow and dark reunion,
It's calling me once more,
The chains have been broken.

2.

The savage stands upon the distant mound,
A bearded smile, a laughing frown,
And from the peyote trance comes the ancient dance,
Heads on fire!
Transparent funeral pyre.
And so begins the long, slow and frightening fall into divine madness.

3.

How good it is to be back among the insane,
The oceans of hallucinations running amok inside my brain,
The subconscious dweller has returned,
Relighting the quiet inferno,
The songs of ambience ooze from every flame,
Expanding paranoid thought,
Bequeathing forgotten demons,
From the shadows back into the game.
...........................................................­............

Soft little bubble glowing brightly on the bedroom floor.
In the dark shadow of the early morning peeping shyly.
Dancing in the corner like a delicate flower of light.
Glittering, flickering, sparkling like a brilliant gem.
Snuffing out, relighting, fading then shining strongly
like a spotlight beaming past the veil against it.
The blackout curtain imperfectly drawn against the intrusion.
Protecting the world inside from the tiny heaven spark.
Reaching in from a fiery source 1 Earth's Orbit away.
Cracking the barrier against the 4th dimension at its weakest point.
Breaking through the darkness of the new day's dawn.
Disturbing sleepy reality as morning progresses.
Bobbling across the floor like a wobbling balloon
Flaming with growing intention from the simplest photon.
Filling the room with its awesome power
... chasing the darkness away.

Skin is shred by ricochet
Shattered marbles shot
by childish thoughts at play
from a circle etched by a blunted knife
into the hardened dirt
of a playground, paved for life

Threads of clarity
patch weary fabric
The cloth of poetry,
real people, real drama,
real tragic

But love holds the hand
that holds the pen
that writes
poignant poems
Where even the homeless
Find a home
wherever the writer can

Earth-candy piñata wrapped in parchment
scribbled with sonnets,
couplets, quatrains
for bat armed readers
and sweet-toothed beaters
swinging at iambic what-ever-meter

Poetry is the ancient press
for the records of humanity –
who drags its demons, ghosts and fairies
from open graves to cemetery

These,life’s dark tunnels through the heart,
Seekers of light endeavor to plod,
Relighting the torch as the flame gets colder
Carrying their stories on heavy shoulders
to deliver our bounty to God

Parting kisses saying until...
Relighting fire, you give me will.

moving on to eighteen,
lost in loving a velvet
silhouette of a dream.

with hands off the world
as it open-heartedly spins
winds and rings and pearls,

delft blue skies dim down & done
leaving in the care of the night
the light refracted from the sun.

shadows blurred to one behind
closed eyes, where reality subsided,
relighting beloved falsehoods in mind:

instants of fleeting transient sparks
abscond tips of fireworks in air
with scarce care whilst piercing dark.

but alas blinding sun returns, flooding down
reality sustained, killing all sparks
without a single one extinguished.

lost in love, then loved & lost
enveloped in limits,
submitting to sunfall.

I feel something for her.
A feeling so new.

A feeling,
Igniting,
Relighting the fire in my heart.

Engulfing,
Leaving no piece untouched.

I feel something for her.

This feeling so true.

A feeling,
Inspiring,
Knowing it can be possible.

Healing,
Taking away the black and blue.

I feel something for her.
A feeling that always grew.

A feeling,
Of loving you.

ive been straining to grow flowers
back in the places of myself
that i set on fire so long ago
but now all the roots are charred with ash
and i keep scraping away at dust-
a hopeless endeavor to clean up the asphalt that i poured upon my own skin

and the people keep clogging my ears with clamor
of who i am now
and the parts of me that were consumed
in the deterioration
relighting embers that have sunk deep down in my pores

and i wish that when i became ignited,
i had disintegrated into nonexistence