I wish I knew how to ask you for what I need
But I can't.
Just can't.
I want you to show what you feel more often, and if necessary, use words.
I want to feel wanted, to feel like I'm just as huge a part of you as you are of me.
I don't think you'll ever comprehend what I feel about you.
Lightning.
One day perhaps you'll finally understand. But will I be too drenched in waiting to be able to accept your giving me what I've been waiting for for weeks?
I just want paragraphs. Words.
I want you to tell me what you feel, how you feel, why you feel.
I want to know you inside and out, the way I hope I am letting you know me.
But then there are words.
And we are at an impasse.

It's there
You may not be able to see it, but you can hear it;feel it;smell it;taste it;desire it

It's here
In my veins, running strong like liquid gold that can melt souls and burn hearts

It's everywhere
In the minds of the young that hold our generation in the palm of their hands and in the eyes of the old who watch the world they knew deteriorate

It's there
It's here
It's everywhere

The night is young
new
beautiful
silent
joyous

It holds so many opportunities, and just as the flower who only opens her petals when the moonlight embraces them, so I am parallel.

I thrive in the night. It is my time, my hour, my seconds that only I have dominion over as I rise from the petals of my bed and am lit by the candlelight.

The waves of glow bounce off my nightgown slowly, slowly, and the undulating satin reverberates off my long legs as it dances with the faint breeze flowing through my room. I smile weakly.

Moving to the window, I can see for miles- a stretch of green quilting left there by God and his court, the velvet of the stitching vibrant in the light of the pale moon. It is unfinished.

The candle in the sill below me wanes slightly, and I blink. Reaching down, my fingers touch wax and guide it to my lips.

Fire reflects in my eyes the passion I have for such nights, for the silence that is filled with the deafening meekness of night sounds, for the musky, dark scent of my attic bedroom, from the taste of the faint dust lining the air.

I sigh, and smoke infiltrates my nostrils quietly, without invitation but without respite. The light is gone. My fingers quiver as I hold the wax, cold and lifeless now, and I sigh again. Quieter.

The night is brand new. I have only to light but one more match in order to explore it more fully. There is naught I cannot do when I hold in my hand this sheen that will light the recesses of the dark that haunt my room. My life. My eyes. And my fears.

What does it mean exactly?
Well, I'll tell you.

It is the quickening of my breath when we hug
The whisper of your words in my ear
Your scent that clings to the shoulders of my shirts
The echo of your voice bouncing in my ears
The feel of your arms
The memories of your sweetness
The joys of the future yet to come.

That is what you mean to me.

I'm enamored.
Are you?

I don't like being left
under the bed
no thoughts
no memories
no love

...not a drop....

It's dusty down here.

But there is that moment.

You know, when feet come stomping into the room like a herd of elephants- there are only two- and the noise is so deafening until they stop in front of the table. The table that holds the radio.

Then the silence.
Oh, the silence is even worse.

But then....the fingers reach up like the ****** down in hell and press the triangular button that speaks of hope and peace.

They press play.

And I am no longer dust.

The feet skip around the bed, dancing to the beat and screaming the lyrics until they are worn with love.

The air picks me up, and I am no longer dust.

I, too, can dance.

My fingers
tapping out a
beat stronger
than my heart is

Why do they hold
the power that they do?

Why is it that
my heart, the
organism writhing the confines
of my small chest
can't out its feelings
to the ones who need
to hear
it most?

tap, tap tap

My fingers
tap out a beat
foreign to the
pentameter of my tongue
and the pulsing of
my blood
and the tapping
infiltrates my soul

nothingness
blankness
silence

The tapping
deafens me, so
loud that I can't
hear myself think
or even hear my
own heart beating.

If it beats is the real question,
the one I would pay
a million dollars
to have the
answer to.

tap, tap, tap----tap, t-tap

My fingers shake
above the wooden counter
in my kitchen as
they try in vain
to say what
my heart and my
lips cannot.

Actions
speak louder than
words.

But music
speaks louder than
actions.

I can't believe the day has finally come
for a childhood favorite,
a tune I loved as a little one
to align its' lyrics with the lines of my life.

How long it will be till I see you again, I am not sure.
But until then...

Kiss me through the phone.

Well, hello there.
Awkward, isn't it? Reading what I say without hearing it for yourself?
I know it is for me. I want to see your face as I read everything to you, my face turning redder than yours ever will.
But I know I can't.

How is it
That what I write
Is something you find
To be beautiful?

Beauty is so subjective, darling, I don't believe we ever truly find it on this earth until the day we aren't searching for it.

Was I looking for you?

No.

But I found the most valuable beauty there is to be found on earth
In the solace of your arms, your smile, your scent, your heartbeat.

I wasn't seeking, and you weren't hiding.
But I found.

Case closed.

my cheeks
my eyes
my emotions
my life

RED. ALL RED.

my poems
my music
my stress
my fingers

But then there is another.
"read."

He read the RED of my soul that I bled out without a care, completely forgetting that he is but a click away from reading me like a bloodstained magazine.
How could I?

I suppose it's nothing of consequence.
I mean, I tell him, don't I?

I try, at least.

It's not easy to put it into words, the RED that I feel.

It's not adoration. NO. It's something much stronger, much more substantial.

But I don't think it's love, not quite yet. So what is this RED that he gives me in the form of words and kisses, of warmth and walls?

It's up for me to scribe my own description, yet I cannot even begin to tell myself what I am feeling, never mind telling him.

I can't embarrass myself and turn RED
As I try to explain my RED
To the RED
that makes my life
whole.

Really, just go ahead.

I know you have a way better alternative to spending your time than reading my little scribbles.

I may not reach more than ten viewers.
I might not ever receive a sun.
No one will ever hear my name spoken from the same lips that bequeath honor to the greatest silvertongues of our time.

Who cares?

Writing is, in and of itself, a formula.

One can choose to follow the rules, write what their audience wants to hear and so doing gain the popularity those shallow enough to wallow in their own words seek to gain.

I write because it gives me freedom.
There is independence in these paragraphs. Somewhere admist the commas and the apostrophes, there is meaning that perhaps only I will ever value. But nevertheless, it is there.

So go ahead, read this and move on, not giving it a second glance, a second chance.

Writers- TRUE WRITERS- are used to being rejected. It's our pastime.

Go ahead.

Congratulations to your eyes
and your mind
and your soul
for making the perilous journey
to the end of the ink
staining this page.

You read my words.

And you read me.

All I can hear is static
and yet I hear much more...

I hear a voice crying from over the toil and the screaming
of the gray madness that rolls and undulates at my feet.

The storm is coming.

As the wind tosses my hair, impervious to the time I have spent on it,
my very soul emanates from my body and wisps into the air above.

Spiraling around the lighthouse, the light flickering haphazardly,
peeking around the rusty old alarm bell,
it curiously explores
in a time more dangerous than any other it has ever known.

The storm is coming.

The fronds of nearby peasants bow to the gale, afraid,
and their hearts are torn apart by flying shine
that infiltrate even the most secure houses
and happy hearts.

His motorcycle lies on the shoulder of the abandoned beach road,
the left headlight still on,
but he is still
missing.

From the world, from his bike.
From me.

The storm is coming.

Standing upon this rocky throne admist the rain and the thunder,
I feel more alive
than every before.

------
The electricity hits.
-----

It courses through me like a wave of silk,
catching on my edges and riding me like a wave.
My heart lifts, my eyes upend to the skies...

He is here.
Shouts.
Running, slipping, dragging feet.

The storm is here.

Hello.

How are you?

Nice weather we have been having, yes?

How is your husband?

I hope this letter finds you well.

Openings.

They are always there, permeating the parchment of a letter, staining it with insincerity and dullness that melts into a void from which no one can escape.

We try to gloss it over, putting lipstick on a pig whose true identity shines through, no matter how deep the hue, how expensive the brand, how thick the application.

Why do not we push and pull, rage and scream, asking each other what really matters?

How is your mother doing?

--when we really want to ask--

Has the cancer killed her yet?

There are ways to get around this just by rearranging a few words.

But NO.

That'd be *way too easy.

Hey there.

I'm really not doing so well.

I prefer rainstorms, this sunny weather bores me to pieces.

My husband died eight years ago, Janet.

You know full well that I haven't been truly well since age seventeen.

Perhaps since the openings **** us...

...we can be brutally honest and **** them in return.

With honesty---

---the same honesty that those who write the openings omit, feign to recognize, shove off in a corner somewhere.

Honestly--

*Hello, how are you?

Blocking really is the easiest act
a young girl
                      a young man
                                               a child
                      a grandfather
a forlorn widow
can do.

So many people decide
on deciding
to block out
what they should take in.

The sun.
Their lover.
Food.
Feedback.
Family.

Why is it not easier
to bring in?

The sun.
Their lover.
Food.
Feedback.
Family.

Why is it that the best things in life
Are the hardest to represent
by the written word or the utterance of an untrained tongue?

I don't understand
this concept yet,
so I'll do to it
what I
do
best.

I'll block it.

Why do you darken my door once again?
What is it I've done
to deserve
this
e m  p   t    y    
s      p       a        c         e          ?

To spite you,
I'll welcome you.

To scold you,
I'll embrace your cold.

shiver, shiver

Here you come again,
lancing at my dreams,
my hopes,
my visions,
all of which I want to capture on paper,
but all of which you turn out
like horses from a stable
into the wilderness beyond
the reach of my pen.

Desperate.
It is not your namesake, no;
neither is it mine.

It does not belong to the man who searches for wisdom,
to the girl who bleeds her fingers on typewriter keys.

O, desperation, make me a statue
that others may look upon my emptiness
and feel
whole.

It's hard rereading.

You can reread your history
or your notes on physics,
the life of Marie Antoinette
or the dead Mayan mystics,
but you can't reread
your own poetry.

Why not?

When you read anything but
the things you have scribed down,
the emotions don't fly off the page
or take your heart to town,
high on the feeling that
rereading your own poetry brings.

But how?

My poems are usually written
about loves I once had
and that meant the world
until they soured into bad.
These vent sessions don't normally rhyme,
and take lots of time to write.
But I still reread them.

Terrible as they are,
guilty as they make me feel,
I reread.
and reread.
      and reread.
             and reread.
                    and reread.

My whole being feels stuck
on the bottom of someone's shoe;
forced to go down the path I don't want,
sticking to the past,
stuck to the future,
and unable to enjoy the present
presented by the present present.

*rereads

That song.
I'm trying so hard to get over you;
your words, your actions, your problems- why are they mine?

No, I'm not talking about a lover.
He is better than ever.

I'm talking about a friend.

One of my cohorts in crime,
my partnering master of disaster,
my worldwide favorite *******.

What exactly are you doing?

Why won't you tell me
what's compelling you to pick up
that gold crown
and drown
whatever is
ailing you?

Why don't you trust me enough to tell me?

They say poetry is a rhyme,
something that comes from long bouts of time,
that its' beats have to match
with nary a patch
and it it always sounds sublime.

But why are my poems sessions
of the beats of my heart
translated into pitter patters
from the keys of
my little old laptop?

I don't know.

Why don't you tell me
Once you've sobered up enough
that the words on this page
don't go flying off
into the depths of
a rainbow colored
outer space.

Iris.

Only song that can calm me down.

You;
Gold Crown.

Iris;
Me.

Vices......

Trying to write a fable
really questions who you are.

How can I write a story based on morals
That I have not yet mastered myself?

What to write.
Be honest.
Wear your seatbelt.
Elbows off the table.
Honor your parents, watch your sister carefully,
practice piano for an hour a day, go to church every sunday.

Morals are really just should's.

You should take the garbage out.
You should always obey your elders.
You should only speak when spoken to.
You should.

Oh, should I now?

It is the deeper stuff in life
that defies our understanding
and can turn the coldest of days
into a fable day.

Morals and shoulds.
Do's and don't's.

Tell me, what are your morals?
Are they questionable?
Are they repostable?

And most importantly......
are they realistic?

Write me a fable.

Oh, no.
You don't want these hands.

Worn and weary from many a night they've spent tapping against a tabletop, waiting for an inspiration that almost never shows itself...

Not these.

Battle scarred from wars fought against an ivory foe, the checkerboard pressure staining them a white and then a red deeper than Macbeth's blood....

Trust me.

Full of pain from furiously scrawling onto shredded napkin bits hopes, dreams, and fantasies that can only be revealed by the power of the pen...

They're broken.

They do not expect
       Think
                  Want
                            To be held in another's.

But then, there's you.
Just you.
How?

I see you.

And suddenly, my hands-worn, weary, battle scarred, full of the deepest pain imaginable.......

Suddenly, they're not empty anymore.

I'm holding you.

You get
a degree for remembering,
and all you had to do
was pass a test about
Abe Lincoln
and the Zhou Dynasty.

A degree for remembering;
you claim, "It's my major."
You pore over books that explain Henry VIII's malice;
you want a degree for remembering.

What sweeter sound is there to your ears
than the utterance of an educated reference
to the history of our forefathers?
A degree for remembering
will grant you that satisfaction.

History majors.
College American History professors.
Degrees for remembering.
Think...and understand.

It's so easy.
Press me.
Just one bit of pressure, and the past, the words, the memories, are all deleted.
Even if it's only temporary.
Why doesn't life have a backspace button?
Why can't I erase those terrible moments from my mind, why must they come up at moments when they will affect me in the worst possible way?
Can't I erase them?
Just one?
ERASING isn't the act of cowardice towards what you've done in the past.
Really, it isn't.
ERASING is about strength.
Knowing you have to forgive before you can forget.
Using all your willpower to wipe the slate clean, make yourself new.
ERASING can be powerful.
But sometimes, I find, it's easier to erase other people
Rather than myself.

May I bleed my thoughts onto a page, splattering the words in a sentimental frenzy of feeling?
May I?
Is it socially incorrect for my thoughts to soar as soon as his picture greets my eyes with the warm scent of his cologne afterwashing my brain?
Is it?
Am I allowed to close my eyes and hang his picture on the red curtains that cover them, leaving me to see him when I see nothing else?
Am I?

I ask questions such as these much too often.
     Do you deprive me the curiosity?
          Do you wish me gone?

Farewell then, my dearest friend.
You know not what I suffer.

Being told you are a beauty is beauty in and of itself.

Knowing he thinks that means the sainted world.
    But how do I know....unless he tells me?

May I ask, "Do you find me attractive?"

Is it socially incorrect for me to wish I knew his true intentions since he speaks so little about them?

Am I allowed to cry a little when I can only see him but once per cycle of the days and only dare to dream for the next meeting of our hearts, the next connection of my head to his shoulder?

May I?
Is it?
Am I?

Perhaps.

I Will Connect Them

I will connect them
to the sun:
     let the gold run through her veins like liquid lava
     give his hair a soft, golden glow
     streak their cheeks with burning caresses
     stain the mother's brown eyes with molten shine, let it infiltrate her irises like a      counter spy
     splatter the flowers in the field with a bright, inhuman gleam

I will connect them
to the stars:
      let them reflect in her eyes and her new diamond ring
      place them in the tears of a father whose sole reason for living, the star he called his       own, has left to join the others of her kind
      place the shine among his midnight strands, hidden beneath shadow
      lend their light to the late night insomniac who roams Second Street, searching for       beauty
      give their inspiration to the ink stained man without a muse, bandaged fingers       tapping restlessly on the side of his coffee cup

I will connect them
to the sky:
     let the azure sweep over her glass-capped, personalized periscopes, and bend their
     pigment to match its own
     present the splashes of summer laughter to them in a cool, salty refreshment
     inspire them with fragmented hues and tease their soft spoken lips
     bleed the atmospheric tint into the petals of the rarest herb there is

I will connect them
to my creation.

I will connect them
though they
        see me not
        hear me not
        believe me not
        thank me not.

I will connect them
in hopes they may
      someday connect
to me.

She wore gloves,
long, cotton swan's necks
which she stole from the
fields outside Baltimore,
plucked from the brown
fingers that wore the soil to dust.

She wore gloves,
a white pretense of elegance,
to hide her dainty,
fingers of a lady
who had never labored a day in her life.
Or so he supposed.

She wore gloves,
he'd soon discover,
to masque the bleeding
from nights spent battling
a linguistic war
with her old typewriter.

She wore gloves,
white lies that they were,
to protect her only valuables
from being taken from her
or doomed to the fate
of being held in another's.

She wore gloves,
never took them off,
as her one and only disguise.
For who would publish
lofty, luxurious paragraphs
when tainted by the pronoun her?

It was only a dream,
That cold lie that we shared.
One fruitless night and one darkening day
Signified that we were impaired.

Pair me off; lose me not.
How can we love as we are ought?
For love is cheap, and seldom bought;
Why buy when you can steal the lot?

A lot’s been taken; I see now…
Taken up and beyond the clouds.
Past the moon and the mist it sees
Up past the stars and the galactic breeze.

It breezed right through us.
I know not how.
All I know is there’s nothing left now.
What was our intention of fleeing that dimension
Since all humanity’s left us now?

No more now is the gentle undulation.
No more now are the sweet sensations-
My eyes are opened, and thus I see:
That cold lie we shared?
It was only a dream.

pressed petals
stained with ink and memories;
he left.

her black wings
flatten with the weight of the world
cancer ward

They are so fleeting,
You know, the memories.
The ones of him as we talked about our lives, moaned about homework, philosophized about our futures.
The ones of him smiling as we sat in the same room for the first time, not knowing that the two of us were about to be in for the biggest fall of our lives.
It was a fall. Two, actually.
I fell for him.
He fell for me.
In the cold of the fall, we both fell.
The feelings seem fleeting; but yet we forget---
There is always a key to that file cabinet in the back of my brain, as there is one to his. There will always be a way to revive what seems stretched through limited contact, through busy times, through musicals and businesses.
There will always be time.
And there will always be us.

Why can't I?
It should be easy, simple, really.
So why isn't it?
It's me.
My faults, my ideas, my muses, my inspirations that keep me awake at night when I should be sleeping.
It's him, reverbrating through my brain until I can't breathe with anticipation. Why can't I focus?
If only these feelings would back down...
But then, I wouldn't be human.
Am I?

How can I wait for something that I cannot see, a wisp of the imagination that flies through my life unwanted and untouched?
How can my eyes discipline themselves to hold on to hope for the one thing that will open them and set their visage free?
How?
The white darkens- I can feel but none and can do but one thing.
**Wait.

Once, in the ashen groves, where my heart once lay.
Once, on the faint outline of a thunderstorm that smells of electricity and bristles with indignation.
Once, inside the pulsating walls that are the safeguard to my heart.
Once.
And then no more.

When I tell you I don't in any way, shape, or form, deserve you, you just smile and kiss my words away till they're nothing but a faded memory in the back of your mind, where they'll soon be forgotten. But not for me. I'd always said you were my saviour, my vice, my distraction; but, perhaps, am I yours? Living the life of a hero, with its' pain, sorrow, and guilt- your doting on me, covering me with sweet words, is this your distracting? You say, then, love is a musical, and we are the actors. But you omit who else ventures onto the stage, beloved. Have you forgotten our old nemesis, Jealousy? She wears jade and loathing, and is the lead soprano. Cloaked in all her majesty, hypnotizing with the voice she sings, you remember her well, as do I. Yet lo, from stage left, enters a dear acquaintance- it is none other than Hope, dear old Hope, donning her tattered rags of lost dreams and wasted words. But all is lost when the orchestra plays, conducted by the one who rules over us all- Fear has come back, placing doubt into our minds, our hearts, our souls. We said once we were intertwined, yet how can we venture to regain that conscious feeling of royal sweetness? It is lost to the stage as the music plays louder and Hope falls to the floor in a scene of tragedy. There is no much more to say- Fear has overtaken me, love. How will our musical end?

You think you know every little crack, every crevice in my soul; yet there is so much of my life’s book that you haven’t read. My hair is a carefully styled mess, strategically placed static, and my lips are what they are- lonely. Sometimes I think you wonder about who I am, my origins; I can’t say that I don’t either. How’d I end up as such as mistake? You love me for what you say are perfections, yet you see not the real me, you see the front I put up, my acting. How can one be addicted to a person who doesn’t even know themself? Yet loving you makes me want to learn.

We both **** the life, the very being from each other; yet it is still not enough. I want to hook myself to you like an IV, to pull the gold running through your veins into my conciousness and let it light me. If there was a way to evaporate your essence and save it in a bottle for later, I’d be the scientist who discovered the way to do it. The very scent of you carried on the air from yards away is enough to register me for a few centuries in an asylum. You say you don’t even wear cologne, and I understand it. You wear yourself, a fragrance I wish I could rub all over myself every second of every day, every time I curl up in a ball on my bed after you drive home at night, wondering why it is you can’t just stay.

You belong to the road, you’ve sold your soul to the feeling of the wind in your hair. I can’t break your contract with independence, but I can tag along for the ride. Seeing you so happy, getting your racer’s tan, blaring the radio until the speakers want to scream. Why can’t I partake in your happiness? I wish there was a way for us to share the love for the world that you have; in its’ place in my mind is loathing. The only reason for living I have is you- and all I ask of you is to answer this one question; how have you fallen for this fallen angel, the outcast of society, the girl whom everyone forgot to remember and who you didn’t remember to forget?

You state your purpose quite clearly, love, yet how do you propose to obtain it? I, unlike the countless girls you have loved, have spouted words for, will not fall that easily, will not let you read me. Yes, I may wear my heart on my sleeve, but it is sewn there with the tightest and most precise stitches. How will you deign to rip it from its’ rightful place?

You know, perhaps I like being alone sometimes, did you ever imagine that? The roar of the silence and the blinding quality of the shadows are my home, why have you come in to destroy them and replace them with something all your own?

Yet being the simple shadow of being alone and the ecstasy of being your star clash, and I cannot decide which I like better. The collision blinds me, and I am left with a choice. Why choose? Why not have both? If only life were that easy, love. We would all live in castles made of tiger lilies and dance on wisps of thunderclouds, but alas life is cruel, and life is cold.

I choose….well. I like my stitches. I like my dark shadows, I like the engravings I place on my skin when I am alone with no one but the empty shower to echo my breathing, slow and shaky. But I like the careful way you pry each stitch up from the heart sewn to my sleeve, the starlight you give off with every breath you take, the kisses you cover me in when I attempt in vain to cover my scars, the ones that will never fade, though my skin will heal itself over.

The choice is made, dearest. With much sacrifice, with many questions still unanswered, with my breath hanging on a tiny thread I feel is destined to break….

I choose you.

I didn't know what to do with it, I guess I was just driving aimlessly; no signs, no lines, no lights to tell me when to stop. And when I finally broke down in everyone's way...you were there. You were the distraction I needed. I fell for an idea, a legend, a figment. I crashed down hard and didn't know right from left; yet left to my own devices, I could feel one aspect remained-the protection. Your words captivated me like the scent of an autumn breeze after a long hot summer, forming a protective shield around me, a thicket paragraphs deep. I fell for a distraction...you fell for a lost traveler. How can we distinguish one feeling from another when our very beings are tangled up in this mass of rhyme we have spewed forth? Silver words falling from bejeweled tongues clash together in a blend of titanic proportions, and we are one. All we need is closer, closer, and soon the joined words come from inseparable lips; did Shakespeare know? Had he the experience, the awe, the losses? How could he compare praying hands to bounden lips if he didn't? We are the new Shakespeare; we write our own story with our enjoined hands, entangled legs. Our fingers meshed together spell out what our tongues cannot. We write our own love story, forging through the trouble that is past and the fear that is to come. They say actions speak louder than words, that an image is worth ten thousand words. Well, whoever they were....they were right.

Perfection.
It’s what we strive for.
Some believe it is their destiny.
Others, much like me, believe it is the world’s curse.
Sure, it can be a goal. We look to it for guidance, as a role model for how our lives should be lived, for information on how to handle certain situations. Yet for me, it is a cruel, twisted, sadistic black cloud and threatening my life with a torrentous, eternal thunderstorm.
Perfection daunts me everywhere I go. The people I see passing by reek of it; not a hair is out of place, and they ooze with confidence and clarity.
Like a viper eyeing its’ prey, it waits for the opportune time to lash out at me, when I’m weak, vulnerable, or most of all, happy.
One is led to wonder; why should I care? I don’t have to be perfect in order to live. I just need to be me. Yet when you’re sitting in a room full of tiny anorexic models, do you still feel that courageous? No.
It all comes down to your inner strength. It is more beautiful than the most perfect statue, more potent than the most perfect of medicines, more withstanding than the most perfect wall. What is inside you should not be taken for granted. It is your own, personal powerhouse, ready to fuel you when your perception begins to lag.
So would it be better to shun perfection altogether? Honestly, it does not do much good for a girl to start cutting the word into her thighs, a boy to repeat it over and over again as he ties his own noose, or for a convict to mutter it as he stares at the ceiling unable to sleep. What point is there?
My resolution? Shout it from the rooftops, scream it from the skyways. “I am flawed……………...And I am beautiful”.

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m even here.
Why I need to be. Why I have to be.
What purpose it there in these rusty gears
That have forgotten how to turn?
Who wants a bluebird that can’t sing,
A butterfly who has lost her wings?
And how the hell can I begin to live
When all I do is crash and burn?

It hits me.
Without warning, without a sound.
Sometimes, I don’t even know it’s there.
But it is.
Weaving itself like a web through the crevices of my soul,
It infiltrates me. And it knows me.
It knows my weaknesses, my fears, my failures.
It knows it can manipulate me quicker than I know how to deal with it.
And it knows that it will win.

How can I let it win?
I’m trying, really, I am.
But it would be better
If I just understood
Why.

She gave herself an A
Because her aspirations flew free
She gave herself a B
For her broken abilities
She gave herself a C
For lack of conscious time
She gave herself a D
For finding doubt all over her mind
She gave herself an F
Because failures ruled her life
She gave herself every grade in the book
And so ended her eternal strife.

Loving arms last forever
Except when they don’t…
We’ll always stay together
Except when you won’t…

Our love is a river
That never runs dry
Except when we wither
And aridly die.
Our faith is the wind
That boosts us high
Except when we spiral
Down from the sky.

To stay with you
Is my only goal
Except when you break
This young heart you stole.
I like to think life is mine alone,
That I have grasped it, EXCEPT
You’re gone, nowhere to be found
So vicious tears I’ve wept.

Sitting home alone in my striped socks
Swinging my feet back and forth above my bedroom floor
There’s no one but me and my striped socks
Looking down over my bedroom floor.

Mommy died, Daddy went away,
Don’t have any friends that want to play
So I think I’ll build my very own castle today
In the middle of my bedroom floor.

It’s only me and my striped socks
Stacking pillows on my bedroom floor
I’ve found a friend for me in my striped socks
And our playground is my bedroom floor.

Lights out, flashlight on
We’ll keep playing till the break of dawn
Till all the last rays of sunlight are gone
In the windows shining over my bedroom floor.

I became royalty with my striped socks
Built a kingdom on my bedroom floor
Addressed all my subjects and my striped socks
In the dark on my bedroom floor.

So if you ever chance to open my bedroom door,
This is what you’ll find:
A fairy queen in glory on her courtroom floor,
Remembered in no one’s mind.

*She was left alone on the cold asylum floor,
With her striped socks on and far from fine.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Oh, please don’t take my sunshine away.”

HOPE
is like sunshine.
Here one moment, gone the next.
Shadowed by clouds,
Hidden by the moon.
Sometimes comes in small installments.
Through a windowpane
Or the cracks in a door.
It’s always there.
But sometimes we can’t see it.
And what little we see
Is overshadowed by stormclouds
Of doubt. Is there anything
superior to rain crying in the
sunshine? Crying because
HOPE
has finally shown itself.
This is one of the
Only natural exhibits
of true beauty.

To lead the land with a steady hand
Is easier said than done.
For since you have power
And have vowed never to cower
Your real troubles are just begun.

To lead the land with a steady hand
Takes more than just being the boss.
You must be willing to make sacrifices
-Not of  your own devices-
To stand up and bear your own cross.

To lead the land with a steady hand
Requires courage, will, and time.
Forced to make very hard choices
Over employees and invoices
And explain the reason where there is no rhyme.

To lead the land with a steady hand
Is a pressing, tiring feat
But upon returning home
You have no time of your own
None to rest your wearisome feet.

To lead the land with a steady hand
To us you try to explain
The principles you use;
Misunderstood, they light your short fuse
Deep breaths, then you try to tell us again.

To lead the land with a steady hand
Is not appreciated as it should be
For in all that you do
In all you charge through
Those unfamiliar do not seem to see.

Your hands do not shake
Your legs do not quake
And rarely do you ever venture upon a mistake.
None but you really knows what it will take
To lead the land with a steady hand.

I think I might finally understand
My services are at your demand.
Lead me, father, help me learn how to command
And to lead the land with a steady hand.

Darkness.
That’s how it all began, wasn’t it?
And that’s how it will end……
…..I think…..
I’ve been falling forever.
No start.
No end.
It’s all the same now, really.
And who am I?
I don’t dare answer that.
Names, addresses, pictures….
They all swim through my head,
Without warning, with no preset destination.
And the silence.
Oh, the silence.
It deafens me.
Slithering like an eell in and out of my head,
I quake at the sound.
This frightens me
I am never scared.
Sheepish, determined, maybe.
But never afraid.
But wait!
What is that?
……………….
…….a light………..
And it’s calling to me.
I know this voice, this figure, these eyes.
And I am not afraid.