Tis no more a question of life and of death,
tis no more a query of "what if" I had left,
tis no more a concern of thy troubled mind;
tis no more a thought. Darling, leave me behind.

For fear to be immortalized
takes time, yet within my time
lives blaze and wish I'd run and hide
but frozen feet shan't climb.

When interactions numb the heart
and stiff water traps the soul,
thine own protections thou shalt start
with thy unprotected soul.

In thine own garden lives thy key
to unwarranted blessings;
yet chart thy days and scour thy nights
for skeins of love's great testings.

For yon and hither lives do mingle,
twain they do traverse,
but forget, do not their minds of iron;
twas the blessing that baned the curse.

tis but a spoken masterpiece
that sitteth 'gainst a rock,
yet silver tongues hath sharpened swords
they've yet to learn to shock.

heed, harken, with steadied palm
that which betwixt us lies,
for time, being time, seems true, but thus,
endears solely desecrate flies.

Once, if it please thee,
snip back hedgelings overgrown
to reveal in a silent plea
the child who's all alone.

Fought for freedom to forget,
finding fear that seems aught of time,
her wisping tendrils wrapped twice, twice yet
round her throat with reason and rhyme.

To love is to look,
like an unbequeathed shield
for a ring or a hook
that will help thee to yield.

But yielding is not for the feinted of heart
or for the young vain and trampled,
for in my own heart i feel set apart
and no longer feel life is ample.

Twas pity that did **** her soul,
a murdress make her be,
but unkempt passions of her mind,
did bind her soul with thee.

Fie, the storms of roiling brew,
for shame, the frolick'd waves,
thy heart and head under wilt go
till she unmasks her grave.

Once put aside, it never dies,
but lives fervently on.

Tis but a shame that love will droop
when thine effort carries on.

They buried thee in roses,
of a soft and lilting hue,
of petals soft and trimmings long,
and virtue pure and true.

Thy faces bore the markings
of a girl buried in rock,
the 'witching cause of scorching pasts
and thoughts that led to shock.

Far be it from the minds of old
to push the past down yon,
to wish away the learnèd pulse
that rules your life begone.

So treasurèd be love itself,
the will to live be strong,
'tis hard enough to kiss the weeds
when they've torn up your song.

how many times do i have to tell you
to leave me
be

it really hurts to see myself continually
hurting you when you
could leave

i ask you all the time to just let me go
and let me wither
in peace

why

a plane crashed
killed a soccer team

a serial killer
was caught

two family members
were murdered

a hurricane
formed down south

my depression
has come back

Pushing, pushing,
I don't know why I'm pushing,
Driving, driving,
to find an unknown place.

Climbing, climbing,
don't know why I'm just climbing,
striving, striving,
I'm starting to feel peace.

not too old
only slightly worn
smells of plumeria

so why am I so uncomfortable in it?

A paper crown, and a heart made of glass
A tattered gown, and her kingdom of ash
She walks alone, she can never look back
The story of a queen whose castle has fallen to the sea

She'll make it out, but she's never the same
She's looking down, at the scars that remain
But you hold your ground, though your kingdoms in flames
Cause it's the story of a queen who's castle has fallen to the sea
Knowing there's no one who will be a king that will come and save his queen

When all she needs, when all she wants, when all she finds
When all she is, and ever was, is compromised
Cause there's no one to love her
When you build your walls too high
And there's no one to love you when you build your walls too high

She's looking out, from the war that's inside
She's screaming out, cause no one survived
But when you're all alone, you wait and you hide
Cause it's the story of a queen whose castle has fallen to the sea
Knowing, there's no one who will be a king that will come and save his queen

When all she needs, when all she wants, when all she finds
When all she is, and ever was, is compromised
Cause there's no one to love her
When you built your walls too high
And there's no one to love you when you build your walls too high

There is no one, who is strong enough, to save your love
There's no fairytale
There's no fairytale

When all she needs, when all she wants, when all she finds
When all she is, and ever was, is compromised
Cause there's no one to love her
When you build your walls too high
And there's no one to love you when you trap yourself inside

they said after the fire
comes rebirth.

but I'm no phoenix.
flamingos don't rise from the ashes.

they burn.

I hope you know
that i hate you.
I loathe you.
I despise you.
You bring out the absolute worst in me.
You're toxic,
and just seeing you makes me want
to *****
or to run and hide in fear.
I hate you.
Just hearing your name
makes me pity you
because I always pity those
who need others to
make themselves feel good.
I hate you.
I hate your need for attention,
and I wish you'd just die
because we all know you want to.
I love hearing about your pain,
your losses, and i'm glad
i've contributed to them.
You're such a monster,
and i hate you.
So pathetic, so weak,
and i hate you.
You're all of my hate and all of my anxiety
and all my stress and all my good memories
i've had to let go of.
Yes, i'm talking to you.
I hate you.
Sincerely,
Yourself

so many different ones
that i chance to wear
so many that i have
decorated with care

there's my angry
for my stress
and my anxious
for my work
and my happy
for my friends
and my golden
for my family

sometimes they get stuck
and i cant get them off
and have to just keep acting
until i've forgotten
the face that lies underneath

Read me
like you're under the sheets
holding a quivering flashlight
reading a book Mommy told you
not to but that you told yourself that
you could.

Read me
like the paper thin news
that you strain to hear every
morning but then **** back in
disgust at when you realize its
its contents.

Read me
like the person you wish
you knew how to read and
that you want to more than just
about anything but know that really
you shouldn't.

Read me
like the dictionary on your
paint-peeling kitchen bookshelf
that is boring yet holds truths about
life that you wish with all your might
weren't true.

Read me
like you have tried so
constantly to read your
fading falling self that I say
I care so much about but you
won't listen.

Read me
like the anxious mess
that I am when I even hear
about the past I can't change
and the future I want so badly
to make better.

Sunshine bleeds too much.
Ever stop to wonder?

To wonder how, with so little inhibition
as to the privacy of your life,
it filters in through
your bedroom shades?

To wonder how, with so little modesty,
it bolsters through your windshield
and into the very irises
that have bade it leave?

To wonder how, with so little attempt at civility
it burns?

Beauty and brightness
are not the same thing.

but happiness
can bloom
in dark places...

Gone are the tails,
the shimmering whales,
gone are the watery sheens,

absent are mermaids
and absent, her trade,
told 'neath the blue and green sea,

quiet are sea maps
and quiet are *****
that conduct and yell and keep time,

silenced are wet niches
and silenced are witches
that spellbind within the dark brine.

But on songs will twirl
in the soul of the girl
that coils the gold strands together,

and beat the drums will
with a pulse in the still
that holds in our young hearts forever.

i'll find myself
in a shattered drumbeat
on the waves of a newfound cry

when the sobbing hits
one ladder rung lower than before
and i decide that my feelings must live or must fly.

Sparkly.
Vibrant.
Lively, yet hiding something.

What can glitter hide?
What can sequins disguise?

Pink- intuitive, insightful, kind.

Under that glimmering surface
there is love.
Hurt.
Confusion.

And I'm never going to let go of
my wish
to enlarge
the love.

Little girl.
Lamb?
Kitten?
Child.

Purple bows
and purple misty clouds
that sweetly alight
on purple mountains
and purple hopes
that climb high.

My purple little girl.
Purple- wisdom, extravagance, royalty

...my little princess.

Unblock, unblock,
I'm dying just to unblock...
Take stock, take stock,
of what's been said of me.

But unblock, unblock,
I'll never ever unblock
Or take stock, take stock
of what's been ailing me.

When you wish to be lost and found at the same time

i'm sick of being told to forget
        i've forgotten
i'm sick of being admonished for the truth
        i've been truthful
i'm sick of being exhausted after eight hours of sleep
       i've been sleeping
i'm sick of not even beginning to know who I am
       i've lost myself

When you see someone who's feelings conflict with your own in a conflicting ball of conflict and your chest decides to spasm

"Don't steal my motif!"
cried the Indian chief
with a feather tucked into his hair.

"It's mine to command,"
said he, waving his hands,
in discomfiture and in despair.

"The chirping is mine,"
he screeched like an anserine,
stomping his leather-clad feet.

"So leave me my birds,"
the chief then concurred
and danced to his Indian beat.

I'm feeling like a hole in the wall
empty but patchable
ripped yet repairable
dead.

There's so much to a name
-would a rose by any other smell as sweet?-
but lately I wonder
about mine.

What does it mean?
And more importantly,
who is she?

I swear, I am more myself yesterday than today's current phase, but I cant remember yesterday to be able to tell myself how to feel alive again.
I don't feel dead.
I just don't feel me.

But who even
am I?

*Hello, I'm Nobody. Who are you?

time belongs to no one.
rather, it belongs to everyone.

everyone but the one who wishes
they could harness it.

like a wild horse, it can only be
tamed if it is given.

given, given from those who we
try in vain to give it to.

my time is not my time,
and yours is not yours.

it switches, it tangles...
and it is given, and taken away.

You control my time.
And I control yours.

Up is up, so down is down.

Red and green means Christmas, obviously.

Birds singing? Happiness.

Rumors equal catfights.

Cheating leads to divorces. Multiple.

And this poem is about you. Duh.

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 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 your 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 am a wrapper
a safe guard
a wall.

I am the outside
that won't let
me fall.

I am the cov'ring
the foil
the start.

I am the paper
that protects
my heart.

Do you ever wonder what small miracle it is
                                    to be able to talk?

Do you ever have those moments where it is
                                   unnatural to talk?

                                                                                                               She yells.
          
                                                                   It's not that she means to be mean.

                       She just appreciates the small miracle it is to be able to talk.

                                                       But sometimes it's unnatural to even talk.

if the crumpled paper
graced the rippled water
with the severity of a Siberian
and the grace of a Grecian

if it soaked up the
gel beneath with the pull
of an underworldly sheen
and an overworldly strike

if it did-
so what if it did?-
what would that mean
to you?

We're only getting older
and the air's just getting colder,
but we march shoulder to shoulder
into what our lives may bring.

We're only getting younger,
with new, incessant hunger;
and now we start to wonder
of what our lives may bring.

The brushes have long since been rinsed out,
the water now a dull grey.
Lifeless though it seems,
tired are its' dreams
yet awake it is
today.

But if you waited just one more second before
pouring it all out;
Just one second
would have shown you
the incorrigible beauty of
a streak
of neon green.

A streak.

One single, solitary stroke.

It has come back.

itches        p
tingling u    p
my spine, u       p
my tall frame, u           p
the rest of my body, u

up.

until they have nowhere to go
but to nestle in my head

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 inseprable 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.

Hold on,
little girl

that car handle can
double as an anchor

your sanity can't fly out
the w
           i
                n
                      d
                           o
                                   w

if we can close it first

hold on
hold tight

the window is latched

safe?

yes.

hold there,
with all your might


keep holding on
to the door handle

because one day
it will open

wary wary wary
weary weary weary

what, is there a difference?

our friendship is always there
prone to love and prone to tear
but our friendship is always there
and time is not eternal.

How did I not realize?





How was it not clear?




If we dwell on the past, we repeat the past.
If we just sit in silence, the car radio isn't going to turn back on.




We have to reach a hand out to fix it, to help the music blare, to make sure it doesn't fade.
Within ourselves.


There is none who can fix a society- it takes a village to raise a child, so doesn't it fit?- but we can all fix ourselves.

Together.



We each have our own bubble. Though we can push each other's into unwanted territory, no one can pop our bubbles but ourselves.


I'm not about to let my bubble or anyone else's pop over the past.


Perhaps ours have to float a little farther from each other's than we would have liked. We can still wave hi from afar, as we are carried on different tempos through our journeys of life.


We cannot learn from the past if we are still living it.



We can only inflate our bubbles with music.



And never let it fade.

My little music bubble
is a mass of empty space
that only opens up to me
when I've fallen from grace.
It's glossy walls do shimmer sweet
with light and life and sound,
but questions as though I do have-
will it lift off the ground?

I enter with a careful toe
and hear the start of songs
that I'd forgotten to forget,
reminded of my wrongs.
All songs that played remind me still
of lives that I have lived,
yet something in my heart does reach
for something underived.

So pop my bubble, all you folk,
who wish to see me crash,
harder than ever, in your minds,
do I deserve to bash.
Make me sink rather than fly,
for in this lonesome time
I'd thought that we had said goodbye,
yet you continue to rhyme.

Left here I am with notes and sheen
of rusted rainbow hue,
left here am I with gloss and sound
that reminds me what is true.
Steering upwards I will vy,
as I drought with my tears,
for in sometime, as time goes by,
t'will be forgotten, in those years.

I've paddled off into
my
own
s e a

of nostalgia

longing for my childhood
and darling friends
whom I've left behind
in the
u. r. n
c. r. e. t
of m e m o r y

reconnecting
two hours?

is enough for me
to feel slightly
more WhOlE
than I had before

what I have
what I need
is air.

listen to the rushes,
they wait for you above.
listen to the rushes,
the wind blows with no love.

listen to the reeds, dear,
for they have known your pain.
listen to the reeds, dear,
and be yourself again.

listen to the leaves now,
and forget how to live.
listen to the leaves now,
and remember you can give.

listen to the grass blades,
that tell you not to feel.
listen to the grass blades,
that make your life unreal.

and listen to the waves, child,
that call you from the deep.
listen to the waves, child,
and meet your endless sleep.