Water is running,
Running dry
And I am
Running swiftly
Down long-deserted streets
To long-forgotten houses
With chipped paint and
Dusty woodwork
Where our childhood memories
Lay strewn in the scorched, dead grass
Like toys that had been
Carelessly cast aside there
So very long ago.

This is not a place,
It is many:

All images of what a home
Should have been,
But wasn't;
What youth should have meant,
But didn't.
The empty bottles from
Who-knows-where
Are piling up behind the brambles in the
Corner of what was once a yard,
And empty promises from
Someone in
A black and white photograph
Are piling up in the
Corner of what was once a heart—

Mine, I believe.

Waiting for the sun to rise
And never set again
Is more tedious than what is believable,
And still I find part of myself waiting,
Left behind in the arms of all the
Trees I've ever climbed
And fallen asleep in.

There was a tow-headed little girl
Running through the streets,
Dragging stray cats out of the gutter
And bringing them home for her
Mama to find.
She was laying in the summer sun,
Matting down the grass until
There was a shallow, child-sized
Indentation on the ground,
And she spent hours making chains of
Clover blossoms to be tossed
Into the grass, forsaken by the
End of the day.
She was always alone—

Always alone.

I watch her every second I spend
Drowning in time
In the lower half of an hourglass.
Where would she be now
If things had been different,
If things had been better,
If things had not fallen apart.
Everything is broken now,
And blame has been tossed around
Mended then shattered again
And we're running out of superglue.

Adults become children
And children have adulthood
Prematurely imposed upon them
Because crisis makes people
Both strong and weak,
Serious yet emotional,
Bold yet
So very small and frightened
Of the world around them
And the chaos that rends the cloth
Of our lives and leaves it in
Tattered ribbons
While similar scars
Decorate pale youthful skin like
The battle wounds of veteran soldiers
And the mental wounds
No one can perceive
This is the answer,
The reason,
But not the remedy.
This is the source.

What should have been happy memories
Are tinted with anguish
Like a film of dirt on the glass
Of an old picture frame
Containing images
That are growing startlingly unfamiliar.

Why does each day begin and end like this?
I am at war within my own cramped head.
Why am I not allowed to fade away,
When either way I wish that I was dead?
My mournful songs do seem to please your ears,
But pity seeps into the hearts of all
Who have known me through all the endless years
And know of my redemption and my fall.
I've fallen many times but still outlast,
And each rebirth is torture to my mind.
Each life is merely echoing my past,
Reminding me of all that once was mine.
So I raise my glass for all to see
This bitter cup of immortality.

I've wept, too many tears
Too many times,
From these ancient, youthful eyes
Until their stagnant springs run dry,
For the dewdrops that the morning leaves
On blades of green
She leaves for me.
Woeful and passionate,
She grieves for me
And what I have become.

Take my face
My identity
My mask is all this world knows of me
But they will make me into a monster
Created by society
They paint it themselves
The way they think it should look but I
Am wearing the skin of my mother

She killed herself to give it to me
But I miss my face
And I hate this mask

They tell me I cannot cut my hair

Under the flesh that belongs to another
I say nothing
I tell no one
I writhe within my adopted skin
They tell me it is sin

But God is a noose around my neck
My gender is a cage I cannot break

I hate this flesh
It has betrayed me

I believe in those of us
Who will never know how to be loved
Because we are always pushed away
I never stay in a single place
Because all I know
Is how to walk an endless
Road that leads to nowhere

And maybe I will cut my hair

Leave it on the bathroom floor
And lock the door
Because that is who I used to be
And they can still take that
Away from me
Like all the things they took from me

So many times before I’ve lost
All I am to what I’m not

what is the point
when destruction is nigh
a wavering hand
a kiss goodnight
and all that remains
is a dreadful sight
that is hidden under
its blackened cloak
of opaque smoke

from cigarettes
thrown down on welcome mats
instead of ash trays

and alley cats
battered strays
forage for scraps
in the cluttered heaps
of our rotting sense of humanity
perhaps if they devour the remains they
will become more human than we
and finally
the world will find its peace

the way we live
forget forget forget
what is pain
to a man with an empty bottle in his hand
for he is in better humor
than the rest of his kind
who swallow their depression
in spoonfuls
like children taking medicine

let me live my introverted life
let them think me queer
as I laugh at them
behind drawn curtains
today I think I will read or write a little
rather than
join in humanity's biggest pratfall

I am
better off
in the audience
where I can put my good sense of humor
to use and
stuff my ears full of cotton
when the musical numbers
are out of key

the ending is always happy
so they say
and is it so?
I do not believe it it so
for the heroine has gotten herself
in quite a fix
and her gentleman friend has
gotten his big toe shot off

is this living?

I. The Tree

In broken limbs I built a nest
And burrowed right into its chest

Oh am I a bird
Or a parasite?

I ate its heart I watched it die
And begin to rot from the inside

Our children fell asleep and I
Spent another sleepless night

Learning once more how to breathe
The poison that is escaping me


II. The Bird

Useless ***** that pumps my blood
Gone now but what could I have done

Oh am I a tree
Or a hollow shell?

My roots went too deep so I fell
Breaking through the ceiling of hell

Our children fell asleep and I
Am left to finally realize

Most of me is underneath
The soil or scraped by tiny teeth