Saturday, December 30, 2017

Aqueous

I see myself as a body of water.
Some days, it feels like  
The steady flow of possibility 
is coursing through my frame.
Like I am a conduit for creation.
Easy, steady, I make what I see. 

Some days, the water is too calm
It stagnates
Needs to be shaken up. 
If I walk in circles in my mind, 
Perhaps I can make a whirlpool 
to unstick the notion that I am worthy. 

Some days, it is like a tempest inside
And I can do is stay along for the ride
Heart racing, heavy breath 
Emotions tumultuous, they toss and turn
So quickly, I can barely make sense of them.

There is a sudden calm.
The storm has passed.
The words to articulate 
what has just transpired 
come slowly during recovery 
when they are ready.
Like bubbles reaching for the surface
A reminder that there is still life below

I collect them, put them in a neat package
And share, baring my soul for all to see
I catch my breath and dive back in. 

Once again, I am back to being 
at the mercy of the muse
Creating with my hands 
something that is both mine
And not of this world. 
I am on her time, I must be ready.

There are worse ways to be. 

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Ode to my Insomnia

Bathed in the orange glow of street lights streaming through the slats on the window

I sit

My insomnia greets me like an old friend
Sits beside me as though my illness is winning and she’s paying her respects

Night after night

I wish she would hold me and cradle me to sleep
To bring some reassurance and comfort
to the racing thoughts and defiant delusions
littering the battlefield that is my body

Instead, she burrows deep inside of me
Finds the spaces between where I am fine and
Where I feel too much and not enough
Where I am strangled by my own complacency
Where I am a lost cause and unloved
And she lingers there
Her fingers shaking loose the parts of me that I would soon forget.

She remembers.

Says that I am the keeper of my own stories
That forgetting is akin to denial
That being honest with myself is all part of owning my own heart

And I listen to her.

We are wide awake ruminating on the mistakes made long ago that are likely forgotten by everyone else.
Reliving horrors that should remain unspoken
Thinking of those that are gone and those that will eventually leave me.

We play the what if game and mourn for the life I had hoped to lead
Before pain was the currency for any worthwhile endeavor.

I sit.

I say I will be better tomorrow
Write the day off as though it is an anomaly
As if the morning light beaming through that window
Will exorcise the demons that lay deep

It never does

Me and my demons don’t play well with others
Isolation is the safest bet
If only things were different
If only I could trust more
If only my hands were useful for more than just dancing across a screen

I had dreams
Goals to aspire to
I had hopes for myself along with others
But instead of moving toward something more

I sit

The macabre and the maudlin becoming mundane
as they dance through my mind
Invoking dark humor and darker honesty
Everything will eventually end

I sit

Bathed in the glow of that artificial light
And I feel as though that light
Might be all that’s left of my own.

May morning come soon to change my mind.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Innately

Buried deep inside my neuroses
Excavated within my idiosyncrasies
Is the essence of a pain without a name.

An emotional parasite in its ancestral home
Putting every move I’ve made into doubt
Draining esteem at the source

I have learned to be careful
I can’t hope for fear of disappointment
The kind that builds up until it overflows
Mine is at its tipping point

How do I empty the vessel
When the hurt is built right into the walls?
This structure was not meant to be so weathered
The cracks are getting harder to hide

Every night I lay in bed
And the chaos consumes my mind
There is no rest here
No reprieve
This pain does not need to sleep.


Saturday, September 23, 2017

Mabon

The veil is thinning
The earth is sleeping
We feel the chill within our veins

The days are short
We work our magic best in the dark
So, come a little closer to the flame

When words aren't enough
We use symbols
When symbols aren't enough
We use sound
When sound fails us
We use feeling
We feel the wheel spinning 'round.

This dance is neverending
We all have a part to play
Let's create some beauty
Before the reaper has it's way.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Damage

I am wounded in this battle.

I feel the familiar sharp edge of a pain
that hasn't reached its full potential.

I dress it carefully, remain cautious.

I navigate playlists and poetry like a minefield.

Keep my eyes down.

Ignore the message.

Bolt the door so that it can’t get to me.

Knowing that at any moment
My safeguards may fail
and my defenses will be shattered.

That the flood of memories
could rush through me like my blood

Taking over the rational parts of me

Holding me hostage inside of my skin
and breaking what is left of me.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Stay


The words reverberated in my mouth
Your eyes holding back too much to say
You feel too much to stay in this place
Yet not enough to go.

The nights when I thought I'd lost you were the longest
Waiting for the message to come through
A photograph or a quip
Those nights were safe
But the silent ones
Where the respite never comes
Those are the ones that break me, love.

A world without you seems a waste to me.
Never hearing that laugh
I would hold on to you so tightly
If I thought it could keep you anchored.
I would walk across the country to you
If I thought it could lighten your load
That burden on your shoulders should not be yours alone
I understand why you would want to give up
Why you would want to leave

But the small moments are the ones that dull the edges
Of our harsh reality
Reach out for those in the dark when you cannot find me
That is where I always am
In the back of your mind
Begging you to stay because the world is so much more beautiful with you.
The bullshit falls away
And the sole purpose of our connection
Could act as a tether to this life that we have together.

Your eyes have seen horrors
And yet
They can still find beauty
If you'd just look closer.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Crystalline Tide

My Tempest heart breaks in slow motion,
The waves of emotion crash as if the moon was at my doorstep
The tides rush to greet her, the ebbs and flows weakening the walls
Bit by bit, hairpin cracks expose its crystalline structure.
What seems so strong can sometimes become brittle
It can shatter to dust, without hope of repair
I know I should become more resilient, more pliable
I’ve been let down more times than I’ve been built up
My shadow holds more truths than my eyes can face
If this is the way things have to be
Then I need to learn how to reshape what is left of me.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Stupid.

Left or right
They have nice eyes
This one has an infectious smile
Swipe, swipe
This one likes to travel
Plays music
Likes what I do
Swipe- this should be easy
Left- too tall
Left- too young
Left- too outdoorsy
I find faults, in looking here
I find myself searching for you
Knowing that if I was there
I wouldn’t need to look


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Compass

I had a dream that I was out to sea
Tossed by the waves, the salty air was heavy in my lungs
No matter what I did, what buttons I pushed, the engine wouldn’t turn
I was just drifting. Letting the waves take me.
I became listless and bedraggled- My vessel was no longer under my control.
I wanted so badly to get to shore with the earth beneath my feet.
Back to the land of the living.
I had lost all hope and I lay, limbs heavy and weakened, fixated on the sky.
The stars seemed to dance just for me and the longer I stayed,
The more I forgot what home really meant.

A light in the distance shone my way after many endless nights
To rescue me from this stalled-out, drawn-on, helpless situation
A familiar figure after all this time truly felt like fiction.
Propeller breaking waves while the waters churned beneath
Then stopping just to my right, the east, where the first glimmer of light comes at the dawn.
You took my hand and your eyes lit up
Like a child looking at their birthday present.
You pulled me aboard, held me close, and said that we were going home.
I watched as we pulled away, the cursed craft getting smaller and smaller
Then was out of sight.

You and I aboard, the crashing waves, the dancing stars
Our hands intertwining
“How did you find me?” I asked
“I followed the stars” You replied
"They have always led me to you."



Thursday, June 15, 2017

Dear Universe

Dear Universe,

I’m ready to not feel this way anymore. This hanging on is breaking me- my fingers and my heart.
I want to be whole again, want to want to love. It all seems so pale since he’s been gone. I’ve walked miles and told stories, I’ve bled my truth through my fingertips and denied all the signs.
This love, if this is really even love- is so one sided.

I’m so tired of being the one who cares- when I need a shoulder there is nobody there.
My heart must be made of paper- it slips right through the cracks in the facade.
I have told him a thousand times, in a thousand different ways that I would do anything.
That with my last breath on my last day I will still care for him.
But to him, that’s not enough. I’m over feeling like I’m not enough.

My countenance is measured in moon cycles these days
Trying to sync with something that has more of a hold on me than he does.
I may appear stern but inside I’m stunned.

My life has been a study in waiting.
Waiting rooms, waiting for rides, waiting for the dawn, waiting on love.
I can predict time down to the second- but I can’t predict his next move.

He is troubled. His eyes are like the sea before a storm.
Calm on the outside with tidal waves in his mind.
He isolates for fear of feeling while he’s in the presence of others
He’s been alone so long he’s forgotten how to speak.

My hands connect to so many things, so many worlds, and people.
His hands are immobile unless there is something safe to touch
Like that night he wrapped them around my waist
and told me he would be there for me.
That he loved me.

It’s taken me this long to figure out that love isn’t permanent
That circumstance can change minds
Right now, I’m so tired of being broken- of wasting more time
That I implore you
Speed along this process of companionship or ruin
I can’t hold out much longer in the in between
This part of him is killing me.

Mirror Images

I guess he reminded me of the good parts of them that I wanted so desperately to save.
In that dusty attic of memory, he pulled out small trinkets
Creating an avalanche of recollection
Of those times that were buried beneath the auto pilot day-to-day.

Words fell out of his mouth and into my heart like it was deja vu
Like maybe they weren’t gone, just hiding
In the quiet spaces of this person who I attached so much to.
Who I was so attached to already.

He made me feel like I was the only person alive in the world that mattered
That our love meant more than all other things.
When he left, he made me feel like I would never be whole again
That what we had was a blessing and I had wasted it.

In the in between
He made me think that by saving him
That somehow I was saving the parts of them that were truly worthy
In him, I felt like I wasn’t alone in the world without them.

I am an alien now
Floating through space without fuel
My copilots have deserted me through the escape hatch
Yet here I sit, waiting to be rescued by figments of my imagination

The similarities are boundless.


Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Behind the Curtain...

Several times throughout the day
I look to my left, wide-eyed.
As if to say "are you fucking kidding me?"
to you- when things get too ridiculous.
You might have a good perspective on whatever is happening
Might appreciate the irony
The gallows humor of it all.
I've done this my whole life
Since before I met you
But I never had a face to the spirit
Never named that ghost
When you came into my life
It was like the wizard of oz
All fantasies and technicolor.
Your face was all I could see
From that moment on
I didn't feel as alone.
Just like the wizard of oz
It was all a falsehood.
Now when I see your face
It makes me feel like a fool
As if I've been duped by the universe
I talk to the ghosts now
But they do not respond
That face is fading now
My memories becoming jokes.
I suppose
I have always been alone.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Fallacy

I was always told that when I really fell in love
that all the pieces would fall into place
and despite everything else, we'd be we
I guess sometimes you fall further than the other
and they recover
while you nurse an injury
that may never heal

How many more of these stories
will we tell
lying to ourselves
lying to those kids who grow up
believing in this fairy tale
We're merely perpetuating disappointment

We should be saying that when you really find yourself
When you are a whole person
The pieces will fall into place
And falling in love might be simple
and if you're hurt, you're strong enough
to lick your wounds
and shake it off




Heart Matters

I still look for your car sometimes

I know it's stupid, I know you're so far

I wake up in the night and reach for you

and sometimes in that moment between awake and asleep

where you're here in my dreams

I can smell you.

Feel the bed shift beneath the weight of you

I fight that moment with all of me,

willing myself to stay asleep

Because then maybe I wasn't only dreaming.

Sometimes I dream of a journey. A 2000 mile hike.

I wake up with sore feet

Awakening just as the door opens- a cruel joke.

We both have our problems, hurdles to overcome.

I know that I act crazy and I make things too hard sometimes

But I also know I'm right in feeling how I feel

You may still feel guilt, but the time for that is long gone.

I know there is something here. I feel it and I see it.

Try as I might, I can't get past it- instead, I'll just own it.

My love, for you is unrelenting, it is mine to feel and to give.

That is all I can do.

As long as I live.

Solitary

When I was four years old, the phone rang.
Nonchalantly, being a silly child, I answered it.
The person on the other end asked to speak to my father.
It was his cousin, calling to say that their grandmother had died.
I was never nonchalant about a phone call after that.

When I was thirteen, I dated a boy.
He was popular and cute and well liked at school.
Alone, he was angry and controlling.
He lost his temper and wound up with his hands wrapped around my throat
He left my tiny body lifeless on the ground
It was then that I learned how to walk on eggshells.

When I was fourteen, the bank foreclosed on the house.
The place with all of the perfect nooks and crannies,
As an only child, it was a small corner of the world that fwas just for me.
Walls and rooms, doors and dormers. It was more than brick and wood.
It was a true home, a sanctuary, my point A.
I have searched for a home ever since.

When I was eighteen, the towers fell
We watched from atop the school, across the harbor.
Too many parents never made it home that day.
The shock, rage, heartache and fear gave way to cynicism,
It was then that I lost my innocence.

When I was twenty, I woke up to coffee brewing.
Got dressed, and made my way into the living room
My father had been taking a nap when his heart stopped beating
He went gently into that good night, while my mother and I were lost.
He was our provider, and that burden then fell on me.
It was then that I learned what it really means to grow up.

The next year, at twenty-one, My mother wasted away
The cancer had spread throughout her body so quickly.
I signed the do not resuscitate order, held her hand and told her I loved her
She really couldn't live without him, I suppose.
I have felt alone in the world ever since.

I was married at twenty-three to a man who loved me enough
To feel obligated not to leave.
We went through the motions and when that failed, we realized our mistakes,
Five years married and we went our separate ways.
All those picket fence dreams went down the drain.
It was then that I came to terms with the fact that in some way, I will always be alone.
The last of my kind.

Now, I feel as an old maid, fragile and lonely.
I know heartbreak and love, betrayal and creation.
My hands that were once so full of possibility and purpose- now shake.
Most days my eyes cannot find the beauty in the ordinary
I look to the broken, to the possibility, and there between the cracks
I can hope- that everything I have learned, has not been in vain

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Cosmic

We've all got our own orbits, he said
Our own gravitational pull.
It brings some together and pushes some away
In the end, it can all be calculated.
Like a dance, close as breathing
And then worlds away
Spinning on an impossible axis
Far from each other.

And yet the dance continues 
Time passes and tides shift
We find ourselves in the same place.
Two objects in perpetual motion 
Continuing this chase
Until the inevitable heat death
Fragments our existence 
And it all starts again.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Vision

I carry a package of googly eyes wherever I go
Embellish my way like Hansel and Gretel
"She was here"
In some ways it's nice to know there is someone keeping an eye on you
That isn't the government snooping
That isn't a targeted ad on social media
The eyes remind you that actions have consequences
Even if you haven't been caught, the eyes still have it.


Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Mama muse

I could never be you- and thus, I revere you.
Mona Lisa smile, the unknowable.
For me, not to be
But you, you are so much more than just one word
More than just the names that you've heard
You have conceived something
That will go on to create
a ripple effect
That beating heart, impossible dream
Love on top of love, brick by brick, to the unseen
Doing more and being more than I could comprehend
Keeping your head, when things are better left unsaid
Your hands that have shaped mountains
Held back rivers
Extinguished fires
Wind on your fingertips outside the car window
What have you seen out there?
What pains have you felt?
How can I help?
I may not have empathy, but I have love.
I know that going it alone is hopeless.
I have a hand, for when yours get too tired.
I will lift you up
I will hold you like we hadn't seen each other in a century
You can't know the ways that I admire your resolve
In a world out to get you
You stand tall and preach love like a gospel
Without ever breaking a sweat
Never forget that you are exactly why people write home
You are someone's home
You are loved
You are so much more than enough.


Heartbreak

The problem with heartbreak
is that after it's over, there is no such thing as technical support
There is no one to call
There is no disaster clean up crew
You're left with pieces of you, shattered-
Scattered across the lower 48 like seed
ground into shards impossible to repair
through traditional methods

The way to mend heartbreak is
nine thousand one hundred and thirty-six  parts alcohol
Three dozen poems strewn across several journals that you will never fill
You can try to fill the void with objects
A new haircut
A new home
A new name
But it will never be the same

The way to heal heartbreak
Is through drowning yourself in work
in other people's words
with other people's hands
The truth of heartbreak is that there is no going back.
It causes permanent irreparable damage
It shows up on every scan, yet there never seems to be a plan
You will never have that optimism to keep you sane
It simply hurts too much hiding behind this pain.

I scrawl down my feelings like they were my last rites
Like my hands can somehow articulate this complicated situation
To reveal some deep down clarity
As if writing is exorcism
and the ink that is my blood takes the place of holy water in this ritual

The problem with heartbreak
is that everything you can think of to mend it is water soluble
Blood, tears, sweat- on and on
Until you wake up in the middle of the night
Your broken heart chugging along.
It used to race, but it's too weak now.

Hands grasp at ghosts while you struggle
Looking at the empty pillow
and wondering if there would ever be a way to jump
into a universe where you were still here
next to me.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

To myself, at fourteen...

When I was you, what I knew to be true was not the truth today.

You are lovely, you are strong, and you deserve love- without a need to grovel.

You have seen so much already. Your hands have clawed their way through dirt and loss and heartache- and you have emerged clean on the other side.

You have been touched by people who love you, and by people who just love their hands on you. 
You may feel like you’ll never be clean again.

You may feel like you aren’t whole.

But you are. You are a mountain, a fortress, a goddess. 
People can worship at your feet and never even know the unrelenting beauty inside you.

You have the power within you to heal through your words, your art, your love.

You have the power within you to become something more than what you’ve been told by those who think they know what you’re capable of.

They are just projecting their own insecurities onto you. 
Trust your intuition, believe that you are worth something. You are worth everything.

Specifically, break up with that boyfriend. 
He’s not worth your time and will do you way more harm than good in the long run.

Forgive your parents when they aren’t perfect. They are fallible beings like everyone else. 
Hold them close because they won’t be around forever.

Self-care is so important. Did you know that you are gifted with the use of color? 
Meditate on the color purple. Put on a face mask and take a hot bath. 
Spend more time in nature. 
Sing at the top of your lungs and love what you love unabashedly.

There will be times when it seems like your body is failing you. Nurture it. 
When someone says that you are being dramatic, a hypochondriac, it’s all in your head, know that your intuition about these things has always been correct.

Read. As much as you can, whenever you can.

You are strong, you are wonderful, you are enough. 
Do not worry about me, you’ll see me sooner than you think.

Awake

Paper, words, color, sound, scents, and ritual.
Turning nothing into something magical
I can finally feel myself again
Reaching into the recesses.
Those parts- numbed and lying dormant
Are coming alive again, like the trees outside my window.
Recovering from the longest Winter- two years of my life.
Several homes, several states, several hands,
I look down, and mine no longer feel alien.
I move through the motions that had lost their meaning to me
and they are renewed.
I faltered in trusting myself, let someone else dictate what my life should be
Swallowed the pills and went to sleep.
I'm done sleeping through life
Much better to be an insomniac magician
than to slumber numb.



Saturday, March 25, 2017

The tale.

I am a cautionary tale.
The quintessential hard luck story
I often feel like I've been written
Like this is a simulation playing out the various ways
that things can go wrong

I'm nobody's role model, I'm not an inspiration
My intuition is clearly skewed
My body is failing me and I'm out of answers
Every corner, instead of refuge there is dismay

I'm over it all. Pretending to care is so hard
When truly caring means that something will wind up breaking
When the root of all evil is the thing that's keeping you anchored
it's no wonder that things continue to fail.

I am a live wire.
My tongue sparks electric
When my heart is too full to beat
Words catch fire, my hands a conduit
I have become nothing more than a generator.

I create these platitudes, these grand declarations
As a distraction from the truth of the matter
My synapses sparking whenever things become difficult
I can run, this electricity can sustain me for miles

The end is as it began. The story can be a warning
That morphs and becomes something more, a game of telephone.
She was once, and now she's not.
Do not become what you do not understand.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Autonomy

Mars and Venus are at odds again
Making me lose sleep
I never understood what was left to gain
By pretending that you'd made the leap

My words fall short
I am stirring the pot again
Hoping to see it from a different angle
But try as I might, this is the best I've got

My lips form sentences lost on those nearby
Perhaps those whispers were only meant for myself
An affirmation, a declaration of my own solitude
That has taken me this long to recognize.

I go back to space
The sky endless
and my lips finally rest
I look up, and guide myself home

I am finally heard.

The Ruse

If you thought that I didn't see through you
in the moment it took for you to make your way toward me
from the door
Then you are a fool.

I live my life making sense of shadows
Connecting words with meanings unsaid
You think I didn't know what this was?
Darling, I planned it this way.

You feel remorse
I know its name
You feel shame
as if they are the same

You think you might have missed the boat
Lost a chance
Has the gate been closed?
Should you even try?

Words

Words spill out of my hands like water
Nearly faster than I can comprehend
I find myself inside of them
Cloaked by verbosity
I am an allegory
A cautionary tale
Wrapped in complicated prose
Written in morse code
I am the mysterious message at the end of the show
What does it mean?
Who am I today?

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Crystalline

fracturing figments
pulling together
forming structure
forming habit
elements combine
color is created
strength unified
personified
held in my hand

Friday, January 20, 2017

Hollowed

My hands grasp for an anchor
I find myself floating away
Fading into another misadventure
While I do my best to remain
I am calm
I lay it all out
The light and dark illuminated
By the expression of my truth

I am nothing but a woman
Walking the world with a hollow space
My heart has gone
Shattered and scattered to the wind
I give pieces of it freely
No use to me now
Ornamental and vacant
While my chest rattles in vain

My eyes have seen much
Too much perhaps
Or maybe not enough
My bones ache for new terrain
A new touch
Relief from this constant pain
That radiates and bruises

I will always feel this
The longing and the what if
Sorrow for what was
Hoping for what could have
I remain myself
I hold on to the bits that I believe to be good
I let the rest go
Scattered to the four winds
My heart, and my pain

Home Again

You go back to that place
That you swore you'd never go back to
A magnet clutched in your chest
Leading you back to being seen
In the dark recesses
Where you belong

It's quiet there
Nobody to fill your space with noise
Just breathing and cracking bones
Tongues and teeth
Hands wishing to hold onto something so fleeting
The clarity of home
The release of passion

It is not for these reasons that you shouldn't have come
But because you cannot leave
Limbs entangled by invisible roots
You got out once before
But this time
This time you don't want to return
There is too much sky unseen
Too many pages to fill
And too much road to get lost on

To be here
Ensnared by the familiar
Can you go home again?

Thursday, January 5, 2017

The Dance

I would return to you
Over and over again
Like a wave kissing the shore
Then slowly retreating into itself
To regroup
And then come back for more
The jagged edges
Softened by the repeated touch
Of something that cannot stay away