don't save anything for after a waist measurement

Every boy I've ever daydreamed about

was a "twenty pounds later" maybe

she was so damn cute at 16

she being me

I wish she had said something 

and made me

one broken heart richer

Judas

 I have committed no crime to compare

yet still

my heart cries out to him

survive!

do not deny him once again!

live still, and 

speak his name with tenderness

christ forgave the hands and spear which pierced his side

how much more would he forgive thee!

I wish, in moments of clarity,

pleading with Judas to yet live, 

I could hear the same words

echoed back at me

Live! And yet utter his name with tenderness!

As the Lord does utter yours in heaven!

laundry

a feeling, fleeting in thought

fled from my still-beating chest 

carrying with it

wings spread wide in lofty sky, 

a momentous journey 

upon which I idly wonder 

as the ever-breathing script of life, 

follows me, step by step, 

all the while, I fold the laundry 

the secret? I hate marigolds

 A garden is a product of time

To that I say

Worms are History

And I've been split in half

As a child I was Marigolds

I am Marigolds still

Born of the seeds left behind

Year by Year a new generation

the same weeds

different weeds

the same sun

different days

Wondering

If I will ever stop needing water

What business does a Marigold have

Wondering

If it will ever become a Rose

Space Junk

maybe I'm space junk

sad pictures of worthless objects

orbiting in a galaxy of stars

today my anger is a plastic water bottle

victim to science

and the endless vacuum of space

I didn't go to work today

because my science forgot to make the motivation chemical

there is electricity in my brain

I have neurons and I don't know what that means

my depression 

is a water bottle in space

what a journey it is

to be human

were that I could bottle the lamplight of my childhood

 2 a.m. 

always buzzes and burns
I wish it was Christmas
I wish I was small
I wish my problems were bead collections
reading books by lamplight
I wish my mama peeked in my room periodically still
I wish I was scared of the toilet

instead 

I am 23
everything is scarier at 23
the dark never gets brighter because you get older
bandaids don't appear when you need them
adults talk to me now
like I don't need protecting 
I would have fought for that at 15

at 13 

I had grown up too fast
trauma opening doors to maturity
at 23 I'm stuck at age 12
reliving the worst days of my life every fall
and my mama
no longer peeks her head through my door

pink feathers

"they're real!" a little girl shouts

Running at the flamingo enclosure 

I wish I was her 

Finding out the Lord made room for pink feathers