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

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

self worth and narcissus in the lake - 2019

when I look in the mirror
I see not myself
but a woman I have long judged through the eyes of others

how is it so
that I might know what they see when they
look
upon me

I have only ever been me
and my judgments are not theirs

it matters not
because my smile is not my own
my eyes send shivers down my spine for the disconnect I gaze into

my face could be
a painted portrait of a woman lost
for the familiarity I find in her smile

I worry I have become vain
for the thrill I seek in my cheekbones
for the butterflies that take flight from my flirtatious smile

because
when the woman in the mirror
is not me
she breathes the very essence of beauty

she is
the embodiment of speech
flowering syllables over gilded pages and gilded frames

a goddess
hidden among the mortals

when
I erase my name
from the face I see
she is
everything an angel might be

only

if

I am not her

because

when she gains
a name

she is me
not
the pinnacle of divinity
not
mother nature's tender creation
not
anything
a loving
living
God could create

when
she is me
she is nothing
but a face
in the mirror

memory is a certain immortality

all my life you have been a place

an event a person a thing

you're gone now 

reborn to moments and memories 

you are where I remember you

so I choose sunlight

flower petals

warmth after a cold day

 I love you

   you live where I live

      within

          a second life

             a second death

         beside me

Grief: Noun

 

 grief is not my mantle

 a flame that burns within

 

it is not a lifestyle a mood a circumstance a feeling

 it is every moment I have ever lived 

 

all at once

 

my hands empty

 of the thing I have lost

desperation

I've never know time by her name

Never flown and let myself drown

How could I begin to guess the seconds of sand given to us

Like stars, numberless in the heavens 

I was promised a lifetime

To God that means anything

I'm beginning to feel like forgiveness is weighing

I need to let go

Before I become someone anew

Before I drown the parts of me that need forgiving with you

 

I was promised a lifetime

Nobody knows what that means

I can't say I forgive you

So here you are

Dying

Always getting the last word

7 Years

memory is a double edged sword

I thought

I had forgotten the shape of your nose

now you're here

Hello

how dare you make me remember myself

pieces

I've shrouded my hands and face in lace and color and now I cannot see past it to the mirror

I'm a girl that changes with the seasons. Always a different person, and always the same.

There's no proper way to parse the syllables on my tongue or organize my heart into compartments.

Always the same patterns. Always the same person.

I want to bruise and bleed and tear myself to pieces but I can't I can't I can't I have to be perfect I have to be perfect

the realization that your life is all the same poem

Soft and almost smothered, the very air humming around me

Why must I always force the path of my thoughts?

Today I dipped my paintbrush In the wells beneath my eyes And painted the sky To match My father's eyes And I could not see the color because I do not know Their shade Enough to know When it stains my palette

blurry on the edges
There is a contentment in my chest and uncertainty in my throat. Desperation paces with muffled steps across my rib cage and wistfulness sighs on the bow of my heartstrings. My tongue does not move and my fingers are alight with the energy of what they will not do

cardboard

With only the illusion

Of arms and legs

Move me wherever

I haven't got knees

Lean me in corners

Forget that I'm there

Yell at me softly

Anger burn bright

I won't move no matter

How desperately I try

No longer a person

Yet I have feelings too

But what does it matter

I'm cardboard to you 

don't take me back just remember me a feeling

 there was a time when I didn't eat

when I counted the minutes between calories

fed myself on the relief of deception

I've never remembered so keenly

anything like I do those few remembered meals

the white rice still sticks in my mouth

the tang of barbecue on my tongue decision's ghost

cold peas bursting between noodle and sauce

my life's victory a caramel

a caramel I never ate

how sick am I 

that tonight I long for that hunger?

let go

 I'm still learning to breath

to take the universe within me

savor her particles

keep none of them

I'm still learning to be okay with that

filled. . . ?

what is a space without intention?

lost

found. in a million different ways

spaces between goodbye

i love you

in every bright

and quiet

place

until the stars

have joined us

and the silence 

is final

and even then 

i love you

until the  very moment

"a little further"

has become a lifetime 

stretching 

our little eternities

to forever

and beyond 

spring 2019

religion

will not be contained within letters

it will not even be contained within me

religion                                       

in itself                            

can become containment if we allow it to be                     

       I've become a hollow religion                       

seeking the sanctity of hallowed ground                

I'm becoming an empty container

thinking that what I was meant to hold will save me

               stagnant

                            remnants

                                          cling to my walls

I hoard them jealously                                                                         

and don't understand                                                     

perhaps I did once

maybe I never have

SurRouNd

when I was young
Colors had Faces
letters had genDers
And spoons
Never got along with the forks

now
Now my emotions
Have feelings too
And when my pen
spills out
numbers
they tell me their life stories

4
Is my favorite number
Because she knows what it is like
To be told who she is
And 9
Will always be my CAMpfire villain
My water bottle Is a she
And she
Does not much care for tulips or birds
My pillow
Is a diVa
Who never gets her way

Months are Never just Days
days
Are slightly more than just dates
And when I spell out their names
Their letters greet each other i n d i v i d u a l l y
Before becoming the word as a whole

So

sO
So

So who am I to say I am never Alone
When every pEtal on my bedspread
Never Fails
To welcome me home

neither are nigh

I'm pulling from within

expecting something brilliant

I've forgotten

the universe is not as inseparable from me

as I am from myself