Burning alive
From the inside out.
There’s an anger inside
Demanding to be let out.
I run inside to a secret place,
Lock the door
And let my emotions fill the space.
I cannot breathe,
And I cannot see.
All I know is that I struggle to be me.
Therapy,
Yoga,
Doing the works,
But nothing helps me truly escape this anger that feels like a curse.
As you threw things into the fire
I felt the smoke becoming a prayer
In my mind each piece had a color
And they stacked upon one another
like the sunset.
Redbud Cinnamon Broom
Russian Sage A Rosebush
Moon rise, worm moon
in a bowl of liquid gold
gleaming froth
of dreamy rainbow bog
My mind is on fire with music
and a thirst for knowledge
I’m not sure what primordial place
it comes from
The light grasses catch on fire
we catch weed blaze in a bowl
The buckets we couldn’t pull apart
are full of holes
making them handy sieves for
even distribution of droplets
Silhouetted portraiture
in green and pink and daffodil
colored light
Peach and magnolia blossoms
preen like the last glimpse of life
The excitement of spring
is a freshly wound string
around a yo-yo world
I never wanted to be like her,
arguing against compliments likening our appearances,
listing off a dozen ways I look like him
She never thought I would be like her,
introducing me to anyone as the apple who rolled miles from the tree,
the impossibly different fruit with bruises and bumps
I never wanted her to be like this,
ignoring the signs and direct utterances,
this is emotional blackmail
I never wanted to be treated like this,
fighting against her vision versus my reality,
I lost myself and adopted shortcomings that were not mine to take
I never thought I would arrive here,
at the crossroads of submission and self-preservation,
yearning to be understood
I still want to be hers,
but, perhaps, on my terms, too
how to let me run wild
just slip me into moonlight & watch my head spin
is it madness or the remnants of stale love
tumbling around in my slowbrain?
marbled thoughts rolling & rocking
to my undoing,
the moon is spotlighting me into dance & ruin, i am
merely a puppet to him
It mostly feels like
nothing is enough.
The precipice grows
more perilous with
each fall of
my foot.
I scramble
for something to
cling to,
though in my desperation,
I am not
strong enough
to stop the fall.
I have tried to let go,
too many times.
But three hands
that I would know in life
and in death
and in every space between
reach to pull me back up,
too many times.
Every time.
It mostly feels like
nothing is enough,
nothing but the hands of
my sisters.
I think about my chipped tooth and the way you shook your hand after throwing the punch
Blood dripping from your knuckles and down your fingers
It splattered against the asphalt
Crimson mixed with salvia as I spat the words you made me eat back out
Metallic and salt taste a lot like shame and guilt
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand
you wrapped your hand in an old t shirt
I find myself still running my tongue over the chipped tooth
no longer sharp and jagged
now a smooth indention
A piece of me changed by you
You took so much
And left nothing but broken parts
Before you start, yes I did get myself into this mess,
I thought it was necessary
And in my mind, there was such a problem
That I needed to do this,
But to the common eye, everything was fine,
You saw through the static I created,
I had to fix it, not for you, though, for me,
I had to clear the static, no matter what it took,
And so that’s why I’m here,
I’ve been trapped for hours, maybe days
In a dungeon of my own creation,
I could escape, but I can’t,
I’ll have to work my way out of this prison.
O blatantly bold body
Delicately plumed party crasher
Hurling a fashion of flux and billow
Flaunting every beautiful blue nuance
O eccentric gatekeeper
Hoarder of mermaids
Hard-fondled bones
Fins and doubloons
The shrouded dark
O prima donna performer
Busker bewitcher ballerina
Seductress of surf
All sandcastles and giggles
The artist’s white whale
O infinite music maker
A lilt a lick a lullaby
Drumfunk your thrashing waves
Softly chamber your ripples
Pink noise me to sleep
But when I wake I’m only
A wisp a wick a woolgatherer
Some dune’s frail shadow
Musing a distant shore
The sun warming
My deeps and shallows
The moon silently
Swaying my tides
