asylum disbelief

i've been calling out for years.
when you would rush in,
no one looked in the closet.

called me crazy,
my delusions,
a pain in the ass.
but no one looked in the closet.

they believed me.
believed me,
the first time
the second time,
the third time,
the thirtieth time.
now they ignore my screams of pain.
no one looked in the closet.

except once.
the last time.

when they looked and saw a pair of eyes peering
out from behind my winter sweaters.

now you are the crazy ones.
the loonies
the freaks.
your guilt and guile for never seeing...

no one looked in the closet.

RF2010

i was in a crowd of people when it hit me:
i don't miss you anymore.

last year was a bad year.
fights and crowds and tears and heartache
worries about missed opportunities
falling over each other to prove
we were now better off.

and it hit me.
you will never be good enough for me.
i am living out my dreams.
my name will be known.
and you will never be more
than a footnote
saying:
in spite of me, she...

walking home alone at night

My footsteps are one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

Through the keys jangling, babies crying and laughing

Lovers meeting and leaving each other

Dogs barking and walking and sitting and staying

People talking,

Sirens and saws,

Laughter I hear distant across the field.

My footsteps are one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

Through the lights flashing red and blue,

Streetlights changing and flashing and filling and popping,

Cars swerving and driving and changing and breaking,

People are talking and laughing and singing

And music is playing.

My footsteps are one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

The leaves are shifting and blowing and falling,

Doors are opening, swinging and closing,

And everywhere buildings are falling and going

Up in the air.

And my footsteps are but one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

landscape

your river cut valleys
into my soul -

the mountains and rises and dips and pauses
a testament
to your work in me.

i leave myself in you -
the imprint of your passing
is the creator of my landscape.

untitled 1

your beauty
takes my breath away.
i am overcome.

search

my heart is full of a vague and
overwhelming longing -
my whole life has been a
search -
what if i never find it?
what happens if i do?

estatic

estatic laughter
burbles up from my soul -
this is joy!
unrestrained -
break free of the bondage of separation -
i am the truth,
he said.
we are all truth
beauty
light
life!
hate others and you hate yourself.
i cannot contain this boundless love!

burn it down.

fierce my heart burns,
heavy with power, as yet unknown.
soft truth,
iron in earth.
unchanging, eternally unchanged.

your touch is fire.
ignite!
we burn into the night.
ignited and burning
to whatever end comes first.

on travel.

look through the window
this country looks like your face.
solitude beckons.

on desire.

i know you feel it back -
i feel it in the touch -
or in the way you never touch me.
your armor grows strong.
impenetrable.
unbreakable.
what you are now is safe
secure
nonthreatening
and sure.
why throw that away on this unknown quantity.
brief.
it all ends.
the darkness of doubt.
pass on these opportunities.
i weep for the possibility
now living only in my mind -
never in reality.
sorrow tastes of hot, bitter tears,
dropping in the night,
hung over from the hope that sustained me.
the thrill of hope is gone,
but life moves on.

the wrong hands

i know what it's supposed to be
and it isn't this.

your hands are not his hands
your mouth is not his mouth

it isn't his arms holding me
and it's not him behind me

it's not your fault that when i close my eyes i'm thinking of his face.
it's not your fault i still bite back his name.

i cover my skin over and over again
but i can't recapture that feeling.
will anything ever compare?

ch

i bled out all my apologies
and burnt them to ash.

i am so sorry.

mea culpa
mea culpa
mea maxima culpa.

i bleed these things i can never say.

i will atone.
i can never atone.

mea culpa
mea culpa
mea maxima culpa.

i am so sorry.

fundamentals

another night hating the mirror.
i hate what i've become.
the fundamental theory is being aware -
aware of being alone.
i hate this.

we are powerless.
i am out of control -
scream,
plummet,
down
and
away
all my heroes have failed me.
the daisy will never measure up to the sun.

my throat is raw fire and my fingers drip blood.
i will kneel for the rest of the hour.

the stars watch me rediscover
the fundamental theory is being alone.

friday morning

all my heroes have failed me.
pedestals i have built
fallen.

as i look back over the course of my life
all i know is failed relationships
broken hearts
destruction
loss and grief
i've ruined all the good times
i have left a wake of destruction behind me
and i know when i die alone
when i am lost in the wake and passage of time
when i sit all day in pools of grief
that no one will be to blame but myself
me, myself and i
alone.

glue

tell me what you believe
i will squeeze meaning from your vacant eyes
you've had all the chances you get.
where are all the people to love?
clones
all of them
clones.

give me the chance
to break this rotten embrace
in half.
maggots take me
death's stench surround me
bloodied and bleeding at your front door.
this relationship is dead.

sneaking stinking fingers pry open the cracks of my mind
and leave me
vulnerable.
i have forgotten to muster my defenses
so long dusty and unused.
how ridiculous to be shattered by a memory
without the glue of hope to keep it together.
and in so being,
ruin the hopes of finding the same.

holster

with that holster on your hip
standing at the ready
for what?
those shadows in your life
are not transferable.
break and breathe.
remove the space between the words
burn your last smoke to the filter.
open yourself up to pain.
close your eyes.
breathe.
i believe in you with all my heart,
though i see you breaking down.
close your eyes.
breathe.
miraculous beyond measure
like the sea after a storm.
scoured
until all that's left is bones.
bones.
lonely and bare.
clean.
now close your eyes.
breathe.

preque isle and the end

i can't forget the way you kissed me in the park that day.
the memory of the sun just won't go away -
no matter how many times i recalled it
all last spring, the fact remains it was perfection.
no one in my life brings excitement,
but i am at equilibrium, and do i really want
someone to bring me happiness but tears?
no one moves me but you.
now the memory of your touch sustains my belief
that someday somewhere i will find relief
in the touch of another, hopefully before i am forced
into the park inside my head,
searching for your replacement.

bracelet

at graduation
i opened up the box
that held my aunt's bracelet.
underground these six months.
i take it with me and her eyes become
my eyes.
i see my wrist as her wrist.
she experiences with me -
oh, the things these eyes have seen.

vintage 2005 - psych poem

................

Think about this as an old fashioned question…

Inspired in fear and loathing in so many people.

Can you see my literary pretentions?

I can’t feel any of this anymore

And my eyes are burning at the sight of this blank slate.

What do you want to believe?

Does this hurt all of what you believe?

Can you feel how this is all directed at you?

I can’t argue because I haven’t heard you talk

This issue is active

(like lava down the side)

But my arguments against you

Have no logical conclusions.

This will never make anyone happy.

This is someone that has been thinking for years

And burning for minutes

Cutting into eternity

And rewiring all of the influence you have on me.

Where are these conditions

Where we can make some new connections?

We know so much

And understand so little.

So will you stay tonight?

And if my mental states

Have kept the chemical treatments in me

(instead of you)

Know that I never meant it to be like this.

You know what comes next, and so do I.

No amount of training will solve this riddle

That causes all of the chemicals in you

To come in pill form on my heart and never to leave.

I have to make you mad before I know how aggressive you’ll be.

And how much this can hurt.

Because it never hurt the same ways before

spider

spider

yesterday,
a spider hung by a thread
from my hair.
i didn't breathe -
watching the sway and flutter of a breeze
i didn't feel.
crawling up
one leg
after
the other
my life passed before my eyes.
not the past, but,
the years to come.
moldy-gray
and alone.
cleaning a staircase while the spider climbs the thread
of my hair.