Nourishment

slices of soul
dripping with succulent nectar
as the juices of my heart
dribble down your chin

Heart

you
are the demon howl
of my soul

Pose and Repose

defenses wrecked
from years of scraping
my soul through sieves

scoop it into your hands
and sift
the screaming from the laughter

PTSD: To the Soldiers I Love

the dead stay dead forever
and promises are never
more than a bluff
ripped up, stolen and rough
i’d be your teddy bear
with this eternal stare
but you’ve torn out the fluff
maybe’s never enough

yes, i’ve caught the disease
in the battles we seize
hearts are drowned and they freeze
down in dark memories
enemies in the wire
we’ve come under fire
come on take me higher
with every puff
maybe’s never enough

Expectancy

 

here is my heart
the stretched
bloated bubble

 

and here is the pin
sharp
gleaming, glinting

 

Pressed

i cannot by the pale worm rivers
my coffin bed creep
upon the midnight day
suffer the blankets of maggot strewn dust
to bury my love away

Bitter Exhaustion

I’m the queen of good intentions when my kingdom turns to dust
ancient pallisades and bastiens sinking in the molten crust
dazed reflections of tomorrow in the shadows left before
knotted hands are left to borrow until there is no more
infection sinking deeper than all else ever will
the climb gets only steeper until I am eternally still

Sequester Me

Stayed at work from 7:40 am until 9:40 pm with a fifteen minute dinner break. The concert last night went off better than expected. The superintendent was there and didn’t even pretend I existed but exchanged congratulatory words with my coworker.

When planning the seating, three seats were saved for my coworkers who were playing a trio together, and I had to sit in the back behind the kids even though I was playing a piece, as well.

My coworker left before cleaning was done, and I arrived at work at 6:40 am today to make sure the piano was picked up safely.

I’m cradling a 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper and desperately waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

My coworker told me to bring my class of twenty something hyperactive freshmen down to pick up the food from last night’s reception, of which they would not be able to partake. They responded by briskly breaking one of the glass jar lids a parent had graciously let us borrow.

Today marks the beginning of the sequester.

Tiny injustices. Real pain.

Flutter

lemonade stand days
to boy band phase
that girl flutters her lashes
and then she’s gone
through the prom up-dos
to her first I-dos
your girl flutters her lashes
until she’s gone
whether death do us part
or she takes out your heart
that girl flutters her lashes
and then she’s gone

but i was always here
in my rawest impression
i was cradled by fear
guarding my sweet confession
wrapped up in waves of the dearest depression
when you flutter your lashes
or i take out my heart
(as it crumbles apart)
i was courted by fear
(so if you ever draw near)
and i am already gone
you just remember this song

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

my snout-long interference

with the rat-a-tat cadence

of a broken clock rhythm

sleep defies the night

circadian cycles spinning

sliding, slipping malaise

into my cooling tea

like an ethereal poison

Anti-Valentine’s Day Poem

my seal has been punched open
i am forever broken
don’t buy this cap of lead
spread honey in my bed
toss my body in the woods
i am but broken goods

no

no words can express
only pain

no
no music can embody
only pain

no
no life can withstand
only pain

Honesty is The Best Policy

Today I uncovered a betrayal. A betrayal of trust, confidence, decency and professionalism. My own mentor, someone in whom I confided my doubts and fears, thoughts, ideas and struggles fell for the bait tossed out by petty, lawless musicians about town. The actual betrayal began a long time ago, slowly. I sensed it seeping into my bones until, in one instant, I looked around only to find myself completely alone in the cold, cruel world, shards of ice dripping from my nose. A bureaucracy  a vehicle constructed to make the world a better place, to educate and grow has done nothing but cripple and harden me to the only honest truth. There is no one on my side in the whole wide world, and my little cardboard walls will soon come a crumblin’ down.

Unwelcome Guest

This is not the face that greeted me at the door. A door I entered with hopes and full intentions to provide relief, a plan that was beaten and faded before it was ever unfurled.

 

With flagrant snarls and harsh accusations, my soul was beaten, my existence negated. The very thing I needed the most, snatched right out of my hands.

 

 

And here, now, where I am the most open, my spark snuffed out, my casings broken, the only person who needs to read this will not.

 

 

 

A refusal borne of haughty pride and venomous hate. There is more than enough time in the world to stare at a glowing box, but these words, this truth is not worth the time to slow down and understand. Unable to reach the one person I need the most to listen, I flee to the treetops. Maybe someone else will.

 

 

 

And I shall be judged, and I shall be viewed with consternation. I will be accused, and I will be the object of disdainful reproach. But never, not one single time in my life, will I ever be worth listening to.

Relief is Optional

I tumble into the words. An onslaught, downpour of thoughts taking hold of me, immobilizing. A few feet away, a confused bird sings a morning song in the crease of night. Too many street lights out here, not enough room for the stars.

Hugging my elbows close to my ribs, I jut my chin upwards and search for the moon, some kind of natural guiding light, finding only dirty clouds and floodlights.

At least the air out here still feels real, not circulating for hours upon hours through some obscure machine. Even the water these days is man made.

The sky is so big, I’d sit down on the grass to take more of it in if I could, but all I have is asphalt.

I’ll take what I can get.

Seated between the sternly measured parking lines, I can still feel the warmth of the earth seeping through from cracks and fissures where nature had clawed her way back out, gasping for air via unassuming green strands, warrior grass. With a pang of something like envy, I realize that I don’t feel much like a warrior tonight. Hedged tightly in the awkwardly sprawling apartment spaces between highways and church buildings, hotels and the golf course, fast-food chains and a field full of cows, I can feel the weight of the dissonance buckling in on me.

I put my head in my hands and sob softly, relieved and ashamed to feel human again. Decades of abuse, rejection and inadequacy wash over me, filling my lungs and throat with a vile, stinging burn. The breaths hiccup out of my double-chinned throat, but no one can see me out here. There are too many people around. I’ve always lived somewhere in the lines between irony. Not sick enough to be in the hospital, not well enough to adapt on my own. Not able to live at home, not able to survive away. Threatened always, but forced to protect, instead.

The lump in my throat has become too large to swallow, and I struggle to pull my weight off the ground. Too much weight and too little food. I crawl inside my apartment and shut the door, locking it before I slump over on the yellowed square tiles. My cat whines worriedly, and I clutch him to my chest, pushing my back against the wall. The closest thing I’ll get to a hug in a long, long time. Maybe years.

This One’s Not About Me…

It staggers like a blow to the head. Swift, the recoil down past your shoulders. Ingrained like an embryonic dance. The fetal position, back hugs the wall. Or maybe the wall hugs you as the insurgence of chemicals leaks from a misfiring brain. Tears are all that’s left of you. And when I say you, I mean me. Misfiring. Like a colonial rifle with powder still left in the barrel, shards exploding into the fog before you even get to aim. The world pushing down on your lungs while tiny invisible thumbtacks stick notes all over your body. Reminders of who you really are. And who you aren’t. There are no voices but empty. There is no feeling but hurt. There is no safety but far, far away.

Malaise

petty words beneath the blow
what lies beyond, i’ll never know
to each an end employment lies
like owls and nightjars in piquant skies

Til I Go With the Raven

all of your vindictive speech
a point past malediction
will not my stone army breach
they don’t have my permission

twenty years of suffering
a decade more of healing
songs that aren’t buffering
creative flowers wilting

out, OUT! go you into the dark,
away from my sole haven
for i shall keep my one last spark
til i go with the raven.

Lucky

Italo Calvino said: The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts. Describe the ghosts that live in this house:

Image credit: “love Don’t live here anymore…” – © 2009 Robb North – made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic

Images are usually what flash first and foremost in our thoughts as silent detailers of that monstrously complex world beyond us. Words are simply one more human tool, a project to categorize and tame a universe of tangible and unknowable things.

However, the musicality of this images’ title is what burst to the forefront of my consciousness.

‘Love don’t live here anymore’

Take that bitter, statement, the tang of truth rooted in action. Let it sink into the forgotten parts of you.

‘Love don’t live here anymore.’

Really? I wanted to shout this message at the top of my lungs, something so tintillatingly true for more than some demure cottage in the woods, but for an entire generation at large and lost in this intergalactic web, the fine tubing of faux interconnectedness. To put it more bluntly, I start singing the picture, through the lens of Estonian pop artist ad singer, Kerli.

Creative Feedback

i am
cat scratchingly
haphazardly
pen paperly
awe-strikingly
super viciously
emphatically
digging for your answers

but all i can find
underneath my skin
is blood