i write poetry about my dreams

With a shuddering lip, she has to make the choice,

but no matter how she searches, she cannot find her voice

to whisper even the smallest of phrases to his questioning look,

leaving him to forget this love that she forsook.

In a struggle of what is right and wrong,

she leaves out all of that for which she longs.

And because the choking sensation will not let her be,

she has to force him out and set him free. 

No matter what she longs to feel inside,

she cannot be at peace with what she hides.

A history that burns the frailty of her mind,

a past with sharp, jagged edges that grind

her into mush and then spit her out,

mixed with all her misery and doubt.

She is sure that he will never understand,

and, furthermore, of him, that she cannot demand.

You see, because the place she lives isn’t one for him;

a shadowed place of fear and desolation.

No light can exist in the darkness that she owns,

and, for that, she must always be alone.

Candy coated words.

Your eyes like hurricanes.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Sugary sweet.

Salty tears and un-swept dirt in my closet.

It’s over, it’s over.

Candy coated knives.

Coppery sweet.

I’m leaving, I’m leaving.

Salty tears and skeletons.

Your lips burn red.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Candy coated words.

Disclaimer(?): I hope no one gets the wrong idea about this poem, but I felt impassioned and so I wrote it, as a sort of parody of the song America, the Beautiful. 

O beautiful for loquacious lies,

For black blue waves of pain,

For purple bruising travesties

Above the whited plain.

America! America!

God shed his tears on thee.

And throne thy hate with dark red blood

From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for white men’s feet,

Whose fear from stems distress,

A thoroughfare of captive beat

Across the urban-ness!

America! America!

God mourn thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in all you loathe,

Thy “liberty” in law!

O beautiful for villains proved,

In liberating life.

Who more than self their money loved,

And power more than wife!

America! America!

May God your soul refine.

Till all abscess be nobleness

And every gain divine!

I asked my friend

What does love mean?

What does the feel of his kiss do for you?

She laughed and said,

“What do you mean?”

“Every kiss he gives is another kiss new.”

I asked my sister

What does love mean?

When did you realize that your heart was not yours?

She laughed and said,

“What do you mean?”

“Taking care of my own heart was just a chore.”

I asked my mother

What does love mean?

What did you feel when you first looked upon me?

She laughed and said,

“What do you mean?”

“You are a piece of me, my one and only.”

I asked myself

What does love mean?

Why don’t you feel all the things they are feeling?

I laughed and said,

“What does that mean?”

“The amount of love I have leaves me reeling.”

Amber was a girl I knew very well,

A fairy dancing on chocolate waves.

She spun golden webs around dark pools,

And her reflection shone like the sun’s rays.

Her dress a perfect picture of your hair:

Silky smooth, and soft and long and fine.

Her hair was your too-long eyelashes,

That slept along your cheeks in messy lines.

I miss Amber and the way she danced in the light,

And I miss you and the way you loved Hazel in my eyes,

Almost as much as you loved Auburn that lived in my hair,

And Ivory in my skin, Rosy between my thighs.

I picture those women: Hazel, Auburn, Ivory and Rosy,

Fleeing from my body when you fled from my life.

They must have followed you like lovesick puppies,

The way that Amber planted roots in my mind.

And I wonder if your eyes have lost their shine,

The way that my reflection has lost its color.

And I wonder if you see those women,

The way I see Amber everyday grow duller.

The scene is as sharp

As if it was the present.

But more like a movie than

A memory.

It’s dark, nighttime.

My mom is asleep,

Too tired from her life

To have put me to bed.

He lays on the sofa,

Clearly intoxicated.

But what do I know,

I am younger than 6.

He calls me to him,

Whispers a request

With a warm voice,

Like he is showing me a gift,

Like he is giving me an honor.

I was young,

I always tell myself.

I was vulnerable.

(It was not my fault,

I always tell myself.)

But I do it.

I do it for my father.

So he will praise me

And love me

Because that’s what children do.

I no longer let myself be vulnerable.

Yes, my father loved me,

But maybe too much. 

Today, when she awoke, a blazing star,

Left on the earth, her home lost in the sky,

Her flame blinded even those from afar,

But though she shone, she would not last the night.

As the sun went into the darkened floor,

The moon rose up to devour the earth.

She just burned until she was nothing more

Than embers that jump from a dying hearth.

She was consumed by a shadowy dark;

No light could be seen in her drowning face.

There was no way she could relive her spark,

As it could not be found in that blue place.

She was much better off than she had been,

For now she was the same as her earthly kin.

Listen, voice like a dew drop on the leaf,

That hangs above her, a guardian from the bright sun,

Her eyes are wide with no iris, or so it seems.

She turns them to you, and you see the glint

A devil, you think, skin of cool mint

And she lets her laughter out,

Let’s it trickle down your skin  

While you grit your teeth and try not to let her in.

But you do, of course you do because she asks

With a curious gaze and an upturned lip

Just enough to see her sharp teeth.

Before you know it, you are swept away

Into the forest she dwells, where you will stay

Months will pass, or maybe years

A place impenetrable by time and tears.

You will die there, you know, under her gaze.

Stuck in time, stuck on her

Stuck in the faery haze.

A tie that hangs loosely from a harrowing neck,

The peak of the high, high tension

Chalk on a chalkboard like nails on my back,

Keeps me tangled in high, high suspension.

The breeze higher the cliff side gets much harder,

Your voice down, down below me.

Lamb sacrificial like my body a martyr,

Your weight pressed down, down, upon me.

Stories of those who jumped before us are true

Consequences still far, far from you and I.

Suicide bombers like withering whispers that flew,

Into history of our far, far away sky.

It was discovered a woman leapt to her death

After carrying a deadly, deadly weight.

A storm in the news like an icy island tempest

Discovered deadly, deadly too late.

I was pronounced dead as a professor’s whore,

A woman with much, much shame.

Death on a slut like a cleansing wash more

Like a much, much misplaced finger at blame.

They found my body under sun in the bathroom

With frozen cold, cold tile floor,

My blood in a pattern like a flower in bloom

But I died on a cold, cold chalkboard.