There you go again:

Reciting beautiful words 

that no one cares about.

My broken mouth waits impatiently;

Your swift fingers sewed it shut 

Before I could really get going…

But don’t think I have nothing to say,

This is just the beginning

Of your chartreuse hypocrisy.

The blithe girlhood mask 

That suppresses my anger

Is wearing thin at the edges.

You had no right to permit

The dead and dying generations

To take my future with them.

The way my textbooks make

Even dictatorship sound pleasant

Is a reflection of your limpid weakness.

Look what you’ve done:

Your power 

has burned your eyes 

With its self-actualizing might.

Look around us:

The trees scream and try to deny 

but they cannot look past how

You set the world on fire.

Can’t you see?

Can you believe your eyes?

Are you as angry as me?

Look what you’ve done!

Look at the bodies piling besides 

your ochre intentions.

This is the burden you bear. 

And so I shall save each penny, write each song

Every word, every minute 

To the lost potential

Of the plastic bag of broken guitar strings

Waiting on the curb; their story written in memory

Tired, and resting.

I’d like to garden

My own heart,

To pull the weeds of sadness

And hate

From the foundation

I sprout from,

To plant seeds of hope

And inspiration

Into the soft ground of my love

That I’ll water with the relationships

Poured into my palms

By other hands with their dreams

Crusted beneath their nails,

To nestle in bulbs

Blushing pink with pride,

With the windburn of laughter

And the scorch of smiles shining,

Letting them burrow into the glands,

Sinking in their roots

And letting them intertwine

With my soul,

Eventually sprouting,

Blossoming next to the waterfalls

That keep me alive,

Their plump,

Fulfilled petals

Glistening with dew and mist,

The droplets once given to me

That will never be completely absorbed,

No matter how dusty the floor gets,

Because my heart

Will forever be alive.

I Miss The Old You

When we first met

I had no idea

You would become so important to me

But I’m starting to wish

We never met

Now I’m forced to remember you

For longer than I knew you

Because you broke the girl

Who loved you more

Than she will ever love herself.

Poem #302:

there’s expiration dates

On the friends you make

Yours Again

When I looked into your eyes

The memories came in waves

Drowning out all our flaws

For a moment

I forgot my resentment

And became yours again.

Darkness

Years are whisked away

Yet the memories still linger

Darkness has built a home in my heart

Forever haunting me with the ghosts of sorrow.

The days I wake up

and fall asleep

and move through the world

tired and clumsy,

it is hard to know the truths

of what I am grateful for.

Those days,

I am grateful not for winter,

but for a shorter strip of red on the thermometer

and the way I can see my breath

if I look enough.

Those days,

I am grateful not for family,

but for the dinner table laughter

loud and quiet

when you can float on it

reach out and touch it.

Those days,

I am grateful not for school,

but for the teacher that showed up,

or if not that,

for the fact that they smiled at me.

When I am too tired to be grateful

for big things

I will be grateful for thermometers and laughter and showing up.

November 6th, 2024 

Today my grief is loud 

She is shaky and terrified 

I hold her gently in my arms 

Cradle her small fragile hand as I walk 

Today my anger is louder 

She is shaky and terrified as well 

I cannot hold her gently 

Nor cradle her calloused hands in mine 

She needs to be heard 

Be seen 

Today she needs to fight 

As I walk out of my school building 

Holding fearful grief and shaking anger 

A red hat catches my eyes 

A hat that means more to me 

In that one color 

Than any hat should ever 

My anger wants to scream and yell 

My grief knows better 

I let anger give a searing glare 

And let grief hold my hand as I walk 

Today is a bad day to be a woman

Feminine bodies weighed by anger and grief 

Sit politely in classrooms and office cubicles 

Continuing to bow to men who vote their rights away 

Letting anger burn up our insides

Until 

All hell breaks loose 

And we let anger’s calloused hands 

do the talking

We stood at the entrance of a new age. 

Past a garden of all we had ever known,

We found the gate.  

Past what we were meant to know and created to be.

Then why was there a gate? 

And when across the soulless desert, sands lingered into sterile soil, how did we dare march forward?

How could we help ourselves into a land of misery over light?

And so I wriggled between the barb-wired affections of Eden, 

Found where gusts had worn away sand,

And left gaps to crawl through

Why did we reach for what was out of reach?

Why was it within reach?

And why did it dazzle?

We stand at the entrance of a new age.

The gate of all we have ever known, melting in the rage of our mistakes.

The mountain never meant to be found,

An uphill climb, spanning centuries.

Hand over hand, gritting through 

Maybe we were destined to struggle 

Hand in hand, maybe we were destined to hope.

Inspired by Jesmyn Ward

I wish I could tell you how I mourn your innocence,

how I pray for a shield, 

rather than an umbrella to keep you dry during the storm. 

I wish I could tell you that numbness

Is nothing but a blind sedative, 

How it leads to darker bruises and deeper cuts. 

I wish i could explain to you how ice thaws,

How particles will release themselves from their 

Rigid vibrations and become faster.

How they will move away. 

I wish I could tell you that love isn’t pointless,

That lightning and stars glow the same way.

That these scars are ugly but wounds are painful. 

I wish you knew how days will pass

How your skin will wrinkle around your eyes, 

and how your fingernails will grow. 

I wish i could tell you how life will move forward

Not chronologically, but in zigzags and mountains.

But I am not that eloquent. 

So I sit there and 

smile. 

I do not write happy things.

Today I will.

Today I will breathe

ignore the sick feeling growing

in the back of my throat.

Today I will drink water

feel it burn the raw throat

I have. 

Today I will lie down

let this feeling of something

lie down with me.

Today I will be calm

and cool

and remember that it is okay

to quit

to stop

to breathe.

Breathe

Drink water

Lie down

Go through the motions like a ghost

Today I will be a ghost-like

creature on the wall

Calm and quiet and watching

Tomorrow I will be sick

Pneumonia or strep or maybe

the black death

but today

Today I will be happy.