Tea

They lie there, legs entwined, steeped in history and bubbling over

Needing sugar and having none

It's a bitter end but one they can't stop sipping

Made easier by a general lack of clothes and 

words

Til it hits the stove and burns the pot

Makes it too hot to stay 

in the kitchen 

So they curl, from now

til they get smoked out

Letter to the Ellipsis

   I told them you died. Honestly, I did. It didn’t seem necessary; how could thinking, breathing human beings with all five senses intact miss the coldness of the shell you left behind? It didn’t make sense, having to tell them something so obvious. I really tried though. For you. Maybe if they know you’re dead, they can bring you back.

      I know you’re gone because I know what it feels like to be missing a piece of me now; you took it with you, wherever you went. I’d like to think you’re someplace nice, preserved in the heart of time, finally at peace. And that’s okay, really. I understand why you had to leave. This world was too much for you from the very beginning… you weren’t ready for the way it would relentlessly break you down, force you into becoming something we couldn’t blame you for turning into. Of course it won. Of course you’re gone. I want that piece back (that hole can’t be filled by anything else, you see), but I forgot to reclaim it before you left, if there was ever a way to.

      …Your friends are acting just like you did in your last hours, you know. Maybe they’ve caught your disease. They’re telling me the most ridiculous lies. They say I’m wrong. They say you’re alive.

      Unless they’re sick too, why would they say that?

      They keep pointing out this person, this person who possesses features devilishly similar to yours, saying he’s you. You have to help me understand, because if you were here I know you’d be able to help me understand… how could they even compare this person to you? Same height, same build, sure, but your friends, your true friends, should know better. This person doesn’t have your smile. He doesn’t move or laugh or even speak the way you do.

      And he doesn’t recognize me.

      I would know you if you were alive; I would recognize you in all forms, in this life, in the next fifty. So I know they can’t possibly be telling the truth. All they need to do is look. Why aren’t they looking?

       If you can hear me, know that I know the truth. They won’t ever get me to believe that you’re still here; I watched you leave myself, frozen into a place that wouldn’t let me say goodbye; I felt that hole open up, I know the frigidity of a heart stopped too soon.

      Let me mourn peacefully.

      Make them stop lying to me. 

Finding My Meaning

I was meant for much more than this.

These hands you hold are the tools of creation

The writers of these times, arrangers of music

For feet that were meant to dance,

But lost their rhythm in the tapping of your foot.

Freedom looms for these fingers that spin,

Tangling threads as they try to make silk,

Spelling instead the universal code for suffering

Upon the sand these legs followed you to.

And there’s no air here;

Okay for lungs that forgot how to

Breathe

Ages ago, settling for holding

Turning blue in the absence of the exhale

That will take their use from them,

Rendering them obsolete to an audience that doesn’t exist

Leaving only these lips

To read the obituary

And mourn in silence…

I was meant for so much more than empty rooms

Desolate landscapes of black skies and fallen stars

Beauty to these eyes would be seeing the sun

Beyond your fetters and your chains.

This mind rebels, fights their gaze from the ground,

Urging them to cast out, to move,

To find that sun and rise from this place…

But this heart won’t let them look past you

And realize that the steel is of my own forging.

Epiphany!!

     He treats you the way he does because he can; why waste precious energy talking to a column when it's always going to hold the roof up anyway? Why pay attention if collapse isn't imminent? It's been here for years; it isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
     I think you know what I'm going to say next. That's right. Collapse. Let the roof cave in on him, and make sure he knows his column collapsed out of neglect. You needed to be spackled, polished, cared for and kept, and he failed. Don't let him blame you for doing what all things do when left to decay. Nature weathered you, life toiled at you, hands made you rough, smooth and rough again, breathy words made pieces of you fall , and still he did nothing. Let him dig himself out of your ruin.
     You'll rise again, someday. You'll make your appearance in the history books, heralded for your beauty, your steadfastness, your staying power even though you lie on the ground. Someone will write the story you deserve, build the reconstruction you need, and bring others to marvel at your  grandeur.

I

I am the girl who falls in love with all the wrong people, afraid to be broken past the point of bouncing back, deflated, striving to fix untouchable pasts and form futures that aren't fragile. 

I am the boy who loved justly and fell wrong, stumbled to my knees in the tide that waits for none. Drowning, reaching to right my life and saving "sorry"s like thorns in my paw.

I am the woman who grew stout and cold, swaying to a song that doesn't reach my heart, writing new lines with uncaring eyes and ink-less pens. 

I am the man who conquers hearts, rides lies like a white knight for kings, races rockets to the moon and fakes fury when I fall short, covering wounds. 

I am unbound, unbidden, unwanted, and not ready. 

I am exactly who you made me.

Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?

She isn't like you.

And she doesn’t want to be

posturing for the enemy,

forcing lies past slack lips

doing the homework in the eleventh hour

to answer your questions

that patronize and satirize

her dreams...

Those she wants to give up

for love, and family

intangible happiness whose yellow

doesn't match the sickly green of yours…

This is okay, really.

It’s clearly not where you should be

Or could be if you could open those eyes

and see that your prize doesn’t lie at the end of your ride

But you won’t get out of the car,

'cause you’d have to take your seatbelt off to do it

That which keeps you in line,

gives direction to a life that not so secretly has none

Searching for some, seeking solace

And not finding.

So you lash out,

and you force

and you sneer and snipe

She lies untouched, in your mind

And your bed

Closed off from you and better for it

Mad because she can’t

And sad because you would

…If you could.