like

my eyes feel heavy like

they're weighing down my face

it was like the bags

under my eyes

were full to bursting

and my eyes

just resting there

like elephants

on water balloons

I've been so angry lately,

like I just want to hit you,

like I just want to rip you open

and squeeze the life out

drip by drip - 

But I can't.

And my fury turns inward.

[written 10 & 17 September 2013]

bones

Ancient bones
grown fresh beneath the flowers
crumbled legends for Spring's new love.




[for Magaly's 4th Blogoversary party: Witches in Fiction 2013... to the Bone]

Let's make a Deal.

All here - All gone. 

It's one or the other. 

I'm an all-or-nothing kind of girl. 

No misspelled names on my Valentine's card,

no forgotten promises to call,

none of that I-got-distracted bullshit.

Be Here

or Be Gone.

I've got no more patience for in-betweens and maybes.

I'm Here, or I'm Gone.

cycles of hurt, expressed

It's futile. I'm futile.
Racing, racing to rise
to meet the grade
to see the light
reflected in your gaze.
Racing my shadows
I stutter in your appraisal.
Futile.

Not good enough.
Not fast enough.
You love me,
but not enough
 to see through my faults
to care about my pain.

Your warnings
- I'm not enough -
all you deign to share.
I'm overwhelmed.
I stumble.
I'm futile
in my tears.


~

Don't try to save me. I'm happy where I am. Your comfort comes with chains that can't be shaken loose. They keep you free from life, which I would rather savor.
I wish you could taste it with me. It's not so scary, after all. The colors are so much brighter
when you're not hiding in the clouds.
Don't be so afraid to fly.


~

Here I am
trying to find you comfort in your relics.
You're so far away
all I can feel is your back
walking away
beyond time,
beyond hope.

He asked me a question...

...and then there was Silence.

Silence was met by the sleeping Cold.
Loneliness sighed - she sank to the floor;
Hope shattered, but gamely tried to keep his feet.

Shackled, they sang.
They sang to the Silence,
they sang the Cold awake,
they sang their tears to ice.

Hard, so hard, they armored themselves;
wrapped in frost and pain,
waiting for warmth, waiting for another song.

I wear yellow in the Winter.

My speedometer tells me more
     about how far I've driven
          than how fast I'm going;
it's very optimistic.
I wear yellow in winter;
     surrounded by blues and grays and purple.
They tell me I'm depressed;
     or maybe just an introvert.
Maybe they should just mind their own damn business.
I'm not a fucking statistic;
     75% white bread, bleached-flour whiskey-drinker
with two dogs and a cat.
          The cat has three legs.
Someday I'll buy a house with a heater and
     a real foundation;
an old house
     with stories of its own,
          footprints of the past hewing it together,
and Warmth,
Warmth that has nothing to do with mechanics
          and everything
     to do with color and touch and texture,
and wearing yellow in the winter.
Someday seems so far away, but closer every day;
     I'll know how fast I've gone when I turn to see my story,
stretching back from the aged threshold of home,
          thirteen legs making tracks behind me:
two dogs, one cat, and one girl.

Mother

Mother -
your children were endangered
while you were playing house;
pretty bows and three-piece suits
couldn't shield their eyes;
the pain that came
in whispered lies
built their lives on fear;
some days you gifts were kind,
a distraction from the real,
but they knew what you were hiding
was truth more sure than words.

Mother -
have you heard your children's song?
Did you think they were misguided?
Their roots were twisted by your needs,
but pain has made them real;
their paths have parted,
they've sought their souls
in places lush and barren;
what cures they've found
grew untainted by veneers;
you'll find your world
of skirts and ties
far from where they dwell. 

blood makes a bitter cage

Winter's chill creeps in,
frosting your mask with diamonds -
I thought you were a hero,
sent to guard my soul.

The oaths we made
were iron in my eyes,
and I shed my blood
to make them true.
but
You waved goodbye
and in your hands
our oaths washed away -
running like a river
my heart could not dam.

In barren silence
I see my iron light -
Your oath is only the mist,
and blood makes a bitter cage.

40 Pieces: my life in abstracts

All poems and prose already published in this blog thus far are part of my artbook, "40 Pieces." For now, the book is only available through me. I'm making each physical book by hand.

[Poems in this blog that appear after this post, chronologically, will be in the next book.]

~

About 40 Pieces

Many of these were written in the midst of my deployment with the US Army. I was in Baghdad, Iraq, from August 2007 through August 2008. As the Army saw it, my job was to talk to our detainees, and to attempt to gain some useful information for the “war.” As I saw it, my job was to talk to our detainees, and attempt to figure out what the hell was going on. These 40 pieces are the ways I made sense of things for myself. Some were written in the aftermath, both the long descent to ‘rock bottom’ and the eventual rise to where I am now. For the clinicians in the world: consider this a window into Depression. 

driving home

the long highway stretches out before me

a lonely song from a make-shift radio, the only voice in my head

if I close my eyes, would it all just go away?

would there be time for fear or pain, if I didn't know what was coming?

the quiet solitude of oblivion

so welcoming 

thoughts

Don't leave me alone with my thoughts.
They hurt me.

[I'll go wherever you will go.]
Just don't leave me alone.
The darkness creeps in,
     shadowing my edges as you pull away,
     overtaking me when you turn.
I'm not strong enough.

I know it's wrong.
I know my thoughts shouldn't hurt.
I fight them, always.
Sometimes I win. Sometimes I'm just so tired.

Sometimes the best feeling is blank.
Nothingness is better than being carved like
     Picasso's sculpture;
the blade of memories knows exactly where to slice,
     again and again.

I'm not lost.
I know what's happening here.
Some days I can corner it, cage it in a little box
      in the bottom of my mind.
Some days I'm too dizzy and
     I can't find the key.

I need a little help.
Just hold me up.
Don't leave me alone.

Memorial Day

- you lost it all
to save us from ourselves -

- an offering
taken from your flesh -

- your light went dark
but I remember you -

- you, the Fallen,
who gave it all
to save us from our fates.


to the Fallen





(2012)

one heart

I am your Archer - 
I am your Bones -
I will guide you true,
I will steel you stance.

I am your arrow - 
I am your vision -
I will see your heart,
I will help you dance.

in the diary of bones

In the diary of bones
let the words fall where they may,
they linger for dissection,
caught there, where they can't decay.

By the Archer's point,
the timid words, examined,
are strung out and fire-cast,
iron from ashes and a gilded corpse.

some days

some days aren't so great

and are so bad

some days

i'm just pensive

taking in

taking everything in

some days

are sadder

wiser

some days i'm just an observer

the world goes by

to a faster tune

some days

my drum is slow

and it's not so bad

but not so great

Hela

My goddess is a seer,
one hand in life
     and one hand in death.
She knows my heart and holds me
one hand in life
     and one hand in death.

the walk

I'd show you the face
of a thousand years,
if you would hold my hand.

I'd show you the heart
of a broken life,
if you could see the child.

I'll teach you the ways
of a tangled soul,
if you will listen kindly.

My voice will stray
so stay right here,
and let your touch be guiding.

Our step so light
no footprints follow,
ahead is all we need.

not always

Unraveling the abyss -
that mad churn leeching behind me,
screeching bells in my ears -
your hand out, ahead;
I focus on you, clasp you -
Please don't let me go.

In your grip, cloaked,
I can look back, safe,
and see the horror you saw;

it was home
for so long.

But not always.


Not always.

exquisite

your hands are wise
though your tongue is quick;

yet your voice soothes
while your touch arches
exquisite
across visceral truth.

pierced

pierced.
arched.
swathed
     in pain
     that comforts
     the tortured.
make it merciless.
make it hard.
sow me love
     the way I know
     the way that kills.