When our father died,
My brother was 4,
To the viewing
He wore a batman costume:
Cape, mask, and all.
So, that he could fly up to the heavens.
Our mother dies.
He’s 26,
He wears a different kind of cape:
White shirt, black tie
Shoulders back, head high,
Standing in the same room.
Oh, the relief it would be
To give him back his innocence,
To lift the weight of grief.
He is so strong,
He and I against the world,
I would carry it all for him.
So, that he could learn to fly again.
Filed under free write, Poetry
Watching someone fade
Is like building a sand castle,
With bare hands and dry sand.
It takes a lot of energy,
To be naive.
To be constantly hopeful.
Grains of sand
Are cups of tea,
A Sunday morning donut,
A smile on a face,
They are what keeps you going,
What keeps you building the towers,
That stand guard against the rolling black clouds off shore,
Until all you are doing is looking up.
Unaware of the ground crumbling beneath you,
Unaware of why the castle is getting smaller,
Unaware of why a laugh is making you feel uneasy,
But you knew.
You knew before your soul wanted know,
You knew that it was all slipping through your fingers,
Like dry sand and bare hands,
You lost all control.
Now a laugh is a symptom,
A donut is now a reminder,
Of what could make you smile,
And tea is what I have when I think of you.
In the morning,
I start with my eyes,
Creating them like artwork,
I have accidental confidence,
I have gotten real good,
At creating a mirage,
I apply the primer,
You need a clean slate,
To begin any change,
You know the advice,
Show the world what you want them to see,
They will see it,
I move from the outside in,
Making it bold but natural,
Don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard,
Well, I got real good,
At making myself,
Appear to be someone else.
Picking a color is important,
You want your eye color to pop,
So they can see the twinkle in your eye,
The first time I was told I was confident
I wanted them to elaborate on their view,
Give me a glimpse of my persona,
When you get to the inside,
Apply a nice shimmery color,
That’s where the shadows naturally fall,
I have a pretty face,
A name that is easily remembered,
I have a naturally kind soul,
Blend into your brow bone,
Make sure it doesn’t look like clip art,
They should look like they want to belong,
I turned into an iceberg,
My eyes above water,
Below the water line, deceiving.
Mascara finishes the look,
Those lashes are the curtains,
To the show behind it all,
I have learned to hypnotize,
The colors, the shimmers,
All do their jobs,
I should be pleased,
That you don’t see
My ununiformed to society body,
You insisted that I ride the rollercoaster,
I faked motion sickness,
You accepted that.
Accidental confidence is a product
Of learning how to decipher the code
To be accepted among the masses.
When you pull me into a trendy store,
I don’t have money; I have too much in my closet,
I’m too lazy to try on clothes today,
So when I bat my eye lashes,
I wait for the day when you
Don’t just stop at the gate.
I need you to stroll the grounds,
The curves and hidden pathways,
From the rose garden to the dark forest,
I love that you don’t need to see more to love me,
But I need you to see more of me to love me.
Filed under Poetry
A laugh and a smile
“Why did you keep this?” I asked
I was looking over the drawing,
Amused at the colors and hard press lines
I still haven’t learned that a little can go a long ways,
Our triangular pink dresses and our big box blue shoes,
Both me and mom,
Oh the style I thought we had,
And there, my brother,
Shirt and shorts, identical red
And big black belt in between.
She looked at me with soft eyes.
“Eventually he disappeared from the drawings”
A double take,
Widened my search,
Hiding in the corner,
Above the square house with a perfect triangular roof,
Bright green stick figure with spiked purple hair,
A set of brown wings coming off your thin torso,
Smiling in all your glory.
Years hang between me and the paper,
An invisible timeline from then to now,
Oh the innocence of words,
D-A-D-D-Y
Written in tiny rainbow letters.
I have learned about life with out you,
I wish I decorated you with style
But I guess you don’t need clothes up there.
Filed under Poetry
I know where you live.
Over between confident and insecure.
Your house takes up the entire block.
Monday to Thursday,
You live in the right wing,
Relishing time to yourself,
Until alone becomes lonely,
But on Friday,
You do a cartwheel to the left wing,
Where you are a superhero,
An angel by day, fighting crime by night,
You could conquer the world.
You say hello to a stranger,
Allow someone to invade your personal space
by sipping coffee at a table next to yours,
You make a joke with the barista,
Watch the sunset through your iphone lens,
Have drinks at a crowded bar with your friends,
Lead your group to the corner booth, you on the inside.
By Sunday night, You are crawling back to your hollow abode,
energy depleted, proud of your accomplishments in the world,
You went all out, had real experiences.
By the next morning,
you are back being unassured,
wondering if the barista laughs at everyones jokes,
Was the sun really those bright colors, or was it just a filter?
Would that guy you had been eyeing,
the one with the blue eyes and smile so wide,
have approached if your heart hadn’t gone silent?
You have pride in being a strong, independent woman,
but are you strong
if you can’t control your thoughts,
if your actions are based on the weather?
Are you independent, or just alone?
I have to tell you,
it is strong to know what you can handle,
to work with where you are,
it is an accomplishment to understand recovery,
You…I am a strong, independent woman,
who knows where I live.
Filed under Poetry
Every poem that begins,
Sounds like a eulogy
That I will have to give.
Forgive me.
I can’t paint you
Into a thousand words
Watercolors always bleed
One thought into another.
The mind doesn’t allow
The ignoring of obvious possibilities.
Imagination, a child’s play thing,
The child being my anxiety,
My mind the playground,
The ground is lava.
My hands are always slipping
Across the monkey bars.
Is this insanity?
Maybe if I will it hard enough,
Lily pads will appear beneath my toes,
Will I be strong enough to let go
And trust that everything won’t burn?
I’m pink with the rising heat
Someone has a basketball
Thump,
Thump,
Thump,
It vibrates though my body.
It is not me.
It is not me.
It can not be me.
Hanging above a deathlike pit,
Allows your mind to wander.
Imagine the tips of my fingers
As mini concrete cinder blocks,
Holding me in the air,
Like a circus trick.
I hold all my strength in my hands,
Out in the open for people to see,
If they wish to acknowledge it,
Strength can be intimidating.
Better to be left unsaid.
Better to fly across the monkey bars,
Show your flair and speed,
Those are qualities they want to see,
It is weakness to struggle.
Even if that struggle,
Means hanging everyday,
Over lava,
Thump, thump, thump,
Heart is always racing in your ears,
A reminder you are alive,
Keeping on the pressure,
With the rising heat,
That you must not let go.
Isn’t that strength?
Never letting go.
Even though it would be easier,
To get some long deserved relief.
So, my words can keep sounding,
Like a eulogy that I will have to give,
But I’ll use them as gloves,
To keep my self up in the air.
Filed under Poetry
I see what you did there.
Now, that I am in the clear,
But then, I couldn’t see past my tears.
The pain had created a wall,
In between my anxiety and reason,
Closing any backdoor to gain insight
To what you could clearly see,
But I trusted you blindly,
Even if that meant I was running into mirrors.
If I had still been there now,
It just seems implausible,
Like a chapter that doesn’t flow
With the rest of my story,
To be analyzed for eternity for its existence.
You saw where it would all go wrong,
So instead,
You decided to rip out my heart six chapters early.
No anesthesia or scalpel.
Small waves still wash over the scar
That was left by your hand,
As if you panicked mid scene,
Suddenly aware of the time line,
A car heading into oncoming traffic,
The only thought was to put it to a halt,
You reached into the spine,
Pulling at the true beat of the story,
The melody was fading.
It needed a refresher,
A course in Who Am I 101,
I was at a standstill,
I couldn’t move from A to B,
A malfunction in the wiring,
Looping back around to the starting point,
The part was good,
But it didn’t know how to be selfish,
It needed to learn to request new elements.
So I see what you did there,
You saved me.
I would have been too fargone,
Lost completely to a world,
Where I want to accompany the melody,
My story is flowing at full speed,
I know my purpose.
I forgive you for ripping me apart,
The pain now just a reminder.
Filed under Poetry
My lord,
I’m praying again.
You must be tired of my voice
But please,
I wouldn’t waste your time,
It is for her.
These prayers are all I have,
I’m getting lost trying to help,
Please.
You could bring her so much comfort,
So strong and positive,
She will use every last breath to fight,
But hasn’t she fought enough?
Trial after trial,
She needs a vacation from trying to survive,
So she can desperately live
On the other side of the glass window.
It’s a waste for people to not see her soul,
To keep something so beautiful locked up,
I have witnesses who can attest to her character,
But you should know her well,
She is filled with your light,
aching so badly to shine.
Filed under Poetry
My Mom says I have a look,
She can see every emotion behind my eyes,
As if there is a movie playing on the walls,
But she didn’t get the invite.
So she watches as a bystander,
Helpless to the thoughts that churn in my head.
I tossed and turned as my nightmares broke through the mirror,
So used to filling the cracks with ink,
Constantly making touch ups until the scenarios become clear,
Until I can make sense of the reality,
A tortured soul lays bruised and bleeding,
Gasping for a breath of virtue.
Reality has turned itself into a padded cell.
I sat in a great common room,
Indian style, hands in my lap.
Wait for the roar that does not come,
Visitors don’t come and go, food does not slide under the door,
Just the silence and the glass on the floor.
Six months:
of no words
of no therapy
of guilt, pain, and confusion
of stab after stab after stab
of darkness.
Drowning,
A new sensation to master.
A notebook and pen my deserted sidekicks.
I was lost without their guidance,
The medicine they produced,
Pushed the water from my lungs so I could float back to the surface.
My lungs heavy,
I was falling and I couldn’t see tomorrow.
My thoughts were frozen in a forever loop,
In the Starbucks line, during my favorite show,
The face that my mother talks about,
Becoming a permanent fixture,
My eyes, the doors to an internal war.
I was gliding through my days when
I noticed a hand print on my shoulder,
In a mirror, I glanced at a pair of hands on my back,
on my chest, another on my wrist,
And the fingerprints woven with words from familiar voices,
Doing the job that I thought only my poetry could do,
Keeping my head above water.
The owners gave encouraging smiles,
Laughs that made my face break character,
Text messages to make sure I was eating,
And when I couldn’t see past the darkness,
They built a campfire in my bedroom,
So at night when I awoke from the nightmares,
I could see their messages of hope on the ceiling.
I leaned on those hands for support until I was swimming,
Full force in open water, no longer weary of unspoken dangers,
Towards any shoreline that could be my new destination,
My anxiety turned into rustling leaves in the bottom of my stomach,
My mother no longer asked what I was watching on the walls,
The darkness now just a scar on my heart,
Six months for it to turn from my present to my past.
I now know what it means to have more than my four walls,
To have more than the words that I wrote down for my sanity,
But my heart still soars while I’m drinking my morning coffee,
A familiar feeling of a fleeting metaphor flies in my mind,
I smile, allowing the words to simmer on the edge of my conscious,
I might get light headed if I move to quickly,
So happy to show them what I have learned in their absence.
Filed under Poetry
This feeling isn’t new.
It’s like a skydiver has taken my heart as a parachute.
Free falling.
My heart holding on as it folds into itself,
Against the pressure of the wind and the view,
The ground growing closer,
Dots becoming shapes,
Shades of green and brown
Turning into backyards and farms.
When is the cord going to be pulled?
When is the relief going to come?
So that I know that my heart
Isn’t going to go splat on the sidewalk
Next to the promises that I made to myself.
I wear my heart on my sleeve,
Not in a romantic kind of way,
But in a truth kind of way,
In a goodness kind of way.
And yet, here I am again,
Losing the ground beneath my feet,
Air getting lost on the way to my lungs,
All because I trusted myself,
To squish down the feelings that are
Fighting a civil war in my chest.
I promised I wasn’t going to allow a person to be my trigger,
But what can I do if I gave them the bullet?
Filed under Poetry
An Everyday Girl's Outlet 