Heavy

All the love I'd ever known
Felt like a weight around my neck

Villainous

I had already finished mourning
By the time I pushed you into seeing
Carrion of our relationship
Your eyes were closed while you marched on
"Obligation equals love"
The flag waving at your back
I tried to pull you off your flat cement circle
Tugged at your hand to join my adventure
Wild winding trails into the unknown
You wouldn't
Didn't try to understand
So I bubbled silently with pain
Like an overfilled water balloon
Until it burst out of me all at once
We'd have that same talk for the sixtieth time
All your lip service to repairs that never came
Measuring effort in performing duty
Never in connection
Never affection
Somehow you thought time alone would fill
Gaping chasms between us
Now you've been pushed into action
Finally conjured emotion
Boiling in anger
Stoked by the voices in your ear
I'm painted as the villain of your lifetime
You're defending against me
Shields and swords
But all I want from you is to cut this cord
So we can both be unburdened
Light in the air of a new season

Compassion

Some days I am moved to tears
Overwhelmed by this world
Drawn into details and depth
Stillness and presence
Humanity and nature

How the structure in a leaf
Mimics the veins of my wrist
The chalky feeling of a chain link fence
Weathered over the seasons
Being drawn to wild bunch of berries
Which leave a fuchsia heart stain on my palm

My heart bleeds for sad eyes
Seeing behind defensive walls
Barricades of hate and indignation
Nonchalance to cover pain of judgment
Self denial rooted in rejection
A core of fear in nuclear meltdown

These are days I feel my ancestors
Bruja healers flowing in my blood
Calling on my overflowing cup
Pour compassion over wounds
Turn up my glowing light

Ignite

Melted, pooled
Hot, wet
Red wax
Dripping down skin
Messy, wild flame
Striking hard against
My match box

Universal

I thought you were tuned into

My frequency 

But I realized you just make yourself

A universal remote 

Lesson

I guess the universe decided 
You’re a lesson I need to learn deeply
That’s why there’s no buffer
No warm body to cover 
The spot that’s gone cold 
Where the imprint of your shape lingers
Though there are nights of wailing in me
A funeral procession of mourners
Lamenting to somehow pacify 
My loss, your loss 
I pick up the shattered pieces 
Somehow shards remain 
Like my heart is made of shag carpeting 
Slivers of you invisibly tangled 
I understand your affection was smoke 
How you danced around my fingers
The embers cooled and that lovely ribbon 
Dissipated into the winds 
So I sit with this discomfort 
Trying to tamp down the wish
That you’d crawl back 
A fistful of apologies for each and every 
Single tear shed on your behalf 

Thin

I won't bow to that image
I do not care how many times I lose because thinness is on a pedestal
The mark of beauty for the masses
I've seen this game since middle school
Abused myself because I never fit
I've built this strength on the back of obsession and guilt
Tears in a pile on my bedroom floor
Pulled myself up from self-hatred
Climbing and clawing away
I cannot let the demon drag me back into that darkness
Trying to shrink myself to an ideal
Cutting off my sanity for the sake of size
I lived too many years with nothing but inadequacy in my belly
Criticizing every inch of my body
How there were too many inches to begin with
Made it far enough to be here but I know absolutely
I won't survive doubting my worth

Can't Go Back

I would rather have my heart broken
A thousand times over
Than to go back to feeling nothing at all

Resolute

I wander back to that day
Sitting on your front deck
My floral skirt in the breeze
Watching you cook us dinner on the grill
Nothing but birdsong on the wind
Sinking into that moment with every fiber
A foolish grin
It couldn't leave my face

That's what is so hard to pry from my grasp
Why I can't seem to heal from this
How I knew I had never felt that way
Like a moment from a dream
So perfect it seemed unreal
I felt unworthy of that joy
And so it seems I was

I want to forgive myself of this
Bitterness
Wrestling with my mind
Whether I am justified
Spitting poison among my tears
Letting my wounds speak for me
Arrows in my heart
Black and blue and red all over

I'm still upset
No matter how many times I tell myself
It's time to be over it
My memory betrays my determination
I convince myself  I am resolute
But I am a liar too
Just like you

Icarus

That feeling you call love
I don’t trust it
Enchanted hearts soaring 
Aloft on wax wings 
Under stark reality of daylight 
Exposed unforgiving sun
Infatuation melts away
But maybe that’s why they call it
Falling 

Elemental

I am the East
The Sword which cuts through
Air
Dancing with smoke
Winds of change

I am the South
The Wand which ignites
Fire
Burning with power
Towering inferno

I am the West
The Cup which overflows
Water
Washing in emotion
Tidal wave 

I am the North
The Pentacle which grounds
Earth
Experiencing the moment
Bountiful Harvest

Climb

Every dream that crumples at my feet
Another chance for me to climb
Over and up onto the rubble
Rising higher and higher
I will never be stagnant

Questions

Do you miss me?
Or do you miss how I could make you feel?
Can you tell the difference?
Does it matter?
Do I?

Neon

I can only pray
One day my mind will grant me
The mercy
Of not flashing your
Face
Name
Words
Like a broken neon sign
Every goddamn day

lush

I gave up alcohol
So now I’m drunk on sadness

Waiting

In youth I built a life
Sold to me by convention
College brochures and greeting cards
I wilted and twisted up around myself
Empty of emotion
Getting through life on caffeine and platitudes
Now I sit among the crumbling walls
Having seen the glow in the distance
My future a sunrise of orange and pink
Waiting for the sand to run out
In this hourglass
So I can flip upside down and start anew

Projection

Stop talking
So I can be in love with the version of you
I’ve created in my mind
Romanticized projections filling silences
By a person who only exists in my head

illiterate

I don’t ever want to read
Another word you’ve written

Vacancy

I tied the blindfold over my intuition
Signs that you were checking out
Took words at face value
Ignored the pain growing in me
Where I used to feel your presence
I knew if I dug into you
I'd uncover what I didn't want to see

I didn't want to be right

Off

The flip has switched
I no longer care for you
Or anything
At all.

Dam

I watch love flow like water for others
I am a dam with a heavy release
A steep spillway

Naive

I should've known
Your hesitation against my embrace
I had to siphon that final kiss from your lips

Still

I am haunted by the ghost of memories
we never got to make

Stardust

You shoot for your moon
I am a star

Crumbs

Don't follow the trail of breadcrumbs
Little pieces of affection
Those are what fell
Brushed off and left behind
To lead on
Not toward

The path to love isn't
Littered with scraps