Titanic

You know you're in trouble
When you drown yourself to save another
When all you were ever taught
Was to try to fix things
Even at your own expense

11/3/2015

Fern Gully

I drove a railroad spike
Into my heart
In order to break the chainsaws
That tried to cut me down.

On Coming Out

So that I may start another year as myself

Swimming

Three years and I've pried probably
nine out of ten of your fingers
from their vice-like grip around my soul.
You used to choke me, physically and spiritually,
but I held my breath.  And now at twenty five,
my breath only ever catches
when I stumble on your memory.

Note to Self (Make Room)

The world has a lot of love to give you.
Keep your heart open and let love flow out.
That will make space for their love to flow in.

Bound

Two creatures tied together by their misery,
Too afraid to let go of what they know,
Too familiar with the other's moods;
     There's only a few.
One home made of anguish and torment,
One arbiter between the world and soul,
Won over only by the prospect of discomfort;
     There's only so many paths.

9/3/2015

Witch

I can feel my powers reawakening.

Autobiography

Perhaps the only place a soul's life history
     could be told would be in poetry.
To be explicit, to be literal about me
     is to be truthful superficially,
But too much abstraction, telling it metaphorically
     is a story told artificially.

My whole life I've been a writer,
     and as you can see here, also a rhymer.
Poetry and writing allow me to life decipher,
     acting as designer and healing as survivor.
Creating forces me to ascend above transcriber.
     I enlighten, I live, I am wiser.

Mazes

(11/18/2015)
Why is coming out such a process?
An unending, continuous process?
One that never seems to get easier no matter how much practice you've had or how many times you've done it?

I'm sorta in the closet.  Sorta not in the closet.  To some people I'm out.  To others I'm closeted.  Feels like lying by omission.  Feels shitty…
But there's so many barriers (not even including fear) to knock down to get out of the closet.  Saying "in the closet" implies there is only one door, without a lock, to be opened.  Then you step out and it's just that simple.  But it's so not like that at all.   It's many doors that are often locked.  You find yourself crawling out windows you stumbled across in the maze.  You learn to be an expert lock pick.  You draw maps in your mind with explicit protocols on how to escape.
It's uncomfortable.  It's like being stuck in chrysalis.  You know you've transformed into something better, but how do you get out?  Where is the seam?  Where is the weak point through which you'll force yourself?  Force… That's exactly what it is.  You push and prod but rarely do you cajole.  I can't seem to be that tender or nurturing with myself.  I am too preoccupied with remembering my map and how to pick locks…

Chapters

For my third instar,
Back in a cramped chrysalis again,
Feeling like life is a silo
And I am just one single wheat grain.

Molasses

Life is so fleeting,

Yet everything seems to weigh

Very heavily. 

L'Chaim

A bit of bismuth
Essence of enzymes
A milliliter of milk thistle
A year of yoga
A gram of ginger

A cap of cannabis

A pill of probiotics

A cup of chamomile
A sip of simethicone
A dab of dicyclomine
And a mouthful of menthol
All cheers to my unreliable health.

The Misery of Life

Life,
For all its pleasures,
Cannot be contained between two pages
Nor can I contain the sadness between
The two broken pieces of my heart.

A Gracious Prayer

Oh universe. You are mercy and grace.
Though I am tried and tired,
you have found fit to spare me in this solitary moment,
granting me precious time to complete the tasks before me.

52

So much of my time is spent trying to stack the deck 

So that the odds might be in my favor.

I build my house from the hand I was dealt;

And each time I have exhausted my efforts,

Finally creating some semblance of structure,

A gust of wind effortlessly knocks it down

And I am left to pick up the pieces

And try again. 

Orator

Maybe if I shout it from the mountains
and everyone hears it all at once,
then I can stop telling my story.

Sonorous Philosophies

The boom tree pleasures are the gables of the mind 

Gallivanting 

Silk weeds sleeping havoc in verisimilitudes

A writing wrought in two 

Slickenslides of the psyche separating platitudes  

Ogling every corner of the infinite sky

Note to Self (Stay Dead)

If you want him to be dead
You have to stop resurrecting him.
You hold the power to bring him back or let him rot
So let him rot.

On slicing bread:

Where does one slice end and the next begin?
It was but one loaf until the knife came, dividing yeasty nations.
Who am I to be declaring borders and destroying what was once whole in the name of sustenance?

Two Spirits

Made in the divine's image,

I am both; I am whole;

I am undivided;

I am divine. 

Flour

My problems, cares and worries are
grains of wheat, barley and rye
And I am the grindstone,
Making sweetbread from my troubles.

Labor of Love

One brick today is one less brick tomorrow
And here I am with my impatience
Wanting to move mountains in a day

Letters to an Ex-Lover Anthology: Ursinus

When the wounded animal heals
It returns more savage than before
A steadfast refusal to feel
Pain and suffering anymore

And so do I return as a savage
Committed to attacking first
In this round it won't be me who is ravaged
When it was you who inspired this vengeful thirst 
(4/8/2015)

Emergence

A dream is an egg
Incubating emotions
Before consciousness

Kintsugi

There's a beauty in it

In being a survivor

I'm invincible

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum (Wikipedia).

It Shows

Wordless histories
There are novels in my scars
Origin stories

Set

Ellipsoidal seeds
Each adorned with its own awn
Wheat's small pulchritude

Locomotion

I want to be train tracks,
repetitive strength,
expansive and patient.

Lost

Feeling like I'm floating
It's this time of year
Lost in my life
Now that I'm on track

Instar

In the middle city

Driven by one million heartbeats

I found myself too patient in chrysalis 

And once transformed I saw

The small molt of my previous self

Uncomfortable and rigid