THE END BEFORE THE END

Shhhhh See that thought The one swimming around And around and around and around The one growing bigger Gaining speed, spinning faster It has you in its teeth Has you hogtied Chained to the train And you sit frozen No motor skills No verbal gymnastics No other thoughts But the one The angry one The…

STAY WITH ME

My poetry prompt for NaPoWriMo and Cheer Peppers is a mixed media painting that started with an experiment with alcohol ink. Prints available at Hastywords Art . There are so many stories where butterflies represent death and rebirth. A loved one’s soul manifest etc. and if that’s true I hope to be surrounded by butterflies and know each of…

IF MOURNING WE MUST DO

Grief has its own set of lungs And tears that etch and burn Lyrical scriptures engraved Upon our very tongues Sorrow is a bright flame Slowly consumed by time And when the fire dies Love remains the same If mourning we must do Because life never lasts Then I hope I do it well To…

NO GOODBYE

I let my soul Slip out And it floated Like balloons Toward the sky And I cried Because It didn’t even Linger Didn’t care To say goodbye And that Is the story Of my life

THE VILLAIN MAKER

What I’d like to tell you Will never pass my lips My words mean too much To end up changed, twisted Because that’s what you do Turn hankies into birds And people clap and cheer Then they point and jeer When you tell them I’m the one, the horrible one Turning birds into hankies When…

IT’S NOT TOO LATE

Twisted shadows Stain her eyes Feet buried In a satin hole Hands doing shots Of numbness Rusting guts No more triggers No more tears No more fixes Night falls A gauzy blur As eyelids Fall shut To glimmers Of light Sprouting As if rooted In glitter A reminder You hold a life To not fuck…

THE SINS OF TRAUMA

There are lots of things I hate About trauma Real honest to goodness trauma Like… How it automatically steals Future joy How it cripples effective communication How it makes trenches With one way signs in brains How it dictates patterns Of protection Of avoidance Of self-sabotage Of self- destruction Of hyper-vigilance How it demands boundaries…

WHEN PEOPLE LEAVE

People you love will leave It’ll hurt and you’ll cry Your brain will have A million things to say You’ll blame yourself Wish you could have done better Wish you could have changed Wonder what you could have done But babe If you loved them and you tried If you were there for them If…

FEED YOURSELF SKY

There are people who never learn to look forward. Past themselves. Past their own desires. Sacrifice is a word they’ve assigned false meaning to. They blame others for their failures. And even when they do blame themselves they desperately need someone else to do the work to save them. They seek to garner sympathy for…

EMBALMED WITH DESPAIR

It’s the kind of fog that stole my breath Thick and shadowy Dark skulking movements that stuck to my skin. Ominous and dangerous It held the memory of every broken scream I hated this kind of fog And for the longest time It’s the only kind I knew It swallowed the sun leaving me isolated,…