SEEING RED

I woke up seeing red Red fall trees dropping leaves Red lipstick stains on my pillow Red comforter piled on top of me The red blood Leaking from cracks Scratched onto my skin The red liquid on my nightstand The red behind my eyelids As I try to go back to sleep Hoping sleep will…

FADING

Daylight fades As the dark chases Mercy away It’s not night It’s darker Where choice Meets forever And says Goodnight One Last Time

THE FOAM

Foam sits churning At the edge of nowhere No signs mark the place No arrows or strings Will lead you there If you see it It’ll be too late You’ll become part Of this foam Sitting at the edge Of nowhere

TRENDSPOTTING

Reconciling never ends As the narrow bones Widen into countries And the steps descend Into chaotic drumbeats We churn the gold out Spread it on idols Tarnished repetition Tok tok tok tok tik Developing desperation The bell tolled And landscapes rolled And nobody Was the wiser

THE LAMENT

I keep looking down To see if my skin is still there It feels like it’s crawling off Trying to leave me exposed No way to hold myself in I keep grinding my teeth So much my fingernails hurt Sympathy pains maybe Spreading throughout my body My muscles are tense Working my joints Warming my…

THE FAUCET

The faucet drips It’s consistent At first it pained me Made me anxious Made me uncomfortable I tried to fix it It needed something I didn’t have I could have Turned off the water But that wouldn’t fix What was broken So I sat with it Listened to the drip Became one with the drip…

DEADFALL

Deadfall seasons Come like the night Sneaky and silent Waiting quietly with its Blood red oranges And copper smells A soft wet decay With no words to say Rain without cover Cold without a coat Dark without light This is the last place I’ll see until spring Peeks into my soul again

CUT SANDWICHES

The shoes were thin and worn The day was windy and rainy The voices demanded volume And the faces… they were blurry They don’t care. They don’t care. They don’t care. They don’t care. And the tears don’t matter They’ve just made it harder Can’t breathe underwater And the blood doesn’t matter It’s just wet…

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…