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…

NATURAL PREDATORS

The forest is full of predators Majestic feathers or soft fur Brutal hunters underneath A chorus of sweet bird songs Escaping from piercing beaks Colorful patterns that play and hide Just waiting with their toxins To protect, paralyze, or kill Humans are scary beautiful too Men are the apparent hunters Some are natural protectors And…

A STORY

Don’t think Walk slow Stay steady Focus on steps Close off sound Close off smell Shallow breath Step into shower It’s cold Sharp inhale Shock Water warms Wash hair Wash body Then cry Cry harder Feel your body Shaking Breaking Washing down drain… No… Stop thinking Feel the water Stand until It grows cold again…

IF I KNEW

If I knew then What I know now That time Really does play tricks That time will heal That I’ll wish for more That it’s a thief And that it does… stop When you hurt Speeds up When you’re laughing I wouldn’t have Cried so much Wasted so much I’d slow down But also go…

MUTED

Sounds tend to throb Slightly muted Under the noise of Blood rushing A vibrating River Dulling my words I’m in here My eyes plead My hands reach My face contorts But my voice Is imprisoned By the sound Of my own pulse *NOTE There have been moments in the past that are hard to describe.…

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…

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 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…

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…

FRACTIONS

There are fractions of me Scattered all over the floor And I feel like if I knew math I’d be able to solve them Puzzle them out for good Once and for all And I’d be a whole… finally Like all of you