What's Up?

your “once upon a time”

is filled with lies

your eyes can’t hold attention

to see in to our dimension

these prescriptions you've been written

don’t allow you to make the right decisions

your precision is amazing though

you love to draw back that bow

and pretend you didn’t know about the arrow

but say so casually that you love to sew

your requirements for love

are based on lullabies and drugs

and the hugs you give are a formality

you’re a technicality

that's technically a girl

trapped in a woman's body

that's why you fight so much

but don't let the others see

because your world is a boy

that's in the state penitentiary

and he is stuck like you

and that's why you connect?

that's why you love to respect his selections to neglect

you feel like a queen!

that’s dressed as a jester

waiting to impress all the sinister sisters

and ready to stress over all their gestures

you silly little girl

you're smearing your words

your world

is actually a pencil

because it doesn't make you speak

it just lets you release

all those hopes and hormones crowded on to one sheet

and if you can’t find any sense in them

just make something up

and say it with a smile when they ask you what’s up.

An American Girl's Morning

She awakens

from a much more pleasant

reality.

Caffeine withdrawal stabs the skull

starving veins scream: “nicotine!” “nicotine!”

sunlight whispers through blinds: “squint.”

while dog digs at her face.

Dog smiles

at nothing.

Achy knees bend

stiff arms stretch

toes curl and release.

Splintery wooden floor creaks hello.

Speaks like her grandma,

like it wasn’t expecting her.

Shoulder grazes the doorway

out of the bedroom

in to the bathroom.

Greasy eyeliner gathered in creases

she didn’t know existed,

black, like the rubbery filling

that sweaty men inject

into pavement cracks.

Forehead smushes upwards and down

as she examines the face.

“this is it?”

she thinks out loud

to the mirror.

Only to the mirror.

It replies with a shrug

that’s her cue to walk.

feed the head, the veins.

give the dog a biscuit.

Mister Cloud

A cloud drifts in the corner of the sky,

my head shifts to center it in my eye.

I see you cloud, you carefree being,

I watch you closely, imagine what you’re seeing.

I take note of your shape, and watch you dance,

you fear the sun will dissolve our romance.

Smarter than a moth, but dumb as a rock,

I envy you still! Even as you mock.

But you cannot see, or imagine, or breathe.

You cannot feel or fear, there is no need.

You simply move, with no effort made,

a friend of the wind, or maybe a slave.

Or maybe just vapor, with no other name,

Just my imagination, creating your fame.

Oh old man, young child, and widow,

why must you observe me,

through the dirt on your window?

Why do you ask and plead

with such wonder?

As if I had a voice other than thunder.

Some of you see my shadow as a burden,

while others choose to show envy with a pen.

Some of you think I make shapes for show

while others don’t notice, as my tears grow.

I watch you search the sky for a clue,

no rain today, just white and blue.

And through all of this, I lay in my sky,

and see you shift your head, to center me in your eye.

Waving From the Past

I’ve seen the way you process but I don’t understand

because processing your processes

wasn’t part of my plan

in fact I didn’t have one

you caught be by surprise

when I looked up from my desk and saw the intensity in your eyes

which held our fate, I saw it.

clearer than your intentions

clearer than the dimensions we created from the tension

clearer than the prison walls we stared at every day

clearer than the look you gave when I said I shouldn’t stay

but I did

and look at where I sit now

I gather dust on this green hill but I still sit proud

I still sit with a smirk and constantly look down

I still sit with your words and I spin them around to process more delicately

what  I thought I found

and what I found was a boy still jumping off the playground

still screaming inside but un able to make a sound

so you crawled back into that prison I once sat

and wave to me on my hill and constantly think back

back to the past where we once used to live

where we once used to give kisses on the cheek and slaps on the wrist

scars on the heart and blood on our lips

the taste of fate

it was too much to digest

butterflies and stomach acid made quite a mess.

so we scrubbed

we bleached out all our past crimes

offering our fate a fair chance to unwind

and it did

but not the way that I had seen

so I walked cautiously down a path that lead me

to a valley surrounded by hills

so I climbed up one to see the walls you had built

so I wave

I wave back at you

you’re waving from the past but I can still see you

you’re waving from the past but you still get through