Love: Return to Sender

Love is a grown-up disease
It gets into my system
And I can't fight it off,
Though I try.

Love is a sickness
Eats at my stomach lining
And kicks sanity around in my brain.

I burn from the inside,
I burn for you.

I send you pieces of myself
But they're returned to sender
Or never acknowledged at all.

There must be too much
In this package deal
And the sepia-toned mistakes,
The grief that tastes like defeat,
It all becomes a bitterness
Buried in my heart.

Free

written July 28, 2010

There's so much I want to say, but don't.
Too much emotion hanging by a phrase.
The silence is all you hear,
But I have all these voices in my head.
Voices that keep me from being me.
They hinder and protect,
Until I feel fragmented instead of free.

Fireflies

Written July 16, 2010

A handful of fireflies
Light up the blood in my hands--
A red glow under my skin

A few more fly around my head as though
Anxiously pacing
Waiting for the birthing to be done

But it's never done.

As the lights in my hand fly out
The red pulse of life under
My skin fades away...

If you can't see it, is it still there?

Fireflies dance in my daydreams until
I feel I've made no progress where you're concerned

Birthing hurts.

Succor for the Beast

Wishing for a way to stop the press of lonliness,
Or the anxiety in my every breath...

I spread bitter gifts on the ground and they soak into the earth,
Like water for the seed.

And then the gift of wine--succor for the Beast.

I bartered my life away for a handful of pills.

Now I worry that I'm someone else,
Someone I could be but don't recognize.

But she is me, a part of me
I'll always be--Like a hole born to a heart.

Working toward something,
Pretending I'm a part of my own future--
It feels strange.

Foreign on my tongue,
As my voice often sounds to my ears
When I laugh with you.

Vaca in a Hospital

Written April 13, 2010

I thought I was past all this
That I had somehow evolved
But I'm suddenly back where I started from
And no one has given me a reason to stay,
Least of all me.

Wanting to die, to me, is like
Wanting air when drowning.
I'm drowning in a sea of dry land
And I can't stop the great gasps of air

It's changed, this wish to die, evolved.
But there are still times I don't trust it.

All my hurts are multi-colored
Color-coded
Always organized in my mind
Because organization is procrastination.

Self-harm of the worst kind--
The worst damage done--
Is not with a blade.

Can you handle me at my worst?
So few can.

I want a way to wash away the pain
A sea salt bath in an ocean of tears.
Yours, mine, all the tears of the world
Might just make us clean.

Homesick

I'm feeling a little homesick, for a place I've never been.
Feeling like I might fit in if I only knew where to look.
But these words I speak and glances I give away,
They belie the heart that beats beneath.

If you think I'm well-adjusted, could you please tell me why?
I feel stretched thin, like lace through the arc of time.
I'm told that I'm doing well, I tell myself this too,
But underneath all the words, is there any truth?

I miss the me that could laugh so free,
Like nothing was wrong in the world.
Is laughter its own selfishness?

If so, I want to be selfish.

Do you fit with me?
In a word, yes.
But is there any truth to this?

Find a place to make-believe that you fit in,
It's the closest you'll ever get.
And if you feel a little homesick, for a place you've never been?
Maybe it's time to make-believe a little harder.

Lost

Written Feb. 25, 2010

Honeyed lies and sugary sweet words--
They drip from your tongue like
Chinese water torture.

Maybe it's better this way
Without love raging inside me
What sense does sense make to a broken heart?

I want a beauty in my life that doesn't revolve around the past
Past loves lost.

I want a beauty in my life
That I can create meaning out of.
I want a way to craft myself
So that I'm someone I'd like to be.

But this creation is missing some parts.
There are holes in me.

Holes left by you, holes left by me.

I wish there was a way to replace you...
Even if it's only with words.
But those words leave me when I need them most,
Just like you.

So I need some beauty in my life, some laughter,
A sense that doesn't have to make sense to this broken heart.