The domestication of the wolf into dogs is 
comparable to the snatching of virulent 
plants to make them minimalistic million-dollar 
loft decor. Please, for the love of God, indulgent 

parents of irresponsible whiny four-year-olds, 
let the youthful cactus live long enough to watch the 
polluted sunrise behind the cramped grey cityscape; 
and donate it to the plant mom living on ends meat.

She will make a welcomed rural home out of flower
boxes dangling from chipping window sills. She will
push the Belladonna and Brugmansia aside 
in their painted (with vivacious floral mosaics)

Terracotta pots so the foggy sunlight may
shower the succulent's waxy leaves and adapt
to the suffocating air, all thanks to the smog of
industrial buildings, secondhand cigarette smoke,

and remnants of the human bonfire four streets down
that has been lingering closer to her broken 

"I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world" - "When Death Comes", Mary Oliver

My soul is still an empty basket in which I 
still need to fill with the experiences in life I don’t
know of yet, but I am willing to want 
more than anything and anyone else to
see what happens when I reach it, the end.
I wonder which path I will travel on, perhaps up
or perhaps down, it doesn’t matter. Beyond this existence is simply
something I will never understand until having
the liberty, the pleasure of knowing I have visited
the end of our beautiful home. I am relieved with this
being my last and longest breath in this world.

My life is not nearly as poetic
as the nature of humanity.
However, if you weave the right words together,
anything can become poetry.

The life cycle represents how life is round
just as Keats once said.
The forest cycles through seasons like emotions
just as Mary Oliver once said.

My hair is like fire, unruly and flowing, feeding off the sun.
My shoes are practically tarnished from miles of steps in the wrong size.
My room is cluttered in an organized way, mimicking my thoughts.
My soul is content knowing it will return to the earth someday. 


 

Gather around rock circles in an unruly display.
Tussle with the cattails until the sky explodes with snowflakes.
Poke at the cryptic critters living beneath the sand of the lakes.

Guide the fish away from casted lines, just to mess
with the absent-minded humans in their floating machines.
Mimic the tree’s whistles when no wind blows through their leaves.

Splash with the mallards in the ponds of backwood cottages.
Assist in letting the dandelions sprout stars in backyards.
Protect each other in the night and wait until the day restarts.

We are like taxidermy butterflies 
placed forcibly, neatly, in an oak display case 
so we may be admired for our unique anatomy
rather than living free in fields of milkweed and daisy.

We are only useful if we are dead or act like it.
Our only purpose is to sit still and be silent.
Watch as people walk past our casket and mourn:
mourn the beauty we had in life and carry in death,
mourn the waste of oxygen we took with each breath.

They will think we died naturally in a garden of light,
but the truth is that we did not have much of a choice.
To be dead in a sanctuary surrounded by family is better
than to live in a cruel world as alone and bitter.

Ever since I was a child I was reminded it was not my fault. 
I was reminded it was not my fault and I would never believe it.

When my mother and father were set at each other throats
words pressed to each other's skin like knives, or really like
any cutlery that was closest to their shaking hands, 
pressing harder with each threat and hoping maybe one
might pierce the other first because neither wants to 
be the first to apologize for bleeding to the other.
My grandmother said it was not my fault that they fight.

When my mother finally left the house but took nothing
with her, the house still felt empty without her body.
Constantly I tried to replace it with my own: sitting in
her chair at the counter, laying on the right side of the
bed where she laid with my father, cooking breakfast
or making the bed or putting the dishes away.
The space molded awkwardly to my tiny body but 

          One
Does a willow still weep just as loudly
even when it has no leaves to cry with
in the baneful dead of winter?

          Two
Are there still more colorful flowers
on gravestones marked with names
than on the ones who bear no titles?

          Three
Why did you choose to stay and lay claim 
on forsaken land that confines your bodies
to the ground, the center of our mother?

Is it because you know you would yearn
for the frosty breeze of an autumn morning 
briskly stroking your rosied cheeks?

Or that you would long for the silence 
that winter reluctantly brings each season
with a peppermint breath and chiseled teeth?

Maybe it was the blooming of springs
vibrant colors and intense scents, chilly days
that leaves you dreaming of warmer ones. 

I believe it’s the hugged warmth of summer 
that holds you like a newborn babe 

She conjures the list of groceries for her weekly run 
to the local shop that is spelled with an extra “pe”--
and for whatever ancient reason, it is spelled like that --
the rectangular sheet of lined paper only says the word
Pomegranate.

She knows she needs more than that to survive, however, her
mind deceives her and leads her astray to the aisles
with bountiful fruits, some melons, some citrus, and some berries.
She plucks the richly red fruit from its table, the label titled
Pomegranate.

She leaves with the only one and cares for it like her kin;
bathing the fruit in lukewarm water, soaping off the dirt ever so
delicately and tenderly, like it is her own body, humming songs
to calm it as it is prepared for a harsh sacrifice, the “gracing” of the
Pomegranate.

She cries like when cutting onions, except she has a reason

I never understood certain phrases as a girl.
“She wears her heart on her sleeve,” they told my father
And he would agree and I would play smart 
And I would agree despite my own obliviousness.

I kept my heart right where it was placed for me.
“Keep her close before she grows further from you,” they told my father
And he would torch me at his side and I would not stray
And I would become comfortable with the burn in my chest.

I never steered too far from the house.
“Watch over her like a hawk before she becomes a meal,” they told my father
And he would stare from the open side and I would not share his eyes
And I would writhe in my pillowy cell with no window to dream from.

I realized I was not a meal but a sacrifice. 
“She must stay pure so she must not let the world dirty her,” they told my father
And he would keep me clean like a doll and I would obey like a sheep

     I. 
we are The abandoned forget-me-nots.
wide-eyed but in doubles, surrounded by others
without mothers or fathers alike. 
huddled together around a candle like the rats
that live under the floorboards and in the walls.
lunging for crumbs, regular beatings for reasons
apparent as air, Orphan annie is only a fairytale. 
we are the abandoned forget-me-nots. 

     II. 
we are the forgotten children. 
middle-class, close To poverty never get a chance
to make the news. no one wants to see 
dirty children in a crowded Home when there is a 
high-class child in an Empty castle. 
we are at the hands and feet of care-takers,
he has a paid man to wait at his hand and foot. 
we are the forgotten children. 

     III. 
we are the uprising. 
the children destined for coffins have risen
from the dead and have matured into anger.