I’ve never forgiven easy
I’ve always been push and pull 
A tide of anger 
Never soothed 

I can see the fear in his eyes 
Why is he scared of me?
All I have ever been
 to him is weak

I admit it feels good 
The fear he feels 
Maybe now 
He’ll get a taste of how I felt 

I lift his face up 
With shaking fingers 
I hope now he feels my storm 

I close my eyes and
see lightning behind them
My entire body is electric 
Made for pain
 
You touch me  
You bleed 
Just like I did

You coat my fingers
Black as tar 
Slick as oil

I bring you to my lips
You taste dark and bitter
I thought revenge would taste sweeter
Oh well

I 

don’t 

forgive

 I

 take 

I make you bleed 
Just like you did to me
And this time 
I won’t stop

 

Sometimes I can’t breathe

The fault in my lungs becomes apparent as I struggle for a single intake of breath

But in truth it is not my lungs that have failed me

Home is a strange thing 
It’s a feeling 
An idea 
A place 
A person
Home has always felt far away to me
More ideal than reality 
But right now 
Right now there are fireworks in the sky and people cheering far off
Right now I feel home 
I feel the idea 
The place 
The person 
I am home with bare feet on soft grass
I am home leaning against this sign 
“Town this way” and “Home here,” it says 
Well, that’s what it seems like right now 
And isn’t reality just what we make it out to be? 
Isn’t reality just the things we see through eyes that differ from everyone else’s?
Isn’t that the beauty of it? 
I don’t notice that I am crying until I taste the salt on my lips
It’s been too long since I’ve been home 
So I watch the fireworks go up in bursts of color and trail their way across the sky 
I hear the people cheering but I don’t envy their happiness
I am home.

There’s something there.

 Right under the surface. I can feel it. 

It hasn’t showed itself yet, at least, not fully. But I feel it, I feel it. 

Its uneasy rumbling leaves me shaken.

 Unable to pretend that my fears mean nothing.

 So I go small, I shut myself behind walls and doors that I pretend are thick enough to keep it out. 

But they’ve never been very good at keeping things out.

 Everyone tells me I need thicker walls, “you shouldn’t feel this much” they say “its not healthy”.

 I tell them I do have walls, but they only shake their heads and say “yes but you’ve put doors in them”,

 and they’re right. 

I’ve put doors in my walls. 

And not only doors. But ladders 

Ladders to lead people over my walls and doors to let them inside.

Because who am if I’m not bubbling just underneath the surface?

Loose fitting clothes. 

There's Lavender on the pages of my book 

its scent is silver 
sharp, sweet, beautiful 

It's childhood memories
It's the woods in summer 
It's wildflowers on the side of the road
bright yellows and pinks, faded purples. 

there's no bitter sting of tears 
It's the magical time in childhood
when both everything
and nothing is real 
When everything is still creativity
and imagination

I think that's why we write poetry.

To recapture a single moment in time

to have perception turned to
reality 
 
to appreciate happy little
moments and write them out
for the whole world to see 

To appreciate sunlight 
trickling in through the trees 
New discoveries in 
seemingly endless woods


When you are a child everything 
is new beginning and discovery 
you are, after all, a small person

The sun was shining and they lost their minds

Drops of sunlight on upturned faces

Laughter echoing through warm nights 

Wild eyes and grasping hands

Memories of a summer gone too soon

The sun was shining and they lost their minds

The children scream in the backyard as they chase each other round it 

Their laughter is high and sweet 

The parents sip wine and talk 

The teenagers find a shady spot to kiss or a sunny bench to lay on and let sunlight drift down and onto their skin

The romance of a suburban summer kept alive only in pictures 

Pictures traced and held by withered fingertips

Pictures shown to children and grandchildren 

“Look,” they say, “that’s the summer your grandparents met” 

“Isn’t it romantic?” they say

And it was

The summer where the sun was shining and they lost their minds