All I did was fall asleep

Woke up pregnant with swollen feet

World went on locks and chains

And in a room I writhed in pain

Blood plum dropped from the womb

My baby died and the toilet was it's tomb

He said he prayed for it to happen

And silently, I did too

Two weeks later, I fell to fever

Bedridden with tachycardia

Autonomic dysfunction

A chronic condition

Eight ER visits without explanation

Was I dying?

I laid for years staring at that one window, grateful it was there so I could count the neighbors shingles

Daughter watched me disappear and detached to keep up good grades in school

The future looked bleak because no one knew what to do

Husband cracked, and became addicted to the devil

Slept with my best friend in my house while I meditated to the angel

My sister betrayed me and he did too

I lost my body, job, the love of my life, and a knife was wedged between what was real, wrong, right?

His family disowned me for being sick

They blamed me for everything that didn't fit

And husband exited, real quick

Leaving me in a daze, with her rabbit named Glitch on my lap, to go live with my parents

All colors of life and love were swallowed by the day I woke up sick

And I grieved the loss of it all, howling madly into my blankets

For again, no explanation was there to comfort me

He slept around some more

And terrorized me any chance he could get

I blamed my illness

And wanted to die

But my child needed me to be there even if all I could be was a mom with ears, confined

All the good times flooded in

And it stung like the sting from a 100 bees

It still hasn't sunk in

Three years later, I am still advocating for my return to life

Trying to rise from the ashes that fell upon me in the middle of that night

And I think to myself....

I sought out spiritualists, priests, nuns, doctors from every specialty and no one could help me....but me

I was ridiculed by my own family with words like: bum, whore, you have nothing going on for you, cripple, loser, and many more

But this morning, I backed out of the driveway with the help of a nomadic friend, rising sun shining on my smile, to look at my daughter, and saw that hell has it's attributes

And I am going to break the illusion

That something so surreal and devastating

Could last forever.

What you are looking at is real, and not real. What you see is the human condition. Both good and bad. Ugly and beautiful. What you see is greed, rage, love, compassion, confusion, delusion, rude, weird and mysterious. This is the stage we dance on, fight on, sleep on, work on, play on, cheat on, laugh, cry, and reflect on. We write the parts and fight for the parts and dance to the parts willfully, unevitably, and with our mortatily. We are born to die first and foremost. And then we are born to share, entertain, inspire, help, hurt, teach, destroy, and conquer. This is our human condition. We are not perfect in our standards we made because we made them. But we are beautifully unapologetically flawed. At the roots of our trees we are all the same, because we all want the same thing. We all want to be loved. Even if some of us don't know what that means or how to accept it, you want it. How to get it is simple really. You just have to give it. I like to think life is a movie, it runs a good story and is over. Make it worthwhile to watch. And if you prefer to be a bird and just observe, there are people who like to birdwatch too. But please, stop. Stop thinking life is about materialism. Objects are not living things, they can't relate to you. But other people can. Life isn't about division either. Unity comes from accepting differences, like not having the same view point. Cherish people who have different perspectives. And respect those who have concrete beliefs even if they seem old-fashion. We aren't living a one dimensional existence. Life isn't about proving who knows the most facts either. Because what are facts? Science for example is always changing and evolving, so know one can really ever know anything. All science is is theories. And maybe life is one big theory. Most importantly, stop pretending other peoples experiences are your own. Live your life based off of your life, not from reading or watching someone elses. The world is much larger than what we can view from looking on a screen.

When the night bleeds in

Soaks up the sun

You can lay there in wonder of what has happened to the fun

Of dancing in beams and rain droplets of love

That glowed like a spark in the shimmers of a heart

From a person who once held it together

Just go for a walk-we just went for a walk

To talk and talk

And if the words that leave your lips aren’t kissing me goodnight

I’ll walk away with no regret into the solemnness of the night.

If I could look out my window

And see tangerines on trees

If I could look out my window 

And see people breathing for me

You could say I would be happy-momentarily

Stop bothering me

The constriction, the restriction

The infliction

My body has betrayed me

Brought about nightmares in stars

And blackholes and fire rain

And chains garnished over my lungs

Pulling tighter and tighter

Until I can’t talk anymore

I can’t cry

The air inside of me has no where to lie

It won’t go through the veins, the branches

My tree of life

I am destined to die, one last breath-is a troubled breath of mine.

Limbic System Numb

She looked out of her window into the fog that swept over the empty streets

As empty as her heart

She looked out of window into the bleak reality

Of love

The kind that loses itself in a glass labyrinth, swinging hammers

She has a wedding cake saturated in blood

And a dress drenched in tears

He was never really present, but only he was--just a long and lonesome glare

Disapproving of her greatness-to him she was worthless

She looked out of her window, except she saw nothing because nothing was there.

Mothers are apologizing for their mistakes

Through the lens of a camera

Guilt laced love-a guilt ridden wife

No time but all the time-here’s your TV dinner

The salty taste of neglect

Have to get away from it all-the chaos of forgiveness

Political correctness

Mass strictness

Paranoia beyond the normal dose

A schizoid is no longer alone

Everyone is an invited Peeping Tom

Parental witch hunts-parameters around the white picket fence

(Don’t let them dictate how to raise your children)

Documenting your life to debunk their suspicions

While confirming you are just as insecure as they are

(You are good person-don’t let them talk you out of it)

Phone in your hands, instead of their flesh

Please don’t feed the lions

Stop giving them what they want

They are all distant from the facets of reality

Not realizing life is full of prisms- a colorful and funny tragedy

Under the spell of blue light

Mothers apologizing through the lens of a camera-not through the eyes of their children

Sorry to the world-why do we care?

Better yet-why do we share our most intimate moments?

Is the world a stage?

And then it hurts us-

As if their words of judgement were weapons-

(The dictionary is the hitmans handbook).

But you love it. You crave the attention

A masochistic refund

You hand them your house keys and then cry victim

Do we honestly owe them ourselves-share our family albums

Mother Nature has no reservations to tear herself apart

How about the child who wants to see the color of his mom’s eyes?

To feel her touch

To have her face and not her back.

Apologize to them—

They don’t want to be distracted like you-but it’s their only choice

Nothing but a lonesome memory- a “knock-knock” without a “who’s there?”

Do not let strangers climb your family tree.

They were never welcomed-at least not to me………

Maybe I was the center of something, the eye of the hurricane

The world is your oyster after all

But it had grown too tight, a corset constricting my breathing

There was a void of pure emptiness which made me feel hollow

I rejected life to have any meaning-other than being a shallow well of beauty for a short time being

Pruning it religiously-I was its groundskeeper

And you were the selfish lemonade drinking owner

But what did that matter now?

Fleeting ships of happiness vanished in the mist-with you on board-as a war criminal

As I was left with the broken potential of the city-I could always crawl back to its hole-

to the grime-the crime-the gutters of wrappers, syringes, butts, bullet shells, and discarded Rosaries

Maybe the grass is greener somewhere else-maybe they think the same wherever that is

Longing for what they don’t have-and wasting what they do.

His idea of romance was madness-I always knew it was-

The maso/sado dichotomy of monogamy had grown stale.

The demands of social conformity came at a hefty price, more so for him than I.

But nevermind that now-my suspicions were confirmed after I found out the skeletons he kept denying were actually there in his closet-after the police raid.

I had to leave the jaded soils I once proudly marched against-my exit was blinking-and the shelf life of those bulbs were about to short-circuit.

Life Is Love Lied To

It was when the day had grown tired of seeing us

When the last line of sun sliced through the horizon

Casting a violet glow amongst the town

Similar to the light peeping from under my bedroom door

Where you stood still-before knocking on it, in hesitation

Would I accept you?

I did something I promised myself I wouldn’t

The urge to resist was not in my favor that Friday evening

Mother, you wanted me to tell you what I thought “love” was

I am ready now

It was drawn from out of me-like a molasses-thick splinter salve

The taste of Camel menthol cigarettes subdued me into telling

To when we were young and filled with pine ashes of ignorance

I miss the country so

But rent is cheaper in the city

I recall the smell of cinnamon leaves bake under the heat of those rhythmic neon flames-sweet and spicy

While observing the transcendental energy of the evergreens sway-how smooth and seductive they seemed to be

The creatures from the night looked on with voyeuristic eyes

As we drank from our cans of cheap Natural Ice-it was always dad’s go to

And then in this memory I can hear the thunder from the drums roll and rumble rise up from under the black steel doors leading down to your lair

Entranced by its masculine mystery-the heaviness of the bass bounced off every delicate part of me

This was the sound of fun, escapism, being in love and lost in a trance of victory-it had lured us into its castle of raw possibility-

So, our instincts pushed us along to the indoors of your confines

Jagged sticks of wax in an assortment of wicked colors flickered, dripped, and formed puddles at our feet

While heaps of laundry humped inside its shadowy machine

I can in this memory still feel the bite from whiskey that was on your breath-the one you took from Mark’s trunk

It was intoxicating to breathe in your rebellion

Resume.

I can see the dilation of your pupils when you watched me undress

And counted each golden speck that shimmered in your topaz eyes-there were SIX

Thank you for noticing

There was a curtain hiding your photo enlarger and high school paintings

There were purple and green lights spiraling around the basement poles

Decorating, illuminating

Our spirits into crosses

I wanted him to know how good it felt to be glazed with certainty, love kilned in veins

We were like a helix of flesh, morphing into one heart-soldered together by the union of our will

A Vanilla Fudge vinyl spun in circles under the tonearm

Haunting, crackling and smoked fruit melodies shrieked; moaned in defeat, descending with a deep

Sigh

As I lied there heaving by his side, soaked in pearls of sweat

And then, before anything else

Before the wheels could go around and around

Before I could stress about breaking my probation

We puffed out the white fog of dreams on his torn and tattered couch

Where all the paranoia’s flurried to the kingdom of banishment

I was far away from the soul eaters I associated with when I was with him

Safe inside his circle of salt

I remembered savoring the stew of mold and mildew from the splotchy pink insulation above our heads; relishing the stagnant smell of forgotten things

The last kiss of the evening, before the rising sun, ended with laughter that lasted for minutes (which were hours), at nothing, but everything

Mother, you asked me to tell you-and so I told

Time stood before us, but now it rests behind us

He was gold to me then, but now I am sold in

To the marriage of rusty rings

The menthol cigarette I had at my lips died of death

Peppermint leaves blowing away in the cool eastern winds

While the town quietly nodded off to sleep

My phone fell from my lap as I stood up and looked around for the stars-the ones he teased me about for thinking they were small enough to catch

And said to myself: I wish I would of never met him.

I like to know but I don’t like to learn

A washed up woman was a stupid girl

Dropped out of school at the tender age of 12

Threw all my dreams into a wishing well from hell

I like to know but I can’t listen

Microwave your books for quick tuition

There is so little time and so many people to impress

Why should I waste my time on how to dress

I’ve got pseudo-intelligence to sell

Piggy backing on all of your success

Is it the only way-the easiest

Mom and dad bought me pills for breakfast

The doctors fed me drugs with a minors consent

Mom and dad brought me a mattress

To sleep in the hexagon of their madness

Mom and dad caught me naked

Sleeping with any man who could take it-they never knew a heart was capable of faking it

I like to know but I don’t like to learn

Gone are the school days, welcome on the dog days

I am now an old maid preying for a big break

Dropped out of school at the tender age of 12

Threw all my dreams into a wishing well from hell.