my blood creeps through

a case wrapped in bark

that will shield the center,

until the crippled year

shudders cold and ticks its last,

and all the pain kept at bay

becomes a layer, telling tales

of the road I have walked.

if you could see inside,

you'd count rebirths

along a maze of petrified grins,

they're all I kept.

so when I fall, breach my heart

and let me warm you,

when change frosts your hands.

Set fire to my pen.

Ignite my words until

they're seared into 

your memory .When 

emotions smolder and 

paper turns to ash

sift remnants for lyrics, 

pull verse from remains

until inspiration sparks

and my pen is lit again.

I can't tell you how I feel.

I can't even describe the words I want to use.

I've held on to my feelings for so long.

My tears won't even flow normally.

People see me as a robot, a bearer of a hollow, empty soul.

I stand over the edge on the sheets of life, with a razor.

My pen. My quill of my inner thoughts.

One slit of my wrist and my pain becomes legible.

I continue to self express to heal.

People see it as self destruction; mutilating.

Until I hang my work up in the gallery in front of the world.

They see the pain and feelings I hide within.

One by one, they feel. Their tears fall with understanding.

I fall apart and rebuild myself.

Stronger and each sheet of my world becomes a revelation.

A testimony for all who dare to feel and dare to be one with themselves.

When you finish a piece that you poured your soul into, you then feel empty. All of your feelings have been transferred... and there is something missing. Yes, writing is something that I love to do. Yes, in some ways it makes me feel more complete. But to get that whole missing piece filled there has to be some action. 

I wrote this deep poem, but I don't know what to do with it. Just leave it in my computer to take hard drive space? Reading over it when those feelings reappear? It feels like you need to say something, but can't form the word. It feels like you rolled the dice, but can't find the next space. 

But then I found prose. A social media where the goal is not to see who can get the most likes on a selfie, but a feed where you can read someone else's true self, or share your own. Prose is not a holy grail. It is not a website deserving of blind worship. However it showed me the spaces, it showed me how to form the words I had to say. And that piece that was missing is less big than it was before.

G-d grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change.

The courage to change the things I can.

And the wisdom to know the difference.

AMEN!

It was something I heard from a very early age as I attended those meetings with my mother.

Not by choice of course and

Not because I had any addiction - then.

How could a child know what the future held?

At least the message was positive, healthy, uplifting even. Pointless really, in the end.

Sitting amongst those happy, lost and hopeful souls.

Ever searching for something to believe in.

Maybe they already found that thing to believe in. There in that meeting.

That den of anonymity.

Though each one secretly wanting to be known by someone, anyone, everyone.

Cheering each other on with claps and chips and birthdays and such.

Daily marathon phone calls.

Talking each other off of bridges or bottles or pills or donuts or pizza - whatever the temptation of choice.

It became an obsession for her

Or a "lifestyle" as they call it.

Traveling the country.

Telling her story of "success."

Shedding layers upon layers of clothes into a suitcase. Giant to small.

But was she? Successful I mean.

It seems cruel even to write that now

Possibly even a betrayal

Though names are not used to protect the innocent.

Because she was an innocent. If innocent means guilty.

All of that "success" only to be stolen too early by thick, black contemptuous cancerous cells.

Spreading and multiplying.

Faster than they could cut them out.

Kidney, Brain, Lymph, Lung

All over.

There was no stopping it's wrath.

But I am not innocent.

I have faked my whole life to make you happy.

To keep you here longer.

But it didn't work anyway.

The one thing I do know is that in spite of it all you loved me more than life itself.

As I love my children today. I know how deep you loved.

You just couldn't help the rest.

Why do I look at this ancient history now? Am I hoping for insight, for closure, for peace, for change?

A catalyst perhaps?

Is it an exercise in futility or one in self -exploration?

Why I am the way I am.

Why I have become what I became.

Can I love?

Can I be happy?

Can I be healthy?

Do I even care?

When you were so sad and fragile, you used to speak of suicide. It's true. I remember wondering why you would tell a child such things.

Begging you not to tell your child such things.

Breaking my heart.

But you were so broken.

It's an option I've never considered.

Wait - that's another lie I've told.

I did consider it then. Way back then.

Not now-never now.

Then, your words only made me go deeper and deeper into myself.

Protecting my spirit from the dangerous spread.

I wrote then to escape. Now I write to feel.

Can I still feel? Will I ever truly feel?

Or am I destined to be locked inside this thick fortress of flesh until death?

Numb, numb keep it all in. That's what I knew - what I know.

Swallow those feelings.

Stuff them down my throat till I gag.

Till the devils pull and pinch them out with their oozy hot claws.

Scratching my insides raw.

Until it all ceases - ah a blessing.

Or a curse.

I do fear death- greatly.

A death like yours most certainly.

The kind that runs in our family.

Early, painful robbing the survivors of their most beloved.

Those beautiful dark big breasted genes contain a poison so deadly - like Zyklon B

There's no escape.

Is that what awaits me?

Is that my fate?

It was so hard to watch you suffer in life

and likewise in death

as your mom before you.

You tried to make the flesh soup - but to no avail. The outcome unchanged.

I know I haven't been the same since.

Nor will I ever be again.

Sleep eludes the writing mind

words flow

more smoothly than on any keyboard

A toss and turn 

next paragraph

but the first one has already gone the way of dreams

Lay her down to rest

In the stars

Falling

Into eternity’s fitful sleep

Eyes a flicker

In the light of time

Her skin chalky

With the stars

The dust

The bits and pieces that have

Fallen

Into place

I do my best writing when I'm alone. 

The cacophony of city sounds

enshrouding me like a tomb. 

I can hear the lives of others here, 

Though I don't even breath. 

I am drowned in discourses.

Life has a throb in this place, 

A thudding pulse of life

And endless possibility. 

But I slumber inside quietly. 

A sleeping giant

With no castle to call home. 

The razor wire of my misconceptions

Folds nicely into two. 

This fated endeavor

Was doomed from the beginning. 

But there is laughter, 

And sometimes tears

Inside this bird-caged heaven.

Repose can still be sweet, 

Though often daunting

In its ravenous piercing dart. 

So I cling to what I know

And discard old truths gone bad. 

Tomorrow is another day

To paint the story.  

Blood shot eyes

Pale white skin

She loves those highs

She's at it again

Stopped blood flow

Tied off wrist

The pain will go

She clenches her fist

Needle in hand

Heroin inside

Misunderstand

The times she had lied

Skin is broken

Plunger pushed down

Words unspoken

Lips in a frown

Help is needed

But not received

She feels seceded

That pain relieved

Passing of time

Mind in a fog

This one crime

Causing a bog

Heart growing fast

Body convulsion

Life surpassed

By liquid expulsion

Words left unsaid

Hid were her actions

And now she lay dead

What a fatal reaction