silence is a library filled with books

books as blank as soulless eyes.

silence is a library by some other name

the librarian raises his finger as he looks

if no one can speak, then nobody lies

but pursuit of truth in quiet is a losing game.

silence is fingers, clamping down

on crying babies' mouths and a teenager's frown.

silence is pain of the most acute kind

a deep, mournful stench like a rotten rind.

silence is a library, encouraging you to be still.

silence is only oppression, a line in a fire drill.

silence, you're talking too loud

words scream off the paper,

and that's not allowed.

silence, your head is not right

you'd be better off

if you were unable to write.

hands chopped off at the limb and mouth sewn shut

silence is a library but there are no books,

only knives waiting to cut.

only bindings of flesh and bone,

waiting for another word

to claim as their own.

i was never

a christian.

my family

never went to church

unless my grandma

was visiting.

i never had to

bite down on

the straw that fed me

poisoned lies

filled with self hate and

entitlement.

but i felt it.

when my grandma visited,

i could feel something wrong

with the air

or maybe it's just that

the act of

dressing up nicely and

talking to

strangers

who couldn't accept me.

once i had a friend

tell me i was going to hell.

i had other friends tell me

that i could be whatever i wanted

just don't

talk about it.

i brushed them off,

knowing that

religion was made

to control

grieving people

afraid of their own

mortality.

death never scared me,

even before i started

flirting with it.

i never knew the brutality

of coming out to a christian family

because my family was never really

christian.

i never had to decide

between god and my life.

i never had to decide

between heaven and hell

because i had never been brainwashed

into believing in all-or-nothing.

i never had to reevaluate my life.

i never had to force myself onto a new path.

i never had to change

because i was raised to believe in evolution.

i never had to argue with the science teacher about

the age of the universe.

i never had to rethink

because i was taught to think.

she collected bits and bobs;

turned a discarded dream

into a story,

turned a lost screw

into a quest,

created clothing

from fabric,

healing from broken bottles.

she gave the inanimate

a life

because she had none

to claim as her own.

she wandered the streets

picking up odds and ends

head bobbing to some

inaudible melody,

stifled memories,

maybe hoping

that she'd fade away,

maybe hoping that

she'd give these lost objects purpose,

or maybe

hoping that one day,

she'd find something

to give her purpose.

sallow cheeks and

hollow bones

her skin was made of darkness

and her heart was made of stone.

her clothing sewn from werewolf furs

hair dyed with demon blood.

on halloween

she was the hollow queen

her voice

as wispy as the flesh of ghosts

eyes glowing

like a full moon at midnight

she was the hollow queen

hallowed by the ghosts and fiends.

she was the hallow queen

created from our darkest dreams.

nightmares personified, come to life.

she walks the streets on halloween night

of costumes and bones and tasty drinks

of colors of leaves evolving in sync.

of death and life in equal balance

some crops are growing, others vanish.

the season of tripping and scraping your knees

as you scramble for stranger's candies.

dressing up or dressing down

ghosts and goblins dancing with demons

blending in with humans for a night of fun

before they have to return

for another year.

when seasonal drinks start pouring

in clementine colors,

and coffee starts

painting your day.

when hot chocolate is only

a few steps away.

hush little baby, don't say a word

your flesh will be eaten by a hungry bird.

and if that hungry bird won't eat

i will clean your bones with bleach.

and if those bones still aren't clean

i'll scrub at them until they're thin and lean

and if they still smell foul and rank

i'll dip them in mom's perfume

and if she won't let me take her scent,

i'll hang you up even before your smell is spent.

and if you fall down from my tree,

i'll find another baby next halloween.

i was cast aside

a broken fishing rod that never

cast its line

forever a bundle

of tangled string and metal.

i could never catch a fish.

i was broken and damaged

prepared to fall apart

good for nothing else

other than to play my part;

doomed from the start.

my mind was a marriage

of dysfunctional mirages,

flickering images of happiness

that left too soon

and were never real.

i could never feel the way they did.

cast out,

a fishing line tossed to the wind

only to blow away like an untethered kite

and find a home in the trees

torn apart by cruel branches.

cast out,

a stowaway on a stolen ship

waiting to crash

a castaway

on the island of my thoughts.

cast out

like a cast iron stove,

no longer efficient enough

for hungry mouths and greedy bodies.

not safe enough to protect sensitive fingers.

it's only a matter of time until i'll fail you.