Content. 

Wrapped in folds

Of closure. 

You are

Nothing. 

You are

Forgettable. 

Delusions. 

Hate and fear 

Locked 

Hand in hand. 

Just a 

Chip behind

That none 

Can fill. 

You are

Your own

Worst enemy. 

Nothing comes close

to the skin she wears.

hatred knitted into

fibers of her bones.

stolen soul, and hidden,

deep, within evil dreams ...

no yesterday's lift her head.

blood washing down drains,

with secrets to keep,

and a gullet full of whiskey to 'mend' ...

How about,

Fuck you.

yes, hatred is real.

Hatred is felt.

Hatred is lived.

Hatred is betrayal.

Hatred kills and

sends unwanted souls to hell.

pain is only but a scar,

it scabs, it heals

and you move the fuck on.

Hatred is forever ...

It's what you hog tie

as you beat it

like a piñata,

laughing in the face of weakness,

squealing in fear,

giving a half assed attempt for forgiveness.

but the damage has already been done ...

Darkness has settled in around me.

I've worked myself into the ground. Dawn until beneath the moon.  The cicadas and the frogs of my youth cry out.  A break from the labor to light a smoke and rest my overworked legs. My ears embrace the sounds of the southern night.  Calling out to me like a prodigal friend.  They are different now without you.  I hear a different tune. Somber and low. A silent grief upon the hills.  A heavy sadness.  And I look up to the darkened windows. Where once there was such life and warmth. The house sits empty and unfinished.  A shadow of the past. Nights on the front porch swing and cracking walnuts on the drive.

Its almost as though you're still there.  Inside that facade of the house you built. From the life you gave us. I almost expected you to greet me at the door and usher me inside for breakfast and coffee stiff and black. 

But you never came. Even today its too hard to wrap the sordid mesh of my brain around your absence. 

A house without a lady. Fields without an owner. A family without a Matriarch.  A black sheep without a Grandmother's gentle hand filled with faith.  And I miss you always but even more so today than the day before. 

"There's a rebel inside us all. You've just put Prada and a tiara on yours to hide it"

Choke down the last bit of freedom.  Swallow the tears forming inside her eyes. Untangle your fingers entwined. 

Shoulders Squared. Back straight. Close your eyes and whisper the mantras of your childhood gone.  "Walk it off." "There's no crying. " Steal Magnolia and Stiff Upper Lip. You aren't feining strength for you now.  Fight the building crowd. Uniformed, pressed and clean. Shove it back but kiss her lips. Make sure you kiss her lips. A frightened pause. Are they trembling or are they cold? Scarred wrists from humanity's cuffs. Resigned to fate. Purge yourself of drink and drug or overdose and die face down inside misfortunes cell.

Blame yourself. Eat the guilt. Shut down the image of her face. Blockade your liver and your brain. Consume the Devil's drink of death. Wander drunk and unaware through the alleyways of time. Do not love do not feel.

Haunting days of backstreet rebellion in "high class" hotels. Fuck the world and all her faults and smile. We have each other she said. And I obliged with a smile.

Turn the Fifth of Jim up on a

Crowded downtown street on a friday night. Pass the pipe with ease as you pass the PD. Theres no fear here. It's reckless nights. Drunk and consumed with lust and love and forgiven pasts. It's doing ten shots on a strangers tab. As they watch us in undiluted lust. And laughing as the cabbie picks us up.

Its lipstick stains on a pressed Ralph Lauren button up and tit shots in board meeting. Two hours late and unapologetic because the rope burns on my wrist recalls your tongue lingering, teasingly, on my clit.

Fuck the world! It's you and me. Unashamed of my neatly tailored skirt and the Cliché Louboutins. Laughing at the contrast. You and your Nike Kicks and my Ala mater hoodie. Cutting lines of coke as you drive. I'm drunk and insecure and you're high and unnerved. You flirt too much you say. I shrugged it off. Until the tears came and I laughed at the innocence of your youth. It's me and you baby girl. And the honesty of my words hit home. So I drunkenly hold the wheel as you quickly do a line. It's off of a hard bound copy of A Tale of Two Cities and I pause to explain Carton's love and how you are the epitome of Lucy and you smile and say maybe you aren't Sydney in this equation. The question holds the room and I consider I'm not the hero here.

Kiss her lips and let her go. She's made her own bed. choices linger like tension in your skull. Strike out and shut her down. "Always"you say and she smiles through the hardened tears. Expression set. Hardened. "You and me. Me and you. " I laugh. Jim and Pam. Pam and Jim. "I'm your Carl Soloman babe." I nod to the growing crowd and the presentation. And I whisper to myself as I walk away Me and you. Jim and Pam. Every Allen needs a Carl. To face the Neon Supermarkets of the world.

a cat cleverly cleans herself amidst sirens, jets, chirps

an already clean mouse and keyboard keep clicking away

a dishwasher hums to the medley of a washer and dryer

while the carmotors of downtown Seattle play their parts

then

suddenly the sound of paperbag crumpling chimes in,

followed by further scratchings and rufflings and now

the cat slowly walks into the mouse and keyboard room

she cries for attention but

the clicks keep clicking away 

until

now

They say I'm mad. A mad princess locked away in a tower, unfit to rule. Perhaps I am, a little. 

I talk to myself, they say, about anything and nothing in particular. This is what they give as proof of my madness. I don't think that they're right of course, but when has a patient of delirium ever been taken seriously for her thoughts. When I talk to myself, it is out of loneliness. No one ever comes to visit my tower. Other times, I am talking to them. 

My walls have ears you see, in the form of my scheming political rivals. How else would my private conversations with myself have become known to half the kingdom? No one comes to visit my tower. I have only my walls for company.

Sometimes the walls talk back, asking the secrets of a kingdom I'll never see again. I'm mad of course, so I feed them nonsense. They often give up talking after that. 

My hair has been growing for years and years. Sometimes I ask the walls for scissors. They refuse. I sing them songs, I beg, I bribe, but my hair still goes. I resolve to punish the walls for listening in on me by telling them of every thought that crosses my head, being completely frank with how I think of them. I don't know what the people behind them look like, but I doubt they would be pleased to see the portraits I talk to in their place. Hideous, the lot of them.

I hear snoring from the walls, on occasion, and I smile. They grow bored easily listening to the drivel I pore down their ears. I tell them everything. 

When a young man climbs my hair and is shocked to find a remarkably sane princess pent up in this tower, I resolve to keep that one thing to myself. He might help me, after all, and I wouldn't want the wrong people knowing his description. After all, the walls have ears.

Witnessing your discord has

Broken my heart

But with calloused resilience

The endurance to protect you

Prevails with heavy empathy

I will baptize you in a bath of

My salty tears to sanitize the

Pain affecting and born from

Your tempestuous past

And with forgiveness and

Acceptance of your half empty flask

I will eat your cancerous mind

For an understanding of

Your plight to escape reality

And its condescending sky

Splitting with expectations of

Your prophetic words spoken

Abandoning your innocence and

Subjecting you to the darkness

Exhausting your soul for eternity

I watch you as your eyes light up in childish wonder.  I wish I could see the world through your eyes I say.  You look down in shame and for a moment my heart sinks and my tongue knots and suddenly the restaurant is too loud for my beating heart. 

Different worlds you frown and I reach for your hand.  It's smooth and pale and trembling.  I smile up at you and toss the wine list to the floor as "joe the waiter" returns.  "Bud Light please." He looks at me and grins. I've been here before and he knows who I am and precisely what I drink. "Two. Draft please. Frosty mug Joe. " he responds with a simple right away ma'am. And you smile at the difference in our age. I roll my eyes and laugh.

You didn't have... and you stop because I'm shaking my head. We have all the time in the world to discover your favorite wines or we can drink bud light until we die.

Shadows slumber as

The sun goes down

And I envy the peace

Surrounding me 

But my demons awaken

Resurrecting in darkness

Rising to attention and 

In a dialect of mania

Shout to me backwards

In written words and

Transcribed inscriptions

Interpreting meaning

Rushing from my 

Brain tissue unfolding from

The safety of sanity lost

Swaddling me in its depth 

And my theories bleed

Rectifying pain through 

Digestion and regurgitation 

Expressed and memorialized

In subliminal poetry spoken

By the voices in my head

Tonight I will drift off to the sound of you laughing quietly at my side. I'll forgive the transgressions and the faults and pray that you know the sincerity of my words. Drunkenly I will snuggle into your arms and the anger will subside and the doubt will disappear as I breathe you in.

Our souls connecting as we touch and I know that I there is no pain in the world that I cannot overcome for your laughter. There is no force in the world that can overcome the peace of tonight and my head nestled into your chest.

You are the better part of me.