I took a trip –

a long-awaited journey trespassing in my individual mind.

Tapping into an awareness I hadn’t intended to find.

Bare vulnerability

so strangely comfortable

frolicking with fears and risks.

I am a daydreamer,

a traveler -

curiosity consumes me well beyond the borderline of insanity.

Passions ignited.

An intensity that breaks my grip.

Obsessive. Compulsive.

The poison in my genes doesn’t hinder the adventurous side of me.

Illusions. Delusions.

Perhaps even vivid illustrations.

Sigh. This is my reality –

so, stop asking me ridiculous questions. Stop coming to your own conclusions.

Listen.

Like a puzzle,

every possibility, or mystery, or conspiracy that’s ever been near to my ear,

starts to reveal patterns. Enticing me with bright, neon answers -

as if each were the only constellation to shine within a dark, deserted, galaxy highway.

But, my listening friend,

I will run far and wide,

and dig the deepest of holes to hide in,

if only to keep safe the freewill of my inquisitive and open nature.

I will always chase the perfume of imagination’s tail

as if it were the long-lost lover

who escaped my romantic daydreams.

I haven’t the simplicity,

nor ignorance,

to dull that side of me.

Mismatched maniacs holding tight

to their underground Pontiacs.

Whoa! Hey!

Settle down coming around this way!

The brides are unhinged, and their mothers have insomniac eyes.

Pull the radio antenna out,

and shift it to the left, then to the left again. There, now the static’s just right.

Can you hear the forgotten echoes coming through?

Charging at my senses like a boomerang bullet? Take cover!

Those whiskers were twitchin’ –

the darkness of a silent January were the pupils that first tainted an innocence.

What an ugly scar for a small girl to carry around.

A burden that only became heavier with time.

Sadly, no matter where she ran,

she always came face-to-face with those greedy, arrogant Giants –

every invitation so sweet and promising,

but the same devil’s game underneath each different mask.

There can be no balance between empathy and narcissism.

When you tear down the walls

that blind you from seeing your true self fully,

you’ll have made the first brave tick

in your soul stretching from beyond its comfortable classroom.

And therein comes the awakening –

an itching mental freedom.

And never could you want anything more.

I turned the corner,

but how quickly my shadow tucked itself between the sidewalk cracks.

Another humiliating stone to place inside my heavy bag of shame.

I've wandered,

lonely, wayward, hungry -

but every reality ends with the same rejection of me.

Dreamland had arrogantly evicted me -

and I've been pleading my case ever since. (I'd like to appeal!)

Nightmares have a restraining order against me, too.

I was tired and cold and there was nowhere to hide that evening!

I panicked! Forgive my intrusion!

And all those pretty, twinkling stars up there,

well, they like to drop giant, cosmic spitballs down onto my hopeful gaze of them.

Was it rude to wish upon them?

I never meant offense to anyone.

I am just trying to find my place somewhere.

Have me! Own me!!

Bury me tenderly in your womb, Mommy dearest. Let me hear

for myself

if your heart truly holds a beat for me.

I need some comfort right now. A gentleness only a mother could give,

though I know,

I just need to suck it up, and push it all out of my mind

and just deal with things, right?

Because that’s just the way life goes, correct?

And no one is ever going to care so neither should I.

I don’t think you honestly believe the lopsided advice you give me.

I think that life beat you down so hard

that you just gave up.

You lost hope. You turned down your lamp to faith.

But I see your pain, Mother.

I see a system that had let you down as well.

Generational toxins,

recycling themselves, yet, with each revival,

it all becomes more venomous and unnerving than even our ancestors

could have imagined

would spring from under their aprons and belts.

I understand you were mistreated. Misunderstood. Misused.

There was never anyone in your corner rooting for you either.

No one to support you

or to encourage you to dream and wish on stars.

I understand the difficulty in breaking habits induced from trauma.

And though I know your advice is more to

exonerate yourself from taking any responsibility for your own mistakes,

I still sloppily forgive you.

My footsteps in early life may have been behind your unstable wavering,

but my seasoned voice,

my voice will speak loud enough that even the frightened child hurting inside of you

will smile, too, Mother.

This is for every little girl who was seen but not heard.

3, 2, 1….. Clang! Clang!

And just look at those feisty aphids on the underside of the Giant Hickory bark!

Watch the crowd of onlookers as their mouths drop during this fiasco!

Oh ho ho!

This speed-eating contest is by far

an all-out slob-fest!

And these wee, tiny pests are suckling like little madmen

for the sweet, sticky sap

that drips on the nether halves of these bark loaves,

to see who can achieve first place

for expanding their perky, pear-shaped bellies to that of a prickly-pineapple figure!

30 seconds left!

Here we go now on to the final ticks of the clock!

And for all of us gathered here at Bluefern Forest to encourage the festivities,

we have come to find ourselves

drenched in the saliva-goo that escapes the lips within this hungry chow-down!

Blah! (Who would’ve thought to bring an umbrella?!)

5 seconds to go!

And 3, 2, 1! Cling! Cling!

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Please, stand up, young, yellow fellow!

Ladies and gentlemen, your new champion of speed-bark-eating in the Aphid category:

Alphonse Beech!

Let this be an honor to you, young speckle,

for rightly did you entertain the eager audience today!

He was a giant!

A psychotic fisherman soaring in his traditions,

though,

still upsetting the stream to a chilly April’s opening trout season.

If only I hadn’t stopped earlier to pick the blister from my finger

that I scraped upon a piece of driftwood in my clumsy stumble,

I might never have seen him from across the causeway.

He was some sort of witchy street performer by face,

but,

when my back was turned to swat that pesky wasp annoying me,

he shot at me with his teeny, poison cupid-darts!

The festering holes that linger within my heart were then infected with

his venom,

and how it turned my beating heart cold!

And I was struck paralyzed! Hypnotized,

though I could not speak my pleading thoughts about this.

As if my limbs were robotic,

I had sunk like a ditsy, cartoon accordion under his leash.

Oh, this is not the love for me!

A vice-like chokehold from an ugly one-eyed brute!

And he was just so devout in his adoration of me! It was creepy!

A grotesque rock boring a gigantic, misshapen nose,

that can only take measure by

the steps of his overgrown toes.

If only I could catapult those fabled stones to reach this sort of Cyclops!

What noise he made! What a jittering clatter!

And then,

there was an ominous thunder that rightfully erupted under the dirt floor

after his seemingly drawn-out five-second temper-tantrum.

All because I would not say his name. I will take his collar!

But it was what happened next that I took to my diary about! Unbelievable!

A fissure smirked cleverly as it sprawled itself lazily about Earth’s tissue,

exposing itself boldly,

with no respect or consideration for the young!

And, oh, how they all screamed! A societal stampede!

In any case,

it was quite disconcerting to watch the world eat itself up,

and then repulsively purge whatever it could into some unknown recess of a distant

alternate reality.

A crystallizing process capsulating a history for the books

She didn’t see the off-road avenue

to the left side of

the sewage plant across the road from the dilapidated garage.

It was all but lined in gold for her,

and it shined like the waking rays of morning’s first gentle sunbeams.

But the poor thing was tired,

and each of her peers took a gouge at her eyes, splintering her vision with their criticism.

She never wanted to be centerstage, I tell you!

She only wanted to be a friend to a stranger.

A falling star to grace hope in a misguided world.

And look how they circle around her and spit!

Steering her from the lighted path that is her fate,

and backing her into that dark well that harbors her every dreaded fear.

She falls.

An endless pitfall, but not without the title of a nightmare come alive.

The saliva-stained walls that capture her silent screams

suffocate her

and scald her flesh.

She is only a delusion inside her own madness.

The artificial taste of your pollutants parachutes cheekily

underneath the sweat bead

of an over-sweetened venom-leaf tucked inside

that colander-like charm.

Just so steadily it sways, and how shiny its metallic hue shivers,

like a royal tea-infuser plucked right from a Medieval breakfast table.

And just like that little, silver holder doing its duty,

slowly your toxins drip down into my dollhouse teacup

filled with an afternoon’s delight.

Then,

how mesmerizing my mania is born under the swoosh-swoosh

stirring motion

of that tiny tea-leaf pendulant

as it tick-tocks like an antique stopwatch.

Cuckoo! Achoo! It’s Noon!

A hollow timber growing as a throbbing belly ache

from under the dark cupboard space inside the pantry of Grandma’s

gathering kitchen.

It’s a bit icy behind these bare and empty walls you left me in,

and I just kind of really

want to go numb in the bite of this frigid silence here.

Can there be a tepid softness to this poisoning of me?

Wrapped up in lambskin carpet and twisted ingeniously.

Ouch. The taping of me.

Thrown about like an anchor in the deadened eye of a Turquoise Sea.