Dahlia

I can see her in my mind's eye and feel her in my heart: strawberry kisses and laughter like sunshine.
A child that pierces through my every shadow as though they didn't even exist. It's a delicious sort of ache that is hard to define: a desire that deepens and spreads to the tips of my toes and grows deeper as the years go by. How I long to watch her grow and progress, to make her first mistakes, to learn when to brush off the little blunders. I want to tell her that she is beautiful, because I know that she will be! She will be the brightest star in my sky, the most colorful sunrise, the most vivid painting I could ever dream of. She is my future heartbeat; she will be the blood that sings through my veins.

The Wall

Peering through my lashes at those around me, hands clasped, silent. As lonely as they come, and about as adrift as one can get while surrounded by people who know you, but don't really know you. It's a two way street. But it wasn't always. I remember the days when the walls were first being imagined, when the mortar hadn't even been mixed yet.
I had no words then that could change the shape or nature of the roads we would later walk, purposefully and with a hint of resignation and defeat. I had no way of knowing what the height and breadth of this wall of disgust would eventually blossom into. But I felt the first creeping sensation of fear, and over time I learned what it is to be despised -- to be surrounded by those who vomit words that crawl into your brain, slither along your spine, and drop one by one, like stones, into the pit of your stomach. And then they take the resounding silence that their word-stones created, and they fill it with their walls.
After all this time, it would take a voice like thunder to pierce such a veil. Am I strong enough? Will a single planted seed be enough to spider-web through the mortar, to break it over time? Or must I rise up with all the anger of Poseidon, a thousand tsunamis at my back?

Bottom of the Well

I ran from the world in the same manner that I ran from myself. It was a frenzied thing: thoughts scattered; emotions torn, raw, bloodied; reasoning and motive nonexistent. To me, running was the only outcome. It was my way to escape when no other solutions were clear.
But what is it that I am doing now, down at the very bottom? I tumbled, plummeted straight down, until I hit rock-bottom with a crash that shattered every paradigm, every preconceived idea that I had about the reality of the world that I had run from. And, of course, myself.
I questioned. I tasted of myself and my surroundings with the taste buds of my soul, and I pondered. Answers, questions, unanswered questions, doubts, dreams, and mysteries pierced at my being with every breath drawn. I was a blank slate, unmolded clay, a canvas yet to be painted upon! The world was new, and I stumbled, unsure and new myself. To be overwhelmed at the magnitude of things is a little like waking up naked in a room full of people you don't know: you feel vulnerable, embarrassed, alarmed -- and either very, very large or very, very small.
The question that remains here is this: am I running back to where I came from, or further away? Or perhaps I am not running anymore at all, and am simply frozen, unable to move, unwilling to change; stagnant in my way of life, my way of thinking, my way of self; utterly immobile, broken, dead.

The Last Light

My body wakes
to loud voices
The world is dark
and my heart aches
in ways I no longer
understand
My lungs are bruised
I swallow smoke
and not air
Blind, I run
confused
I seek my one bright light
my last light
in my darkness

Mother

You are far from me
the pain is sharp
it cuts me
in the blue-dark of morning
I can't sleep
Where is my mother?
My soul mate
the one who sees
does she hear me now?
Barely lucid
I whisper half-forgotten lullabies
Let the winds take this
and bring it to your ear
Feel me

I am far from you
the pain is sharp
it cuts you
in the blue-dark of morning
You are restless
Where is your daughter?
Within your soul
I see you
I always hear you
Inside your dreams
I hear all of them:
your half-sung lullabies
Every wind brings you --
your voice into my ear
Always, I feel you

Hazy

I feel the sun rise
heart quicken
and I
open my eyes
Light filters
through the cracks
bleeds through
every hole
I haven't patched
Skin blisters
life's sunscreen
doesn't seem
to apply to me
Slip on shoes
for the beaten path
drumming out
the game
of who's whose
Playground make-believe
everyone a villain
fingers pointed
no reprieve
The light within
is not enough
the shadows
make haste
and draw in