Posted on No Comments on bankrupt

bankrupt

(oct. 2013)

Part of me longs for richness

With wealth comes the freedom

To make your home in whatever place you like.

Tell me that true wealth comes from loving

And I will tell you that love goes far

But cannot feed empty bellies

You cannot pay bills on love alone

And too much of this life comes with a price.

Tell me I cannot eat money

But tell me what I can eat without it.

Tell me that true wealth comes from the people you hold in you heart

And I will tell you that there are people

Who want

-more than all these poor friends they seem to have-

To just stop feeling so worthless for a little while

Tell me again how your parents seemed completely certain

That sacrificing everything so their children could sample a bit of the lower middle class life was the right decision

Try telling them there is more to life than money

Tell me to rid myself of these ties to money

And I will tell you that you cannot unlearn generations of feeling that the money you earn is your only worth in one lifetime

And I still haven’t learned to stretch poverty into a life lesson.

Posted on No Comments on re: self care

re: self care

I am learning mantras

And rubbing them

Like oils into my skin

Mine is a good body

And the world,

Wondrous as it is,

Is made more so

When I am in it

These are my balms.

Let them be salves

For the cracks in my soul.

Posted on No Comments on To The Stump In my Garden

To The Stump In my Garden

Day 7- Take a walk until you find a
tree you identify with, then write a poem using the tree as a metaphor
for yourself or your life.

To the stump in my garden that has begun to sprout

Mere days after its branches have been shorn:
Teach me whatever lessons you have learned

How to give thanks for your still solid roots

And how to recalibrate the hardened fibres of your bark

And make life once more.

Posted on No Comments on Gossip

Gossip

for D.

With the righteousness of youth
I convinced myself
That sharing whispers
-of your weight
-of your diets
was made nobler by the secrets
(my secrets)
you’d spilled like ink.
Indelible,
Unforgettable,
Unforgivable.
But ink fades.
Posted on 1 Comment on Chennette

Chennette

I was born like a chennette:
My green mother-
sliced open down the middle,
And me- squeezed out.
 Pink, sticky, sour.
Posted on 1 Comment on Ethos

Ethos

I always stay too late.
I am always the last to leave,
The one left to taste the soured wine
Passed in frantic effort
To regain the spirit,
Get burnt by the embers
Of hysterical bodies
Trying to rekindle the longspent fire.
Last to leave
And first to come off that high
Brought on by either ethers or ethos
First to sniff the stale smiles that linger
in the air
Long after the fleeting fancy
That brought them has left.
I always leave too late,
And as I totter home,
I am always emptier in the dying hours
Drained from the effort of trying to live.
Posted on No Comments on Mania

Mania

I go like a clockwork toy wound too tight
Frantic and eager but sporadic and hysterical
And I love and I love
And I give and I give
Until like like a well loved toy
My skin is worn thin
And my entrails spill out from the seams.
And the pounding ratatatat tattoo
of my heart whipped into frenzy
is calmed by the panicked coda
of my hyperventilations.
We all have our lows.

Posted on No Comments on No Rest For the Wicked

No Rest For the Wicked

Inspiration rides the dregs of a late-night caffeine high,
brain bubbles like a percolator on speed,
firing synapses are the prodding pokers that keep me awake,
inciting me to violent turns of phrases,
penpoint picks at an itch long left unscratched.

They say to hide one’s light under the bushel is a sin,
and this must be my punishment.
No rest for the wicked.