As the hazy light filtering through the trees began to part the fog with increasingly insistent fingers, I quickened the rhythm of my oars sliding nearly soundlessly through the water. In an attempt to control the urgency of my movement, my mission, before it overwhelmed and swallowed me whole I steered my gaze to the vines lazily caressing the glass smooth water. I drew in my breath in time to th...

The moonlight creeping through the patchy fog outlines the vague shape of a man and the crumbling gravestone he leans against. The bit of chin, cheek and forehead, stripes of marble skin and marble stone like a smudge on paper. Blending there shadow merges the bulk of nondescript fabric and broken rock etched with collapsed details. A hand reaches towards the moon to watch the play of light and sh...

I am always happiest

When there is color or dirt

On my hands,

Under my nails,

Swiped carelessly down my pant leg.

The visible remnants

Of creating

Of beginning...

Sometimes I am only on a boat and it rocks and bobs under me, sometimes I am on a lazy river and it's just a gentle sway, sometimes I AM the boat in an angry sea and everything inside you is flying around untethered and crashing into the walls of your body. (Fairly obvious comparisons, I know). But sometimes I am just the ripple of a footstep in a puddle that only means you have made a movement th...

I’ve created a monster

A soul that is afraid to feel too deeply

A brain that tells me of imaginary dangers

A body that forgets how to carry itself

And I’ve created it all to hold

In a fortress of protection

A love that only belittled and betrayed

Broke and ripped open healing wounds

With envious fingers

And half smiles

Dripping with false stories

Of my failures

I created it for you,

This monstrou...

Rage built unbidden into my throat, thick, acidic and sharp edged. It was a momentary knife in my throat until I remembered myself and tamped it back down as deep as I could reach into myself where it would be safe and unnoticed. Tomas cocked an eyebrow and pursed his lips, unsure whether he had seen the flash in my eyes or had imagined it. With a small shrug he dismissed the idea and turned away ...

Some days my body tells me

I am in a boat on the sea

Sometimes the current is gentle

Lulling, the smooth sway of a baby

In it’s mothers arms

Sometimes the ocean is angry

A raging current that

Pulls me until I can’t tell

Where the horizon is

And my hands clutch the rails

Seeking steady footing.

And on days where the sea

Is a mass of jumping crashing waves

Of anger and fear

My body tells me I am the...

Papa has been having mini heart attacks

since you left us so abruptly.

He says, "I don't know why, I don't have much stress."

I tell him, "Grief is nothing but stress."

I don't say that I think maybe grief isn't an all at once thing.

I think maybe it's more like a mirror.

The first shot created a shattering in its center,

like a fist through a wall,

the recognizable impact of too much emotion expl...

Your mark on me has been indelible

a garish entrance stamp to a club

that I left long ago.

I have scrubbed,

I have scraped,

I have painted over that mark,

With new experiences,

New lovers,

New versions of me.

But still that mark bleeds through,

A dark, ugly, unrepentant, jagged brand.

The one part of you

That is left in me.

But I have one question for you:

Is this what you meant,

What you hoped f...

I am saying goodbye

To the girl who led me here

Twisting at the end of her too tight leash

The girl who told me they were right

I am not enough

I am beyond repair

I am unworthy of it

I am saying goodbye

To that version of me

Who told me the electric bolts

She called truth

Were well meant

Misunderstood love letters

That would keep me safe

From danger, from the unknown

From rejection

From life

I a...