don't apologize for being human.

you put me in a
cage and expect me
to sing
yet i fly free and
you are jealous
only the wind hears me



you can't have me

plow, burrow, mine the doldrums

dig your heels deep into
the soil of your heart
and although your shins bruise,
tighten your ankles in the mud

plant your seeds and
speak gently
sleep gently
stirring only to
rouse the the buds to grow

make your home in the
roots--smelt of
earth and rust
absorb the sky through
storms and understand:
this is how you sprout

search the pockets of
the ground and
extract the gold
amidst the coal and ash and
dying green, life waits
grace gleams

sadness is heavy because it
sits on your heart like a
hungry crow

sadness is heavy because it
weighs on your spirits like a
wet cloth damp with blood

sadness is heavy because it
strains the strength of
your light

sadness is heavy because it
bends then breaks the
being of your soul

sadness is a burden too dense to bear

"are you ok" is a
pointless question because
the answer will always be
"no"

maybe i must
make peace with
dysfunction

i don't have a death wish, but
sometimes i drive too close to
the edge of the road

i don't have a death wish, but
sometimes i let go of the wheel,
set my course towards the cliff

i don't have a death wish, but
sometimes i peer a little too long
over hand rails

i don't have a death wish, but
sometimes i feel the height of
a building, imagine the fall

i don't have a death wish, but
sometimes i wonder what it's like to
inhale carbon monoxide

i envy victims and car crashes
i crave bloody lips and smashed metal bits
i want to feel pieces of glass
splinter against my skin
i want concrete sidewalks to
meet me sideways and broken
i want the merciless punches of
muggers and thieves

heart attack and headache
fractured skull and black eye
--sometimes i wish that was me.

maybe i do have a death wish
but then
still i am alive



maybe i don't really want to die

listen for the
voice inside your ribs
it twists and shouts and
struggles, but still it
persists
"let me live"
"let me live"

i sometimes get so large
i eclipse the dreams that i
built for myself
i sometimes get so small
i almost disappear

but the sun of my heart
burns a well worn candle
trembling within the
sacred place dug
beneath my ribs

flickering like the
light of a dying firefly
it illuminates the
paths of the dead
paving the way home for
heavy heads to
rest on the weight of
mother's breath

a sighed lullaby that
shines like the moon, it
guides the dark out of my
starless spaces

w h a t ' s t h e u s e o f l i v i n g w h e n yo u a i n' t re a l l y l i v i n g
w h a t ' s t h e u s e o f l i v i n g w h e n y o u a i n' t real
w h a t 's t h e u s e of l i v i n g w h en y o u a i n' t
w h a t ' s th e u s e o f l i v ing
w h a t' s t h e u se
w ha t
    ha


r e a ll y li v i n g
|r e a l l i v i n g|
>>a l i Ve<<
        *i*
          !

i am a never-ending wound
marred skin above
blemished bones

i am an artifact of defeat
decayed, crumbling
buried, gone

i am a failed experiment
defective dream and
unkept promise

i am a burden child
unable to lift the
fears and hopes of
tired, broken people

i am a suicide
23 years in the making

i am always running from the
heartbreak of my mother
i feel the violence of
crumbling households as it
shatters against my skin
i hear the roaring of her silence
as it scolds me for my temper
while hers burns like a furnace that
singes my bones

my mother's self-hate is
so deep it resents
the reflection it
finds in her daughter
unfortunate to learn
the very vices she
abhors within herself have
painted themselves on
her frail and young ones

i have learned my
worthlessness from my father
who himself thinks
nothing sacred of his body and blood
who belittles his wounds yet
is vindicated by their presence
as if he deserves his pain

my mother holds her anguish
as ransom to my neck, she
tells me i must rescue
her sorrows for the
price of my strength, that
i must purchase her torment
at the altar of my youth

i have been made to
carry the weight of an
old world, whose
screams and silences
burn as knives in my back,
whose injustices become my
inward injuries

but is it fair to ask children to
mother their mothers, to
father their fathers,
to be all the things they
couldn't be: a good parent
but is it fair to ask questions when
the world was already unfair to them?

life is a violent place.