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A lover of food and brains. Do the two mix?
  • Despair Seeds and Hopeful Flowers

    Despair Seeds and Hopeful Flowers

    I reach for the stem, afraid to ask—can it exist?

    Small parachutes of silver, begging with tears—promise me it’s going to be okay.

    Cheeks full of air, a smile in the shadows, I release you in a whoosh, little seeds everywhere.

    I grab the next one—To letting go!

    And lie on my back.

    The sun chars; I cry, I scream, I beg, I’m burning, “what do you want?!”

    A hand reaches down, I’m a pile of ash, sprinkled over lawns and lakes. Dark clouds and wet asphalt, wind blows me around the world and around once more.

    My hands! I pat my body, my face, my eyes—I’m breathing!

    Seated in a bed of roses, dahlias, cosmos, and sunflowers.

  • Necessary

    Necessary

    Sweating. 

    Tossing, turning.

    Sleeping, alarm blaring, smoking. 

    Snot covered, sniffling, screaming.

    Wiping, aimless shuffling. 

    Searching.

    Avoid sharp objects. 

    Avoid trees on walk with dog. 

    Stumbling desire.

    Shifting, sweet.

    In line, hopeful.

    “Next!” 

    Stepping forward, 

    “An ice cream cone.”

    An end to suffering.

    Tapping screen, pausing–

    “The machine’s down, sorry.”

    Laughing. 

  • Hail the Veil

    Hail the Veil

    Pirouettes through puddles, 
    everything shines at once.
    Overwhelm me into laughter.

    What a wonderful world!

    So confusing, so straightforward.
    Glass walls, darkness insists, 
    an illusion everlasting,
    spotlight moving.

    Listen to me! 

    Fall down, get up.
    Smile at the sun, the rain, 
    especially darkness.
    A beautiful reminder–

    Change!

    Golden memory, glittering sun, 
    A bow in thanks for
    the opportunity.

  • Becoming Madness

    Becoming Madness

    In a forest—crouching, stepping, carefully dodging long vines that hang like snakes from a canopy of trees above. The dirt is dark and wet. My boot crunches, but when I take my next step, I’m barefoot. Naked.

    Rain begins to fall. The clouds are alive with brooding darkness and raging thunder. Shadows are released when there’s no sun casting them. Where has mine gone? 

    She sprints through cities, crosses state borders, into the depths of the ocean, returning to someplace deep in the sea’s belly.

    She floats, smiling, her black eyes reflect the golden glow of the earth’s core—destruction—a baby being read a lullaby, falling fast asleep. Wake up, wake up, wake up!

    All of the answers lie here. Her touchstone, mine—what secrets hide in the belly of the beast?

    The sun pokes out and I’m me again. The warm rays kiss my cheeks, I wipe the raindrops off my brow and smile.

    I know it’ll get dark again. 

    Lightning cracks the drifting gray and it feels as if the world has split open.

    I see my shadow sitting beneath a tree, smiling into the earth, spinning her finger in the dirt and planting something. 

    Looking over her shoulder, and within the small opening, I can see the life that has lived before me. I can talk to spirits. A long line, lines and lines of something—it’s right there. I reach out, my shadow reaches out towards me. You’re right there, and yet…

    Something growls—freeze. 

    Listen.

    I’ve changed. You don’t want me to?

    I’ve been different people and thought different things; old me’s watching every move with hungry eyes. They form a circle, closing in, I kick dirt over the seed and run before they can feast on my bones.

    Full sprint over the edge of a cliff, I dive head first. Over my shoulder, shadows leap after me.

    I feel brilliant. I feel useless. The wind blows my worries away, something buds in my chest. Shadows reaching.

    I want consistency. I want to feel clear. I want to see the secrets of the world, and I do until I slam into rock and shatter into a million pieces.

    I try connecting with myself while listening to their chants of resurrection, try again, or stay broken, they blow away like dust in the wind.

    With time, introspection, appreciation, attention. I’ve figured out what I like. It was always there, beneath something heavy. Weighted, thick.

    Life likes to tease. To keep me blindfolded. Follow another man’s instructions, confusing direction and manipulation.

    Distract me from me. Or reminding me I’m here. Something to fight with.

    I can feel into my body differently than I have before. My breath reaches deep, without snagging on the tears that clog my throat, like a hand that used to pin me against the wall.

    I see judgment. Familiar and knowing.

    Who are you? Look! Who are you? I’m kneeling, begging, crying, who am I?

    I’m trying to find balance.

    Desire untamed—how do you learn to handle something essential when it’s stolen, misused? When you’re taught only to give, to listen to lies, to serve a world that doesn’t feed you in return? Tastelessly spread over burnt bread, served like scraps to the starving.

    Do you know who the monster is? My shadow returns, looking me in the eyes, licking their lips. We’ve been waiting for you to show us.

    Speak up, but careful with who. Don’t say too much. Fear being taken advantage of, fear misuse, a prized possession.  

    For a woman. 

    For a man. 

    “Danger”

    “DANGER”.

    Danger became a way of feeling alive. A prescription for neglect, the fallen smile in anticipation. Careless, aggressive, dismissive, it begs the question—Do I matter?

    An addiction. A reminder. Grounding me into this life, into my body, dancing with the (D)evil, touch me, make me feel alive. Am I good enough?

    Lurking in drained, empty eyes—starved and searching for the next soul to feed on.

    I’m a good girl.

    I want to follow rules. I want to please.
    Play or pretend?

    Volleying in and out, light and dark. I put myself back together, the pieces are glued with gold. It burns, but I’m stronger for it.

    Life is no longer lived in a detached, hurried, worried, wound-up way. You know what I’m talking about—when something doesn’t feel quite right.

    Screaming and shredding your organs, your health, your mind,

    LISTEN.

    Look into the box containing unacknowledged fears, desires, doubts, secrets.

    I don’t want to be the person who spends their whole lives avoiding it. Always there—pretend not to notice–don’t notice, don’t notice, don’t notice, DON’T notice. Like a wound that never quite heals, a slow bleed. 

    No danger. 

    No fear. 

    No worries. 

    The pipe closes, and you’re wondering why you dried up. Joining the bottom feeders, walking among them, becoming them. If everything’s been taken, do you care who you take from?

    I dance with danger. Come dance with me. Look into the fire. Kiss me, I’ll show you how to let go.

    Feeling alive—I love being alive. Come alive with me.

    Transform your life, become heaven and hell.

    Whispers transform into screams, stop banging your head into the wall and turn around.

    Your skin pricks from the chill of the air–breathless, and your vision is clearer than it’s ever been.

    Looking through new eyes, listening, breathing, burning.

    Move. Dance. Scream.

    Let the forest know you’re alive. Make music out of madness.

  • Just a Dance

    Bright blue eyes.

    “Wanna dance?”

    Hands meet–warm, uncertain,

    holding questions both real and imagined. 

    What’s your name?

    Where you from? 

    Do you feel lost too?

    Music wraps around us, 

    a pulse of hope and doubt

    guides each step we take. 

    It’s just a dance.

    So dance, let the moment hold what words can’t.

    Overcome with laughter, disco lights stretching, boots slipping. 

    I almost fear the goodbye lingering at the edge of the dance floor.

    Your hand tightens, a quiet reminder–we’re not done yet. 

    So I can imagine once more, I know I shouldn’t.

    In your ocean eyes, my reflection surfaces,

    no longer drowning, as you dip me

    and ask “One more?”

  • Rough Cut

    Rough Cut

    I bend down—warm, almost hot water runs down my hands. I close my eyes and before the water can touch my face—I’m in your bed. 

    The bed is made, the TV—the huge TV in the huge room, and I’m on the huge bed, alone. Our entire past, present, and future were sitting with me and I never knew it. My stomach begins to feel like it did then—twisting and turning. I might be green. 

    I can smell you, I can imagine you, I can hear you, it’s strange. And I feel like I might cry. Still crying despite never ever ever returning to that bed again, despite never seeing you again, it’s like you’re dead and you killed a piece of me. The dead me rises when I close my eyes, relives the mistake, the huge and careless mistake of letting you be somebody. 

    I looked past everything, to a fault. One of your favorite lessons, what did I expect? My father’s karma, and his before, and before, playing out, if only they knew, if only they cared. Can it still be his karma even if he isn’t around? 

    Another dead man. 

    Another dead me. 

    When I open my eyes, soap and water are falling down, the millions of tears shed and wishing to be washed away. Scrub scrub scrub, one day one day, one day is today. I see you, I see my dead me’s, I see all of it. I feel all of it. 

    I sink and I rise, a bobber in a lake, going fishing like my brother, what’s gonna catch me next? 

    At least I’m not alone. I’m not the only one who’s been hurt, and I don’t know if I wish I could take your pain away but I’m happy to go through this to be a part of something bigger. The collective of daughters without fathers, learning to maneuver men and their oddly similar, oddly different tendencies. Or maybe it’s my tendencies. I tend to search for what I know but I’m ready for something else entirely. 

    Reel me in, cast me out. 

    I think of the invisible people in my head, afraid if they know who I am, afraid if I admit the things that make me me will be used against me. 

    A reject. Desperate.

    Sometimes cranky and mean. Emotional, don’t forget emotions are bad. I cry during interviews. Poor choices, I’ve been with married men. Having conversations made of lies, this is what being a grownup is right?

    Why do I hate myself sometimes? Put myself through things, beat myself up for making mistakes, for choosing wrong, like I’m the only one?

    I towel dry my face and wonder what you’re doing. I wonder if you’ve cried over me. I cried all over myself over you. All of you. Every single one. I think it made me feel a little better. 

    I’ve been stuck in a loop for years, hoping and begging for someone’s attention that isn’t offered. Waiting and waiting dad, for you to love me. Tell me you love me. I remember you saying it, and I believed it but it’s so confusing when I look for your love elsewhere, is it love?

    I see now why there are stats, I see how I became one, I’m not upset, I had to be one of them. I’ve met a lot of people like you, they tell me they love me but not in the way I needed. I wanted to be something to you, to all of you, sometimes it makes me angry. 

    I want to drown each and every one of you with my own hands. Line up! I’ve saved all my tears and there is an ocean waiting. Or maybe the volcano that rests in my stomach, churning, grumbling lava, I would find it satisfying to watch each of you burn. 

    I don’t like being hurt. I don’t like being lied to. I don’t like being taken from. I allowed this? In kindergarten? Second grade? It took so long to learn my lesson. It took so long and I wish I knew better sooner, I wish I was someone else sooner, but I was pathetic and upset, I’m so upset with you for lying to me. For teaching me how to accept anything that resembles you. I hate you. I want you to burn. I want the memory of all that you’ve done to haunt you, to break your body down, day after day, live with the weight of it, crushing you into powder, joining the billions of those before you who live like cowards, unwilling to face their own pain. 

    How much is too much? Where’s the line when you’ve been taught there isn’t one? 

    Looking at myself in the mirror, the bed falls away—the memories, the pain. I don’t have to stop here, and my story doesn’t have to be this—whatever this is. The pain that shaped me? I’m so much more, I see it now, because of you.

    They say practice being grateful.

    So, thank you—for everything.

  • Some Death, Some Growth

    Some Death, Some Growth

    Butterflies and warmth. Goosebumps and geese. Green and yellow and orange, crispy leaves crunch under my feet. A breeze that brings with it a fire some 20 or 30 miles away, mixed with the feathers of birds, pine needles, and sunshine. Night comes sooner, but the time hasn’t changed. The turning of time, the turning of seasons, the turning of… me? How many revolutions do you make in comparison to the earth? A child grows up in front of you, how much do you stay the same? I’m pinned to the wall, watching and waiting. I brush my teeth every morning, sometimes I forget to floss. The season changed before, I was somewhere else. Someone else. But still me, still hanging on the wall, but a different wall. I see people hanging on the same walls they’ve always hung from, sagging and soaked with tears they haven’t cried. What does it take to let go? Change with the seasons, migrate with the ruby-throated hummingbirds and bar-tailed godwit. Who are you? I didn’t know, I haven’t known but I’ve always known. A slow, vibrating, enchanting, magical, cursed shadow, not my shadow, a snake charmer, I’m the snake, and you have me in the palms of your unmoving, cold, worn, hands. It’s my fight, it’s yours, do you want to fight? I could die and you’d still hold me. It feels like protection but it’s… the past, the fear, the generation before, and before and before. I want to be like the season, I want to spin like the earth, I want to collide with shooting stars and make wishes and fly.

  • Floating Flowers.

    Floating Flowers.

    We weren’t a good match.

    You tell yourself or hear yourself say these words without actually understanding what it is you’re saying:

    It’s over.

    I don’t need to doubt myself, right? My value isn’t determined by this single person—despite it sometimes feeling that way…

    I invested time. I opened myself up, and for awhile, it worked. He accepted me, said he loved me. But it’s never that simple.

    I can’t say there weren’t signs, I think there are always signs, but I was fixated on some imagined future:

    One day we’ll be able to communicate. One day I’ll feel safe. One day I’ll be enough.

    When did I figure it out?

    That he was a reflection of how I was feeling—lying to myself in the name of love instead of being honest, facing facts.

    The imagined future where he could be everything. A real partner. Understanding. Patient. Maybe I could love him enough…

    I thought I was happy.

    I got really good at imagining. So did he. We cast little spells over ourselves—and even now, the memory of them can still knock the air from my lungs.

    Had I been a little more present, I could have come to terms with the reality of the truth.

    Being honest is hard. I did everything in my power to avoid calling it what it was, only for it to blow up in my face in the most horrifyingly fantastic way that I never could’ve dreamed. Letting go is hard, but holding on might be worse.

    I won’t deny it anymore—I’m tired of feeling this way.

    Funny how the truths hide behind the lies we tell ourselves.

    Life goes on, I know that. Despite my maddening ability to forget… or worse, to not forget. That’s why I’m working on being more honest and present. Maybe next time, I’ll catch it sooner.

    For now, I’ll give myself grace.

    I’m a lover. I spent so much time and energy on him and his happiness, but what about mine?

  • Ashes, ashes, We all fall down!

    Ashes, ashes, We all fall down!

    I ask for signs and I get them. I wish to be someone else, I become her.

    And yet… these rancid, decomposing thoughts keep bubbling up from some hole of death and flames. So here I am again, asking—pleading—for the ability to let it go.

    I’m tired of feeling angry. I know, I know, we love to feel it. It feels—what?—meaningful? I’ve been sitting at this point for a while, and part of me feels embarrassed, but I know I’m not the only one who’s been swallowed, chewed up, and spit out by the unknown. It’s time for something fresh, but the idea sours when I try to grasp it.

    Do something? Burn, I mean stab, I mean forgive—oh god no. And then I pass by a mirror and stop. Holy shit, you are so fucked. All these shadows circling like vultures, I beg of you, go away. I’m ready to move on.

    If I were ready to move on, wouldn’t I have done it by now? It’s time for the tune to change, but I keep singing the same tired song. Maybe this is where time comes in. Grace. Forgiveness. I may be in hell now, but I won’t be forever. There’s my silver lining.

    It’s like… if I could just create some space… stretch out these stiff, scratchy arms, give myself a little room to breathe—shh… it’s almost…

    There.

  • Draft: Devoted

    Draft: Devoted

    It’s hard to find the right words a lot of the time…and sometimes I don’t know who I am, and I unfortunately met you when I thought I did.

    So I said things I didn’t mean and didn’t say what I meant. Like cords crossed and fraying, I felt too much and started crying, electricity transformed into flames, and they weren’t filled with passion. They burned blue with shame and red with embarrassment, I believe we’ve burned the house more than a few times.

    “Enough is enough” we hear people say, “Give it a rest!” but I choose not to listen, I see something blooming in the ashes and I don’t need anyone else to say it’s so, I see you.

    Multiplying rather than adding, what happens when I make the wrong step now?