watches me undress

mirror shatters when I’m bare

black ooze claims the cracks

silent scream locked in

ooze crawls claws rapes my being

mirror claims my soul

"I am here...I am here...

I am life...Eternal life..."

The tree was speaking

Out of turn,

While the prisoner

Lay dying...

...The man had so much

Yet to learn...

He'd been suffering

Defiant...

...In a way that 

Wasn't weak...

In a way that saved his

Soul.

"I am here...I am here...

I am life...Eternal life..."

Branches danced

On wind,

As blossoms donned

It's tender stalks...

...The tree felt

It was now time

To anoint the 

Prisoner with talk...

"I am here...I am here...

I am life...Eternal life..."

The prisoner bled 

Out...

...He had witnessed 

Phantom skies...

...The man had so much 

Left to learn,

But he took it

All in stride.

"I am here...I am here...

I am life...Eternal life..."

©

2017

Bunny Villaire 

  You understand you will never achieve peace with cruelty. You have lived by it, you have cried while watching painful flashes of war on TV. You have preached it to those around you.

   But you bought a pocket knife for the first time at a tender age of sixteen, and yes, I said tender because even though the other kids have their first pocket knife at a much younger age, they owned one because they grew up on a farm and needed it for chores, or to prove their masculinity - whatever that means. You bought a knife as a weapon after too many incidents of letting weapons disguised as people through your door. (You bought a lock, too, and installed them on all but one door. I like to believe you still have that trusting child inside of you, pleading to keep at least one door without a lock; just in case. Just in case of what? Sometimes I wonder if you like being hurt.)

   You never even liked knives. Do you remember being young and soft, do you remember using butter knives instead of the proper knives simply because butter knives were safer?

You hid that pocket knife in the same box your seashell necklace came in. You would take it out at night to gently run you fingers across the blade. It felt exciting before it felt shameful.

What happened to your morals? Who are you becoming now? None of us can answer that, not even you. How—why—did you let this happen? You used to be so soft, so nice. People would hit you and then utter those meaningless words: 'I’m sorry.' But it didn’t matter, you still bought them a blizzard from Dairy Queen right after.

   But now you’ve learned how to punch back and your knuckles are bruised. Now the glass you hurled at the hardwood floor is shattered. Now there’s a piece of it slicing your arm. You will not let anyone break your heart, so you break it yourself. They stitched you up and you ripped them out.

   “I can heal my own damn self,” you spewed your words at the nurses who wanted nothing more than to save your tragic soul. “I’m brave,” you reminded them. Honey, didn’t anyone tell you there’s much more bravery in being soft? You say you’re a survivor. It's written all over your body. What you don’t tell them is what you did to survive.

   You understand hate doesn’t drive out hate. You have lived by it, you have cried while sitting at your computer seeing a person be harassed and you have cried while watching them torment back. You have preached it to those around you.

   But you took self defense classes for the first time not long after you bought that knife. Like the other students, you were taking them for the class’s purpose. But you mostly you were taking them because you wanted people to be afraid of hurting you. You no longer strive to be the kindest person in the room. Now when a boy calls you ‘small’ or ‘cute,’ you slam them against the wall and laugh as you swear, “goddamn right you should be scared of me.”

   Now you know how to break an arm in one move. Now you know how to kick their knees in so they bend the wrong way. Now you know where to hit to knock them off balance. Now you know where to punch to make them double over. Now you know which crevice of the neck to dig your fingers into. Now you wear those heels even when you don’t have to look professional just so you can have something that can cause pain. (As if the pocket knife in your purse isn’t enough. As if that same purse you carry around because it also can be used as a weapon isn’t enough. Just in case, the small child squeaks inside. Sometimes I wonder if you enjoy hurting people.)

   You have experienced the taste of dirt in your mouth and pain in your lungs so often you eventually coughed it out and bottled it up. You were saving it for the next person that dared step on you. You were waiting to shove it down their throat. A taste of their own medicine, you promised to yourself.

   You understand violence is not the answer. You have lived by it, you have cried while hearing yet another victim’s tragic story. You have preached it to those around you.

   But you learned how to shoot a gun for the first time not long after you took those lessons. A lot of the other kids knew how to shoot a gun when they were much younger, but that was because they went hunting or they were, once again, trying to prove their masculinity. I still don’t know what that means. You learned how to shoot a gun as a weapon and I like to believe you can still hear the child inside of you quoting Malala. But it didn’t matter, none of it did. Not even the fact that being around a gun previously gave you an anxiety attack. You have taught yourself how to turn off your feelings. No one can hurt you but no one can love you either.

No one expects you to be soft anymore but no one could have predicted this. Not from you. Not from someone so soft, so gentle, so quiet. What they don’t know is you pretend not to care. That you go home each night you hurt someone and you cry yourself to sleep. You’re not sure if you’re dangerous or if you’re scared of becoming dangerous.

Well,

You are,

You are,

And

You are.

To love is to cherish the small things

Hold tight close to the heart the warmth

For she swims in the thoughts of the ocean of the mind

Ever ebb and flow of the tide

Has touching the shore of the soul

Where this Siren has drawn him in

She saved his ship of his heart from sinking to the depths

Where he thought it would never be found

Yes her song saved his soul

Now they swim and frolic on the foam

Never to part and free to see adventure as they were meant to be

I am

Something soft,

But cloaked in shame

It is

Something oft,

But soaked in pain

After years of waiting,

Nothing came

After years of debating,

I played the game

There is nothing more to it,

No stake and no goal

Just ache and to hold.

This is all there is to it,

This terror, this torment

This horror, this attempt

At life and it’s descent

My flirting with death

Will officially be over

Once you take this breath

The thread that you wove her

Through her heart to keep it still

Has been tugged and shoved to its thrill.

The meds that you stuffed her,

To keep from the ill,

To stitch her mind together,

To remind you to call whenever,

Has been devoured and showered

As it’s own drill

(There is no pretty way to tell you I want to die.)

I wanted to die because I was

The foam of the sea,

That sweeps and fills the rims

That was once a part of the ocean,

But crashed underneath the waves and turned into something different,

But still the same.

I wanted to die because I was

The caterpillar,

Filled with exhilaration and excitement

As the day I become a butterfly comes nearer and nearer,

Only to emerge from that sticky cocoon to find that I am a moth

I wanted to die because I was

The ugly duckling,

That really was a duckling.

I wanted to die because I was

A ghost.

Stuck in one place,

Screaming at the top of my lungs and not one soul looks up.

I wanted to die because I was

A procrastination

Constantly shrugging off the real issues,

The real life and real living

I wanted to die because I was

Not even a vibration in the universe

Not even a tiny speck,

Just blank space.

But furthermore, not even that.

I wanted to die because

I was the flower

That swelled up before it even bloomed

I wanted to die because

I didn’t understand anything.

I still don't.

Tell me, 

Can your gloom ever bloom 

Or blossom in your doom 

While sitting in your smoking room

Blowing fumes, 

Growing branches needed to be pruned 

With medicines that's ready to exhume

Gloom repeating back and forth again,

It's hovering around the air like a perfume

Resume the playback that started it all,

It's time to reminisce memories in the storeroom

Now we're stuck in the waiting room, screaming for time to slow down and come back to the

Shipping room, packed and ready to roll out all the packages of broken dreams and shattered nightmares

It's almost there, it's almost time that we all can hear

You hear the click on the tock of the tick of the clock, it's starting to itch the addiction so you go to the break room, 

quick and ready to add some 

additives 

adding to 

addictive 

attitude

Give me some legroom, I'm starting to feel cramped up in this schoolroom

As a matter of a fact, I need to go to the backroom, there's a playroom with all of my costumes!

I'm accustomed to consume these mushrooms of fantasies, dreams and wonders

It's no wonder that 

I'm basically living a catchphrase 

"From Womb To Tomb"

A city of fog

Sitting on bog,

Greeted in smog,

Inhabited by tall walls of emotional cogs,

Working round the clock as underdogs,

Waiting for its fair share of the jackpots.

I was born a day late than I was supposed to

You may as well call me past due.

My mother told me that she wanted me to be born on the day her country, El Salvador, declared its independency from Spain.

Her pain would have been worth the wait for her child to be born on that day.

September 15,

I'm itching to overcome my sixteenth day of birthing because just like everything in life

I am late,

You can call me a delay

My airplane is running behind.

It's ok because I'm used to being a day late,

It's starting to become a dilemma.

Born a day late and elementary started a year later for me

Born a day late and fate had me on a date with deafness.

Born a day late full of caged rage, I gauge my age flared everything up!

Born a day late and it's past time to celebrate the independency

Born a day late and a sage dared me to bathe in God's safe haven

Born a day late and I learned the deadline for

college semester was yesterday

And just like yesterday was just a day early

For some of us in life

As we prematurely rush into situations we weren't ready to navigate in

We're stuck on a situation-ship!

We don't even know where we're going and we have the nerve to say "Look at me, I am the captain of this ship"!?!

Homie, sit down and take out your pen and pad, you need to scribble these notes down.

Don't give up on yourself, on me and others.

I would love for all of us to move at the same pace but the truth is that we aren't.

We are not all wired the same way,

We don't all click like the tock on the tick of the clock.

Wise up and humble down because

Some of us have a short fuse since the temperament we have far exceed the room temperature we need to operate

To a certain degree.

You see, I'm not complaining about being a

step too slow compared to everyone else.

I took my time to learn on my own pace and I wouldn't have it any other way simply because it is what made me who I am.

My identity is not based on how fast I can catch up to you, it is based on the decisions I make with my time, my love, my passions.

You see, I'm not complaining about being a

step too slow compared to everyone else

Because I'm not on my time,

I'm in the time of God

He is the one that decided to step into my tomorrow while I was a day late so He could erase my yesterday!

So here's to new beginnings, here's to a new tomorrow and a better expectation for a reality we want to see in life!

Don't be down on yourself for being born a day late.

Just look at me.

If ever your pink lips yawned,

widening to accept a kiss,

it would not be, as to this,

flower opening with the dawn.

You are not drops of rain,

that the night winds left behind,

for in these tears, I will find,

joy, and in your smile, pain.

A tongue stings deeper than a bee,

nails cut wider than a thorn,

All your torments I have born,

but still; I prefer this plant to thee. 

Lover, know your lover's tone,

And the secrets of the light,

for though you rule with Cupid's might,

a flower takes from you your throne.