I will carve out a place

to face

myself, I need a rhythm and a reason just to

trace my cells

to keep track

of all the ways that I have

become my own

my being, my person,

to start to call this skin "home"

I will challenge the lies

I will fight back the tide

I will look in the mirror and I will not be denied

If it's this figure, then I figure

"leave the bad thoughts behind;

all the persecuting bullies

were just words in your mind"

I gave you a place in my heart

under a starless sky

in fertile fields

my love in full blossom

waiting for the harvest

You came into the rows

whispering a promise of forever

while feeling the earth

under your feet

I asked you to be gentle

with my heart

to tread lightly on the fragile earth

You smiled a cherub's grin

and offered me your word

You tore up the plants

meant for harvest

and threw them on the hungry fire

You ripped them up by the roots

to allow nothing behind

You rooted out every seed

and put them in your pocket

My earth cried out to you

twice

begging for a word

You took my words

and turned your back

just like the dream I had

Now my earth is sterile

empty

and I am the twice deceived

because not only did I trust you with my heart

but I thought I had a place in yours

June 15th, 2:40 A.M.

The wind’s picking up. My heart aches.

Lightning. Thunder. Carpe diem.

Hurricane screaming. My earth quakes.

Downpouring rain, pain and mayhem.

Avalanche, tornado, or shakes?

3:40 A.M. I’m insane.

The storm is here. Where’s my cocaine?

This poetry is rock and roll.

This poetry is screaming until your ears bleed dry.

It’s sex and explosions and fire raining down from a blood-drenched sky.

It’ll infiltrate your ears, your mind, your soul.

It’ll split skulls, drench with tears, light your bowls.

It’ll make you fall in love, get you laid, get you paid.

It’ll shake you in your boots and rain down razor blades.

It’ll pile on the pain, the heartbreak, the shadows in the gloaming.

It’ll send your body rocking, your tired soul roaming.

It’s highways and train tracks and rockets to the sky.

It’ll set your soul ablaze and get you drunk and high.

It’ll paint a picture of me standing on a stage.

Full of glowing energy, anger and rage.

It’ll twist its way through alleys and oily streets.

It’ll melt steel with white hot heat.

It’ll snow and rain and storm and strike

with lightning and thunder and unearthly might.

It’ll whisper words in your waiting ears

that will bring you to orgasm, bring you to tears.

It’ll rock you like crazy all through the night

until your windows let in lazy morning light.

This poetry is rock and roll

full of danger, fire, dark and light.

This poetry won’t back down.

It will always scratch and claw and fight.

Until it becomes calm seas, rainbows, and doves.

Until the doors open

to warmth and light and love.

When nightly sorrows make their claim

to thoughts and feelings, doubt and pain,

I search for solace free

from what’s assailing me.

I search the world through hidden places,

high and low my dark heart races,

for pleasures glowing bright

to light my shadowed night.

I search through closet’s skeletons,

searching for a sacred sin,

an outstretched helping hand

to help me softly land,

and here is where I find my peace,

forbidden pleasures never cease;

my mind finds empty space

where sorrows are erased.

A gummy fraught with fruit and earth

assails my senses, folly’s birth,

with cannabis bestowed,

and pleasure’s madness grows.

With clarity I know for sure

within an hour I’ll adore

my senses duly filled

with glowing splendor spilled.

Your medicinal joys release

my mind from pain’s calloused disease

and fill my body bright

with incandescent light

as feelings, thoughts, and spirit’s flight

send my soul to lofty heights;

I’ve found my next great love,

a plant-based treasure trove.

An epic for the coming days,

a future full of unknown haze,

your benefits I’ll state,

to monument your traits.

I close my eyes and celebrate

as waves of life inebriate;

my mind a journey starts,

creative bouts of art,

and this will future readers see

and know your secrets told by me

to formally compile

all marijuana’s wiles,

so now, complete, it has been done

to be consumed by everyone,

and cannabis will reign

to ease life’s many pains.

I'm so sick and tired of writing the sad stuff

Loving the break-up songs

When there hasn't been a break-up

For two centuries, at least

I'm so sick and tired of depressing this much

Just slogging along

Emptying another coffee cup

Hiding away like the Beast

Honestly, I wish it was the end

And that there was a better place

Far away from the mess of my mind

And far away from this hectic world

But, the end isn't around this bend

And I might never have a safe space

Nor leave this spot of running behind

Misplacing my title of being the sad girl

It's okay.

At least for now.

Tomorrow, it probably won't be.

But right now?

Right now, I think it's worth running a little longer.

after Jeanann Verlee

Dear E,

You asked if I needed time. Yes, with you. I need more time than my body can give.

I love you. You’re it. Full stop.

Dear C,

I wanted your hand in the sun but you just wanted a body to haunt.

Dear V,

We never should have happened. But I still talk to you in the dark.

Dear H,

I still hate your pedestal. I hope you liked the crash. I sure did.

Dear W,

You loved me a lifetime in six weeks. I’m sorry I left.

Dear A,

You can stop running now. I’m not there anymore.

Dear D,

I loved you first. You never had to say it back.

Dear R,

I almost believed you, you little shit.

Dear P,

I still don’t like you. Stop texting.

Dear E,

I love you. You’re it. Full stop.

call it a distortion

of sight, waltzing photons

not tipsy but already drunk

skewing, blurring

interrupting, intruding

on the view of right and wrong

call it an illusion

of value to children

and whimsical children alone

lying, exuding

an aura alluring

over the world that’s their own

i call it a lens

much like the glasses perched atop your serious grown-up nose

because in all the constraints of your inflexible mind

to see differently

is to be looking through a kaleidoscope

Life, for me, is about chasing that feeling - the rush of dopamine I was robbed of when I was sixteen, forever changing my brainpan by starving myself into oblivion. Oblivion is my general state of being, a protection, if you will, against the harsher realities of the world. I live in it perpetually, like a fossil stuck in amber with no where to go but into the future. When I want the hit of dopamine, I go home. The feeling is perhaps a simple one - the feeling of going home, being home, craving that feeling of 'home', but for me it's my lifeblood. It's where I go to escape the amber cage. It's where I go to feel.

Dopamine has followed me, even outside my brain, even outside my desire to go home. Once I was on a bus to Portland, Maine, when I overheard a guy explaining his tattoo to semi-curious onlookers. It was a tattoo of the chemical structure of dopamine. That moment occurred in 2012, which was supposed to be the year of the end of the world. Instead, he had tattooed on him the beginning of my journey home, to good mental health. As he rolled down his sleeve and became someone I would write about later, I knew that would stick with me, the chemistry something completely foreign but the concept crystal clear, like seeing my face in the mirror.

I cherish dopamine, and I want every hit I can get. I don't take buses anymore. I don't see people with tattoos that make me feel at peace with myself. But I do take planes, three thousand miles to cover before I touch the ground where I recovered, where I got better.

When I feel lost, I search deep within myself, in this addled brain, and know - I need to go home. I need the rush I don't get anywhere else.