I’d sooner die
for revolution
Than live
under oppression.
My heart bleeds,
eyes weep.
flood the streets–
awake, awake,
open your eyes,
see.
silence
is closing the cell
tossing the key.
open your eyes,
see–
open your mouth,
speak–
land of the free?
what a mockery.
corral the sheep:
ICE, armed to the teeth.
the time is now:
who will you be?
today, them:
tomorrow, you and me.
losing weight
never touched that heaviness
in my bones.
i wanted to be the apple of your eye
but i wouldn’t eat it myself.
…
too much sugar.
they call it fasting,
it’s totally healthy.
never had to try cocaine
they prescribed it to me.
it’s not my fault
it took my ADHD
and my appetite
pursed lips
food out
suffering in
don’t eat. Don’t talk. Don’t eat. Don’t talk. Won’t talk about it. Won’t eat. Nothing comes in. Nothing sure as hell comes out.
A picture can paint
1000 words
but it can obscure
1000 more.
Snapshots of old,
you are an iceberg.
How you deceive me!
To be that beautiful again,
I don’t know if I ever will be,
if I were to look
only skin deep.
How a glow
can obscure darkness.
How weight loss
can mask a heaviness
in the soul.
Surrounded by people
but utterly alone.
Traded real warmth
to be “hot”–
but how cold
did I feel.
Why did I think
I’d cure the hunger
in my heart
by starving myself?
your eyes had this funny ability to make me feel more naked than anyone’s hands ever could
so many people who’ve seen all of me but haven’t seen me at all.
To be truly seen: that which we both long for and fear the most.
…
The funny thing about the terrifying ordeal of letting yourself be truly known is that there is no real love without it; and yet, we grow so convinced that the love which we so desperately crave would only elude us even more if we were to simply be seen.
It goes something like “All I want is to be loved; but if you were to really know me, you wouldn’t love me.”
All the unlovable and broken bits. The parts of me that desperately need love the most are the parts I cannot show you for fear of you leaving.
Yeah. Something like that.
yeah, yeah, yeah,
silent on the home front,
the familial mute.
My journal had ears,
you all just had mouths.
Ask me what’s wrong
then talk over me–
I tell you what’s wrong
you tell me
why I’m wrong.
The quiet one;
I learned speaking
and not speaking,
they were the same,
I’d be just as heard
either way.
Or maybe
you all had such thick armor
I had to throw a dagger to be known.
but I never wanted to join the war,
never wanted to join the war.
I can’t stop
won’t stop
writing poetry.
Not when I lived my entire life
with someone else’s hand clasped over my mouth.
I’ve got to use my voice,
if just to know I still have it.
no matter how many times
I’ve gargled mouthwash
I can still taste those words on my tongue.
sorry isn’t a palette cleanser.
no, every word is soured.
no matter the sorries
I say to nothing at all
I can’t get this stain out
rubbed my skin raw
some words are spoken with a needle
tattooed forever,
only for us to see.
I see it in the mirror,
and can’t
quite
wrap
my head
around how I’m the only one who sees it there
on my forehead.
still can’t shake the feeling
they’re all looking at it.
still can’t shake the feeling
that I don a Scarlett letter–
they can hear
“guilty”
in my voice. i know it.
frosty orbs chill me–
the past’s winter.
but the Sun
thumps in your chest.
the clouds never parted,
spring never came.
you won’t even let yourself
taste sweetness,
for it burrowed holes
in your very constitution
leaving empty spaces–
chest cavities.
your love
boils to the surface
but you clamp the kettle.
Will you ever let yourself be known?
or will you let the rest of your life
be your childhood home?
truth is a lit cigarette flicked onto a dry mountainside
set the world ablaze.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 