Sometimes angels are made by mistake

She giggles as much when she's happy
as she does when she's nervous.
It's hard for me to tell
the difference between the two
Sometimes it's harder for her

Her smile doesn't easily mask her ageless insecurities
mapped out on teenage arms
Some call her broken.
Label her as stained and unforgiven
Unforgivable, even
Even...

Odd how Lucifer was once an angel of light, and
though she never thought herself equal to God,
sometimes she still tries to see His face
between calling out His name in vain and taking him in pill form
A pharmaceutical communion, fingering her pills
like rosary beads
Say ten "Hail Mary's"
Take five Mollies
Cry out one loud "Our Father"

Maybe it's all the same to her
It's hard to make a distinction between heaven
and hell when you live both simultaneously,
had to save yourself from a freefall
when your angels are falling with you
Her parents,
upon learning of their 15-year-old
daughter's meth addiction,
decided to make it a family affair
All three of them spent
the next 18 months forgetting
how to be a family
by shooting up together

Three years later,
having missed too much school to
graduate on time,
she's not sure whether finishing is
even worth it.
But she's finally learning
to feel
to breathe deeply
to heal slowly
Her mouth crinkles when she smile
Her eyes, heavy with sleep,
cannot close without the voice
of a stranger chasing nightmares
from her head
Like so many wolves in sheep's clothing
she is faithful to both her
faith in God and her
lack thereof in man.

And his heart,
the one holding the light at the end of the tunnel
So quickly she strides towards it
Anxious for salvation
Expectant on its extinction
Keep walking
He may be the one to
save you

...or he may not be, but remember
Faith is defined as belief in
something not yet seen and
Faith in something is better
than feeling helpless
So keep believing
in whatever it is that
holds you up.

Salvation will come.

You are all Atlas

Man.

Old hirsute wizened weathered troubled man

I see you.

Not just your face but the stories it tells

Through crooked grin

It’s in hallowed eyes

Begging to be remembered

History places too many in the background

This is for you, man

For the man who tasted sweat on his lips and knew

This was the taste of life

Who discovered that sweat and tears taste the same;

Sweat, tears and blood flavor the soil

Something palpable and human and ancient.

The man who carved history from the back of the earth

Hands calloused, marred like the ground

These are the hands of Man,

The marks of Man, the pride of Man,

Grizzled specimen of survival and struggle and selflessness

I will remember you

I will call you uncle, brother, cousin, friend

Hold your head high you

Appalachian champion, you

Southern gentlemen, you

Dust bowl denizen, you

Patroller of the Pacific Northwest

You are a history of perseverance and failure

And perseverance and success.

Building block of a

Solid sort

You are Whitman,

Your words bring earth to page to life

You are Sooner, you are Settler, you are epitome.

You are my Uncle, 30 years of days

in dark earth belly.

You are my father, putting

God and family before himself

You are me

And my father, and my grandfather,

And his father

You are us.

Thank you for carrying us

You carry us so well.

sunlight on mirrors

There are times when even though my window has been closed for days and no apparent natural light has come into my room[natural meaning of nature and into meaning a metaphorical entrance through tempered glass], I still feel as though it snakes its way throughmyblinds ontomybed acrossmyfloor hitting my face, reflecting off my old mirror [my mirror being the one I purchased and not made so as to see myself allegedly] and this sunlight, this uninvited, precocious, intergalactic traveler[intergalactic being the expanse though which it journeys and traveler being one who travels for that sake alone]; this invades my room without regard to my present state and expects me to just accept its presence, much like that of air or sneezing or losing one sock, something expectantly inevitable, while maybejustmaybe I had something better to do than cheer up and breathe and smile and enjoy life and warmth and be satisfied.

Unaddled

Having you was privilege.

Needing you was breathing.

Losing you was…

Having you was needing you was losing you was

Spinning the cylinder was

Open and taste…was

Chasing you was like playing

Russian roulette with a gun where

Someone had loaded the rest of the chambers when

I wasn’t looking; when

It came to be my turn to

Bite the bullet

I bit hard and it

Bit back harder, shattering my

Smitten smile into

Cavity-laden snowflakes so convincing,

The neighborhood children grabbed their

Snowsuits and toboggans for playtime in my wake.

Their parents blame me for

Leading their children astray

With false promises of recreation because

Today’s children may not be taken in by

Artificiality but they’re

Far too accepting of it.

And I’ve grown weary of gumming

Everything I put my mouth to so

I’m cutting new teeth on my only

Photo of you, gnawing at the edges until they’re

So tattered it seems as though

Someone has ripped you from reality;

The reality is my reality is altered

In your absence and

While my teeth have grown back in,

While I am able to chew and swallow again,

Things still don’t quite taste right.

And that gun is sitting on the nightstand,

Hammer cocked; and the fear that someone

Has loaded the rest of the chambers again is

Starting to wear off; it just looks

So damn appetizing.

But I’ve yet to determine if these

Pangs in my stomach are

truly of hunger or

just a fear of not finding

something of substance to

sate these primal tempests

in my gullet the way that

you did.

So I’ll continue my teething

Like privilege

Like breathing

Like nothing has changed

Like we’re both still the same

Like that gun isn’t taunting me

Like the chambers are empty

Like tomorrow will be different

Like Youth is asking its parents to show them what real is

Like real still is

Like real life tastes nothing of gunmetal

And I smile again

A big toothy grin

White as snowflakes

And you’re bitter as I walk away.

Chill out, lady

and I said to her
Honey
I hear you, but
your cookie-cutter
flower petal
make-no-mistake
tone is quite
deafening to the ear
Your message
lost among the static of
fly-by-night
bumble bee
runway landings; oh
can't you ever make
a statement without
epiphany and
expectation of
concession
?

the oceans we knew and the jewelry we have

We saw it coming

from far off

We were aware of

this wave from nowhere

We did nothing to stop it

And don’t you think for a

moment that I didn’t want to

I was patiently waiting for

your cue

It never came

Breaking slowly over us

the tide of our own remorse

We drank it in greedily

Mouths opened wide like

Young fledglings we were

We were not ready for this life

These duties

We

should have turned in our badges

At the first sign of trouble

But we held them like

Breath

Easy and fulfilling are not

Synonymous

Hardness like fire-scorched

Steel or diamonds –

Herein lies fulfillment

Yet we settled for nickel and

dime store mood rings

As though we could compass our way

through life based

on the color of a stone

on our right middle fingers

When you rely on body heat

to make your most important decisions

Your answers become arbitrary

and mood rings are unreliable when

you’re already

dead inside anyway

Think about it

And next time you wash

the remnants of the day

from your hands, try to

leave the little green circle

around your right middle finger

It’s all we have left

Don't move, be still

Don't move, be still

pussy cat. Your

whiskers are giving away

your position in the windblown.

We see you there.

Try not to breathe too loudly. You'll

disturb the monster. She's

never pleasant when

she's awakened without

just cause. I know

because I've done it before.

See my scar? A reminder of

past mistakes isn't a preventer of

new ones in and of itself, so

hush. Be still. Lie.