Pulling Up Roses

It's a wound so old,

covered with years.

You could mow it down

if you were still around,

but there's no closure

with you in the ground.

Where were the stitches

as the blood leached out?

I had to self-infuse

and it isn't about

status quo.

It's just the drug, you know...

keeps you so numb

and somehow alive.

I despise you for your weakness

I despise you for your failure

I hate you most for the reflection

and the way I see me there.

Whatever the conflict...

your daughter carries the anvil

that drops on my neck

and sinks the progress we might have made.

You give her that power

over

me.

Your excuse is fucking ancient.

Haven't you fixed it yet?

But don't point that finger back at me.

My pain is bigger,

don't you get that?

Ha!

Can we ever be to each other

the grace that's so offered

or will we always be the devil

poking fingers into wounds proffered?

We should be the stable,

the picketed sanctuary.

But we're pulling up roses

while the weeks run unchecked

through our unease.

Inhuman

I'm not human
after all you cut from me
the core and emphasis

of what I was made for.

You bent it backwards.

You broke the reed you beat me with.

I'm not whole anymore.

The gaps are wider than the seams.

Nothings comes together

from the pieces

and I can't cover anything.

I'm vanilla fluff to everyone,

most of all myself,

but you see me as power.

Why?

I've never been so anemic

ineffectual

a breath wasted

an inhalation so labored

it can have no reach but life support.

Why this life?

Damn it

show me why?

When The Glitter Wears Off

I saw a thousand diamonds

rolling across the surface of the deep,

like the shimmer I wore once

when life was simpler

and ignorant ducks all followed in line.

Who knew the smallest breeze

could blow the glitter elsewhere

and I, left rather dull

and naked.

Am I the Emporer?

Where are my clothes?

Had I ever really owned such regalia?

Or was I dull from the start,

wearing you like a charm?

Then I realized how lopsided it all is.

What is a charm without a bracelet

or a bracelet without an arm?

I am the anchor

without which

glitter gathers dust

in a closet of desire. 

It is MY arm

decorated to my pleasure

that meets your pleasure

or it doesn't.

But it's my fucking arm.

I think you understand now,

right?

I choose the charm

and the glitter is the light I shine

on my own skin.

Glass House

What's it going to take?

What pound of flesh?

It's not really what I did...

it's what was done before, that caused the bedrock

of your unforgiveness.

You want me over a barrel

digging out from a deficit

day by day by day,

and you thinking you're faultless.

In the end

you gutted me,

barrel be damned.

I was drawn and quartered

by your need to play God

to make me confess,

to make me pay

for your paranoia.

Your house is glass also.

How will you fare

with all those stones?

The Wind Outside

The waters are agitated,

waves reigning havoc since day break.

They crash against the rocks

the wind bending branches at shoreline.

The cabin is oddly bereft of the storm

although every other instance

wind has howled through like a freight train,

scattering papers

depositing dust.

Why today...

when the storm within me rages

has God blocked the wind?

He's left it for me to see

but protects me from it's consequence.

Even stranger,

I wanted to feel it's fierceness

to know it's power

the strength of my foe.

God whispers

"It's not your foe.

It's not your storm."

Shit Show

Things have gone to shit

as they often do,

and no one is really sure

if we want the show to go on.

The banquet is set

costumes bejeweled

but the magic has left the stage.

The show must not go on

for the damage...

the damage done.

Will it break us?
Will it build us?

May we be renewed?

Or was it a poorly written play,

a show for love

not of love,

a need for applause

not worthy of such things?

What the hell did you do?

I warned you.

You warned me off.

I complied, and

I failed you.

Invisible Loss

Sometimes loss is like dynamite.
It blows a whole so deep and wide

that everyone can see it.

There's a divorce, or a death,

a fire, a flood.

And even with the breadth and width of it,

it is compact...

a measurable thing that can be calculated

and dealt with.

And then there is the other loss

like a fuse that never ignites;

it just smolders and smolders

with the constant threat of doing so.

It's a dud that never was,

and never will be anything but

the perceived power to remove the hope...

that whatever you lost might come back.

Why do they say you can't lose

what you never had?

Because if feels like dynamite

that no one can see.