Home is Where the Love Is

You chuckle, you don't understand it

            But it makes you smile anyway--

You know it says the most in the those few words.

Coming from me, it's almost bigger than the simple "I love you,"

Even though you have to explain to your father

            Who loves me as a daughter,

That while I may say that to many,

            It's actually not an easy line for me to say.

To you, I will continue to say "I love you"

But this, this I know from your smile alone

            Is the best way that I say it.

It's for you, and you alone.

I inhale deeply and the scent of you helps calm me.

It's why you unlike all others can get me down from a spiral within

Hours, with just your arms around me,

            Your presence near me.

Your warmth floods my lungs,

A repetitive arrow rightly sent

            Through my heart.

Just A Clip

I'm laughed at for my tripling, my quadrupling,

I have to recheck myself because it's called major anxiety.

I've screwed up too much from depressive and hypomanic storms

And blacked out memories that I can't allow,

Can't handle, or give up the need to perfect;

Too much has been ripped from my control these last few years--

And in these last nine months or so,

            My mental has felt so topsy-turvy,

                        Side-screwy.

How would you like hallucinations jumping in,

            Seemingly ordinary

That you're rocked off finding out

            Reality isn't

Is not

Yours anymore?

Accidental gas potions brewing like cauldrons,

            Threatening to kill your lungs,

Or flames licking your kitchen ceiling

            Slick with perfumed oil--

All of these are your mistakes

            And none of these registers until it's almost too late?

You laugh at me for my counting.

            My pacing.

                        My hand-wringing.

                                    My fast-talking.

You see these traces,

            My different faces.

But you've never seen me fully relaxed.

You don't get that I'm not making myself paranoid,

            I live with paranoid.

One error, I fail.

One error, you move on--brush off.

            It can eat me for days.

Even if everyone says things will be okay,

Unless I have a one hundred percent

            I cannot give you the guarantee

That I'm not going to recycle:

            One...

                        Two--

            Three,

Repeat. Maybe?

Disappearing

I feel like I'm drowning on sand.

I'm weighted down, can't breathe it seems.

I don't quite understand how I spring leaks,

When I feel as if I'm mummifying,

            Muscles calcifying.

Brain seems to obtain more holes,

            Caverns and tunnels I hardly know where they go--

Except further down into the dark,

Down through the tree trump I spiral out,

My how the lights all seem to go out,

            All over dear broken Wonderland.

I wake in the night to my cats' paws

            Stabbing my ribs and breasts

                        As if my familiar is stabbing

            Deep holes,

                        Jabbing quick and hard,

            As if wooden stakes are missing

Their marks.

I dark not drink, as if my subconscious

Is trying to hold off the inevitable fact that I'll become cement;

I already crack with each thwack my life brings.

Mind and body.

Body, mind.

Soul?

I fear she may have flown.

            Wake me, this stasis has me gagging, gasping.

Can we just halt the clock a minute,

The second-hand stutter in my palm

            As I search for the answers?

Back through to the other side of the mirror where a hint of me awaits?

I know she's sitting there,

A smirk waiting hidden in the corner

            Of her lips.

Shakespearean Mirror

It's funny how a man that swears to have loved me,

From the teenage years, until before I said I do

            To the right one for me

                        And wasn't you,

Could go hours and get rides for shades of me,

But only once for me did he--

After Helena and Hermia

            Before Ophelia,

The distraught and dark Hamlet who was more or less

A whiney, present day Mecrucio,

Have our backs until it no longer favored you.

            So in goodbye by making it clear

That I was better as a lighthouse for you

Who was only useful anymore as a silent painted portrait--

Rose red with thine petals at my feet,

            The I love you, love you not wishes which

Smolder to sharp thorns in my hands.

I'd rather the flowers I wear upon my crown.

Everything was your terms, and you grew scared when

As I realized other men in my life cared more than just words,

And would drive an hour no matter the weather

            Or pomp and circumstance,

To spend just an evening or afternoon.

No agenda. No intention to woo.

They didn't care I'd given my heart to my correct Romeo,

            Without pushing me to be their Juliet.

You act as if I am the one that did you wrong,

But after nails hammered in coffins and then

            Pried loose once more,

The assessment is more damage done to my heart,

            The one which is more whole

Due to true love's first kiss.

            The phantom of you will always be there,

A ghostly sonnet in caverns of old,

While real friends tend to flower beds by the lapping shore

Or throw pebbles of life to make the water

            Ripple with the growing wisdoms of time--

And my beloved watches over

            As the sun to warm my days

And the moon

            To illuminate

                        My darkest nights.

Autumnal Goodbye

I stare out the window at the blustery autumn leaves,

Thinking of how this time last year

            Was full of turmoil and stress

Where we digressed and our souls took to wanting

Hibernation in our chests.

            We clung to those we still loved, while I also held tight

To the man I now consider my one.

            You could have won you know,

If you knew how to grow up before

            It was

                        Too late.

Like Peter Pan, the man I used to love

            Is still a boy. I grew up though,

And you weren't ready.

            He was. He is.

Now unlike last year, instead of pulling close

            And standing united,

Just as the red leaves,

            You remain in my veins--

But the faith and strength that was our love, our past,

The friendship tied with one love--

            You fall,

Fall down on cold ground and

You resurrect the queen who finally

            Must give up the knave that held

Her soul,

            Swearing  to keep it safe,

But has bruised and used it

            To where you were so close--

The last straw in this barren month

Where the ripest of apples are born

            And pressed and cooked

Into sweetness renewed; you taught

The queen how to be cold as fae may be,

            And he brought the warm

Fire that thawed his way to the side

            By me to be my king, humbling but raw.

You encased our endurance while creating

            Space for him and the ice walls, yourself.

I shall miss you, but I've changed

            And spread my wings that were

Once shattered; to rise as you stand low.

Towering over me, I no longer recognize

            The boy I gave my all, a stranger in my eyes.

I do not cry as I used to though;

Maybe we had to become close again,

            Tighter than we'd ever been,

So you could see what you'd miss and took for granted,

While I learned the difference between

A thimble and a compass.

I'm as naked as the trees become before my eyes,

But safe as the bark that has grown harder

            And beautiful

In its rough glory.

I'll miss the old you, the us in Neverland.

It's just time for me to grow up

            As you continue with the lost boys,

Skipping lightning across the water

            With all the rocks that eventually sink to the bottom;

Our memories, laughter, kisses, and friendship

Haze over our minds.

I'll love you always as I often told you I will and would,

It's just time that while I had faith and trust,

To leave and move on from the piece of my heart

            That only held pixie dust.

New World

I have come to a conclusion:

I am not the black sheep

            As I always had come to believe;

I am of the New World, New Order

            While they are of the old.

That is why similarities and cores are the same,

But I never fit. Like a circle

            Trying to be contained in too small

Of a box. They often kept me deflated

And when I attempted to breathe--

            Expand,

I would be pushed back down.

Now I am free and

            They try to catch

And contain me as I've spun

Off the designated axis,

            To revolve around a sun

Of my own design.

Bruised Knees

I am on my knees

Not because of glory

Reach out your hand,

Help me up.

I’ve been broken but am determined to rise.

            I may not have been bled with red,

But tears have spilled on my face and smeared across

My love's chest as he's held me shaking

            And each porcelain piece of me

Spider-cracked

            And

He

            Just

Gripped me in his arms tighter to act as the glue

That allows me to go further...

The one you blessed me with even though

Soap opera, midnight drama

            Has multiplied by ten-fold in my life

Since you placed him in my life to finally be recognized

And to un-melt my heart and fill past-pains,

            Assist me in re-finding myself,

Allowing me to love again.

You have given him,

But I've been knocked down so many times,

            And only just gotten up,

A little harder each blending chapter--

That I for once, to the best of my memory,

            Have doubted and questioned You;

My faith. The road ahead.

Roads have been dark,

            But Heaven

I have often wondered if the stars,

            They still move.

Tenths

Nine-tenths of the law.

            That is the joke and the truth of the day.

We're afraid of what could have been left by liars

            In our humble hole

In duffle bags and tassel purses--

What was of who we thought were friends and

Allies we would rather be on the right side of but

            Who twisted truth to their benefit in order for our safety net,

Our hospitality.

They took advantage like everyone except for one-tenth

Of "friends" in our circles that grow and shrink,

            Grow and shrink until

We are nothing but really just the two of us.

Best friends and partners,

            True ride or die always on each other's sides

Because we're all that we can rely and dig us out:

Of bad situations and crises;

            Provide laughter and light for each depressive spiral,

                        Always love and give budding strength when the other bends.

They laughed at us when we called and asked, "What do we do?"

But they understand that we declined calls from those

            We had believed and given shelter, food,

            And gave up our privacy because we chose kindness instead of hatred.

I hate that. We try and strive and to do as God's word,

Do unto others and go with the good--

Then the government and the county,

            Or the people we chance,

Chase us back to our quiet apartment tucked in the grove,

Trusting less and more cut-off.

Two plants that chose to be planted together and

Now are forced to reside, grow, entwined in a tiny pot.

If two are to become one, then I guess by something-tenths

            We're bound by more than just future precious-metal knots.

                        

I'm Invincible

You say that I'm invincible

And my heart makes a sort of squeak

            In gratitude.

How'd I find a love who not only adores

            Every flaw, quirk, weird imperfection

And thinks so highly of me?

You say someone's got to,

Since I don't seem to myself.

I appreciate that the stars found me

Someone who's been through darkness

But breaks the clouds in mine.

I've pushed forward with obstinacy,

            Pride--

However, you pull me forward with

            Embracing moon shine.

A life raft on the tides;

You bring goodness that I don't give myself.

You say that I'm invincible,

When I feel the pull of my skin by my eyes,

The heaviness of headaches from too much stress,

            Overloads of anxiety kept bound

By tension in my muscles, tendons

Turning my small and fragile warrior's body

            Hard in knots.

I cringe at touch from aching joints that

            Are too stubborn to move with ease

And nerves extra sensitive to pressure.

By my emotions worn, my mind overworked

            With thoughts and mental processes.

I see everything that I have to fight through each day

            When I wake, that so many don't acknowledge

That I try to keep on the D and L as it all breaks me down.

You asked me just the other day

As to why I say

            That I am incredibly blessed to have you--

Well, you say that I'm invincible,

Even with my obstacles large and small.

You remind me of who I am,

That I don't have a quitter's soul,

And when I twitch to raise my hand in surrender,

You tell me you love me and whisper in my ear,

Just to remind me: I'm invincible.

Slow Motion

The brake peddle slowly meets the floor

As I reach in the center to change gears from drive

            To park.

I'm anxious and my nerves are buzzing.

I want to just slam and throw,

But take the extra seconds

To slow down--

I breathe with the forced gravity

I send to my bones.

Twenty seconds, that's the only time I steal for myself alone

Before I focus on not running, falling--

Not before I meet comfort in your arms,

I must be in the moment.

Too many times, emotions override or detachment

            Takes my place--

Not tonight though.

I refuse to let it.

The last time I got to be near you--

Be near you for more than hands held,

Grasped tight,

A fleeting hour,

Wish glass would break--

I'd lost my strength.

My self.

Clouds drew in, charcoal and grey.

My silver lining and moon were driven away,

Silent and unlit blues and reds

Disappeared in the distance as I stood.

Stood as if life ebbed away with each tear

Breeching the barricades of mascara-ed lashes

And staining my porcelain cheeks

            Ready to crack.

That day has haunted and provided sleepless nights.

Restless nights.

Nights of longing,

            Terror,

                        Sadness,

            Tossing-turning,

                        And ache-filled

            Dreams when my body could do nothing

But shut down from pushing--

The strides I took to fill all the minutes

            Between that goodbye moment

And the next kiss.

Every kiss.

Embrace.

Felt my soul wearing away, for I'd for the balance.

            The yin to my yang.

I was alive but not living.

Just praying.

            Hating. Damning.

                        Loving.

I'd have knelt in your favorite green summer dress,

On bare jagged stones until my knees bruised

            If it brought you home.

Now as I fight the tears of joy that wish to fill my eyes

Since the moment you called, surprising me with the news I'd hoped for--

And all the seconds I've bounced on my toes

Counting down time until I could arrive to this now:

I look down as I speed-walk,

Knowing that with my luck that my shoes

Will slide off or send me head-long

On the sidewalk if I most too quick--

I think for a second that I should have bought

            The other shoes we'd looked at just weeks before.

A small segment of me self-conscious--

            Knowing you'll point out that these black clogs

I've already scuffed,

Don't match my chocolate brown dress pants and silky flowered-blue top--

But I can't find it in me to care as my feet carry me closer

Jacket unzipped and wide-open, hair in disarray,

            To the store where with my friends

I'm told that you await.

I hesitate half a breath before the glass door with the open sign beckoning

And see you in the middles of everyone else

            Though I love them, they're blurred in the edges.

I burst through a lose all breath

            Because the bad has faded the moment I see you

In your black-grey striped sweatshirt and ruffled clean clothes--

My home is free....

And our group jumps to the side

As I nearly tackle you with my arms thrown wide around your nexk

No worries of falling,

Because as always

            You catch me and keep me standing.

Heart.

            Break.

                        Breath.

                                    Catch.

With a kiss I never want to end,

You set me down,

And I'm okay with facing the world.

To Those You'd Stand By, What They Don't Realize

Ever stop to think: I love too much,

Too much of my heart is out there

Each person another piece

And I'm burning myself down--

Burning my heart out in order for each of them

To have some peace?

It's like an eternal flame,

Love. And it isn't just the kind in romance novels--

Crossed-stars. You don't need those kind of things

To give birth to broken hearts.

No, all you have to do is spread yourself thin

Throw your whole-self into the world that you've created.

Friends, the extended family that you'd die for without a blood connection.

It's funny in a way, at least for me.

I don't ask for much, I'm like a giving-tree.

I flower and bloom, spread my branches across

To touch the souls of each person I hold dear and would

And will, stand through every storm with--for;

I'm that person who every one uses as their pillar

And offer to do the same, but never give in...

Well, hardly--rarely, give in,

Because my soul aches each time that I throw myself on a line,

And something happens which I can't control.

You can't control the ones you love

Nor the things that happen to them, to you.

It's hard. Loving others and yet even though they say that they love you,

There is, matter of fact, a sea of souls who love you,

But in the end you don't believe that any of them would do if the chance were given

A fraction of what you would or have done.

Jaded.

Can trust them with your life,

Trust them to try to hold to their words,

Trust them to fight for you or by your side--

But...can't trust them with your heart.

Can't trust that they won't walk out.

Because even with all this love, you--no, me--

Am scared because those are the ones you'd bare it all

Open yourself up and let them see the weaknesses and the strengths,

But you mostly try to only show the good and not let on

That loving them hurts. And you can't change that.

You would rather be strong or make them laugh

Than show that you want more, need more

Are worried that you give more than they

And take less...no, I don't mean just materially.

Material, that's the least of what you think about,

It's not an emotion. It's what's left when you take all that away--

Who you are.

Do they love you enough to stay, when everything

Every fraction of you is stripped down to the raw.

I'm rambling on, I suppose you could say--

But that's what I do when my feelings are involved

And I feel so spread, that if a bird were to fly into the window of my soul--

It'd crack.

Sui-combustio

I'm blocking, hiding

Burying feelings deep inside chests with locks and keys

But my mind screams, you must confront!

Take and unlock--

Be undone.

You need to breathe, even if it's through tears.

It's keeping you from sleep

And you, you're killing part of your soul to move forward.

Can't you confront that there is no more forward,

Just what is, allow it to grow.

I can't though I want to scream,

My subconscious rattling the bars and ribs,

I cannot, for I will drown!

Why must you haunt me?

I'm trying to live,

I'm attempting to appear free,

You know I fear a cage, even though I must conceal part of myself,

Wrapped in chains around my invisible ankles,

To keep me from running to the one that holds me--

Alas, how I wish I were held,

But when I am, I toss and turn.

I don't wish to speak

Because if I do, if I let out all that I've suffocated in my heart,

Then I open myself up, to being hurt one last time--

One last time, because once that jar of dreams is open again,

I don't see myself rising from the ashes once more.

Clouds

Am I perhaps the sun-setting skies?

The ones with puffs of clouds, pink and purple hues shading into grays?

Softness and pain all rolling ahead, surrounding our hearts

Our minds filled with fogs, knowing we wish and we need,

To get through the dark because on the other side

There is nothing but freedom and no more lines,

Because all the boundaries lay here on earth.

Not in the heavens where our souls long to twine

Our feelings the different stars reaching--reaching out to touch,

Not just physically, but the way we were

Intimate with something more

The way we have an inkling that we're supposed to be someday,

But instead all that we have are walls,

Because we fear.

Neither of us wants to lose.

Neither of us can lose,

Because we don't want there to be an ending between our two hearts,

Unless it's where one stops beating

And the other stops breathing.

I Want You to Know

I want you to know

I have no regrets

No regrets for ever loving you

I gave you my heart

And you held my soul

You were my true, true one

And a piece of me

Will never let you go

But I've finally realized

That while you will always be a part of me

Of my life...

It's time to never look back

At least not for me

I'll support you, hell, I'll raise a glass

For anything that will make you smile

You aren't mine though

You were never going to let that happen

And I'm happier without having you in my veins anymore

We're part of a messed up extended family

Hearts to hearts

And yet, I'm good

And damn I feel good not dwelling on my love for you

The pain and the sadness

The hurt and disappointment

I've shed it like skin

And risen

Whatever happens, come what may

I'm excited, because I can't see it

And I wouldn't be here

Wouldn't be who I am today

If I had never loved you

The way we loved.

Want to Try

I fall into pieces

And I keep hoping

That you'll look my way.

I stumble, this isn't what I'm used to--

I loved for so long, hid away.

I crash and I bury

I cry but I can't let it be seen.

It's time for me to open now that it's all closed, behind me.

Rearrange, these atoms that form my skin

At night when I close my eyes,

It's all darkness with blasts of light.

I want to try you out,

See if we're a fit and I just want to try,

This isn't me but I like you too much to not try.

I've been on this wheel called life for too long

Been carrying my burdens, sharing them with no one.

I want to be loved, not just the lover--

I want to see the world, see it in your eyes

I've fallen in pieces, but for the future I'm willing--

I'm willing to bring all the skies, and wrap them around me tight.

Mon coeur sera toujours

Leave my dreams

The same as you've done in life,

Because it breaks my heart more every time

My eyes flutter open

Before I lock the doors I've built

In these waking hours for these walls,

To shut this...to shut you, out.

Why must my heart still love you in my subconscious?

You're a ghost,

Hidden in my soul.

Even in two languages, or any way I would think to express it

The ache is not conveyed enough,

But for the world, to you, I will never again breathe it.

This remains my morning sighs.

Laisser mes rêves

le même comme tu l'as fait dans la vie,

parce que cela me brise le coeur plus chaque fois

mes yeux flutter ouvrir

avant je verrouiller les portes j'ai construit

en ces heures que je me réveille,

d'arrêter cette...à toi arrêter.

Pourquoi mon coeur aime toujours tu dans mon subconscient?

Tu est un ghost,

caché dans mon âme.

Même dans les deux langues, ou de toute façon j'aurais penser pour exprimer-ce

la douleur n'est pas assez véhiculée,

mais pour le monde, à tu, que je ne serai jamais plus respirer.

Ce reste mon matin soupirs.

Never Mine

All of these years,

I had the distinct feeling

That each lover of yours

            That filled temporary homes in your heart,

Never knew.

They never knew about me,

Our history--past,

Stolen kisses when we were no one elses'.

They didn't know about our friendship,

The close ties, the way we knew one another,

As we got older.

They knew none of that.

I am sure as well, that aside from those shared or met,

None of your other friends really knew either.

What were you scared of?

Was it a lie that you didn't care about what others thought?

The only conclusion I can claim is that perhaps

Our connection, the love, the camaraderie--

It would ruin your street cred.

Foolish man, we're no longer teenagers.

I was your secret.

You were never mine.

No Longer Looking Back

My love for you, is the Milky Way.

A big piece of me, will always remain yours.

When lightning strikes, my heart will ache

With smiles that will never be.

But I'm pushing on, going to unfurl my wings and fly.

I'm going to continue to grow, and be the star, a sun, in the sky

Who's searching for the Universe.

Accepted, wanted, not pushed, truly loved--

And less tears cried.

To find a second home, that I can call mine, forever.

Breaking Another

I jumped in too deep,

I gave my heart too quick.

This isn't me, and my soul's a little sick.

My gut's in knots, I'm a little suffocated,

And in order to breathe, I know I'll have to do

What's against what I want,

In order to receive, what I need.

Breathe. Air. Self. Me.

I must break another,

To save what I've worked hard to gain:

My sanity--

My identity.

First Week

I jumped into this, headlong, fast

Saying to take it slow but the emotions move quick

I've never been the kind of girl to fall with speed

But I've never had a guy make me cry because he loved me.

I want to make things work,

I'm in love for the second time and it somewhat hurts

My world's upside down, spinning like a top

And there's so many times my stomach's already in knots.

I'm scared and yet I'm staying, but there's already stupid fighting

I'm rooting my feet in but I already feel as if I can't do anything right

I'm told not to blame myself, but it's hard when the one

Is telling you that he's going to try hard not to think bad thoughts about you.

There may be bad from the past for both sides,

But at least I'm not letting it make me want to hide.

The worst part is, I feel the happiest I have in ages,

And yet I want to burn my skin because of the pains and sadness, too.

It's already a push and shove, trying to hold on to who I am

I don't want to lose me, my self, and I'm told to stay true to my heart

But my mind is influenced by my emotions and all I feel is as if I'm about to drown

With him as the raft keeping me from submersion.