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.

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.

Just Like Love

There’s a heart slowly beating

In this chest of mine.

It’s waiting for you to come

Tell me the truth,

Tell me how you really feel.

Chorus:

Do you know the drumming of war?

It’s fast, scary, and absolutely terrifying.

Then again, you get moments,

You can feel like you’re flying—

It’s an adrenaline rush.

Just like love.

I can still remember,

When our eyes first met.

Something stirred inside me

I swear it was kismet;

Pretty sure my soul was ready to speak.

Chorus

Isn’t it funny how

All of these little things

They stick in your head and won’t get out.

The trueness of the situation

Is that, I don’t wanna live without you.

Chorus

So I keep, I keep holding on.

I try to run free,

But you, you’ve got me good and strong.

I’d give up everything

If it meant, one last night

In your arms, by your side.

Missing the Shooting Gun

**Wrote this a few years back...won third place at my college's library's poetry contest Spring of 2012**

Across the seas, in the hot sands of war

He leaves us to wait;

Time shuffles its feet.

We are left alone to fight off the heat of

Becoming part of individuality.

We step away from the crowd that’s unable to see;

The pain, the longing, the need to have—

We split the chores, as he sees innocents

Bleed, but he must continue to drive.

We learn who cares, who lies, who cheats.

Running to the steel box on the road side, always afraid

Of what we shall find: is there a letter, or are you empty?

A year goes by, and the city is able to sleep;

It is safe from our enemies.

We hear the train down the road,

No one weeps as we have learned:

Take charge, be strong, harden hearts. A new year

Will soon come, autumn’s leaves will

Create a bed with the trampled sweets on the ground.

Powder builds heaven’s heaps,

And our family is no longer the same,

But is once more complete.