No Justice

Twenty-eight and I still can’t hold down a stable relationship
Because every time he touches me I feel that anger swell
and think to myself “get your fucking hands off me”
So uncomfortable in my own skin
I want to crawl out

And he,
the culprit, my step-father
is living in a mess
Two-story old apartment
Dilapidated building
Destroyed marriage
The only person in our family that talks to him
is my younger sister

She, at 11, had to hear all the gory details
and listen to him come apart
He pleaded to her like she was the
Judge and the jury
And she felt like she couldn’t
Possibly decide between us,
Couldn’t possibly take sides

And my mother thinks
I put her on trial
Drummed up a witch hunt
Sentenced her to a lifetime of guilt
She reminds me often
That she was trapped,
That he beat her into submission

She doesn’t realize that
I don’t want the power to sentence
I don’t want to deal with dolling out blame
I wanted
I needed help and validation and a voice
But it’s too late now

Everywhere I turn
There is no justice,
No justice,
No justice.

The Edge

I've come to the edge
of this sad precipice
looked out over the ocean of emotion
again and again
Inhaled the thick air of solitude
Allowed the fog to dull
all my violent impulses
at peace with being alone,
confronting the lie of a tireless,
limitless love
No, no,
He wouldn't follow me to the end of the earth.

Simulacrum

Another night of hot, twisted, uncomfortable sheets
coiled like the muscles in my stomach
a red, pulsing, angry wound
that only I can feel

There was a love lost a thousand years ago
that soft aching that
swells inside me
throbs beneath the surface
sometimes bubbles over
when an imposter steps in

He's got the same hands,
the same gestures as you
the way his eyes fall on me
is familiar
the longing seems
believable
almost

But the closer I look
the more he becomes a stranger
cruel in the performance,
heartless in his distractions
a sad shadow of
a broken promise,
a love unfulfilled

Rebirth

Under a leaky sink I daydreamed
of finding love sitting quietly on a bench
waiting for me to show up

I woke to find a distorted
picture of love
painted in blacks and reds
across the parking lot
spelling out cynicism
in vomit and tears on the pavement
scantly clad women dancing
for pennies
Desire, fantasy, romance on display
like a spectacle, like a masquerade
like a ghost to haunt the present.

When I was sufficiently overwhelmed
with love's apparition
you cradled my head on your lap
slept next to love's wearied body
breathed life back into its lungs.

There may be an end to a b'ak'tun cycle approaching
or maybe it's the coming together of three stones again
to reveal the sun.
A new beginning approaching
And a dawn that whispers
I found you
I found you.

Open Window

To be awoken
By kisses up my back
A pale kingdom under the sheets
To be told, in secret,
In corners, in whispers
The million ways to fall in love
To memorize the story of the initial meeting
To meet eyes at every boring party
With awareness and playfulness
The world will be born again-
Out of the ashes of old, past, dead
As a playground
And I hope to be the first
And I hope to be adored.

Blue Moon

Searching for a blue moon
Between bubbles of laughter
I beg the fear not to set in
I offer a green bowl of tears to the black hole
that has already taken too much.
Distraction, distraction, offer simple distractions
So when we're alone
I can crawl into your mouth
And catch the words that come out
Afraid that I'll have nothing when you're gone.

Straw Men

When I'm done being mad at myself
for all my bad decisions
for all the things I set up to make sure
I won't get what I want
The straw men I built
to create a beautifully crafted distraction

(And maybe I could fall in love with
those delusions
for a short time
And maybe I could love you
for your part
in them)

But when I'm exhausted from
all that self-sabotage
it's still me
and only me
in this mess.