I Have Regrets

 You were the best friendship

Elm Street had to offer.

A brick patio to escape the smoke,

cigarette yellow stained walls.

Brown sticky drips of accumulated

cigar tar catch the dust of Dot.

Who is too old to clean, too old to care

that her grandson is corrupt,

dealing, a deviant and disturbed

enough to sexually abuse.

You know I was used

for the amusement of young boys, right D?

You’re the one

I don’t want to remember, remember?

Well, I’ve painted destruction

and I’ve dealt in denial.

You’ve painted me the villain

in my past of mistakes aimed right at you.

But you. . . Oh, you took my peace,

for years you stole my words,

my grace, my God’s sake,

and someone said to me recently. . . 

In an unspoken sort of way. . .

That’s not okay,

not that I stop wishing the best for you,

but that you don’t deserve the best.

You don’t deserve the best!

D, I don’t know if you can recall,

but while you were busy

making me the butt of your sick joke,

I was dying,

trying to cope with a sad sense of self

and the overbearing psychosis

imposed upon me by my family tree.

And I’ll never forget the empty nutshell

you introduced me to.

Yes, he was a joy

and while I was lucky enough

to survive that situation:

You never once questioned our companionship,

or if what we were doing was wrong.

Oh, I don’t know,

maybe you should tell someone

your supposed best friend

was the victim of teenage erotica at the hands

of an empty nutshell who was twice her age.

Then you had the nerve to make me feel

guilt and shame, called me a whore.

My God D,

you are such a bore! 

You accused me of theft,

yet you stole so much more!

I do not identify as the victim, 

and I’ll admit I had to be a villain

to overcome vulnerability.

Don’t mess with me,

I Have Regrets,

my share in wrongdoing.

But I’ve never stolen someone’s integrity

or their ability to feel humanity.

Those are things you stole from me!

So how could you expect a child to be

anything other than a mess of mistakes

in a miserable world

of sad circumstances?

I don’t know,

I do not know the answer to that question. 

I’m simply summarizing the past

so it doesn’t catch up with me.

The Lawn Mower’s Demise

 Everyone’s the same

self-conscious

-ego’s to blame.

I’m ashamed

that I’m not ashamed,

should I be ashamed?

Yes,

you feel bad

for wishing goodwill to men.

That makes sense. . .

Meanwhile, this mid-life crisis in my head

is sending me to bed

without dinner.

One less dirty plate,

one more clean step

into the world of an unknown fate.

And I can’t help myself

as I think about dirt,

and how amazing it seems to be.

Suddenly my clean shoes

find their way off my feet.

I dream I take my seat

on the ground, and dig up

every pretty flower on the sparse lawn.

“Yawn!”

You thought I was going

to kill them didn’t you?

They’re not weeds to me,

and they needed to be

saved from The Lawn Mower’s Demise.

The Building Blocks

 Binding,

blank minded,

going into the abyss

of anxious people, places, faces.

Crowds of silence,

crowds of sound.

Bound

by media

commedia

and talent.

Turn ash into cement,

and concrete peace

into The Building Blocks

of the desire

to be closer to nature.

You Can’t

 How to be free from scrutiny?

You can’t.

You can’t.

You can’t.

I am an insignificant

grain of sand

on a warm sunny beach.

Or so, I wish I was-

what I really am

is an admission

of imperfection.

Loud and unwilling to be treated unfairly.

Tired of being told to be sad

when I’m happy,

tired of saying goodbye to happiness

in order to fit in a crowd I don’t belong.

I’m spent again,

devastated,

deep breaths,

mindful meditated

into nowhere good.

I’ve got this feeling

I’ll be healing

more than just myself-

you can’t heal other people.

You Can’t.

You can’t.

You can’t.

Under Aurora’s Umbrella

 Where are my words?

Painting you a hue

Under Aurora’s Umbrella

of chameleon rain.

Crushed velvet,

crushed dreams

create movement among

the lifeless sympathies

sold by soulless

companies.

Take a second to see what I see,

suffering,

or celebration,

even anticipation.

Step inside the mind

of the soulful kind,

the human experience

of artful deliverance.

You Can’t Understand

 You Can’t Understand me,

my words, my culture, my faith,

my existence in this world

that refuses to accept me

as a light of positivity.

You’d rather I sit in the dark

as a lonely sad spark

that burns this city down in

dismay and destruction.

How do I please you?

How can I please you?

I am out with the old, in with the new.

Demolition, not reconstruction,

new construction.

I am practice,

I am in practice.

A falling tower of kind words

pushing through,

“How do you do?”

A belief so strong that I do not belong,

but I keep leaving behind

strands of a shattered self.

A shred of self endearment said to me,

“This is not your crowd,

this is not your place,

this is not your fight,

so please turn away with grace.”

Paper Clips, And Wishes

 Chaos is a point in time

when patience sees leaves

on green trees flee 

and hairs on heads turn gray

in the state of disarray

defined as life.

So pride smiles and looks aside

as chaos battles human wit.

WE CAN OVERCOME-

(OR) WE CAN BE OVERCOME.

That little thing called life goes on

with the ambition of a first-time mechanic

who repairs their car

with Paper Clips, And Wishes.

Hard times do not discriminate, 

everyone is subject to a chaotic fate.

The Culture To Condemn

 Define yourself

by one bad moment,

and suddenly the world

starts to crumble.

You fumble

over words,

like sidewalk trips

send you to the pavement

with scraped knees,

begging please

not again!

The Culture To Condemn

imperfection arrives when

our society unplugs

from reality

and remembers you

only

by one bad moment.

A Final Call

 I fade in and out of inner peace

with every step of dragging feet.

The skin so tender has time to heal

and callus over tremendous pain.

Swollen backs,

swollen muscles,

do we ever get a break,

you and I?

You and I have our place

in the world’s deepest fall from grace.

A second chance,

a second time,

A Final Call for freedom’s line.

There stood the man

of violent devices,

chaining you to your room

with words of deceit. 

A lock on the door to life

sticks you with the weight

of endless obligation and still,

you are not entitled to an explanation.

I Cannot Fight

 London’s fog

has its hold on me.

I can’t see

the sun.

A wish,

a reality,

I can’t see

the beauty

of the world.

The lonely windowsill

sits to my right

but I Cannot Fight

my plight

of interrupted thinking

which has me sinking

into the fabric

of my mindset.