// mixed media.//

I can no longer discriminate my heart from head, it’s not like they helped with the decisions I’ve made. 

I followed my heart to an empty room, on a trail gone cold before I knew.  I listened to my head and stayed away, from a girl who waited every day.

Maybe they traded places but did not tell, I’m thinking with my heart and that’s how I fell.

// Selling the ink of your soul.//

they promise fame
they promise success
they promise a future
the very best.

all you have to do
is to tether your pen
write as you wish
but only for them.

so sell your poetry
sell your soul
if they mean nothing
going once, twice, sold.

// hits and regret.//

You stand there
with bloodied hands,
watching, waiting
for the deer to move.

Its eyes dilate
and stare accusing,
bleating, bleeding;
a game abandoned.

In its resilience
you seek absolution,
kneeling, praying
for a neon sign. 

That it finds reprieve
in your absence,
healing, dealing
with the pain inside.

Move along now,
there’s nothing to see.
The dead is to you
and will forever be.

// transience.//

Stepping light on the shore, the sand remembers quick; impressions form, however faint, and marks you with its bits.

Walking on the water’s edge, be forgotten, as hurried as you came. Persistent waves will wash your trail, leaving wrinkles on its plane.

Wading into the sea, descend and disappear, as tides pull you away.  We mourn as we ought to, dear, but too soon, too soon, it’s another sunny day.

// She doesn’t clear them; they are left to rot; she smells like corpse.//

When it falls just outside the zone, rubble and debris trigger the alarm.  Shields go up and defenses deploy.  Spotlights bathe it in their limelight, watching eyes like a hawk.

Every act is monitored, fingers on triggers and red buttons; ready to squeeze, ready to push, all it takes is one wrong move.

Waiting for the line to be crossed, and when it does, see how quickly peace turns awry.  A collection of fresh wounds saved in a volley, a heap of rotting flesh in her valley.

// Pulled cord.//

Strap it on tight
make it go round and round
till you feel the tug
the velcro stick sound.

Left and right
paddle hard don’t save
going against the tide
to catch your wave.

As I jettison away
may the rope not snap
however far I go
pray, a pulled cord lead me back. 

// Lying at your funeral.//

On the green grass dotted with headstones, I’m watching the clouds cry.  As their tears mix with mine I cannot tell if I’m weeping, or if it is just the rain, streaming down my sunken cheeks.

I have not slept sound since the incident.  I remember each and every night, staring into the ceiling, hoping a chunk of it would fall and knock me unconscious.  I would wake up in pain, but I already do.

I only ask for five hours.  They would fleet by like minutes, but at least in that shut down my mind would get respite from thinking of you, and what to say at your funeral. 

No.  You’re there even in my sleep.  I toss and turn because you’re still pushing me around like you did when you were alive.  I loathe you even when you’re dead.

They don’t know how hard I tried, how much I had to put up with, because I believed leaving was not the answer. 

You were a bitch.

I couldn’t say it out, I wouldn’t.  How crushed they would be to learn how vile your character was.  Funerals, after all, weren’t about reminiscing the bitter times.  It’s rude.

So there I stood, a hastily scribbled note in my hand, gaze never leaving the script as I recited the most pleasant eulogy I could craft.  The pastor would shake his head in disappointment if he knew I was lying to all your loved ones. 

Thirty years, thirty years!  I’ve loved you that long, but I rue the day I slid the band on your finger.  I should have listened to my mind.

Maybe there’s a place in hell for me, for the scornful widow who would weep not of sorrow but of anguish, but I’m damn sure you’re already there fanning the flames.

// All strings attached.//

There are knots on your fingers you can’t undo, they extend skyward with lines into the clouds.  They tell you to let go, to relax your muscles and go with his flow; he’ll lift you from the ground and cause you to move.  It’ll hurt slightly, when he sews more into your joints and head, but you will be complete.

In his control.

He’ll let you speak your mind, no one will believe you.  They can’t see the knots just as fish can’t see fishing lines, only the bait, the lie that is you, hanging from a hook.  They will nibble away at your soul, till all the fight that’s within you is consumed, and you are his.

The puppet master dangles a carrot before your eyes, promising you an ease of life, only because he’ll take it from you.

// you’re all cover and no content.//

The more I read the more I was intrigued, I told my friends you were a good read; all they saw was your cover, and judged you by your colour.

If only they cared to flip, they’d realize, a page turner indeed!; words that move and come alive, a story worth the Pulitzer prize.

But a new chapter begins, the ink faint and faded; blank pages do not pique, banished eyes do not read.

All I can see now is your cover, an illustration of fiction, only stranger.