that's mrs. mediocrity to you

today i don’t want
to be greedy about anything.

forget greedy,
i don’t even want to want what i want

i want to stand here on bare earth
naked and white

beneath this sky of broken promises

listen to the thunder

i want to be cracked open
by an errant bolt of lightning

lit, for one brief moment
from the inside out

fed by a harvest of sunshine
and scolded by the red words
of dusk

i want to be hollowed out and left

opened and forgotten

today i don’t want
to be greedy about anything.

i want to breathe fire into blue surrender

hold everything still and empty

wait for hope to fill me up

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i’ve been holding back tears for weeks
playing strong and grown up and
capable
(a word that always hunts me down)

last night the world broke me
(again)

the floodgates opened
and i stood in the rain so no one
would notice

tears fell to earth
ran down rivers
rushed to the ocean

(earth’s gravity bowl
for mother’s tears)

i want to gather my babies
and build a big bonfire

cook them promises and
protection bake them dozens
of hope-filled tomorrows

i want to sit beneath the stars
and see their eyes fill
with something other than
confusion

i want ghost stories and
huddled together whispers
about fears they need not be
afraid of

i want this storm
to cry itself out
cleanse our wounds
carry us all out to see

i am hungry for a rainbow

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

Also linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

and i write poems in my mind as you
breathe not so silently beside me
in a darkness whole
and beautiful except
we choose to crack it with
electricity and fairy promises
and silence isn’t the same as black
and goodness isn’t the same as light and
you know all these things with the peace
of good sleep and i lay here awake
words swinging through my
mind in a bellicose beacon
and you would think
protection
but i am drawn to those shores
and these rocks will break me

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i want to pull an alice and dive into a mirror
surely life looks different from the other side

backwards and cockeyed and filtered through
lint left on the surface or smudges stamped
by florid fingerprints and the brittle bones
of everyone who’s ever touched you

always lit like a window in an opulent dream
this place where everyone wears dresses
and no one ever thinks to ask your name
loneliness is a hamper and heartache
is eternally for breakfast, served over easy

with tea, of course

i want to talk to prepubescent butterflies
smoking peace and posturing philosophy
aces and spades kings and queens grinning cats
roses that bloom and bleed and bloom again
always late all this hate always late

shadows are made from silence turned sideways
and music is the way your mouth moves
time is a harness on the horse of hardship
dragging hard on the carriage of comfort

and i am the queen who wants to be whole
but no one hears me in here, knocking

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

everything that was broken yesterday
remains that way today

i have fixed what i can and the rest
is the life i have chosen

or sunk into
shoulder high

and i’ve yet to flail my hands

i am still
and silent

i was listening for something
for the longest time

and then i forgot how to speak

this isn’t mud i wallow in
but rather
the exquisite change pain of life

i no longer wait to be rescued

there are stars
or rain on my face

clouds
or blinding blue skies

crows chatter on the line
i used to talk through

there is a bluebird just now
warbling a love song

there is earth pressed tight
against my heart

winter ate me whole
and spring will spit me back out

this clay will all turn to dust
and my feet are already

bare

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i am awash in a sea of pretty pictures
and no one can save me from myself

so i built this tiny boat
from matchsticks and ribbon
with seven layers and five sunsets
and three extra blankets

i don’t collect things anymore
especially dust

and there can’t be two of anything
because i only like odd numbers

but i see everything there is to see
floating in these waves, every color
interspersed with black and white,
all leading to a shore I cannot reach

at least not without stopping
1,457 times to say

how beautiful

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

this room is empty save
for that ball of string
standing in one corner
looming tall and multi-colored
all knotty and criss-crossed
with dust and ever afters and
red might be for love but blue
is for everything else
and from a distance
it all blurs into beige
just the way I see your face
when i squint
in the sunshine

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

ego is a fragile toy
and i’ve been thinking a lot about death lately

at first glance, these two things
might seem to be unrelated

but they are partners i tell you
(and don’t run away because i’ve mentioned their names)

you will dance with them both
one night

and i am never good at answers
but i do know this:

you get to write the music

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i want to put your youth in my pocket
and save it for a rainy day

i want to tell you dylan thomas was brilliant
and bob dylan was his love child

i want to tell you to listen

but i know you won’t hear anything i say
with my cloak of old age singing me
invisible to you and your friends

i want to tell you nothing kills you but death
not heartbreak or disappointment
failure or ridicule
loss or even down and out

even so
you will die a tiny bit every day

in the same way a tree dies every time
a leaf drops

and a mirage gives up when you see it

but you

and me

we’re all dandelions

growing where we land

sending down our tap root of survival
blooming garishly bright
and then withering grey

and even when we’re spent

there are seeds

to catch a ride on a breeze
and carry us
into tomorrow

so i hold my tongue
because you are young
and i’m just the sun
holding court
with yesterday’s clouds

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

Also linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

waiting for the moon and begging for a howl

polaris refuses to reveal my backlit compass

and i choose not wander despite knowing
exactly where i am

instead

i listen for the song of saturn
spooling itself up my arm

i inhale black and exhale glitter

the bear in the corner see fireflies and
promises her cubs after dinner dancing

i stay where i am

silently

breathing life into a night
that knows no shadow

sparks on the horizon blinking
silhouette and solstice

in tandem with the rhythm

of destiny’s heartbeat

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.