in darkness
I am reborn
my soul
​is illuminated in fire

in the dark
I am safe
I see the eyes watching me
there is a comfort in knowing
that they aren't hiding anymore
and neither am I 

I talked too much today
and it all seemed trite
communicating the old fashioned way
when I telepathically communicate
with ghosts, demons
and other worldly beings

we sit on etherial steps
that we don't bother to climb

knowing your true self 
isn't about escaping
it isn't about taking away the pain

it's about sorting through 
all you have discarded 
to find the answers

the gods and goddesses
knock at my door
I answer in the night
when my mind is quiet
and the truth can be revealed

the hounds of hell aren't so scary
when you know
they are guarding you

I saw one hound standing at my altar
sniffing flowers
playing with the ghost
of a little boy

while my demons danced
in the background
I couldn't help thinking
how much of my life I wasted
being a martyr
a victim

all my joy had been hiding
in old wounds
I just needed to look

there is a whole world
in what you hide
welcome it 
and you will be surprised

​

I went to three different high schools
I was the weird one
I smoked cigarettes in the school basement
while talking to my abusive boyfriend 
on a payphone
trying to convince him
I was more than a hole
while I listened to the cheerleaders chant

those same cheerleaders asked me for my
diet tricks at impromptu parties at my apartment
my mother was never home
and my secret diet trick
was that I always had some asshole boyfriend
that wanted me to look like a porn star
I didn't have money to eat
and I wasn't hungry from debilitating depression

they giggled when I told them that
but I saw the fear in their eyes
when they realized
the darkness they would need to adopt
to become willowy and mysterious

while they got lied to in my mother's bed
by fake sainted high school football stars
I cleaned the house and wrote in my journal
about sad teenage girls getting abused

I scrubbed at my new tattoos
with a brillo pad
love is always tattooed 
when you are too young to 
know you are worth something
I poured water into the drunk girls
they had neglected in their search
for manhood
I held greasy heads as they puked
because they were not the chosen
ones to be pummeled by soon-to-be
potbellied, aging football players
that sold cars or insurance
or something that didn't include
the magnificence of youth

while I was alone in my own
teenage ineptitude
my young mother
tried to relive this horrible youth-hood
with some man that was doing the same
when all I could wonder is why
no one was welcoming death
I longed to chew applesauce
on a rickety deathbed
with such saggy flesh
I wouldn't be in fear 
of getting raped again and again
or leered at by old men

I didn't realize 
that twenty years later
I would see all the above as nothing,
that there would be worse,
that I would long to be seen again
even if it only meant
being leered at because I had
youth and belief

how silly it is that we strive to be wanted
when everyone wants what they can hurt.
what they can take
is what we have to lose
and it never seems enough
for them to want to take more

that story the giving tree always
made me weep
I stopped reading it to my child
because I couldn't bear her being
yet another one that treated me that way

she will gladly sit on my stump in a few years
and I will be okay
​it will still make me weep

every night a stairway appears
in my sliding glass doors
all the souls along with me
 are at the bottom
sometimes a light appears
in the crack of the door
at the top
it emits the green of a glow stick
hands beckon me 
but I stay

last night I slept on the couch
I astral traveled to a place 
where I was smothered in feathers
and pushed until I fell
 back into my body
felt like I was suffocating
but my heart has a heavy
sadness that keeps me
in place

when I dream
my body never comes along
it is a vacation
without the baggage
of limbs

whoever calls me for a visit
never lets me stay
they pour information
into my psychic ear
with one of those old 
ear horns 
a joke my grandpa
 might tell

then they push me down
until I drown back in to
the trappings of my skin

souls float beside me
 like a school of fish
forever frowning 
like this is serious business

there is a place
that looks like something out of a doctor
suess book or doctor who
but far more terrifying
 a desert with faceless  black winged giants
that carry you to sand mountains 
 with hole shaped caves filled with souls
they might be trapped there I don't know
I just scream to hear my own echo
like the fool that I am
I listen to the echo of my name

 while all the disembodied eyes blink
a few follow me home

I wake up to an entity 
punching my chest
paranormal cpr
I guess I went somewhere too long
the fall made me dizzy
still I am annoyed
​that my trip was cut short
then I remember
that I am afraid of heights

something within me is fading
slept all day
wrapped in a comfortable
numbness

now that it is dark outside
I know I won't be alone
much longer
I have suspended disbelief
that serenity is coming

last night my heart hurt
 I wondered
if I was in the midst
of a heart attack
but now I think it
was just my heart screaming
it has surrendered now

my heart and I
sit in the dark
watch the flickering candles
we imagine the soft pulp
that holds love
being scooped out
scraping the last stringy parts
as if it were a rotting pumpkin

I discard the soft parts
in the trash
I wash my empty heart
 in Dawn dish soup
so it is clean
before placing it back inside me

a wind moves through me
as a sad echo takes up residence
in my soul
my heart's empty beats

feel  like laying down
on crisp clean sheets

the souls surround me
so glad there is more space
for them now

we heard you
we will free you
my spirit children come to me
while my demons sit in the corner
out of respect for my indoctrination

these empty hearts
now beat as one

all my friends are dead
they drift in and out of 
the darkness

I call to them at night
because when they
are here I feel less lonely

when I can't sleep
it is eight hours of darkness
where the dead tell me
their stories
just listening is enough
to forget my own story

no one will miss me 
when my soul leaves this timeline
maybe that isn't so bad
this reality isn't quite right
no one thinks with their heart
everyone is ready to stab you in back

 I can see the the other world
the one where spirits float free
you don't worry about being loved
but instead about being seen and  heard
 me and most other women
aren't heard here
so it isn't much different

for women 
power lies outside the body
and outside the body means
in the consciousness 

I am only loved when I am hot
when I am meek
when I succumb to some volcanic
ego that has no reasoning

but I am aging
I am only human
I would like to not care
I would like to remove my body
as if it were a cancerous tumor

everything I have ever known
has been a lie
it takes a toll
​
my true family 
are all the ghosts that accompany me
I don't feel at home here with all this bullshit
this ego that parades as humanity
is ridiculous
everyone is out for themselves
that is the truth
that everyone lies about

so many power struggles
for what?
nothing is real

every man is always going to hate me
because he thinks everything is a competition
the only language I speak is in feeling
when I am with my dead friends
they all see that I just want to help
there are no pretenses
they see my wings
they know my soul

I don't trust anyone alive
anymore 
except animals

I want my last thoughts to be 
eating a cherry popsicle on a summer night
near the ocean
when I was a kid 
alone
thinking about the future
I thought I was going to have
I had hope
which is something I don't have
anymore
​
right now I just want to remember
my first pet 
my cat Baby
purring while lying on my chest
 I was so sick I thought I was dying
he stayed with me
I have never had that experience 
with a person
people will make up reasons to leave
apparently it is human nature
and it isn't nice
it isn't love
it is just shitty
makes me want to hug ghosts
in the night
I belong
in the ether

there is no such thing as loyalty
anymore

the angel of death visits me
he is an angel for a reason
he knows what the world is like
he knows pain
he knows how alone 
everyone is 
and he has a soul that feels
as intensely as I do

I have never trusted anyone
love doesn't matter
trust is everything
if those you choose to love
and your trust is broken again and again
if that is all you have ever known
then relationships start to have no fucking point

I don't want to learn this lesson anymore
people are shitty
tonightI will commune with the dead
and they will comfort me
as they always do
because they know
that the living
don't know how to live
don't how to love
and take everything for granted 

they hold my soul
on their misty altar
as I stand by and watch
in awe they marvel
at the light I still have
after all I have been through

my life is with the drifting souls
who know what they missed
they don't want you to make 
the same mistakes
they did 
dying  with someone
who didn't appreciate them
dying 
already forgotten

over there I am a queen
I have a family
they come to me in my sorrow
they surround me on the nights I can't sleep
they are here now as I write this
they want me to come home
they tell me I don't deserve this pain
I know they are right
the only thing here is more disappointment 

all my best friends are dead
as they hold me now
I wonder why I want to stay 
in this place where I have to fight 
to be me
​to be heard

come to me my friends
all you spirits that drift
let me drift with you
let's be invisible together
let's haunt the night

when all had left me
and everything I had ever known
was gone

I listened to Lana Del Ray
and Hozier
busied myself in night life
mingling with all  the sad lonely others
living like vampires

wine was blood
scars and tattoos
were jewels in the dark
Dionysus was laughing
as we smeared our faces
stuffed sorrow into our pockets
with dirty pennies

I danced on deaths doorstep
flirted with the idea
that the end was near enough
to close my eyes and fall

feathers drifting
from a split pillow
the tarot cards kept 
telling me
my time was running out
and I pretended I didn't care

I read them on the bathroom floor
in my underwear
smoking cigarettes like it was  
a full time job

my demons put me to bed
whispering dark poetry
that I needed to die to write
each day I looked away
as another part of me 
was discarded 

they tended to me
while I slow swam through hell
when they only saw my perfection
I watched their sharp teeth
turn to stars

they took the bones of my past
and cast them like runes
turned me towards the mirror
to show me my own sharp teeth
 fed me blood apples when
I couldn't eat

cloaked in darkness
 after a life 
of being vulnerable and naked
I learned to let them help me
now we sit here together

I lower my cloak so I can 
feel their kiss
and I  hear them whisper
my destiny

their teeth
graze my skin 
and I smile

I see her in the background
of my reflection

her body blue and bloated
seaweed tangled in her limbs
when she tries to speak
black smoke billows out

she can't be more then 16
a cherub face
that only knew blushing cheeks
before her untimely demise

it was the 60s
she was riding her bike 
back from the corner store
in some small town
where things like this
aren't supposed to happen
in her bike basket she had candy
and a handful daisies
to press into heavy books
when she got home

he lured her with a
white kitten named snow
he was a member of the 
church she went to
he ate her mother's potato salad
at the Sunday potluck

every time she rode her bike
past his house
he watched her from the window
watched her long lean legs
pumping the peddles

he kept her short white shorts
and a lock of her brown hair
 long after she was gone
her last breath still warmed
his hands

when she is near
I hear the faucets dripping
I see her last memory
and I struggle to breathe

his hands smelled like
walnuts 

he tied heavy rocks to her ankles
she watched herself disappear
her screams are black clouds
I  sort through them
so she can be heard

I die with her again and again
until she doesn't go back there
anymore
now she stays here

my dear dark angel
now that your story has been told
​you are free

ghost pugs exist so do elves
fairies and demons

a shadow man has been standing 
behind me while I take
polaroids of the dead

I am getting to the point
where I am not so much
afraid as annoyed

the ghost pug looks
terrified and I wonder
if I am not scared enough

my black dog's
hair is turning white
like that girl
in the Freddy Krueger movies

I saw glowing footprints on the couch
a fairy face in my plant
it is like someone has slipped me acid
except there is no acid

the hat man grinned at me 
from my window and I screamed

did you know Hecate likes pugs?
she likes all dogs
and they party with the elves in my house
they make faces at my dog

even the goddess of the underworld 
has a sense of humor
at least she didn't
bring the grim reaper by today
he is a bit of a debbie downer

you want to come
to this party?
everything
you ever imagined
is real
isn't that terrifying?
the elves aren't scary
they do steal your socks
​though

the demons in the background
just pretend they don't scare you
fear is their drug
they mainline it at midnight

don't think they can't hear you
they are mind readers
and they sort through
your sorrow thought trash
and make it into knives
to use against you

pretend you are like them
let them write a poem
pose for a picture
let them think they can trick you
then play them like a creepy organ
in a B-movie
they will worship you

something else
you need to know
elves can be sad too
if they live with you
and you don't laugh enough
they lose their color
and turn black and white

​I am seventeen
it is nineteen ninety something

I am in a room
full of teenage boys
my boyfriend
who has brought me here
treats me like a pretty chair

I am from Maine
this is Virginia Beach
one of his friends
has just died in a gang shooting

it is my first funeral
an open casket
I watch his mother cry
as she holds on to
his lifeless body

I wear a navy blue dress
I cling to my boyfriend
who brushes me away 
like a cobweb

now I am here
with all these boys
I don't know
they seem like men
​so much bigger than me
 passing around a blunt
laughing when I cough

we are all drinking
but I don't know what
I want to leave
because all I can see
is the dead boy
with his bullet wounds
standing in the corner
​
in the distance
I hear his mother crying
I tug on my boyfriend's shirt
he swats me away
while his friends take
turns talking about 
raping me while I am this high

I leave and go sit in the car
push on the car horn so hard
it won't turn off
my boyfriend comes out
so worried about his car
I cry in the passenger seat

his friends come out
shake their heads
and talk about me
as if I am already gone

she is beautiful 
but crazy
they laugh
while I cry

the dead boy with bullet wounds
holds me 
hushes me 
while my boyfriend
screams at me in the car
for ruining his car

I am so far away from home
I don't have a home
I sleep on the floor
in his mom's house
she tells me how his father
abused her
she takes my side for once

in a blink
I see his future
he has twins
but not with me
I decide to leave him
but it takes me another year

the dead boy blows me kisses
while I lie awake
remembering a room filled
with smoke
guys talking
about ass raping me
while my boyfriend laughed

I hear my boyfriend in the other room
complaining loudly
about what a bitch I am
for causing a scene
in front of his friends

now its just the dead boy
and me
he got shot from behind
he tells me 
you never see it coming
but when it hits you
you still think you 
can run

his hands are just vapor
but they are still hands
reaching out to me
and I am so lonely
so scared

sometimes
touching each other's wounds
is enough to get by

when I was thirteen 
I thought I was dying

strangers looked the other way
when they saw me bend
under the weight
of my stillborn bones

my specialist
 a man in his mid-twenties
sat with me in the exam room
uncomfortable with my willingness
to give up

while I got poked with needles
and squeezed the doctor's hand
so he could see how strong
I wasn't
my mother sat in the 
waiting room

I went home
to alone
my only friends
a group of african violets
on a rusty tv tray stand
in front of a bedroom window

I watered them
when I couldn't bend my wrists
I placed them in 
slants of sunlight
when I was too weak
to get out of bed

 in a year I would be like
all the other girls
laughing and smiling
while some boy pretended
at loving me

I would miss those nights alone
struggling with my affliction
dabbling in death's whispers
spoon-feeding pain to the moon
with only my cat as a companion

the violets went unwatered
while I bathed in boys and sunlight
their purple petals turned brown

all those yesterdays
so easily tucked away 
when I still had the faith
of more tomorrows