i'm too tame to be a wildflower

marriage

this covenant we made
will last a lifetime
either mine, or yours
i can't imagine whose
blood will be thinned
or skin will lose hue
so like the selfish woman
i am, i hope i leave
before you do

religious

people love that I'm
contemplative—poetically
inclined to rummage .
but people hate that
I'm religious . they see
the cross around my
neck and want to stifle
my voice . you cannot
love one hand and hate
the other .

rib

i watch as you lay
still and feverish,
with a gentle touch
i move a curl away
from your face and
linger on your cheek

you're sick, but i
kiss you anyways

like the rib of Adam
that Eve was formed,
I was made for this,
I was made for you

you aren’t a poet
you don't drink the words of literature
straight out the mouth of a waterfall
with me, you stand a distance
with your arm out wondering
when i’ll be done with my foolishness—
i write in these walls, i suffocate, too

daydreamer

there's a plate of food in front of me
that i do not reach for

instead, i sit looking longingly
wishing i could taste it

what is the point of having a dream
if i won't extend my arms and reach

destruction

a two year flood
and a rapid tornado
both kill all the flowers
in the garden
yet i let them, and loved

an honest poem, a pathetic poem

I twist myself through ocean currents
through the eyes of all the needles
configuring my body til I’m dis-
membered and unrecognizable
fragments of mirrors stick to my heart
blood browned and coagulated and
I wonder at what point I'll be
pleasing, the type of person someone
would want to dance with on a
boardwalk in winter without socks
but I've never been worth the pain
I’m a dog re-learning tricks with
a limping leg, a doll knitted to
a certain image but the threads always
come undone—burned with holes
from cigarettes, stockings ripped
tears tattooed, I’m considered tattered
not even twenty-five but wasted
potential, taking up space, both negative
and otherwise, a person with no
records of really living, a fish in the sea
wondering when someone will look for me

rainbow

when the God of the universe
is looking down on me
I cannot fear the wake of disaster
for every storm brings a rainbow
and I think of Him

my father's love

"...love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8)

I think of my father, who held
us in his arms after we would
come to him crying, missing
our mom—a woman out of reach
and too far deep to be a mother,
who we so desperately (as little
girls do) wanted to love and kiss,
but true love's kiss doesn't dispel
the numbing effects of pain pills—
but my father would hold us tight
and kiss our heads, and tell us
that he loves us, and that everything
would be alright, and I would
believe him with all my little heart.

loyalty

i've died on many hills, a pledge
to my heart, a wound on my hand
but i'd go to the deepest of valleys
with you—where you go, i follow too

diary

i've been swallowed
by oceans
by hydrangeas
by gnats
and i never seem
to be good enough
for myself
i am what they call
an unreliable narrator
tactful in what
i portray
i pray that no one
finds my box of diaries
on the top shelf
it would be tragic
to be seen
but maybe it's on purpose
that they're still
in reach
maybe i want
someone to cry
as they learn who
i've always been

cracked

i took my phone case off for the first time in over a year, only to discover how cracked the back of my phone has become. and instead of blaming myself for my negligence, i blamed the phone for being too fragile.

later in the evening i looked in the mirror and took off my mask. i crumbled to the bathroom floor. i could hate the world for it's cruelty, but instead i only hate myself—there is no one else to blame.

i love feeling the weight
of a cat on my lap
i delight in her purrs
as her eyes lay to rest
and dreams occupy her
right there with me
and suddenly i'm imagining
a baby cradled in my arms
sleepy eyes, brown or green
drifting with quiet breaths
their mind imagining the wonders
if the world they will live in
and then i wake up
sitting with a cat on my lap
and no baby in my arms
for another night again

heaviness

hair overgrown, cut it up
I’ll cry on the bathroom floor
regretting it later
but it was never about the hair
it never is

nothing grows in me

A flower does not bloom in my stomach
and I wonder if my tears overwatered it
I plant, but nothing comes out
as if nothing was ever put in the ground

The same spot in the same pew
has become imprinted by my presence
praying and praising, crying and silence
the stained glass just stares back at me

A womb is meant to hold a baby
arms are meant to cradle, lips for a kiss
but I continue to shed my nothingness
each month I dwindle, nothing grows in me