She sits in a wooden chair in the study of her grandfathers master bedroom. Even at 19 her feet barely touch the emerald green carpet. She has always been small. Her growth halted at 12, reaching her final height by 7th grade. She curls her toes into the carpet. It feels soiled and stiff from dog *****. A testament to her grandpa not moving well enough to take the dog out. His room is the only room with a carpet because of this fact.

The house is quite. Everyone else went out to dinner, probably happier that she stayed home. Her defeated posture speaks volumes. She stares at little specks of dust dancing around on unseen currents but not really seeing anything. Her mind used to be her safe place but even that has turned against her.

"Why do you act like such a baby?" reverberates like a ripple through her. Words spoken at another time but still holding space within her, trapped in her cells. She sighs heavily. She knows the chorus is about to begin. Once it starts it builds on itself, trying to overtake her very essence.

"Why can't you be more like your sisters?" "We are all tired of seeing your sad face. If you can't smile and be happy then stay in your room." The momentum builds, the words begin to crescendo, joined by scoffs, eye rolls, and sighs that always make her feel like she is impossible to love.

With each sigh her stature shrinks, slowly pulling herself inward. Tears form and want to fall but she refuses. She has already cried too many. Crying is associated as weakness and for as sad as she is, she is just as determined. These two emotions she knows well. Over the last 7 years they have slowly coalesced into anger.

Anger and pain her constant companions. She is too young to understand why the anger has taken root and yet clings to it and wears it as a shield. It protects her but also does not allow the ghosts of the chorus out. She has often thought about suicide but her determined nature will not allow others to win.  And so she sits in a nesting doll of invisible cages that she feels but cannot see.

She is startled by voices. Her family returning, filling the house with chatter and laughter, and once again she disappears.

I will not conform
I will not obey
I will not submit
I'll play my way
I will not give in
I will not retreat
I will not sit by
I'm fast on my feet

She is the zest
Of lemon skin
Her eyes are hopes
Eternal grin
Her voice is soft
Like a gentle wind
She is loves
Long lost twin
She is the why
The where and when
Chewing gum bubbles
Are her sin
She is the center
Of a wild spin
Dreams and magic
Are her kin
Sunbeams and stardust
End where the other begins
Infinitely swirling
Without and within

Hope she has and hope she gives
So that other may truly live.

If kisses were wishes
puckered lip squishes

bewitching your skin
as they begin

just like a kite
they start to take flight

dancing through skies
on nature's sighs

magic unseen
sweetly convened

into the heavens
wishes now leavened

to enrapture just you
the kisses accrue

I try to creep from the bed
but instead you grab my head
and pull me back to you.
Back so you may pet my hair.
Deep asleep you still care
and melt I promptly do

Stoked like a fire
I am the fuel
Not the flame
I am the oxygen
That allows it to burn

A ***** I am on open seas
Where I feel completely free
Adventure my notion
Movement my lotion
Won't you come and sail with me?

A girl did often sit
bubbled in her wit
to keep her from his hands
and his darker plans
refusing to submit

Drunken nights he always tried
hunched over her bedside
she learned to just play dead
taking solace in her head
while her youth was crucified

In her bubble she did stay
never to go astray
too afraid to begin
awkward in her skin
no fresh air, just decay

I have this question, a simple query
Perhaps I’ll see things a bit more clearly
But why oh why such a big belt buckle
Is it simply to get a chuckle?
Does it double as a dinner plate
‘Round the campfire when you’re up late?
Does it shield you from Iroquois?
Tell me, tell me, please cowboy
Perhaps a chastity belt detector?
Or maybe even an S.O.S reflector?
Does it help you sit up straight?
Or is it to attract a mate?
A mirror for when you shave?
A shiny headstone for your grave?
I really don’t mean to annoy but
Tell me, tell me, please cowboy
.

I am the kind of defiant
that when sleeping in bed
I let my foot dangle
off the side
Daring the dark
to come get me

We are all grains of sand
Grains of sand in a vast dry land

Vast dry land scorched by the sun
Until we all come undone

Undone in heat and primal flame
Starting back from whence we came

Came we did from a distant fire
An ember of celestial attire

Attire birthed from a sound
The sound of OM where all is found

Found inside a mystical syllable
Everything and nothing willable tillable

Reality roulette
Which one, which one will you get?
One that's cam and mostly mellow?
Or one that's white or brown or yellow?
One that's red or full of rage?
One where you can't see the cage?
One that's filled with deep regret?
Which one, which one will you get?
One where you hold all the cards?
Or one where you're on constant guard?
One where love is all around?
Or one where love is never found?
All these choices for you to see
But which one, which one will it be?
The thing is you actively choose
In every little thing you do
You determine what you get
In the game of reality roulette

Three little bubbles
Floating on the breeze
One went off in to the trees
One went high up in the sky
And the last one popped
Right in my eye

Under wear
Under there
Hiding your
Derriere

Where is my mind?
Sometimes behind
Sometimes ahead
Sometimes laying still in my bed
Is it confined?
Sometimes blind
Sometimes aware
Sometimes like M.C Escher's stairs
What does it mean?
Sometimes clean
Sometimes *****
Sometimes a little bit flirty
Always between
Sweet and obscene
Parity and rarity
If ya know what I mean

Sometimes I wonder if my disease
Is just because my soul is too big
For this body

To be human and have life
Meant in order to play fair and equally
I had to be hobbled

Sandman,
King of my dreams
Is to me
everything
conjoined we are
at the heart
hugging tight
to never part.
Whispered words
spoken true
renew in me
the lust of you.

If words were hands
I would tattoo your every syllable
On my skin in Braille
Until every inch is covered
And touched only by you

Pirate 1. "Pirate 3 is my prodigy"
Pirate 2. "You teaching him the ways?"
Pirate 3. "No, he is teaching me the sways."

I'm not lost, I'm not found
The reflection of me watches
Your reality, my mirror

You have my mind all sing song
You're my Z to A right wrong
Versa vice, oh how nice
This backward ditty ding-****

I awake to a hand that's not mine. With each revolution my innocence buried deeper. My universe rips like a piece of paper until it's a storm of confetti secrets raining down on the grave of my hijacked childhood. Dug by the alcohol stained air whispering my name like a scratched record. I play dead.

Let your thoughtforms be of love
Take care of their birth
Send them with compassion
Set them to tasks that help heal
Do not ask for things
But give thanks with love
Always love

So I wake up and as I'm stretching I notice in the mirror that my underwear matches my shirt.
Then I burst out laughing because I hear in my head "WOW you weren't even trying” and “Look they actually match! How did that happen?! That almost never happens" and knew today was a win before it even really started.

Stupid human
So easy to light
Flambé style
Clinging to
Pinocchio illusions
Unaware that it’s kindling
To your pheonix rising
Or your slow roasted spit
And oh how you like to turn

Spectrum reflection
A blessing disguise
What's out is what's in
Swivel sidewise

Molehill mountains
Storms in teacups
All muss and fuss
A far off close-up

A wing and a prayer
A chance and a dance
Face and Embrace
The mighty expanse

Sometimes
I cry because
I hate myself for
Needing and wanting love
Because I feel like I don't deserve it
Like I'm not a real flower,
Just masquerading paper
Folded where I'm told
Into something
That is just an imitation
Collecting dust and yellowing

She hums a ***** tune
From the shadows of the trees
Luring in the wildlife
To do with as she please
As they come in closer
She readies for the pounce
Scanning for the strongest
As her hunger mounts

I can feel the breath
and life of this space
through the eddies of air
that saunter across my wet skin,
leaving trails of crisp cool footprints
placed with the delicacy
of a whisper

That block of ice
Is quite the vice
Seated in you whiskey

All nice and cold
Strong and bold
But also rather risky

So my dear
Bring it here
I’m feeling rather frisky

Slide it down
All my mounds
Your tongue to follow briskly

In joy and awe I sit
In stillness, completely free
But when you look
A *** is what you see

Your minds and movements
Like busy little bees
Buzz buzz buzzing
Believing you are free

Preferring to race in circles
Blurred flower Grand Prix
Round and round you go
Spinning endlessly

I am like that flower
An unfolding trustee
Toward the light of day
Easy as you please

Comfort in my roots
I am the one who sees
In the rushing wind I sway
Dancing on the breeze

You do your best not to look
To you I am unease
To me you are a river
Of busy little bees

Unaware of your breath
A wasting disease
Letting everything define you
To varying degrees

I need not move a mile
Stillness my skeleton key
I need not move a foot
I am everything that I need

In every present
There is a future
In every future
There is a present

All of us are music.
Living breathing compositions.

Some are jazz. All bright colors and playful vibrancy mixed with a sultry sumptuous purr
.
Some are Blues. Deep down colors and aching longing mixed with a quiet wailing rumble.

Some are Rock. Primary colors and down home feel mixed with cruisin with the windows down and karaoke.

Some are Heavy metal. Reflective silvers, polished steels mixed with screaming wires and fierce feral growls.

Some are Alternative. Contrasting secondary colors and experimentation mixed with mystery box wonder and quizzical quirkiness.

Some are Classical. Black and white colors  of perfection mixed with full bodied timelessness.

Some are Pop. Vibrant pastel colors of youth and innocence mixed with bursting bubblegum bubbles and giddy dancy hope

Some are Showtunes. Lighted colors of exaggeration mixed with bravado and intensity

Some are Opera. Red hues of passion and heart mixed with pushing vocal limits and whole body overtures and ovations.

All of which run through the current of ‘soul’. Show yours. Feel yours. Sing yours. Whatever you do, do it with soul.

I don’t think you understand
How much I want you right now
My body is all trembly
And flush with heat and
I feel like any moment now
I’m going to involuntary erupt
Everywhere
Just from a simple hello

Every time he smiled
I was awash in
Full-bodied
Toe-curling
Ecstatic
Warmth

I want you to watch as I surrender to myself. A preview of what it’s like to romp on my playground. And once I’ve washed upon my own shore I’ll turn right around and start crawling toward yours.
Slinking while sinking my teeth on my lip Savoring the ways I’ll nibble your tips

The inside of my wrist
Delicately grazing
The hard spine
of your mountain

                      -tantalize

You are my creation of sensation
The expanse of chance
Filled with tippy-toed steps
A freelance dance

You are my raw and my awe
Felt in my hips, seen on my lips
In every smile, soul style
From within, to all my tips

You are my chasm and my ‘gasm’
Immense and intense
Peaks blush like cheeks
In breathless suspense

You are my breath and my death
Ablaze in every gaze
Born anew in the prize of your eyes
Through every phase

You are my grip and my grit
Primal moans rattle bones
Running wild and beguiled
Across erogenous zones

You are my fire and desire
A ******* liberation
Exhaling and inhaling
Combined Resuscitation

We are enhancement and enchantment
Dispersed and immersed
For all to see, wild and free
Throughout the universe

Let me make you
My own private slip-n-slide

It's so much fun
To use the tongue
And all that it can do
The way it dances
And it prances
Behind my lips of two
Up and down
And all around
When it's being used
Oh the tongue
Is so much fun
When entangling with you

I have
Plopped
my tired
aching
body
down
onto the
ice-cold
speckled
floor.
My bony back
pushes
in to the
yellowish-brown
hard
stone
wall
it is also
cold.
I sit
peacefully,
awaiting the
arrival of
anybody..
nobody...
I grow
numb

I'll blow a bubble around you
and you'll float away
then you'll be out of my hair
for the rest of the day

Don't try to stop me
Im warning you
I have a new gun
called the zuber-de-****

It may sputter and spink
it may weight a ton
but who cares as long
as it gets the job done.

I don’t know why you own guns
You won’t even **** a cockroach
Let alone a deer.

Breaker of toys
Dasher of dreams
Killer of joys
Puller of seams

Pressure builds
like breath being forced in to a balloon
without the few stretchy stretchies
and sideways pulls beforehand.
As if some universal clown
is trying to make balloon animals
with my intestines.

Pulling a Rip Van Winkle seems appealing,
Though my time it would be stealing
Keeping me from dealing
With all of this feeling
That leaves me reeling.
But like an onion, I need pealing
To accomplish inner healing
Revealing rather than concealing
I find myself kneeling while congealing
My past I am repealing

Her spirit was tousled,
unbuttoned and daring; brazen,
speaking in a wild language.