Transcribe my sine wave,
     Rays like the sun.

Describe the unending normalcy.
   waves crashing: one too many.

Laser-focused against the (g)rain.
        Tsunami enraged.


Defiance is my resonant frequency,
      sorry to disappoint.

I am the way.

Stand tall
Stand proud
Stand strong
No matter what they say

You’re not we want
You never have been
Oh please just go away

What a disappointing child
A waste of our precious time
Her innocence has long since died
And monumental are her crimes

I look straight at them and smile
As they spew this poison forth
Willing myself to face the trial
This calculation of my worth

I remind myself to hide
And hold my head up high
For behind the facade of pride
I cannot help but cry inside

I try my best to insult
Openly defying
For there is no use in trying
To delay the sure result

They want to see me broken
They want to make a point
But I won’t ever be soft spoken
I’m sorry to disappoint

The light is dim, but I'm accustomed to working in the dark. Besides, it's safer this way. My eyes are not what they used to be, but it has become second nature to me - the pull of the needle, the tension in the thread.  

I stitched my first collar when I was six years' old, sitting on my grandmother's knee in the parlour of the old house at Innsbruck. ‘Isaac,’ she used to say, ‘you have your father's gift. Use it well.’

Ah, Papa, if you could see me now. Such expectations you had for my talent, but I assure you that the occasion for invisible seams and fine beadwork is over. Nowadays I work with a different fabric. A cloth perforated with ****** fire and riddled with shrapnel. The wounds - forgive me - resemble red Venetian silk embedded with black pearls; the bone like the baleen strictures of a dowager's corset. And the red dye runs. God help me, how it runs.

As I work, Papa, I imagine that you are standing in the shadows, your frayed sewing tape draped around your neck. I am praised for my quick hands and my ability to embroider life into abbreviated limbs. And I pray that you are not too disappointed in what I have become.

Truth denied, Freedom,
spurned Lover's scorn.
Absurdity embraced,
not Despair but Dance.
Music in the Wind,
and Love shall not be denied!

I burn **** between my lips.
one by one.
******* them down with skill.
Skull to lungs,
ashes to ashes.
I am the smoke of myself that  
gathers deep inside
and prowls out, darkly
like faceless men at night
sunken in city pavement,  
pacing towards desire.
And so the word saunters and spirals,
clouding upwards
from my red hot tongue.
I watch it as it leaves me.
I lick my lips of the sting,
and ash drips on my shoe.
I take a deeper breath.
and look ahead.
perhaps smiling,
perhaps darkly.
As it twists itself into nothingness,
sinking headlong,  
like the private history that it is,
into the ignorant, pretty sky above.

She was a long lost traveller
with broken silence;
an unknown passenger
to darkness and defiance.

Time unfavorably moved slowly,
as if the oceans stopped moving
and life became ghostly
to each and every choosing.

Darkness became an everlasting hunger,
whose enmity was filled with surprise;
For she was left with wonder
of trembling unending surmise.

The love that was once known
became still and uncaring;
She was entirely alone
in this vast and empty home.

Defiance shook with trembling roars
as she made mistakes repetitively
and endlessly with her core,
a tiring soul left unwillingly.

She was a long lost traveller
who escaped treacherous ending
to find the world spectacular
and life itself worth spending.

By 20, I hope that I am happy.
By 25, I hope that I am happy.
By 30, I hope that I am happy.
By 35, I hope that I am happy.
By 40, I hope that I am happy.
By 45, I hope that I am happy.
By 50, I hope that I am happy.
By 55, I hope that I am happy.
By 60, I hope that I am happy.
By 65, I hope that I am happy.
By 70, I hope that I am happy.
By 75, I hope that I am happy.
By 80, I hope that I am happy.