Here’s your piece again with the title included:


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Wildest thought
roams freely in my mind.
I want to hold her—
hands pinned to wall,
breath against her ear,
and claim her with hickeys,
enough to chase men
from her.


---

---

Been living in my head all day.
How it saddens—
yet gladdens
my heart.

---

---

What do I know?
Nothing.
But I carry it all —
Like silence carries thunder
Right before it falls.

Act like I know nothing,
While the weight of everything
Rests on my chest,
Unspoken.

Everything comes crashing —
But I’m still here.
Holding up.
Pushing through the quake,
Gathering the crumbs,
The little stones
From the ruin of the building
That once stood tall in me.

I piece them back,
One fragment at a time,
Stronger than before.
Not flawless —
But forged.

How can emotions hold me
Like chains with no key?
Like winds I can't see
But feel everywhere?

I can't even taste
The sweetness of relief —
Just the sharp salt
Of everything I keep.

---

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Depressed—fighting silent wars,
Demons whisper through the pores
Of my thoughts. I try to stand,
But the weight won't leave my hands.

I'm not done. I'm not yet through,
But it's hard—what can I do?
I’ve got to fight for sanity,
But it's draining all of me.

Only midday, yet I’m bare,
Empty lungs and vacant stare.
This is more than tired breath—
This is what depression says.


---

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Laughing aimlessly,
trying to forget
my depressed soul—
so lonely.

How cool would it be
to feel normal,
like others do—
not always thinking
about my broken life,
or how it might turn out.

But in all,
we must keep going.

---

   Vickie

~ for Rob Rutledge -
@ 6:15am
~~~~~
we all are living, reading and writing,
paycheck to paycheck
even if by happenstance, our bellies full,

for the white sheets we lay our words
down and upon, our supporters of
ids and egos of egg shell thin lifes
are the bare emptied shelves
of our unending, still ongoing
pandemic pandemonium,
razing times
of eroding joys

the sheets are blank, but our souls
wearied, helmed and whelmed
by the unending of the unexpected
that demands, orders and commands,
no matter what
pour it out blasting
unleashing the rage
compelled, compiled,
completely compulsing
we
selves ordered to compose

giving form and firmament
to our vaporous innards,
releasing new oxygen from
the tides inside and without,
clashing ideas, irregular notions
that demand we poets responsible
for reconciliation and auditing for
human truths

we awake barren but weighty,
the emotions are rustling in the
now daily, common,
mighty metors of gusts of higher winds,
spreading fire and measles to spite,
not despite
our fragile failings & flailings

oh goodness and grace,
let that be the colors of
our skin, our face,
essay on, sashay with a
swinging motion,
yes, rhyme and rhythm

and deliver us with words
so soft, they shatter the
gloomy desperation of
what confronts our entirety,
when the terrors of our
sleeping dreams cannot be
differentiated from the
sad eyed waking
ones

so write, and right,
these troubled times,
when trolls, dragons
and yet unnamed monsters
seek to take away our
tiny green planet, watered,
seeded and plentiful fruited
plains enough to satisfy us all

if we are so emboldened to choose
all of us over our lonely selfish selfs

it means the innermost room.
the room where the first point is made that
makes the man, the place of unshared secrets common to us all,
the penetralium.

penetrate my heart, and that is where you find yourself
wondering,
is this for real or fun.

We call William James to witness:
Where there is no difference, no distinction is to be made.

Some thoughts seem insistent, believe me,
others seem confident that your unbelief, changes nothing.

Beg to differ, please.
Is the meaning clear? Penetralium.
Now Emily Bronte and me and John Keats all mean nearly
the same idea, at core, when we employ this once idle word.

Open a book
discover a landscape
waiting for you explore
your map is made from footsteps
where the writer walked before

A secret I want to tell you,
that is
You
are among those people
who make
this world a lovely place
by reading only,
Like stars to the universe,
You function the same to poets.

What does one do when the characters you hate
Are the ones you best construe?
Misgivings and flaws you can relate
To, tho venerable traits you eschew,

The green light gazers and "architect" praisers
Familial leeches or the confessor who preaches
That awareness absolves one of sin,
Compromisers and self-named kaisers
Resound and reverberate within

They pass by in my pages to be mocked and scorned
As evil, cruel, an oaf, or a tool
Too low to respect or too high on their horse
Despicable, maniacal, mediocre, or worse

And I do hate their vileness, I do hate their flaw
I want to shake them and claw at their skull
For nothing more than the gleam of recognition
That by some misfortune of natural law
They and I share a need for contrition.