Women, like the moon, reflect the light/love
Shone upon them, and when the light grows dim,
They take to dark pursuits
Hoping to find happiness and love.
Essential elements missing: love and acceptance.
Consequences: pain and death.

Advice from one husband of forty years to a soon-to-be husband:
Tell your wife on day one how beautiful she is, and
Keep telling her until the day you die.
She needs to know that you find her to be your all in all,
That you will love her beauty now,
When she brings children into the world,
And in the life after children,
When she has made sacrifices that will change her body
In ways that may cause her despair.

Tell her when she's 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70 and 80
That she is beautiful, and something amazing happens.
You will see her with the eyes that saw her on the first day;
Your love, and her love will grow young again,
Even as the two grow old.

"Till death do us part" is a vow of strength,
Of promise, of comfort as years grow on.
The satisfaction and privilege of loving one person all through life
Cannot be compared with any other love or joy humans can know.

Take this advice or leave it.
It cost nothing, though it is worth everything.

Most of what I wrote here is from two
or three years ago
Two years ago when I was the girl
who dripped anxiety like a leaky faucet
And poured all the excess into her poems
like little sticky notes detailing the confusions
and little joys of life

Now,
Now I'm still a confused, anxious girl
but maybe I can fake it better?

Or maybe I really have grown
So that I no longer need the multicolored sticky notes
Dotting my life
Where I can hold it in
or let it out more constructively

Constructively?
Is poetry not constructive?
Or is it my biases again
idk idk idk

I spoke to an old friend the other day
I have a poem about them
There's another girl I never speak to
but back when I wrote about her she was my friend

I don't know where I'm going
and these poems remind me where I've been

For that matter I don't know where I am
Not enough
Not where I should be
Yet
But yet has yet to arrive and
       seemingly
n
        e
                  v
                             e              r                    
                                                                ­will
...
I'm rambling aren't I?
Well,
The gist of it is
I am somewhere else, not where I was
Nor am I where I should be where I want to be where I ought-
I have a poem about ought don't I?

For those of you who've actually made it to this point in the poem
I applaud you
Because I don't know where I'm going
or where I am
But my poetry seems to be showing me where I've been

Stop
STOP
Enough says the me that insists everything must be productive
There's no point
There's no point!
You're not a poet,
You're just a girl who is supposedly an adult
Ha
Ha ha
What a joke

Is the self deprecation necessary?
             Is it though?
                 Or is it simply a tool to hide my anxiety
                             under a blanket
Can't I just appreciate what I have? Who I am? But
I'm not good enough
            not nearly good enough

The other day I wrote a sorry essay
        apologizing for all my shortcomings

Don't get me wrong
I love my self                       You'd better too    love yourself that is   It's important
But                 I don't seem                              good                     enough

Sigh

Yes, I verbally said the word sigh
I'm still rambling, aren't I?
Because I don't know where I'm going
nor where I am
But I do now know where I've been
      and I suppose it's just a matter of moving from there

I may take baby steps,
                 like a waddling penguin
But so long as I know where I've been
I can keep on moving
so that I can grow

One day my wings will open huge and wide
One day
One day I will no longer be that anxious little girl
One day
Why not today?
Because today's not that day
But, one
                 day
It'll happen
and if it doesn't...

I guess I'll still be chasing that one day
Because I don't know where I'm going
or even where I am
But I do know where I've been because I write about it in little sticky notes called poems

I saw days without a night,
I saw dreams, time that had flowed past
Like lava permanently, strongly – –
I saw faces that I knew –
A great many people – now their images blurred –
I saw my death, I saw ...
I saw a poem about it, I wrote – –
And I was there where – as I thought –
Nobody had ever been before me –
Nobody had passed this road so tightly,
By self.
And I saw the sadness, despair, concern,
I placed them modestly on my knee,
Because they were mine – so mine –
And I saw a world that had passed,
I was waiting for a new one – I did not live to see it –
Now there is only ordinary life left,
The poetry is gone, it bathes in the sun,
Not with me, not for me, not for
You.
There are only a growl and envy in the crowd.
The man waits for his end like a fly.
There's nothing left. There is only earth,
Only the end, only the memory of a guest.

9/23/20

A broken leg, open fracture -
All the pain like a price for rapture.
The sweetness festered, feverish, ill,
After the feast, came the bill.
Just like that, heartbreak followed,
Once giddy love left black and hollowed.
.
But that was months ago, or years,
No fresh cut in my flesh sears.
Time moved in to mend the break,
Agony now dulled to ache.
A bone healed the wrong way, free,
Crooked branch of a poison tree.
And so it hurts, albeit less,
My sin that I cannot confess.
Like an old wound numbly stings,
When weather changes, and rain brings.
.
It's a limping leg, it is.
But free of teeth, of a bite that's his.
It's functional, it does it's job,
Despite the faint random throb.
Will it ever heal? Be right?
I don't know. I hope. It might.
But I never had such a sore -
I'd never been in love before.
.

You want me caged and collared, and I get it,
but such prisons work both ways
You see the wild animal in me?
Imagine it tearing you from the inside out
that’s every indecision, all of my mistakes
you call me dangerous, but there’s not much left
it’s more afraid of you - I’m more afraid of you
too busy attacking myself to bite you
you’re too busy hating yourself to blame anyone else
You have cycles? Well I have seasons
either way - who is the weak one, really?
Depression sessions in season, all sad Summer long!
(But you’re right - I am more dangerous)
I always was, you always knew it
I am broken/shattered/a thousand pieces,
broken pieces of a thousand broken mirrors
holding them so tight, blood leaking through my fingers
the sting, like all those times I bit my tongue
can’t trust my gut, because it always hurts
this sickness, for too long getting the best of me
clogging my arteries, raising the pressure
blogging my downfall, watching my balance crash
my mind getting slower, my memories fading
you can smell the desperate on my clothes
loneliness leaking, seeping out of my pores
my chest is burning up, head filled with pain
but just one more night, and I'll feel better
I’m fine, don’t look at me with those eyes

you crumpled your ******* and put them in your jacket
in a parking lot, in his car, in the cold.
you'd covered your nakedness with his blanket
like Eve with the leaves as the stories was told.
although you had anticipated the outcome of the night
you'd planned to go.  
you had prayed numerous times for the cup to pass
from your hold.
but when the night got cold, eagerly you had fold.
like Isaac in the bible, we meditate out in the fields
for someone to come comfort our souls.
Our father knows this, for Rebekah is on the road.
how long do we hold on for this love to be behold?
our eyes are dropping, setting the like sun.
patient is dismounting from our caravan for the trip is long.
lust is slowly uncovering its veil
will complacency and mistrust prevail?
will we open those gates to change the course of fate?
so now you bent your knees to *** in the cold.
in an alleyway with the lights on your face.
for from this day, you had done a deed
that cannot be unchanged.
it's not like anything changed
God still loves you all the same.
but there is condemnation, and there is shame
going through your brain.
But it was fun and you might do it all again.

With  my  rhymes  I  take  a  journey  through  the  human  mind.And  find  that  the  reflection  is  one  of  a  kind.A  reflection  caught  in  time.
It’s too  late  to  catch  up  once  your  own  reflection  has  left  you  behind.When  the  soul  speaks  even  the  reflection  in  the  mirror  weeps.A  reflection  that  keeps.
A  reflection  that  sleeps.
I  got  the  lyrical  mind  set  that’s  why  my  rhymes  are  deep.
Reflection  is  like  a  book  with  blank  pages. 
A  picture  of  a  man  with  a  thousand  faces.
The  reflection  has  no  secrets.
Your  reflection  the  antagonist.
Your  reflection  the  realist.
The  reflection  is  different  when  I  look  in  the  mirror.Main  Blade  the  mask  the  monster,
Seeing  his  reflection  shatters  mirrors.
The  dreams  turned  to  nightmares.
The  reflection  is  a  skilled  story  teller.
The  reflection  is  bipolar.
Like  narcissus  who  saw  his  own  reflection  and  drowned.
A  reflection  unnoticed.
A  reflection  tainted.
A  reflection  unexplored.
The  reflection  of  a  man  deep  in  thought.
Like  looking  through  the  mirror  through  an  iron  mask.
An  impossible  task.
The  reflection  is  vast,  I  can’t  dwell  on  the  past.
Trust  decays  like  rust