Don't let the monsters win

This does not begin the way they tell you,
The way they promise you as
you wait in the hospital watching
your friend heaving into a paper bag
There is no way for your body to
make sense of a poison so close to the
heart and so engraved in the mind
They will tell you it is possible to
live a normal life if you remember to
take your pills, and drink your water
and chart your feelings. Like a child
learning the alphabet, I have learned
my way through sad-angry-mad-happy
I have felt my way through the dark room
and slept at the foot of the monsters bed

He smiles at me in the dark, he tells me
He controls the light. You never know
When its going to get better.
The map it leaves is scars running
from your hip bone to your inner thigh
that no man will ever kiss in the moonlight
and you try the new words, tasting them
on your tongue –

“I’m okay.”
“I’m fine”
“How about you?”

Nothing could taste worse than the
uncertainty of being left cold and dead
in the arms of your own self.

My best friend tried to kill herself twice.
I remind myself of her presence, of the way
she is the sun in my sky, the moon in my path.
I cannot feel anything.

My heart stops in the base of my throat.
I remember what it feels like,
lying alone at the bottom of a bathtub,
lungs filled with water.

I have been learning to breathe since
I took my first breath out of that tub.

I have spent too many months,
washing my hands of my own blood,
Tasting the trouble I caused
on the inside of my gums
I am sorry for those I hurt
when I was trying to gauze myself up.

This is remembering that growth
begins with the rough plough
of a man bigger than a seed
But even trees grow larger
than any man.

I wait for the monster to turn on the lights.
Today could be a good day.
If only you take your medicine.
If only you make your train.
This begins with a word
Recovery
and it never truly ends.

This poem is for all my friends.
The ones who gulp for air, and the ones
who are scared to sleep at night.
The ones who became more than statistics,
and subway delays.

I’m happy your monsters didn’t win.

And

This is for every
Personal injury at track level.

I am here in your memory

I am not afraid

I was 22 when I finally stopped opening the door for unrequited love.
I was 23 when I first learned that
courage tasted like bitter wine and metal.
Like blood and honey.
When I told you I loved you,
I screamed it. I let it rip
it’s way out of my throat, and
it felt so good that I cried.
The other day, you walked by me
with your friends and I could feel the pity in your stare.
Don’t you do that.
Don’t you look at what I had for you and call it weak.
Not when you were the one afraid of it.
I stood there with my hands open,
my mouth bruised tender with supplication.
Don’t you dare treat me like a victim of my own emotions, like being
moved to my knees by love
was a mistake that I regret.
I will go to my grave with the memory
of the bravery in my bones.
I am not ashamed of any of it.
Not the closed door in my face
or the static silence of my phone
for weeks after.
I was not afraid.
I am still not afraid.
I will never be afraid again.
Bring in the beasts with teeth
like tree branches.
Bring in all the men who will never love me.
Bring in the monsters with
faces carved out of stone.
I am not afraid.
They can eat me alive.
I am not afraid.
I will cut my way out of their bellies.
I am not afraid.
Never again.

Make peace with yourself

Until you heal the wounds of your past,
you are going to bleed.

You can bandage the bleeding with food,
with alcohol,
with drugs,
with work,
with cigarettes,
with sex.

But, eventually,
it will all ooze through
and stain your life.

You must find the strength
to open the wounds.
Stick your hand inside,
pull out the core of the pain
that is holding you in your past,
the memories

And make peace with them,
make peace with yourself. 

Sonnets aren't all about love

A friend of mine needed help writing a sonnet for their poetry class. In order to help them out, I wrote out this sonnet to show them that not all poems have to be about love. While many times when people think of poetry it is to show something full of love and hope, it can be about a great number of things. 

While some hearts were made to live and to love

not all hearts were made the same. For this time,

our time, must come to an end. Far above

some god is laughing for this grievous crime.

While it may be gods above that decide

what our fates may hold. It is all too clear

that whatever I had felt for you died.

I can’t miss you, so please don’t waste your tears.

I know you may think me twisted and cruel

but I cannot stay in a loveless life.

To stay with you would surely be fatal

and I shall not put up with such great strife.

So fly away, my dear, please leave me now

Flay away, my dear, I must break this vow.