An Ink-Stained Life

Do you ever feel like you're stuck in one place When you should be in another? Not geographically, but a moment in time? I yearn for those days Those days when the light was golden Where the nights were long Where secrets were no more and the truth was evident Where feeling obstructed right and right obstructed wrong. His hand in mine and the feeling of safety And security And love. I no longer find myself focusing on the shortness of it all When the longevity at the time Seemed to be going on for years and ages to come. But what am I but a young woman with an open heart And a thick skull, too stubborn to listen But now wishing I had. I beg my body to not go too fast, to slow in time, like honey dripping off a honeycomb. Quality over quantity, always, but when quantity is No longer sufficient, quality becomes silent. Though quantity is what my heart yearned for, It is the quality that I forget. The times of salty tears slithering down my chee...

Little white cotton balls Floating as if by magic in a sea of similarity. I sail just above them, gazing at a vessel of tin That I see as the Jolly Rodger.  The view below of vines ravaging the ground. For a moment, I wonder what it is like to fly To soar aimlessly with a childish delight, like Pan. Do I fall in love with the novel, like others before I did? With the adventure, the youth, the Pirates, the Mermaids, the Lost Boys? Oh Peter, do the boys need a new mother? “Second Star to the Right and Straight on ‘Till Morning”, Yes Peter I would love to accompany you, away to Neverland. But there is one problem with our journey, a claim of no more pixie dust. There is also no more faith, and no more trust, no way to get home. Do you withhold this so I will forever be yours in a land of eternal childhood? But children do get older Pan, and I know you fear aging. Does your Wendy-bird still sing delicately enough? You named me a lark when I wa...

Who would be a virgin, if they could change time? To be pure is a controversial crime, but being 'easy' is not? Preachings from peers to be abstinent, To save ourselves for when we have found our 'soulmate,' Is that why you have been absent since we made love? Sex is uncomplicated. The joining of two bodies into one To form a being that lives by the sun, for tomorrow And for every day that begins anew. By you I am told to be "subservient" in respect to your morals And your 'standards.' But I am not the innocent flower that becomes me Waiting patiently to be plucked by your hands that reek of patriarchy and misogyny, While falling deeper and deeper into your pool of infinite quicksand; I am not Fifty Shades of Defenseless, I am Fifty Shades of Power. As Women, we are labeled 'prudes' for being sexually unexplored, While being slut-shamed if we are carnally stupendous in nature. "To be or not to be that is the q...

My Inkwell pen struggles to form a beginning, Creating streaks and blots on the journal paper. Black holes where my words seem to go, A mild case of writer’s block. The cold air thrashes against my skin Creeping its way through the cracked window. With each new gust against the stained glass the draft Filled with frozen air startles me into a strange calm. I am to write a poem, a poem that has meaning, But don’t all poems have meaning? Should I be writing about Death, Birth, Rebirth? There are no instructions to follow yet it feels like there should be. Isn’t the way the raindrops slide down the tulip’s petals like a steady stream Trickling down a gentle slope good enough? Who decides what goes into a poem Anyway? Probably the little devil on your shoulder. Aren’t poems all written for a specific purpose, to entice and hypnotize? I want my reader to feel something, a surge of uncomfortable emotion. I want to have the words twirl amongst the pag...

Oh, what a dream to run away. To pick up the pieces of a broken past And scatter them to the wind. Set the destination to Nowhere, Where coyotes and bobcats roam Where crystalline caves Remain hidden in the sandstorm Of sacrifice and togetherness. A deserted landscape, That so similarly resembles my ribcage. As dry as the Sahara And as hot as the Mohave, Yet I stand before you As a frostbitten shell. Where fire meets ice, And where ice meets fire Is the location of my suffering And the downfall of my muse. A whisper for a sign of relief In a sea of pain and regret, And all I see is a reckoning In my wake. Do I sleep with the sinners Or die with the saints? My serpent-tongue has no right To beg for forgiveness from you, Yet I open my treacherous mouth To speak to you, Yet it only exacerbates the heartache. I yearn to live In the warmth of your soul, To bask in the reflection of your eyes. Now the magnolias are in a state...

When I kneeled at the foot of your altar, You dismissed my worship And instead gave me dead roses. When I crawled in your lap And offered my sun-kissed petals You were repulsed by the thorns. The thorns grazed your fingers And when the mouth of a crimson river Opened your disgust became prominent on your face. My thorns were not a burden you Were equipped to carry. For when I reached for the stars, You brought out shears. You said "You are like snow", Cold to the touch yet pure at heart. I longed to meet your fingertips In the space between desperation and lust, And what I received was empty promises On a bed full of yearning and want. Your scent lingered on my pillow Like your ghost on my soul And the ceiling became a blank canvas Painted with your memory That soothes the stormy seas That raged within my ribcage. The eyes that once memorized Every freckle on my being, The hands you used to caress Every curve of my bo...