Porch.

We’ve had this talk a thousand times. We know it by heart and keep trying not to plagiarize the lines.

How many times must the Universe make me feel small before I learn any kind of lesson from the fall?

Speak, argue, cry, repeat. Listen, listen, listen doesn’t hold the same beat.

I don’t have any answers like I thought I used to. What’s a Sagittarius without wisdom supposed to do?

This front porch has absorbed my tears more than once, you know. This very spot I’ve fallen apart and thought I would never find my way back to this peeling blue.

Five years later and I’m right back here and it still feels new.

Boom.

I love you the way I love thunderstorms. Loud, startling, I wonder when the boom will shake my ribs and soak my skin. I want more. Always more.

I love you like I haven’t experienced your lightning strikes on my house. Like I didn’t know standing in this field was fraught with danger or the tingling of my skin didn’t mean ‘get out.’

I love you like I don’t know we were dangerous left alone. An unsupervised disaster playing with electricity and water in someone else’s home.

I love you even when you destroy me; even when your gusts and thunder cracks threaten to drown me out in my very own mind. I love you when you dissipate. When you move on and are no longer mine.

I love you without rosy glasses when the clouds are darkest. When they shout at me to find shelter I love your tempest. When the turbulence take hold inside my chest, I love you even if we aren’t for the best.

I love you in all the ways we love disasters. We seek them out and hope for a happily ever after. I love you all the ways that my heart can stand. I love you with tear filled eyes and shaking hands.

Woke.

It’s all circles on an endless clock face. What you are doesn’t matter, someone else will tell you, anyway.

Round and around and around we spin, a slow centrifugal turn until we are unthinking mounds of flesh that nod in a stupor.

Reach out for help and a nice sedative is freely given. We are sleeping zombies as we watch the clock face whirl. I’m told I’m too opinionated for a girl.

Wolfish screams don’t suit my breasts, it doesn’t suit this fitted dress. There isn’t an end when the world lives in a two dimensional plane. Money makes you right, it doesn’t matter what you say.

I’m too loud. I scream. I’m too uncaring. I serve on bended knees. I don’t listen as the proof is screaming in my face. Why can’t they hear? How do you wake up zombies that feed solely on fear?

I’m too many things, I’m told. I’d rather be too much than too little and I’m not too much for my own two hands to hold. We need more “too much,” in this 2 dimensional world.

Spiral.

Alone in a room filled with boxes. It echoes the screams inside my soul. Silence is my master. Heartache seems to be all that I will ever know.

Taping up dusty things and stale memories inside darkened cardboard. It doesn’t matter if it ever sees light. They’re just things I’ve begun to hoard.

Memories, objects, pictures, lies. Silence, neglect, unheard cries.

If you fall apart alone, will anybody know? The walls and floors stay strong, quiet, they’ll echo your wails and catch the things that you throw.

Be the Mecca for all the broken minds that come to unload their weary woes. Be the pillar they all need me to be, I won’t fall until I’m all alone.

Empty room. Naked walls. Cardboard boxes line my halls. The Universe keeps winning or I keep losing, It just takes and takes and takes it all.

I have nothing left to give. The Universe can do Her worst. What else could she do when she’s already taken so many reasons to live?

Cover.

This wandering girl, that I’ve grown rather fond of, well, she doesn’t know how to give up.

She’s a pushy little thing, all fire and spite, the cleverest eyes, and a mouth that causes fires. A mouth that craves her desires.

But he’s a shadow she can’t catch, no matter how fast she tries. He’s a glint of the light, a trick of the eyes, try as she might, she can’t grasp… he’s an elusive lover. But she will never duck and cover.

This wide eyed stare, the only one that she’s known, matches the brown of her hair.

She’s pistols and fight, a crier despite the fists that she throws. Oh, no one else knows the magnitude of how her love grows.

He’s a ghost in her nights, no matter how tight she closes her eyes. He’s a soft place to land, the strongest of hands, try as she can she can’t quit this man…he’s a heartbreak lover. She will never duck and cover.

They’re gunpowder and flames. Explosive love is always their way. Grenades don’t scare them away. He’s her always lover. She won’t go duck and cover.

Silence.

I hear your Silence, don’t worry, my love. I hear the meaning in all the words you let crescendo in your head and fade back out again.

I hear the dulled arguments that tap against your glass, half-heartedly trying to break out. I hear your silence, it’s okay, the airwaves don’t need more noise, anyhow.

Your silence is a language I have come to understand. My learned fluency isn’t something I want to brag about, it’s just what is. It’s how you speak and how you speak makes others have to learn a new language.

It’s funny how my Silence and I write songs and serenade the stars. Your Silence is deadly, she is only interested in how jagged she can make the scars.

We all have our Silence that we carry when we are in need. It can be magic, it can be safety, it can be murderous and filled with greed.

I hear you, my love, I do. Your Silence and mine don’t play the same tunes. You take yours and let it soil your bed. I take mine and make art, masterpieces, in my head.

My Silence is a comforting friend. She understands the demons that walk alongside me on leashes, in chains. Your Silence is pulling at her lead and foaming to rip out throats when you allow her to feed.

It’s okay, I understand. We can’t all grow or change or learn to soothe beasts with our bare hands. Your Silence is rabid and wild, in need of a more gentle man.

My Silence understands me. She is quiet when I need to speak, listens when I need just a moment to think. My Silence doesn’t want to be anything but kind to me.

It’s okay, my love, I hear you and your Silence. It makes us pity the very silent relationship you and your Silence share. I understand, when she bites and ravages you, you think that’s how she cares.

We hear you.

Mom.

Stroke your own hair like your mother would. Love yourself and shush the saddened thoughts like your mother would. She loves you more than any human could.

Speak to myself like my mother would. Calm and kind, ‘oh, honey, I’m so sorry that people lie.” She hugs me and kisses me twice.

‘The world is full of men who won’t know how to love your whole person the way you deserve. You’ll still fall for them and take them even when it’s them that cause the hurt.

But, My Little Love, you are the stuff dreams are made of.’

So I’ll talk to me how my mother would. I’m grown now and with all her teaching and practice, I’ve gotten good.

I’ll speak to me how a man never could, ‘my darling, you are loved, you are strong and I am so proud. The right man won’t leave you for being who you are, anyhow.’

Second.

It isn’t real. Anger. It’s as fake as the lies we tell ourselves to be able to get by.

It happens second. It manifests when you’re hurt. When you’re embarrassed. When you are trying not to fall apart. Terror. So you coax all the embers into infernos that roll with the oxygen you provide.

It’s all a smoke screen to shove all of your feelings behind and force them into a new guise. When fear takes over every part of your veins, Anger checks in and stands up so you don’t have deal with anything anyone might say.

We are little kids inside big bodies that didn’t learn to stand up to what we feel. Little kids starting fires trying to burn down anything resembling fear.

So, it isn’t a real emotion, Anger. It just slinks in second after all the other feelings aren’t allowed to scream and shout. Anger comes in with fists and threats. Brandishing silence louder than anything from a child’s mouth. Unwanted feelings screaming to be let out.

Fire.

Anyone can start a fire. Anyone can light a match and toss it on your kerosene soul. Anyone can fan a flame, egg it on, light up your home.

But can he keep it lit? Does he know when to soothe and when to stoke? Can he handle it? Does he know what keeps you going up in smoke?

Do you still burn when you hear his name? Do you travel, Wild Fire, desperately seeking just one more lighter to give you bursts of flame? No one could keep that fire going the way he could. No one could flare that heat and keep you crazed, keep you dangerous, keep you wild for all of your days; like he could.

Anyone can light a match and toss on sticks. Anyone can turn splinters into fire. But if he doesn’t try to keep you burning, don’t waste your kerosene on flint like tricks.

He set every part of me alight and coaxed the flames into a raging, roaring, untamed fires. A disaster that eats up other men every time they decide that I’m what they desire.