I am white
Not from purity
But from fear
I am justified
Not from suffering
But from grace
I am tiny
Not from starving
But from all my failings

Idioms
What good are they
They only tell me what I know
They tell me “it’ll be okay”
But time is not the greatest salve
It has not healed my wounds
Time is just a variable
That crushes and dilutes
The Glass Menagerie had it right
When speaking of the memories
And romanticism when stripped away
Leaves nothing but hysterics, see?

I am but a dove
Named a pigeon
Because I fit that hole
And because
The grace afforded me
No one wants to try and see
I’m the dirty bird
Cooing in the ally way
I find no shame
In stealing crumbs
And leaving waste
I am not the lovely one
Draped with peace and olive trees
I am just the other one
Left alone in this great city

I’m myself the most when I’m walking down the avenues
I’m the best I am when the it rains not water but colors instead
There’s nothing wrong with me or you
When the scenes are snarled trees, and headstones loom
I want uneven side walks, rotten cornerstones and crooked steps
I wanted yellow red and orange and the smell of plants before death
I’m myself the most when I am listening to music that moves me
When there are no numbers, long reports or strengths I must determine
Happiness is the breeze, so light that leaves flutter instead of fall
And I’m completed by the earth and dirt and limbs
That make me forget what’s fake
And remember that real is not always pain and hurt
But also joy and notes and naive children laughing

Grace abandoned me
It was maybe 2, or 3
Times that we had promised
To make one another complete
But Grace abandoned me
On the sidewalk
To my street
I had no car, no coat, no keys
And she abandoned me.

I push 10 times harder
I get 5 times less farther
Than those who try an inch
And those that never flinch
I want to be The Man
I want God to love me how I am
But it wouldn’t be enough
Since my woe is woman’s hands

Grace and God will laugh at me
Even though she too is a she
Perhaps the best joke ever played
That we can’t be apart of their parade
So they say.
But who is they?
Is it my God, or just the men He has made?
Am I worth as much?
Or just less than dust.

Today I am thorny
like the grass by the trampoline
Today I am worry
like the string you pull incessantly
Today I am sadness like the sparrow with a broken wing

Today I am angry, desperate, hopeful, laughter, everything.

The mornings were gray
Like the hair on his nape
And I lost the mittens you gave
They were red, with some beads
I cried for days, screamed obscenities
Like a balloon floating high
Just a child, a child
Tries to be so free
The trees were soft
Contrasting the sky
Like you to me
When we try to dance or sing
Like a blue song from Holiday
Or a cool evening breeze
Or the smell of the grass
After dusk when we walked
Without lights, just the stars
And our hearts on our sleeves
A child, a child, is only so free

All I can think is Poe
And his eerie tolling bells
And my lack of sound at all
And the stain upon the rug

You set down your coffee
And paid no mind
To the fact I was losing mine
It was all quite dramatic

When they found me by the stairs
Crumpled on the floor
In my lovely party dress
(The one from Boston, Mass.)

The clock went on chiming
My breath too soft to feel
The blood was dried and brown
And was that my heart done beating?

Porcelain that’s splattered
with one little speck
turns into worthless
it turns into death

I am that porcelain
I am regret
The darkness inside me
Is pouring out yet

Terrible, terrible
Stain on my soul
The more that I scrub
The less that is goes

Desolate, empty
Perhaps terrified
Covered in ugly
I can’t ever hide.

Good Friday

God died today
God cried today
I wasn't there
had a price to pay
down at the market
with 300 others
down at the store
with chocolate and feathers
lemon creame pie
hams large and on fire
custard and mustard
and three dozen skewers
a reciept with my name
labeld in red
a reciept in my hand
that told me i'm dead
and then from the sky
came blood like a terror
and fell on my paper
it turned into vapor
God died today
I cried today

scrapes and paste
and sunday blues
pork and rolls and
gravey like glue
burning and baking
and all the like too
it's easter today
but where's the good news?

I saw the colors
It was dusk and the leaves were dead
And under the covers
There were aches and fakes and dread
I hated the trying
The fighting the praying the dying
I was so close to something
But there’s a line I couldn’t be crossing
It’s labeled in red
“Cross and you’ll be dead”
I try for just that reason
I’ve been trying the past 9 seasons
The other side I’ll never see
Instead I’ll die from all the striving