sweet moon let me cry
it’s not good for me to hide
bury stifle or choke down
let me feel the warmth of
tears sliding down my face
as i imagine they are a gentle caress instead
let me breath through the tautness
lumped throat pitted stomach
sweet moon let me weep
wrap my arms around my ribs
and pretend that i’m not repulsive
let me sob become numb
i’ve got to smile by dawn
in a world that’s reckless
moon don’t be bitter
let me cry for my sake
it’s just like breathing
until the ringing in my ears
releases the poison from my heart
so that the mind finds rationale
as to why again i am not worthy

randomly it comes
a sting then pain it bullies
a feeble defense

lone limitation
it repels the light farther
motivation gone

the truth painful soothe
never were the opiates
the root of it   you

i exist in fear
my broad smile code for deep pain
most pills do not work

storm almost over
my shelter has not been found
no sales are final

the day chuck norris died
there was traffic and the gas was high
earlier i heard of another Cesare falling
down past the great womb he called ‘wetback’
a victim of peer pressure i suppose
yet for whatever its worth i remain an American girl
the day chuck norris died i told her
‘i bet he karate chopped the reaper all the way through’ she too just another American girl laughed and told me a joke her son had said knowing that as the big events of the world unfurled was not out of the stage jungle yet
the day chuck norris died i went to work climbed a hill unlocked doors used credit cards such as a good American girl should
and now as i remember chuck norris my television set indicates we are still at war with Iran but what say you Cuba ‘bonco you better watch out’
the day chuck norris died i took aspirin fed wild animals laundered and fantasized about guzzling rye and not ever go back like thelma and louise American girl renegades indeed but yet there is another tiny nick that burns and scratches because chuck norris died

seismic the words cut
confusion instilled profound
emptiness abounds

warm the touch it leaves
monsters in its stead appear
threatening to snap

splintered heart in two
down the river filled with hurt
alone through the rain

night taxed with poisonous possibilities the last hour then no more a life not bad nor well just a life neither wasted nor nurtured discounted but exploited there are no moments of presence just movements toward screams and then nothing then the steepness of the fall over and over until someone’s heart bleeds and death is annoyed by my stifling of it and then is the rain her noise muffled weeping of the very archangels themselves condemned to look after me steps taken hesitation settles in the bone if only for the beloved the worth of crawling is afforded sealed in secret in the heart and mortgaged eternally in melancholic silence the severance begins