Love's Finish Line (2006)

I was born under the sun like everyone
Quickly learned I needed to run
To keep up with everyone.
Many times I lagged behind,
Sighed and
Wondered why
Even with relentless effort
I could not make it across the finish line.

Oh how I have tried
To make up for lost time,
But it's not easy to teach oneself
How to fly.
It's not easy to scale the wall
One's built before her eyes.
No one's giving me ten fingers
Or an alternative path to drive.

At the edge of the cliff so many times
Contemplating the grace of my dive.
I thought this one time when a car drove by
I was saved from my uncertainty in love;
The driver opened the door
Tempting me to explore this other side;
Led in by my bemused heart,
Believing his words were true from the start
I went for a ride...

How wrong was I.
My heart kidnapped
My body paralyzed
By a drug so strong
No doctor would ever prescribe.
Left without a home
No sense of self to be known.
Where is the truth to be found
Amongst silent lies?

At the edge of the cliff one more time...
My arms outstretched in hope to embrace
A new paradigm,
Leaving the errors of my past behind,
Trying not to lose the friend at my back all of this time.
So I took the dive
Landed in the divide
On my feet a bit wobbly.
In front of me two roads diverge in a wood
And I sigh and wonder
I sigh and wonder...
Will there be another life for me?

I was born under the sun like everyone
And learned how to drive on my own
Moving forward not reverse
Getting stuck in my muddy pride.
Through agony I have kissed truth
And now embark on the road less traveled by
Hoping to cross Love's finish line.

Ready to Serve (2008)

I have seen through the bars.

There is no such thing as closure
Nor a resolution.
They only exist on the page or the media screen.
Changing my path, old habits should fade
But since this little girl came to be,
Reflections of self-reproach
Seep through my deeply hidden, rock sealed cave.

Some day she may question her worth,
Wonder why she was not chosen to dance,
Act according to some social standard
Dictated by her peers or observation of media fantasy.

What will I say?
How will I behave?

It's not that I was blind to the male motive;
I grew up believing a man would discover me.
In search of simplicity where complexity lies
The human connection vexatiously revealed,
Disillusioning my sense of being.

She may ask, "How could you give anyone such access to your mind?"
"This power I did not know was mine," I will bemoan.

Too many girls learn to view life through a lens
Not of their own conception.
Getting sucked into the cult of "female strife"--
Never satisfied with the pacing of their breath alone,
The clatter of their feet alone,
The mirror revealing their face alone.

Believing life to be a burden, years passed me by
Before the patriarchal bars were actualized.
I can never bury the past; it is who I have become.
It is who will teach this little girl that life and love are never done.

So the map to my cave is tattooed behind my eyes,
A place I hope my daughter never has to reside.
Someday, however, the deceitfulness of society
May cloud her perception, imprisoning her when least expected.
And my experience may be her only revelation.

I am ready to serve my sentence.

Poetry, Please Speak to Me (2007)

Poetry is Not a Luxury,
Audre Lorde writes,
It is a necessity.
Let me tell you what happens
when poetry leaves me--
I no longer feel Her empathy.

Poetry's soft hands held me close
for fifteen years
as nightmares attacked
during my darkest moments.
Her ears open to my questions
I could ask no other to hear.

One awful, tumultuous day I turned
my back on Poetry,
choosing medicine
to slow the pumping of my heart
to ease the pace of my breath.
As the doctor scratched her pen across
the prescription pad, I heard Poetry sigh.
The sweat on my brow tasted of her cries.

I swallowed faithfully each white tablet
conveniently forgetting Alice's lesson:
Pills will not always lead one to her chosen wonderland.
As my body calmed, my mind's eye slept
And Poetry disappeared.

A year later, She still hadn't returned.
I threw out the pills, climbed out of this new hole,
wishing the pen would spill its ink over the page--
Nothing, only a few dots here and there.

I longed for Her powerfulness to carve out
the unknown feelings and ideas stuck deep inside.
All the chants and spells cannot call Her back.
She can be so stubborn.
I refuse to leave her in the past, to let her go
even though Her hand I may never again hold.

Poetry is Not a Luxury,
Audre Lorde writes,
It is a necessity.
Let me tell you what happens
when poetry leaves me--
I no longer feel Her empathy.

Eye Witness (1998)

A poem should not be easy,
instead tear away
at the mind's seams,
threatening preservation
like solitary moments in the silent
streams of thoughts
that rest behind
closed eyes.