Filling my buckets of red—
I promise you,
I don’t have enough yet.

I don’t have enough anger
to paint the hands
of every man
who ever dared
to be a traitor.

I’ve started sharing my poetry,
and I think I’ve concerned a few—
friends, family—
they didn’t see the blue, blue, blue
sadness
that sits quietly in my lingering,
spilling out in these poems.

It was never my goal,
but the sadness likes to speak,
wants to say what is true:
that the sadness still exists,
a deep, deep
blue, blue, blue.

I will forget you
and be happy.
Or—at least—
I wish
I could forget you
and be happy.

If only
you were
forgettable,
instead of
staining my
head
and my heart

with the
cold
impressions
of you.

She speaks cannon *****
and good morning blues.
She speaks sweet lilies
and rosebuds in June.

She speaks soft
as little light beams.
She speaks rainbows
over tall evergreens.

She speaks sonnets
and low melodies.
She speaks quietly—
freedom, over me.

It was always the words I said.
It was never the way I said them—

never the way I screamed,
never the way I whispered,
never the way I spoke with eloquence,
sweetness, kindness, or grace.

It was never the way I spoke with wisdom,
or the way I spoke with knowledge.
Never the way I spoke as a woman,
or the way I spoke as a friend.

It was never the way I spoke
with tears in my eyes,
or with a clenched fist.

It was always the words I said—
the words you didn’t want to hear,
the words you refused to hear,
the words you refused to listen to.

Words that would have made you care,
that would have forced you to act,
that would have demanded you
to sacrifice something.

It was never how I said them
that turned you away from me.

It was always the words themselves—
that you refused to believe.

They cut the trees
at the park—
not all of them,
just the ones behind
the baseball field.

Now,
when I drive by,
I can see
all the houses
arching their way
up the hillside.

I don’t think I like that,
seeing all those houses.
I wish
they had kept
the trees.

Something lovely in tomorrow,
The hue of a new beginning.
Hello to the sun, heralding us
Forward into something—
Hopefully, something
Lovely in tomorrow.

I want to make a statement,
A record,
A public declaration.

I want to speak
Words that can’t be stolen,
Words that can’t be painted over.

I want to say
What needs to be said,
The truths I hope
Will be heard.

Because I tried everything else—
I tried to speak softly,
Quietly, privately,
And watched each word
Denied, disguised, justified away,

Watched as my character
Was picked apart,
My voice locked up
With the truths I tried to share.

Now I am restless
With this need—
A desire that will not let me go
Until I make my statement,
My record,
My public declaration.

Limbo sits with me like a friend.
I wish I never knew her,
but she made the introduction
when the rest of my life betrayed me
and left me gasping for some form of function.

So now I sit with Limbo,
and she tells me spiraling stories
of things I thought of before—
again and again and again.

Limbo doesn’t listen very well,
and she doesn’t like to help.
She just follows me around.

I can’t go back, I know I can’t,
but everything forward seems
like broken glass.

And so Limbo and I sit
on bus stop benches, waiting
for direction.

We sit with family on holidays,
passing around overcooked chicken.
We sit in an awful, unsettled harmony—
Limbo and I,
Limbo and me.

I love you like
fire and bumblebees,
more than starfish
or summertime,

as high as
the edge of the skies,
as deep as
the woods at night.

Sweet words drip with lies,
their evil disguises hide behind
the kindest eyes.

You promised me you loved me
like a sister or a brother—

then you turned your backs
and left me,
as you ran for cover.

What is it you're hiding under?
Is there space for me too?
Would I have to,
sacrifice another
just to be with you?

I am in protest
and no I won't come down
with lifted chin and a finger pointed
I am not haughty, nor am I proud.

My disdain for your wicked ways
is not the result of my own rebellion.

The fact that I can discern
between what is good and evil
is not evidence that I have fallen short
but that I have found the spirit

Don't tell me that my conviction
is simply an offense
when my conviction is the core
of what made me a Christian

Don't tell me that when I point my finger
in your direction,
I have three more pointed back at me.
I don't need your correction.
I want you to open your eyes and see.

See the wickedness
you have surrounded yourself in
and the Justice you've forgotten
see that you have set yourself beside
The deceivers and the wardens.

My plea with you from the beginning
was to come step off that pedestal
and I wished that you'd be willing
But instead you've shown yourself a fool

I will not pretend to make amends
to walk as though you've offered repentance
I refuse to be a clanging cymbal
when I stand before God's presence.

If the stars decide to shine tonight,
wake me up—
so I can see something beautiful
within all this darkness.

If only stars could heal broken souls...
but even if they can't,
I will still whisper
all of my secrets and sorrows
to the little lights
who dare to shine
in all this darkness.

What power you yield
in the voice of one—
to say to the world
“something must be done.”

What power you have
in the hands of two,
to do what you said
someone else should do.

Old men sit
in plastic pink lawn chairs,
smoking cigarettes
halfway down our street.

Counting the cop cars that drive by,
One. Two. Three.

They laugh
with heads thrown back
and missing teeth

at little boys who
roll and play in shopping carts,
crashing-
One, Two, Three!

Little boys lay
in the space between
grey gravel road
and thirsty green grasses.

They laugh
with heads thrown back
and tiny white teeth.