I often feel alone
even though I 'm reminded
that I have family
that loves me

but sometimes

Family is just a mirror that
chooses to reflect every bad decision
you've ever made in your life
while hiding behind the glass

Sometimes, conversations are held
on one way streets, where sin only comes
in black and white, and the ones that love you
hold gavels between clenched fists

Sometimes, love looks like scorn
and hugs feel a lot like straight jackets that
leave bruises in the shape of hearts
and I-told-you-sos

So I'm alone, and a sinner
*tell me something I didn't already know.

If I die young
Bury me
Beneath the willow tree
Her tears will mourn me
To the end of time
Long after all those who cared
Are gone

When you kiss me
Do you taste
The words left dead on my lips
A mouthful of ghosts?

When you breathe me in
Do you fill your lungs
Then choke me down
Like a shot of whiskey?

When you touch me
Do you trace your fingers
Along the signature
Depression left on my arms?

When you hold me
Do you feel all the pieces
That won’t ever be put back together
Can you tell
That’s the way I was made?

I’m not broken
Because I was never whole
In the first place.

short legs
patched jeans
kicking leaves
piled to my knees

remembering color
living in sea salt pines
leaves little to imagine
of autumn rhymes

sweetgum sourwood birch
sycamore and dogwood
apple leaves beneath the plum tree
ash hickory maple and oak
mountains afire in Tennessee

eyes closed
smell of smoke-
kicking leaves
to the wind.

r ~ 9/16/14

We are broken,
do we cry
for broken people,
for ourselves broken,
for broken flowers,
do we cry,
how broken we are,
I cry.

I am as cool as a fire,
calm like a rabbit,
mean as a dove,
angry like a priest,
loving as a terrorist,
square like a circle,
raging as a summer sprinkle.