Nestled deep within the feel and touch of home
this heart of love goes on a holiday
Like feathered birds in heaven when they roam
all thoughts of you arise, like birds of clay

Nestled deep within the soul I have no choice  
but flap these wings and lead you to my heart
Like  warblers in the sun with trilling voice
all thoughts of you sing sweet, it is an art

Nestled at the font of love the heart's own mind
is like a shelter of collective pasts
Like memories of old that can't go blind
all ardors of the heart seem to outlast

Unblinking as the sun that shines inside my heart
the heart and mind of you and I, will never part.

They cheered my rise,
they watched me burn,
Then found another,
Took their turn.

The villain will always be a villain if the hero tells the story

They love you when you give,
Ignore you when you need,
A lesson learned to late-
Kindness makes you bleed.

Wind-carved
spine twisted—feral, gnarled.
A body bent,
splintered—never severed.

Salt licked wounds raw. Brine sutured marrow.
Bark flayed to ribbons, limbs ink-blurred—
curling, unwritten. A thing undone, a thing refusing.

Roots plunged—teeth to brittle earth,
ribs against collapse.
Cliff crumbling, gravity unspooling—
but it held.

White-knuckled in ruin.
Fingers clawing the wind.
Wreckage. Crooked. Unnatural.

An old man exhaled— Survival isn’t always beautiful.

But what is beauty, if not this—
a body unmade, carved by violence,
and still, somehow, bloom?

I’m an ordinary girl
Born of ordinary parents
On an extraordinary day.

They came from ordinary people
Who lived out ordinary lives.
They never really had a lot
And seemed content with lesser.

How is it then that I was born
Always wanting something more.
Seeking that beyond the screen
Not satisfied with all at hand.

Why did I not fit the mold
That formed my sis and  brother.
It seemed to work out fine for them
But was a prison cell for me.

I bashed through those restraining walls
To seek my future my own way
Finding cliffs I could not climb
And oceans I could never swim

There was a narrow path to take
But I preferred to dance the edges
Gathering the shiny baubles
That melted in the setting Sun
And left me where I am today
Living an ordinary life

And seeking to plant Hollyhocks
Where only cactus ever grows.
                   ljm