Drug

It's fire, tingling its way
     through my veins
It's wine, warming my
     core, my vital organs
It's lightning, a bolt
       shot to my thoughts
Laced with letters,
      filled with words,
strung together into sentences
       until I am no more
and only they exist,
     naked, breathing
in the light

Poison

This is not a blessing
      nor is it a gift,
not the thing with feathers
                     that perches in the
soul.

No.

This is a curse,
            a sickness,
    a disease, a poisonous
              infestation of the
soul.

Hope does not save
    Hope does not heal
            Hope does not love

            Hope lies
     Hope hates
Hope steals

      from us our desires, makes them soar
only to rip away the wings

Fate's Design

The turn of the wheel,
the dealing of cards,
the spots on dice,
 the line of stars
Tiny movements,
flinches,
shape life, ripple through it,
where we can hardly feel it
Well I'm through with the waiting,
with the praying,
with the wishing.
I will throw a wrench to stop the wheel,
I will steal the aces
I will make the spots of the dice
I will rearrange the stars
so that it is no longer flinches, but strikes
not ripples, but tidal waves
I will remake what the hands of fate
have dared to begin
and I will make it my own

May 2

Blow out the candles, watch the purple smoke curl
listen to clatter of plates and forks
as people talk, words sliding into one another,
and the wrapped packages sit waiting to be torn open,
I know what I want isn't in any of them.
It can't be wrapped, it can't be bought, it can't be given so easily
This gift, this want of mine is uncompromising, it will
settle for nothing less than its entirety.
And you, without even knowing, dropped a ribbon
into my hands, a chance to tug it open, to see if
it sparkles as much in real life as it does in my dream.
So I lean in and lick the base of the candle
Knowing my wish has already been granted
because all I wished for was a chance worth taking

Dear RaeLynn

Welcome to this world of suns and skies
and rivers and mountains
The first choice you made, who to be born to,
is one of the best you'll get the chance to make
and one day, I promise, after you've raged and ranted
as a teenager, felt misunderstood, you'll know.
When you're grown, and you can ride a horse with your mother
and ride an ATV with your father,
When you can read and write, and you can see
the words your mother wrote to you, before you
came out into this world of whispered mornings and
murmured evenings,
when you can see how your brother smiled when you
were nothing but lines of gray and white on a screen,
when you can listen to how he taught you to karate kick
from within the womb
When you are grown, little miss, tell them with words of your own,
with images and memories and laughter of your own, tell them
they were the best family to be born to.

Today

Laughter, feathers brushing against flesh
      a smile, effortless as a brush stroke

     Eyelashes spread, spider legs over denim

Ignition, deep down, in corners
            of licks of flame
that will flutter, casting pools

     of light and shadow