Teeth

my teeth are
sharp
i grind them against the
whetstone of subtlety
wit
and when i bite you
you
you bleed pride
and arrogance
and i savor the copper sweet taste of
your anger
in exchange
a balm for my anger:
revenge.

Goodbye, sweet little one.

Today, I had to put my cat to sleep.
He was diagnosed with kidney disease last year, and has been slowly deteriorating since then.
 My mother and I cared for him this last year, giving him subcutaneous fluids and medication, but in the last three days he became severely lethargic and lost his appetite. He couldn't walk, his back legs were very weak, and we were having to carry him to his litter box and spoon feed him.
Today, my mother and I decided it was time to take him and end his suffering, with the thought that any more time we kept him with us would be prolonging his pain only for our sake.
So we took him to the vet and they put him to sleep while we stood there petting and talking to him, letting him know how  much we love him and how much we'll miss him.

I can't stop crying. He was 19, and i have had him since i was 5. I loved him the best of all my animals, he was the best cat you could ask for. Sweet, loving, cuddly.
The house seems emptier without him, colder and lonelier.
My heart is breaking and breaking and breaking and i can't make it stop.

Music.

You cant fight the tears that ain't coming, or the moment of truth in your lies. When everything feels like the movies, you bleed just to know your alive.

Seethe

I sit quietly, trying to find my feet beneath me again.
But i can't. Try as i might, i cant find my footing.
I wander along the road and try to find the right path
but i just stumble against the branches and briar
and end up cut
scratched
torn.

I thought we were somthing
but it dissolved on my tongue
like spun sugar fragment

and like those sharp
sweet
remainders
they left a bitter after-taste
in my mouth
that i try to spit out
to no avail

I am lost once most in the dark
my lamp blown out
i had a road
but you washed it from beneath my feet

if i cant get this one thing right,
this one part of my life,
how can i ever get the rest to
fall
in
line?

writhe

at the end of a stick
dangling from a string
i dance
playing out my smiles for this world of make-believe
i am dying inside

Pasted on sparkles in my eyes
tell you lies of happiness
but i digress in my mind

pleading for the end of this misery
i wont allow myself to wallow
i move through this life
on the end of a string
dancing

playing all the parts i must play
just to make it through the day
i cry
dry, silent tears
that leave no trace


i laugh at my folly
this lack of anything
has made me nothing
and i scream out against the darkness that was once my refuge
pushing it away and trying
trying
trying

I am all and only what i can be
but
it seems that she is not enough
she listens and laughs and caresses and learns
but she never learns enough

so i dangle at the end of my string
and dance
bound by fear and regret and sorrow

and i try not to think about the reasons why
i try

Flames

the fire burns when i touch it. Hot and true. I let it.
Its better than acknowledging the pain of losing...again.
I cling to the pain with trembling fingertips.
Let the tears fall, ignored.
it hurts less to wound than it does to admit defeat

so i bleed
i burn
i hide my fear
and my sadness
behind this facade
once more.

I scream behind my mask of sanity and
pray to all the gods i dont believe exist.

I cry out for some kind
of retribution


but to no avail.

there is no response
only the sound of my tears
choked back down my throat
swallowed with animal instinct
pride

and the rapid
pumppumppump
of  my heartblood begging me for action

and the quiet
quiet sound
of the locks clicking shut in my mind

locking it all
away

And then....

Your heart breaks with each pump of blood, because you suddenly and fully understand....you made the wrong choice.

A strength all her own

Dawn revives her
she tries to fight through
but its so hard to hold on
to the things not new

times makes things
rust
crumble
erode

pulls from our hands
the things we will hold

"That's life and that's living,"
under her breath.

She walks on with her head raised,
back straight,
she knows that tomorrow is never too late.

Mirror

I see your face
and i weep
angels and demons
can not put right the pieces that have fallen
apart

this shattered art
stained glass windows and
fragments of sea glass

the screaming inconsistency of your absence
knowing it is not you who is gone

broken keyboard words repeal
sometimes i can not feel
but i try

I stretch out my wings and shiver
in morning light without you
knowing that
without you
i can fly

And i laugh when i hear your words
because they are my words
you have stolen

like you have
stolen
so much

time
effort
love

If only i could begrudge you that
love and tea
sympathy

but i close my eyes and
smile
sunlight and shadows

a lie

Thought Crime

Darkness
encroachinig
 i cover myself

in silence

and try to anticipate
the ending
but
the ending is unknown

as unknown
as it
can be

gasping
curling
curving
twisting
spun around myself
a web of silk to keep out the hurt

hands pressed to my mouth to keep in the words that betray  my
weakness

i cant show my weakness

the tears that taste like gin
and tonic

i swallow them and
pretend they are not caused by
your words

spoken
unspoken

all the words that
tear at my flesh
eat my soul
tangle in my hair and bite

bite
with venomous teeth
that leave
scars
bright red
on my skin

bright
red

but i press my fingers to my lips
and supress
repress

This is my lot
my liife

i try to fight
but end up here
on my floor
fighting back tears with

silver

Skirmish

A thousand years
Of unwon battles
She Fought on
The plains
Of the discontent
Undeserving
A place
Of darkness
Lack of starlight
Of failure

Warrior cry
Of frustration
Distress
Trapped in the labyrinth
Of
Those unable
To become
Bound to the walls
By chains
With links of
Loneliness
Dishonor
Disappointment
Betrayal

She tears at her flesh in horror

When
Sudden
Silent
and silver blue
On the horizon

A moon rises
Full
Of peace

Her face
Ghosted with tears
Turns up

And reflects
It's light

Eyes wet with
Disbelief

She lifts her head from
The sands of sorrow
Of despair
To gaze in
Confusion
At the

Key of moonlight
In her hand

With trembling fingers
It slides into the lock

Snick
Snack

The chains fall away
From
Her ankles
And


Release her

Silver blue moonlight
On
Scars
And skirmishes

She walks
She runs
She flies

Escape.








- sarah[inprogress]

Tomorrow

In a dream of tomorrow
I heard your voice
Whispering secrets to my soul
In tones of hushed
Delight
Fear
Acceptance

In a dream of tomorrow
I saw your face
Shimmering with a
Reflection of my own
Eyes
alight with
Cerulean desire

I dream

Awaken to the sound of
Chimes
Echoing

The predawn light lays me down
Shivering cold
Apart

Hand reaching out for hand
Warmth craving warmth
I smile

The night lets me go

I smile.

- sarah[inprogress]

And she said

You pull my smile
From within
With words that ignite
Like a wildfire
Across my mind

Entangled
In a crush of
Epiphany
Colored gold and green and autumnal red

Cornered by thoughts of
Desire for
Hope returned to

Calamity
Calling my name
In a jagged glass edged
Voice
Of harpy siren
Seductresses

Playing their games of
Dice
with my bones

Laughing
At my dilemma
Laughing

In the dark.




- sarah[inprogress]

Entanglement

Colima to Mar Vista
In the blue black
3am light

Eyes not really seeing
My body full of sight

I

Put one foot forward
And turn my head back
It's like a sudden rush of headwind

It's like a crystal glass has cracked

A multitude of definitions
Reeling through my mind
A sudden lack of sound
Call this feat a crime

I

Trust my intuition
The things I sense
Might be

But

My intuition
Is
Just as afraid as me

Tumbling into
Unknown waters
I'm
Only who I am

I stretch out a hand and hope
That in the blue black
3am light
I might
Just find
Another hand




- sarah[inprogress]

Temporary

Clarity
Fled
With the first bittersweet
Something
The promise of nothing
Of departure
Betrayed by the Truth
In her
Eyes

Scattered across her face
Easily read in the lines of her lips
The

Closing of eyes
And the meeting of
Minds

She falls
Trips
Spills
Pours

She won't say it

Frozen limbs
Held still by
A sudden flood of warmth
Contentment within the-
Underlying the-
Fear of release

She closes down only to find
Him
Reading her face
And telling it back to her

With cool the alacrity
Of a scholar

She hadn't realized her
Strong tower
Her fortress
(her prison)
Had been breached

She finds a place to hide
Between his teeth

She flutters
In a cage suddenly unbounded
By gilded
Acid laced bars

And
Like a bright fragment of pain
She soars
Bird-winged
Into a crystalline night
she can no longer interpret

She tumbles
Lost
Under clarion stars which
Pinpoint her location
in a silversweet language
She can not understand

And as the temperature
Begins to rise
She recognizes the dawn
And heads towards the horizon
Spreading her
Suddenly discovered wings






- sarah[inprogress]

Stoic

Dissatisfaction
Suddenly brimming on the edge of my lips
The tip of my tongue

The sour taste of dashed hope
Suffices for my supper

I suffer in everlasting silence
Bleeding out my words of
A pain not comprehended
Onto a page shimmering red
With innocent blood

Haste
Making my fingertip tremble
Sensation of cold
Heat
Drawing out the acid white
Pain of
Bitter mistrust

I bite my fingernails to the quick
In
Panic
That I then suppress
With my blinding smiles
Slight widening of doe eyes

So you cannot see
That I am afraid.

- sarah[inprogress]

Potential

She whispers a word
Into the air
And watches it freeze
Katink
It shatters to the ground in fragments of pearly white
Goblin teeth that
Bite at her ankles and make her
Back away

Her eyes sit before her
On a silver platter
Blinded

She is bound
With ropes of wintergreen
To the cold iron rods of the
Gate which guards
The graves

To protect the living from the dead
And the cold black iron
Burns her skin

And her skin peels away in strips of
Dewy red

She hangs her head
And breathes
The pain intrigues
She is caught
Bought

She hardly even fought
Her edges shimmer
In the void

She is evergreen
And melancholy
She is winter ice against your teeth

With the potential to devastate
She is holly and hemlock
Belladonna stained fingertips prying at iron locks until she bleeds

A wayward goddess
She grieves
Honeyed lips lie with
No remorse

Dark horse
She comes from behind
To bind you

So here she stays
Bound to
The in-between by
Iron
Salt

And

The dawn



- sarah[inprogress]

denied

In the quiet
Of a dark morning
She contemplates
Eternity
And all the Ifs and why's
That plague
She presses her mouth
To the cold reflection of her soul
In her dark scrying glass
And ponders the outcome of tomorrow
She is mere flesh
At times a vapor that blows away
In the early morning breeze
Clinging mindless
To the bark of trees
She is denied the most basic of instincts

Trust

She bleeds desire
But has nothing to bind her wound.

Replica

silver sharp
image
of
a girl i once was

awash in
bittersweet
recriminations

i tell myself
it will be alright
and then
deny that there
was anything wrong

once again
a gold haloed icon
in the eyes of
a sycophant
desperate for

attention

awash in
recrimination
i cling to the vestige of hope
that once was offered

its tatters of
red
staining my hands
and tearing apart my soul
as it falls to pieces

marks like fingertips
grace my throat
souvenir of
capitulation
speculation
sacrifice.

carmine
and
heliotrope
violet
indigo
green
yellow

sick colors that
scream

of my incompetence


How can i stand to
look into eyes that
see me?

All my life i have been hiding.

butterfly

i am caught
captor's hand pressed firmly
upon my wings
as he sets the pins in place
and i bleed

trapped once more
by my own folly
i flew into this
cage of my own will

now i drown in
the desire to sail away
become glittering dust

i struggle against this issue
of trust
and let the pins bind me down
pierce sinew and crown

and weep
for lack
lack of clarity

the clarity of
freedom

as i am bound
to this card
and put upon display
just another butterfly in
this case


gilded wings trimmed and
glossed

i give freely what is taken
what is taken

but this quiet voice of reason,
is counted
merely as loss.