Episode 80 – Real Me

dawn is morning’s response 
to evening’s darkness

* * *

I am an only child,
little sister I have not.
But the kid
appeared one day,
writing journals,
making a nuisance,
altering my life.

What is a life
if not what’s remembered?
Or is what’s remembered
the whole of a life?
Can missing pieces
form a sister,

like God in those first days
molding a planet from the void?
Can a sister form
from shared memories –

skinned knees,
birthday cakes,
the forbidden borrowing 
of a favorite sweater?

If memories fail,
does the sister evaporate
like water on a summer sidewalk?
Or do lies fracture,
leaving a prism 
of colorful stories behind?

Episode 79 – Buffy vs. Dracula

Lying close,
he doesn’t satisfy.
Pursuit 
feeds her hunger.
She chases thrills,
then returns spent
to lie beside him.

A kindred
flows like mist
into her room
while she is sleeping,

drinking her in.

Her true nature 
is concealed
beneath crepe paper
and ribbons,
peeled back layers 
of strength 
and darkness.

His nature is 
a colorful calligraphy, 
flowing shallow 
and powerful
beneath the skin.

He offers eternity.

She is rooted in now,
her thirst quenched
by ancient memories.

She, as predator.
She, as seduction.
She, as hunger.

He leaves her
as he found her, 
wanting more.

Episode 78 – Restless

1.

Ancient strokes
brushed
on naked skin,

entangled,
a poem without,
my love within.

In costume,
the play begins
without me.

False friends follow,
dragging me back
to the shell of a life.

O girl in blue,
won’t you tell me 
what to do?

Paint me, naked,
hair behind one ear,
my Aphrodite.

2.

The journey leads me
back again,
swinging,
trying to get in. 
Too many people 
watching,
my father’s sin.

Ladies,
lovely like ice cream,
speak to me 
in foreign tongues,
send me off to war.
I can’t take it 
anymore.

Pulled apart by petals 
and stems,
too many corridors,
I can’t get in.
No place to lose my heart.
I’m broken, torn apart.

3.

Time 
is a carnival,
masking your face
with laughter,

cotton candy.
Find me
in a melody,
follow the lines.
No time
to remember 
before,

on hands and knees.
You alone,
time lost.
And I
not born yet,
even as I die.

4.

The earth
is a dreamer,
hiding behind walls,
hands plunged deep 
in dark desert mud,
its name 
unknown to anyone.

Memories are
isolated,
all twisted in family.
Speech, so ancient
there are no words.

Strength lies
in friendship,
in purpose.
The way
looms clear.

Then dawn 
arrives
and changes
everything.

Episode 76 – The Yoko Factor

Isolated,
he won’t stray far
from the girl.
Her past is dark
and bares 
its teeth.

Lost love
distractions
scatter like
seeds. His 
soul cast aside
for one moment 
of happiness.

She,
something soft,
something shared,
white sweater and curls.

The past,
a tough adversary,
turns on a heel,
walks away 
again.

This time,
as it should be.

Episode 74 – Where the Wild Things Are

Lost in body,
love’s chains tie us down.

Lost in flesh, 
bone-chilling frosts blanket the world.

Lost in desire,
sins are strangled, begging for one more breath.

Lost in love,
crawling on our bellies, we claw our way to the light.

Episode 66 – Hush

Shadows
in the clock tower,
frightened girls
who cannot scream.
Without voice,
intimacy becomes language.
Hideous
is the face of silence.
One noise,
a volcano
in the quiet of a mind.
The clock strikes one
and steals our hearts,
cutting them
from the chest
with knives so sharp
that, though we die,
the pain remains.
Only a song
can save us.

Episode 65 – Something Blue

If hate could kiss,
would it be beautiful?

If love would last,
could it be kind?

*    *   *

Scent of past love lingers,
clinging like lace against my skin,
tattoos of pain no one can see,

intimate like a friend, like a torturer,
intimate like a friend, like a kidnapper,
intimate like a friend, like an executioner.

The scent of love lingers.

Episode 64 – Pangs

I am vengeance.
I am justice.
I am a hole in the heart of the world.

Give me comfort,
pie and yams,
family to watch over me.

I am a knock at the door.
I am the enemy,
but never the one you expect.

Give me strength.
Give me story.
There is much to be thankful for.

Episode 60 – Fear, Itself

By candlelight
I carve out a life alone,
convinced
that I’m unlovable.

Insecurities, like bees,
pollinate fear
into brilliant blossoms.

I fall hard.
I fall deep,

red and black
and bleeding.
Lifted into flight,
beauty
frightened by love.