Too easily offended
I’d rather not listen
to some people
most of the time
My anger is my
downfall and rage
follows, like falling
boulders, from behind
I’m antsy in my heart,
which the doctors have
confirmed–they say my
heart doesn’t pitter-patter
right

Some days are fine,
some nights are worse
some are best for not
speaking at all
but I faux smile
cause that’s what
people want of me–
it’s what we want
of each other

Silence is    t h r e a t e n i n g
d  u  m  b  i  n  g
only meditative if you’re
…drinking hot tea before or
…wearing lycra and a yellow scarf,
with elephants on it
No but that’s not really true now

What I mean is:
that was just my anger talking and
ah I see what I shant speak today

So I lie on the bed
or I cry
because I can’t feel my head
like a hot air balloon it has risen
and escaped me
no longer attached by way of
my spine to my feet
no longer accepting responsibility
for foul thoughts and behaviors
Truths I’ve built up with strong
hard-to-destruct things like
addiction and the inability to
see   l o v e   clearly
the tendency to judge this  l o v e
of its worth
inspect it for faults and errors
beg with my body but sometimes
do not give it up when he has
come home for me,
when he is ready

When he is ready I sometimes
see the hands of another man
a man that some of us women all
know so well
the very hands of a man who first
showed us hell
on earth
turned an ordinary meadow
into a red burning thing
where all routes leading out only
lead to more traps and catastrophes
the hands of a man can either help or threaten me
the hands of a man can trigger me
in the best and the worst of ways
I’d say don’t come for me on a day like today
I’d say don’t come for me

I’d say my devil man hands
never paid
as many of them don’t
too many wrists, unroped
so many women coping daily
in millions of different little ways
I myself
I toxify
detoxify
toxify
detoxify
on and on

Inside my mind I am
ringing my hands I am
pulling my hair I am
opening my mouth
to scream
my eyes are bulging
out my pretty little head
I am coming apart at
the seams
and though I can’t
seem to get a grip
I am still.

And all I am actually doing
is leaning on the stove top
and staring at a boiling pot with
hot salted water and chicken
One would assume
I am daydreaming
thinking of nothing
deaf n’ dumb

But I am a poet                    
and I am still scared
in millions of different little ways
I am still scared in the way that
too many grains of weightless sand
could crush my every last bone
like the way a toddler could drown
in a half bucket of water
I am still scared in the way that
teenager held her breath and her
friend pushed on her chest and she
died but it was all suppose to be a joke

an experiment

My anger has turned to sadness
My rage into despair
Somethings,
most of the time
are too difficult
to bear