Belief inborn

When people whisper, what a story
As if lives weren't real
As if characters couldn't feel

There is no creation in belief
It is already inside you
Swaddled in your belly 

We justify and sacrifice
And I will break my water
because time is near
I'm shedding fear
--to face demented truths inside me

What faults of mine are not webbed
around this sphere of mass
clinging to the veins and nutrients

What proof besides my
breathe-stained glass
fogging your sight from my mind

and written out in black ink
or carved, and scratched
and bled

What you leave behind is not unsaid
It is written in the stone
It's not my own

You once asked me for
unabridged
And I refused to open yours
What good is to caress a book, unless you understand
the words

If I Were as Persistent as Shame

Seeds once encased, begin to unfold

And I watch again a heart burst, in its bold

assumption of deserving love

As if to erase and start anew

Preemptive to the season

In temporary pools of melting ice

A cancerous spring 

This canopy is closing and starving oxygen

around my red and worn mind

How to own the word, than be the forest,  than be the life

Climb the limbs and shout over the leaves

I am told not to speak down

I am told that time heals all

My orange, bulbous womb

At midnight I birth Shame, know her name

I shout her over the trees   

A game on a board

Glares across the checkered board

and the thud of the pawn

sliding off my greasy fingers

of love, of betrayal

Scratching the painted wood

white and black

We all choose our colors

and wait to be punished

Wait to see where Victory lies

She speaks of chance like life isn’t a choice

A list of possible movements

Taking turns, our courteous jabs

I won,

I think

that everyone was right. Winning isn’t everything

it’s nothing

a pill for your head, from the wine, for your heart

Or a dose of memory for your morning rise

Don’t play games,

I say

But I'm just a moving piece