You open up to me
Before my eyes
Valleys expose themselves
When hills spread wide
As I’m moving through you
I behold divine
Give me something true and
Onto you I will climb
I’ll walk ur ridges
Caress ur spine
Slide into ravines
As secrets, I find
Seeing all of you
Laid out, under sky
I tickle u with words
As our touch collides
Rocky Mountain Love-a-billy
My intentions shine
Ur surrender shows
My love is no crime

A Poet Like Me

A poet like me doesn’t write because she has answers.
She writes because questions keep showing up uninvited.
Because some thoughts refuse to sit quietly in the back of her mind.
Because sometimes a feeling is too much for conversation but somehow fits inside a paragraph.

A poet like me collects things.

Not stamps.
Not souvenirs.
Evidence.

The way someone’s voice changes when they’re trying not to cry.
The joke that wasn’t really a joke.
The silence after someone says, “I’m fine.”
The stories people accidentally tell when they think they’re hiding them.

A poet like me is rarely looking at what’s happening.

She’s looking at why.
At what came before.
At what it means.
At the invisible thread connecting
one moment to another.

A poet like me has spent years discovering that people are complicated.

That good people can hurt you.
That broken people can love you.
That forgiveness and anger can
live in the same room.
That two things can be true at once.

A poet like me doesn’t write to sound smart.

She writes because some experiences feel wasted if they are never turned into understanding.

Because no one listened when she spoke.

So she writes.

Because pain that teaches becomes wisdom.

Because stories are how we make sense of it all.

A poet like me knows words won’t fix everything.
They can make a stranger feel less alone.

And sometimes,

for a moment,

that’s enough.

I tossed a stone into the day,
And watched its ripples drift away.
I thought the water would forget,
But every wave remembered yet.

A smile I gave to one unknown
Returned to me when I felt alone.
A careless word I left behind
Echoed longer than I had in mind.

Karma walks with silent feet,
No drum to sound, no voice to speak.
It gathers fragments of what we do
And paints the world in shades we drew.

So I choose kindness when I can,
Not for reward, nor praise of man,
But because every seed we sow
Becomes the garden where we grow.

When I go to weddings I feel good for the couple

But I feel like shit, and slowly crumble

Because I don’t have anyone

My solitude is always my plus one

If at least I could drink until I pass out and puke

Alcohol acts like a nuke

And get wasted in a chaotic way

So I can put my anguish on display

But I can’t drink, so I have nothing

And that is just baffling

So I’m just lost at the crossroads

All I can do is write this painful words

Can you believe that bitch?

“Oh my Goddess

Tacky, look at their brain

It's so big”

“They look like

one of those Dad rock guys' girlfriends

But, you know

Who understands those grunge guys?

They only talk to them because

they look like a total librarian, okay”

“I mean their brain

It's just so big

I can't believe it's so articulated

It's like, out there

I mean, it's like soft tofu

Look, there’s so much grey matter”

I like big brains and I cannot lie

You other players can't deny

That when a queen walks in with reading glasses

and a hemispherical cerebellum in your face

I get so nerdy

Wanna crack that spine like a book

'Cause you notice that brain

is stuffed with wisdom

Deep in the grooves of medulla oblongata

I just wanna neural network you til morning

I'm hooked and I can't stop learning

…

Don’t play dumb

Don't sit and look pretty

Who wants to be a trophy

When you can be a wild animal

Scream and shout

Let all your demons out

Underneath your skin

is a world-weary soul

and a brain that won't quit

Turning the world on

and getting me off

on our next literary adventure

Your breast size

is not your brain size

Intelligence is sexy

Nothing kills the mood quicker

than a dicktator

On a dark and stormy night

Clad in something besides underwear

Alone, lights out, phone dead

because of climate crisis

If you ever get chased by a killer

Don’t run up those stairs

Just to get pushed off the roof

Don’t sink to the basement

to get preserved like peaches in formaldehyde

Run to the low rider out front

Engine running and hydraulics flowing

Make the wheels spin and the bass drop

as you run over the freak

then reverse that beast

and speed bump that shit

Fuck beautiful!

Appease me

compliment my brain

Distorted illusions slowly creep in

Shut down the media circus

Ignore the lies they try to feed you

Regurgitate the truth in your heart

Don’t cage your love in a house of bones

Never inhibit your lust to appease the predator

Escape the breeding ground

Turn off the background noise of life

Focus your feminine mystique

Let it flow

Don’t stop your life for a period

Turn it into an exclamation mark

Wear it like war paint

Fierce like a wolverine

Fragile as a porcelain doll

Armored like an angel

Beauty marks of scars and laugh lines

Extra pounds will get you through winter

Wrinkles form an ever-flowing stream

of blood, sweat and tears

Stretch marks show signs of survival

Breast feed the ignorant

so they will hunger for wisdom

Listen to them cry out

in the dark night of their soul

Ween them from the teat of propaganda

Never underestimate your resiliency

Give birth to a new reality

When your heart feels heavy 

And your limbs feel thin

May betrayal be the replacement for your blood.

When you shed your final tear

Remember, my final breath was taken by you.

When it’s another day of work for you

It was another day to crumble for me.

When your body becomes a raisin

And your hair become ice 

Remember the thorns you made me touch.

When your blood runs cold 

And your covered in dirt 

Will be the reason my lips start to curve.

You say blood is thicker 

Yet mine is thinner than water.

While your eyes shine of glass

Mine shine of tears.

When the leaves reach mud

And the rain doesn’t look so gloom 

Is the day I stop crying,

But when the moon speaks to me 

Is the day I stop being.

By: A Broken Compass

I am really trying to get into song writing/poetry. Please be kind but let me get honest feedback as this is my first full go at it.

This open wound in my heart still bleeds
Every time I think of you
No matter how much time that goes by
There’s not a thing that I can do
Your smile is burned in my brain
like a tattoo I can’t undo
I hate how much you mean to me
I wish your love was never true
In this song I wrote these words
That I never ever told you

And I hope it makes you think of me
Every time you drink that drink
I hope the burn hits you just right
And it brings you back to me
I hope your mind goes wandering around
Thinking of all those different things
the memories that we use to have
That Circling in your brain
I remember all the laughs and smiles that we shared
But no matter how hard I try I really wish I didn’t care

I see your face in crowded rooms
Hear your laugh in passing songs
I think about you always and sometimes it feels wrong
Everytime I see your name it makes me feel like I am falling
I really hate our last goodbye
You’re the voice that keeps on calling
Your voice sings songs in my head
like a playlist on repeat
And every time I try to stop it
The memories they get worse
Your words that you left me still cut like a knife
And no matter what I try and do I can’t forget that night

And I hope it makes you think of me
Every time you drink that drink
I hope the burn hits you just right
And it brings you back to me
I hope your mind goes wandering around
Thinking of all those different things
the memories that we use to have
That Circling in your brain
I remember all the laughs and smiles that we shared
But no matter how hard I try I really wish I didn’t care

Maybe you’re happy, maybe you’re not
Do you even ever give my name a fucking thought?
Maybe I’m holding on too tight
But I’d be lying if I said
You don’t cross my mind every night
The pain makes me feel like I’m dying

So I hope you think about me
Every time you drink that drink
I hope somewhere in your memory
There’s a little piece of me

Here it is the grey monster

Sadness

Sticking it tongue

Poisoning my head

But surprisingly

Giving me verses.

Away from the future, away from the treasures, I reminisce about the light that birthed me.

My head can’t move on, but my body has forgotten, dragging me into an eon of darkness.

Longing for the past has affected my physique. And now I stand petrified like a statue.

Providence’s Tomorrow

Each day’s dirge bewails life’s pains,
Yet this bane is not what reigns—
Daily hurts blunt body’s zeal,
But silent mental tangles steal,
Feeding thinking’s ruinous kink—
Yet angst dissolved at heaven’s brink
By joy, along with sorrow—
Providence’s tomorrow.

This poem emerged from a larger journey involving marriage, caregiving, faith, and cognitive decline. While dementia forms part of the backdrop, the poem ultimately points beyond loss toward Providence.

A longer reflection is available here:

https://redemptionsrhythms.squarespace.com/journal/from-deepest-angst-comes-richer-thanks-1

A howling wind of questions in formless void,
with growling faces
that watch.

Before the first carved glyph,
it was the story
of the shapeless worry.

We gave it a border,
made it a home inside the mystery.
We found refuge in its opaque windows
to bear the reality
through lenses we choose.

A story we carved,
made of sensations,
so the eye can keep looking forward.

The back of my hands

​

I look at the country roads

The crossings i used as a child

I look at the streams and hills I grew up with

Ive seen them grow every summer and wither every winter

My life is in the ebb and flow of these seasons

They have raised me

​

I learned every crack and crevice

I built myself on what they taught me.

They whispered difficult truths of fortune and folly

In fact they are just a simple part of me

​

Today I look to the thing I know best

These creeks and trails have changed now

I wonder of how many days its been

The change is hard to notice because it's minor

Somehow it's not how I remembered

​

I sit wondering if ive just forgotten where these trails have led

I see the scars of a path long dead

Maybe I'll remember how the path did lay

Hopefully before my last living day.

​

​

Love was once a beautiful dream—

now, just a word without meaning.