Painting Persephone

when I'm painting Persephone,
I'm painting the souls she tormented
the flowers she grew
and the sunlight in her hair

the goddess of spring
Queen of the Underworld
the bringer of destruction
a force to be reckoned with,
someone to be feared

when I'm painting Persephone,
I imagine
her struggle, watching
her story being
mistold, over and over,
men drawing lines
where they weren't
supposed to be

she was a mighty queen
written as a helpless victim

I'm painting
Despoina and
Kore and
Proserpina, all of
her faces
and phases

like a moon,
she is cold
and unwavering

she'll show you no mercy
and you'll rot
while she throws
flowers on your grave

Hypocrite [guest poet]

It's not supposed to hurt.
Looking over at the people I love, I smile.
I try to show my love but my face betrays me.
Insecurities grip me tight and give birth to a thousand doubts.
What if they don't love me anymore?

I'm glad they don't hear me crying in the shower.
They think that I'm perfect, so I don't have the right to be sad.
"Other people have it worse."
Pain that I can't explain.
Knives twisting in my gut.
I've been stabbed by someone I love and they don't have a clue how it hurts.
The mirror is dirty, like my reflection.
Feeling like a joke, rubbing my teary eyes
breaths come in shallow.
I say to myself, "Stop this!
Your life is great!
They are jealous of you
Most of them love you."

Do they even know me?

The real me?

I'm the one who's jealous of those who have it worse
because when they cry, they have a right to.

Everything is in place, nothing ever hurts me.
I'm fine. I’ve figured it all out.

The shower knows the truth they'll never know.
Maybe it's for the best to be the happy one.
The one who has it all.
Time to put my brave face on.

People ask for my opinions as if I've got it all figured out.
I love them, but when I tell the truth it hurts them.
I love them, so I lie.
They point at me and say
“Hypocrite.”
Maybe I am but you never really wanted to know the truth, did you?

I lie to myself about things I don't wanna feel.
Thoughts of jealousy and pettiness have crippled me before.
Would I fight myself this time or just accept defeat at the hands of someone I promised myself I wouldn't become?
The 8th-grade version of myself.
The mean girl, I loathe myself.
Am I becoming her?
please, let me die before she takes over.
I would rather set fire to my own corpse than hurt the people I love due to my own urges.

Only the shower has heard my plea.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
How do I get up and put the mask on this morning?
If it's all the same, I'd rather crawl back in my bed and wait for death.

Does anyone really even worry about me
or do they miss the girl I once was?

Written by Rupkatha, my brave new friend who lives a world away, unaware of her own strength.

to describe a museum

to describe a museum is to describe a
maze built of books that lie open for
indulgence, for education, begging
to be read, to be seen

to describe a museum is to describe a
story that needs three rooms full of
artifacts to begin telling it,
lights low, minds wide open

to describe a museum is to describe a
a contradiction- honoring a civilization
by stealing their art and
deciding how to tell the story, themselves

to describe a museum is to describe a
deep ache, a yearning for knowledge
and understanding and a
connection beyond words

to describe a museum is to describe
a maze
a story, a contradiction
and a deep ache

The Butterfly Effect

Use care when
traveling
to the past, one mistake
could change history.
You may never return
to that which you once knew.
Reveal a secret and
cause a war.
Stop something from
ever happening-
the entire
space-time continuum
will be doomed.

Decisions you may consider
small, use care-
you have more power than you realize.

Threes

they say
that luck
comes in threes

good and bad and everything in between

they say
the pattern stays
and you settle in

in music and stories and punchlines

they say
two's a pattern,
that it's breakable
and when I break it; it just doesn't sit right

new fears this halloween

you grow up and
your problems get bigger
sure, that makes sense, but
nobody warns you that
so do your friends'

it's Halloween
I've learned new fears since
dressing up as a pumpkin in the 1st grade

it used to be faceless monsters
lurking in the dark,
now my friend's little sister
can't get the help she needs,
her parents don't believe that
the monster in her closet
is now trapped inside her
rattling her rib cage

it used to be big kids out
early, when we were trick or treating
but now the cops are at another friend's house
and they might take the kids away
all five siblings, while she's hundreds of miles away
the fear of separation that big is far worse
than any screams behind bushes or pranks on houses
how do you tell a 6-year-old to find a new family?

it's my last Halloween as a kid
all I see are haunting reminders
that fictional horror
ain't got nothing on reality

someone new

i am someone new
someone i don't recognize
i love the hair
i love the smile
but i don't know where
the latter came from

i have been reborn
and need to figure out
who i am all over again

when you first meet someone
you say, "how do you do?"
you smile and nod and
try to care about the answer
that you know isn't real

but, that isn't how you
greet yourself, i'm sure
then again, i would not know

i have become a world unexplored
myself an unexperienced traveler
and i don't know where to start

i look into the mirror and, for once,
i like what i see
but who, i wonder
is that,
behind the eyes?

along this thin line

along this thin line
I balance
skipping ever so slightly
to catch your eye as a
distraction, hoping you'll
miss the fear
dancing across my smile,
leaking out of my eyes

i want you to see me
so much that
i don't

i am not

if you had asked me who i was
(before) well,
i was taught to never
say, "I don't know."
so,
i would have had an answer for you

perhaps in poetic form
because that is what i do
but

"i am" poems are
overrated

i am not the
scratch of words across the page
or the pencil that just won't sharpen
i am a person
a writer at my very core,
strip away all of my layers
and words are what you will find

i am not the
tree that died to give
space to new life
i am a person
who lets everyone
trample all over me

i am not the
saxophone falling flat on every note
or the one that will give you sounds
that'll make you feel at home
i am a person
who needs music playing at all times
who feels the emotions of
every song in their bones
who plays the sax so lovely and yet
sometimes, so bad

if you had asked me who i was
(before) well,
i was taught to never
say, "I don't know."
so,
i would have had an answer for you

that was before,
before the day i heard a whisper
floating amongst the trees
telling me that i would
grow to unlearn
so much of what had been taught to me
before i could think for myself
i would do this in order to
reshape the knowledge
so that it held more people safe inside

people have more layers
than what they like or what they do

if you ask me who i am
(today) well,
i will have to say, "i don't know"
but, please, don't walk away
before i get a chance to add
that i am beginning to find out
(and that is a beautiful thing)

wanting the truth

i want
the truth, i claim
that it can't hurt

ignoring the truth
doesn't make it
go away, i say

fear of
losing control
fuels this
(something that is
already a wildfire)

i'm afraid
that i will wish
for ignorance
in a moment of
weakness

i'm terrified

i will regret
knowing a truth

i claim i want
the truth no matter what, but
i'm afraid.

i'm terrified.