Somewhere out there is a tiny girl. She’s dressed in ragged clothes. Her barefoot feet are caked in mud and her hair is matted. Her form is thin and weak from lack of proper food and clean water. She is vulnerable to disease and is too small for her age. If one looks into her large eyes, one will see pain and experience beyond her young years. She’s seen and heard and felt things that no child should have to endure. She never laughs or smiles. She simply watches the world, afraid and defenseless.

Crying in the shower at the end
Of the day
Over old heartbreak
Or perhaps
Current pain
But when the water calms
And my tears are washed away
I slip into my bed
Like my fears slipped down the drain
But not every fear or burden
Feels like it’s gone away
For I am only human
And I’ve had the longest day
So I beg for mercy
And pray for thankfulness
Hoping that each part of me
Will be fully cleansed
So bless the Lord, oh
My soul
And forget not His
What?
His benefits

The music sings
Tugs at my heart
If I don't dare to join
It'll tear me apart
To express oneself is freedom
Though it may come of pain
And the shelter that music provides
Is like an umbrella in the rain

I stand up all of a sudden, mainly because I can no longer breathe.
Salt water blocks my throat as I look away from Father Leo. “I’m sorry,” I mutter, mostly to myself. I apologize a lot to myself nowadays. But I don’t forgive me back.
The priest calmly places his water cup on the tile floor next to his chair and stands with me. As I shudder through my sobs, I feel his hand rest on my shoulder. That just makes me break down further.

The Sera Calliveaux was known for the brilliance of its performers. Being a wildly popular casino hotel that resided on the beaches of San Francisco, it had more than enough funds to hire the most prestigious artists from around the globe—from well-loved popstars to prodigious foreign musicians to entire choirs and orchestras, as well as everything in between. If a body wasn’t there to gamble away their wages, they were there to hear the music; a bright light shining through the fog, a touch of magic shimmering amidst the mundane.

Gogglepod sat up slowly, rubbing his tired eyes. “Surely it is not morning already,” he thought. But, a quick glance out the window proved him wrong as he beheld long rays of gleaming yellow sunlight pouring onto the wooden floor below. Swinging from his hammock, he dropped onto the makeshift floor, barely making a sound with his soft feet. Donning his brown, frayed, buckskin shirt and pants, he shoved a coonskin cap on his head to cover his brown greasy hair.

She was walking alone in the dark, her light blue stilettos clicking insistently on the sidewalk. Her floral cocktail dress was damp from the foggy night air, and she pulled her sleek white coat more tightly across her chest. She shuddered and looked around, shrinking away from the shadowy buildings before taking off on a run to the door of her apartment building. She had been holding in her tears for hours now, and once she shut the door behind her and slipped her coat off she let the river run.

The Fiction Lover
You made it simple – suddenly simple for me,
So long caught up in life’s philosophy,
Like some character in Dostoevsky.
For you I could be a prince, handsome and tall.
And you with glittering gown, the beauty of the ball,
Adorned with jewels fair and brighter than them all.

~

The Obsequious Manipulator
If you should leave me now, my dearest dear,
You’d be a faithless jilt — a lady-cad —
For you are mine, and all the world may hear
The many proofs of that that I have had!

Growing pains are
Just that
A time for growth
Stretched out by nearly
Abysmal
Pain
But I think too often
I
Am so caught up in the pain
Of it all
That I forget to see the light inside
Of growth
Or to appreciate the changes
In me
So help me to remember
That waiting isn’t empty moments
That getting to know
Someone
Doesn’t mean that I must
Fall in love
Remind me of the grounding truth
That friendships are not
Obligations
For something
More

The Original
I’d like to be unique in all I do,
To see the beauty hid from other’s view,
To speak the thing that’s seldom said but true.
But when I come to weigh what is your virtue’s due,
I am compelled to join all men in praising you.

~

The Cynic
Those words of love, the promise of your lips,
Were thin and breakable as potato chips;
No longer than a bag our love did last —
One of those bags mostly filled with air
That go so fast.