Gee, it’s almost like I had a theme during the panini.

My yellow bird
4/1/2020

You are the breath of several, but the glowing symbol against one:
The dark person that lives inside my heart,
She who drives my fears, insecurities, all that temptation to run away.
She is behind every urge, fleeting or not, to throw my body off a bridge
Or careen my car into the unfeeling sea.
She used to claim front and center, but most of the time now
She doesn’t even warrant a spot in the trunk next to the emergency supplies.
But she has always been there — since I was barely a conscious being.
And so, my yellow bird,
You stand a sentinel in reminder:
That we have wings
We have choices
We have a voice worth using to speak or sing or cry.
We do not hurt alone
We can break the silence, deafening though it seems.
We can spread our feathered arms and take to the sky,
Follow an escape route of our own making.
A path and a destiny of our own design.
The choice is always mine —
And I just have to think a little bit enough.
So, my yellow bird sits in plain sight,
Taking off from its budding branch,
But never leaving me behind.

Too much
5/2020

I am too much:
So I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds,
Scream silent in the bathtub,
Lay comatose wrapped in sheets I bought
to keep things feeling bright and white.
Don’t ever be too much
Only give just enough
Divide yourself equally,
Sprinkle out bits and pieces
because nobody can handle everything —
and they shouldn’t have to.

I am a coffee stain spreading on the map of the world,
Soaking up the directions until they’re so muddled,
it’s hard to say which way is up or down.
I am a forest on its knees, wind rustling leaves,
rain-soaked undergrowth
dirt hiding the bones only half buried —
Bones that will never fully decay,
never truly rot away.
I can show you the way to them,
teach you how to dig with your hands,
nevermind your bleeding, cracked fingers;
But once you find my bones,
you won’t ever be allowed to escape.

I am too much
For one person
For one planet
For one body
To contain.
There is too much inside,
So I spill it into the ocean’s crashing waves,
drop bits and pieces on abandoned roadsides
and along dark, dusty alleyways.

Too much.
I am too much.
I am too much.
I am too much
And I am also not enough.