I've spent my life being the architect for others
meanwhile the blueprints for my ideal home
collect dust in the corner of a room
that no longer feels like my own
the air grown stale and cold
the windows permanently closed

I build their foundations
strong enough to withstand any insult
I can install elevators if they need to be lifted
put in mirrored ceilings and floors
so that whether they are looking up or down
they can see the wonder that is themselves
and stairs so that I can keep climbing
right into their lives

I never get paid a dime
especially not when they move
and I lose everything
all the work I put in for nothing
the fine tuned custom floor plan
with no bodies to fulfill it
nothing to justify its existence
left for someone else to find

likely they'll call me back in
to tear it all down and begin again.

Rant

There is a variation between being loved and being needed
call me greedy, but both are crucial
I'm straight up needy
the kid that has to be picked first
second worst comes to worst
or I'm out of the game
laughing at the people who picked wrong
it's a shame
and you can call me confident or call me crazy
I know my worth
opinions are a dime a dozen
But mine are hundreds on hundreds

it's alright to fail if you can admit your slights
admit defeat
admit that even alpha males can be beat
because I'm not in it to win it
I'm on top of it to stomp on it
the world is mine
like wine
I can even turn sour grapes into a good time
and I love my mind
treat it better than my skin
hydrate it with new things
try to enrich it with experience

but the struggle for females is serious
I don't need chivalry I just want courtesy
they say it's not dead unless I'm a feminist
and then I'm the one killing it
because in order for me to have equality
I can not be feminine and certainly can not expect a gentleman
but bitch that's preposterous
there is a balance called common sense
and that does not exist in a world where a girl could be raped
ten feet from you, in plain view
and the judge would rule she was wanting it
witnesses say she was flaunting it
wearing promiscuous clothes
females calling her a hoe, a slag, a slut
there are new words invented every day
a dictionary of hate intended to demean
to support the flawed divergence
of he vs. she
when the nurses that gave her the rape kit know
he took her virginity.

Ode to Autumn

September

tempering the year

forever pressed between two lives

an Aster in bloom

confused for something full

and too soon plucked

red faced exile in an unused book

bleeding into the words of dead men

who denied you your due

I was born with the knowledge of you

delivered into the limbo of a seasons ungraceful end

to wait for the beginning of death

not as we all do

but as women waiting for love

sister, mother

I carried you in my blood

heart filtering everything

but the fever of my wild intuition

a knowledge of something more illuminated

than the stained pages of man's sanctity

my small female hands touched the Earth

like a baby, pushing out

at the walls of its mothers womb

never wanting to leave the peace

that comes from finding oneself fit

attached to the world like a vital organ

you and it requiring one another

a fleeting sensation when time insists on turning

wavering like the memory of pain after the fact

which they say, we retain little of

moonlight poured abundantly over sightless eyes

but with the knowledge that it is evening

everything moves

to the ceaseless rhythm of death

the maid dancing knows that she will end

as the crone

withered into nourishment

for the boot heels of next year to press

I caress you still

sister, mother

I am in love

with this

a moment on the wheel

briefly spun into life

the fall

allows us to become whole again

to forever find ourselves beginning.