Rituals.

Minimum wage in Michigan is $7.40 an hour. Figuring to work 40 hours a week, figuring taxes to be about a third of your income, an individual is expected to make less than $800 a month. The average, decent apartment (and this is probably a conservative estimate) in Grand Rapids is about $500 a month. For one bedroom. How, exactly, is a person supposed to live on $300 a month? I mean, I'm sure some people out there have figured out how, have managed to stretch their dollars. But considering the cost of utilities, phones, gas, etc., how exactly is one supposed to eat? What does someone do in an emergency? I mean, think of it, car registration and insurance in Michigan is required. Registration, for a one inch sticker to place on your license plate is about $80. If, after rent, you only have $300 a month, and you're already stretching that to the brink, where is $80 supposed to come from? It's paralyzing to think that one person cannot, or barely, survive on a full-time job. A...

I am down the watership sinking my body has failed my mind I am tethered my feet are buried in the earth while my mind seeks the wind to fly, a kite on the breeze and gone gravity perplexes me, that it will not cooperate when I ask so politely to lift above the air the tarpits grab my thoughts with metal, bone, flesh-stripped claws, existed a thousand years waiting for these words I will never say, buried in my mental grave pointless sticks, I stab myself I do not bleed I court the other side, the yellow lines crossed, flirting with the disaster that never comes, tempted by metal smiles and varnish that drives away I covet the heights, my gods, the temples others built for other creatures I shall never meet, and I see the end, the edge of the world rushing towards me with the speed of the sunset I am forbidden in these places, rejected by the society I do not, never, seek Regret, this constant companion the voice of the republic whispers through the dark shadows of a house I cannot lea...

Anubis, the African King The Jackal-headed man Has left me a message in the sand Shall I read it, my good friend? I know what it will say But there’s a chance that I am wrong If I read it, I will know But if I read it, I will know Shall I read it, sweet sovereign sister? The words that dance like samba They speak of you And all the ill that you have done All the lies that you have told me As we walk this desert, hand in hand Shall I read it, kind and gentle lover? With all the lies exposed The knife in your hand That I see your shadow raise My back I give to you Shall I read it, violent partner? It can be our sweet lullaby The sands that tell me all I’ve ever needed know The hourglass that holds them close Shall I read it and tell you what he told me? Of the life that awaits you Of the path your carve Of how you deserted me Of how I cannot be mad, because you walked with me blind, and I changed the course of my feet Shall I read it and hear him scold me? Shifting between who I am and y...

Sitting, darkness, dream Sleep, sleep Mindless sheep Sleep Led to slaughter Lead me Take me Wish to be Warmth of wool Smell of blood Salt water Taste Gravity reversed The up Brings down Smashed Against ground Broken Wheeled Intensive care No one Cares Broken Wheeled Cliff Gone

Not sure on the name. My head splits Growing legs and walking towards the sun I think My words are broken Quicksand falls too slow like snow Piled upon the ground like mounds of the dead dying in the sunshine, flesh burnt from this scientific allergy My head splits Growing legs and walking towards the sun Dali elephants that dance in the morning light Flitting from the flowers where I can drown in the dew I hit the atmosphere and burst into flames My body breaking off into space My head says no, shaking side to side like spastic seizures, like all I can say is this word I don’t mean, like all I can say The change is inadequate the transformation impossible, divinely spawned, divinely spurned Rejection lancing into my veins like ecstasy that kills me on my first attempt The numbered dead death The burning facts fax and figures My figure I figure My hands words are broken Yet they tumble waterfalls from my tips Disconcerting this disarray this attempt at meaning above meaning below being...

Sleep eternally To break the spell of memory This work of art that I am locked inside The papers burnt in a furnace’s fire No one will see the misery of my mind The world escapes subjugation to my brilliance You shall never know what you have missed And I shall never be missed The glory of this coat I wear Absent of the recognition I deserve Accolades Acolytes Disciples Deception The liar and her burning tongue Which only speaks the truth Build in me The power to defy you Build in me The will to use it Give me the power to destroy The cities you have built The towers to your infamy The vanity of vanity I am the Goddess of the Night If I were a goddess If I were the night I cultivate the greenery around me and twist it black in the pot I look out through the sides of my eyes Cleopatra make-up to make me sinister To reflect what I am The Witch of the Grey In tall twisted towers that watch the world with silent eyes of cold and heavy rock I wait as the world builds on me and snap only whe...

The mother lives in me With ice in the corner of my eye I am the harsh winter The burden of snow in a shifting world My place has come undone beneath my feet I have been speared The breastbone broken Thrown back Bleeding on the battlefield, the victim of the hunt The mother lives in me Cultivated by choices I haven’t made That I cannot claim as mine I have tended a green garden of a thousand different plants Sometimes the vines strangle me Sometimes the fragrance smothers me But I have never failed to return As regular as the sun I have learned alchemy From these, my children I have perfected the potion I daily ingest The mother lives in me I know because I cannot go These plants are delicate So I cannot trust another The air blazes burnt orange Filtered by fallen leaves I hover between imagery and meaning A kite On the breeze Unsure where I will go The first frost is coming soon And what omen does that bring? The Mother Lives In Me And I cannot say why I am distracted by these summer ...

I am the hungry caterpillar I sense in me the potential to become something new But when I look in the mirror I am constantly surprised that I’ve yet to transform I am waiting in my cocoon My hard shell I have eaten pesticide And sleep in a coma I crawl out of my grave to a great, grey graveyard surrounded by the tombs of those who’ve meant nothing to anyone, least of all to me But they are my kin The ignoble dead and dead alike rise up from the ground with unbending knees We lurch to the east and await the rising sun Bursting into flames as the line touches us A nauseating display of pyrotechnics My breath is caught in my throat at the rollercoaster’s plunge The clack of wood The crack of leather Whipped by the scorpion’s tail I am poisoned These words are in a foreign tongue I cannot understand them I will not comprehend tomorrow what I have felt today Each day I’m born Each night I die My skin is burning with a fire I cannot source I roll in the dirt I claw the flesh from my bones B...

Not sure how I feel about this one. The supple grip of sinking waters The cold, cold grip of icy fathers The call of cigarettes and lighters The matches I light beneath my burning hand I cannot break free of this cycle that I cannot comprehend My mind is chained to a physical form Everything I see I detest The disgusting human flesh LED flashes in my positronic brain A purple scent drifts behind my eyes Flashes of a black and white face The destruction of a map So I cannot return to this place Torn like paper are my paper-thin walls Obvious has replaced the irony I cannot give what I do not have And I could not give a damn

It’s a cruel, cruel summer _____ The day that I was born I wake to burning skies Orange and copper that tears the skin from my bones as I stand naked in the light I stand bare against the summer sun and dream of waves that can wash me away The ground has pulled me close The sky has pushed me away Gravity claimed me as a child and clipped my wings I have been deceived about my heritage But it is too late for me to fix Bright eyes speak to me through darkness Glints of Gleaming and hints of the horrors yet to come Beyond the horizon lays the ocean Beyond the sea lies the edge of the world that I’d hoped to see Beyond the horizon lies more horizon, always on _____ its side. Always lying down under the weight of _____ hopes and dreams the travelers before me have _____ abandoned, hoping to make it one step farther. And around the next bend lie their corpses and I find _____ myself among family. My kin The Elephant Graveyard relocated The night. The darkness. The light of the moon. The ...