A Knight in Rusted Armor

The claws of swallowed demons,
Slashing savagely at skin of steel,
But the stolid knight holds it in,
Blinks it away like it’s not real.

She gulps down yet another monster,
Crafted from rage in the pits hell,
She stays quiet and calm,
Not even a yelp or a yell.

As the fortress that is her core,
Is pelted with the sights her desolate eyes see,
The receptors in her black hole brain lie there distraught,
From being forever lonely,

Slashing at the fork-tongued dragon,
For many long hate filled years,
She can do nothing but bow to the Goblin princess,
Biting her swollen lip to fight back tears.

But one day the brave knight will rise,
And unsheathe her encrypted sword,
And slash off the head of the Goblin princess,
For too long has this tyrant been adored.

Next will be the dragon,
First tail then the toes,
And last will be the head then she turns and walks away,
Leaving the carcass for the crows.

And finally after a lifetime of pain,
She pulls off her helmet and lets her beautiful locks flow,
Revealing her eyes, skin, and soul
Now everyone will see, now everyone will know.

The Faker and the Renegade Strand

The beauty is gone,
When there’s more makeup than flesh,
And it dies when showing skin,
Transcends being pretty.

When the lip gloss shines brighter than your eyes,
The word human is erased from your presence,
And when you wear powder as a mask,
Souls drain from polished fingers.

If the name of your bag,
Is more valuable than your own,
Or if the logo on your shirt says more than your words,
You need to wake up.

Finally, when everyone is a string, wrapped around your finger,
And there’s one strand, loose’d from all the others,
Know that that one strand,
Is me.

Gray Rainbows

Am I worthy of a hello,
Or even a passing glance,
Is it worthless to hope,
Since I never had a chance.

Maybe if I smudged a little more liner,
Or if I changed my hair,
Then you might notice,
Maybe then you'd care.

I guess I'm just not enough,
Not enough to be,
The one you'd run to,
The one to hold the key.

I suppose it's useless,
Maybe I need to get a clue,
Sitting here hoping no one will hear me,
As I mutter "I love you."

Carnations for Stephanie

“Todd?” Todd felt a small tap on his shoulder. When he turned around, he saw it was Lilly, her red pigtails sticking straight out of her head. Lilly sat at Todd’s table when ever Ms. Ogg said it was art time. Todd didn’t like Lilly, she was always teasing him, but that’s only because she liked him.
“Yeah, Lilly?”
“Todd, how come you have two mommies?” In the future, Todd would get this question a lot, at least that’s what Rachael told him. She also told him how to respond.
“Because I’m such a handful, that I need two mommies, and two mommies are better than one.” Rachael’s words echoed in his head as he said them. Lilly tilted her head to the right, her pigtails flopping about as she did so.
“But, what about your daddy?” Todd just stared at her. Not only was she annoying him, but she was confusing him with all of her questions.
“Because,” Todd states matter of factly, “I don’t’ need a daddy, I have Stephanie.”

Todd stared out the window, reminiscing about his preschool days, ten years ago. It was only when a paper ball hit the back of his head that he even realized he was still in math class. The ball had landed next to his foot.
It’s probably from Lilly Todd though. Lilly had gotten over her crush on Todd about three years ago and now she was his best friend. Unfolding the paper, he came to realize, this note was not from Lilly. It had the “F” word on it, the one that rhymed with bag, and a small sick picture below it.
“Alaric.” Todd muttered. Todd has been dealing with Alaric’s taunting since around the time he figured out the relationship between Rachael and Stephanie, which was about fifth grade, and Todd brushed him off each time. Alaric couldn’t get away with much anyway, since all of the teachers looked out for Todd because of his “parental situation”, whatever that was suppose to mean.
Not many people understood Todd’s family, and how could they? They weren’t the ones who grew up holding a rainbow colored sign as they went to protest marches with Stephanie and Rachael. They weren’t the ones who woke up one day only to find that there was the “F” word spray-painted on the right side of their house. No, they had no idea what it was like. Todd took a peek around his shoulder only to see Alaric sticking out his tongue and wiggling it back and forth.
The winter wind bit at Todd’s skin, but not as hard as the word that was being screamed at the back of his head as he walked away from yet another fight.
“Hey I’m talkin’ to ya! Git back her you…” the word stung Todd’s ears more and more each time Alaric roared at him. As Todd hear the thumping of oversized shoes behind him he switched from a slumping walk to a desperate sprint. Todd was smaller, a lot smaller then Alaric, but he was also faster. Ninety percent of the time he was able to out run Alaric and his crew, the other ten percent however, he usually came home telling Rachael he was hit by a car, again, even though he knew she knew he was lying. Today however, was a ninety percent day, as Todd dashed far from their reach. Todd ran passed the identical houses that sat in a perfect line along his street. But Todd knew the people that lived behind those oh so perfect doors and knew they were nothing like their faultless homes. Behind the house with the red door lived the Bews and the father was a drunk. Behind the black door was the Quilms and the mom has depression and had tried to kill herself twice. But behind the green door were the Tulms and they were the kindest people in the entire town. Maria, the wife and mother, always came over and helped Stephanie with the garden and would sometimes paint little childish but fun pictures with Rachael. Joseph, the husband and father, use to come over and watch Todd while Stephanie and Rachael were at work. Since he was a writer and their his daughter was Lilly, he would just bring his laptop over and type away while Todd sat on the rug playing with trains, crashing them into Lilly’s dolls.
As Todd leapt up the front steps and opened the door he figured Rachael and Stephanie weren’t home yet. Rachael works at the town’s Pet Shop and Stephanie works at the Garden Supply so she can get an employer’s discount for soil, seeds, and what not. Stephanie is a very strong and powerful woman, and she has only two things feminine about her, her long blonde braid that runs down her back all the way to her tailbone and her flower garden out front. With all the rain and commonly gray skies, Stephanie’s garden brightens up all of Washington. She even put a little extendable awning over her garden so that the flowers wouldn’t get over watered. There were an assortment of flowers in her garden, pansies, alyssums, and lathyrus, but her favorite was the carnation. Stephanie had every color.
Rachael is a very delicate and dainty woman, so feminine in fact people commonly ask if the garden is hers, but Rachael always claims she doesn’t have enough patience for flowers. Instead, Rachael paints. She paints anything, boats, animals, landscapes, but she never paints people. “There are enough people in this world,” she’d say, “no need to make more of em’”, which was also why she and Stephanie decided to adopt instead of going through the whole sperm donning process. Rachael had always wanted a child but had decided it was her duty to take care of one who was already born and needed parental love and affection.
When Todd is home alone, sometimes he just walks around the house, looking for things he perhaps had overlooked. Sometimes it was a crack in the ceiling or some strange detail in one of Rachael’s paintings he never noticed. Today however it wasn’t and object or any physical thing he noticed, it was instead a feeling, a presence about the house. His house looked and felt… normal. Perhaps it was just Todd’s head that made him think that if someone took one look at him they’d know he was adopted by a homosexual couple, but he always figured people who knew expected his house to somehow be different. That there would be things about it that would make it obvious who lived there, but there wasn’t. There were paintings on the wall, dishes in the cupboard, and rugs on the floor. There was a piano in the corner of the living room with three family pictures resting on the closed top, but not even the pictures changed the feeling that floated about the house, a warm feeling, like the walls formed faces and told you that this house was well lived in.
The ring of the doorbell shook Todd from his trance and he went to go get it. Turning the corner, he could see through the storm door that it was Lilly, and she looked worried.
“Hey,” she muttered, “they didn’t catch you did they?”
“No, they were to slow.” Todd let out a little chuckle as he opened the door and the corners of Lilly’s mouth turned up a little, but only a little.
“I would’ve come to help but you know.”
“Yeah I know.” The last time Lilly tried to help they only pounded him more the next time they saw him and Lilly wasn’t around. Todd didn’t get mad; he knew she was just trying to help, as always.
“What’s wrong?” Todd asked. As always, Lilly cocked her head to the right.
“You mean they haven’t called?” Right then the phone let out a rattling ring.
“What, are you psychic?” Todd joked, trying to brighten the worrisome mood Lilly was emitting.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Todd,” Rachael’s voice quivered at the other end of the phone, “um, Todd Stephanie is in the hospital and I’m here with her.” Todd’s heart stopped.
“W-what?”
“ No, no don’t worry, she’s just getting a CAT scan because she felt uh well, she felt like there was something off about her body and the doctor just wants to take a closer look.”
Todd turned to look at Lilly for some sort of reassurance, but she was starring at the ground, biting her nails.
“Todd? Todd, are you there?”
“Yeah I’m here.” Todd stuttered as he whipped his head back around to stare at the wall.
“We’ll be back by ten tonight so order some pizza for yourself. Alright?” Todd’s throat closed up so he nodded, and then remembered he was on the phone.
“Alright.” He choked.
“Todd please don’t worry everything is alright. We love you.”
“Love you too.” Todd kept the phone next to his ear even after he heard the click of Rachael hanging up. Everything was silent. Lilly shuffled next to Todd, but he didn’t hear her, he was too focused on breathing.
“Do you want me to stay?” Lilly whispered. Todd thought about it for a while, thinking about his words, and then decided to answer.
“How come they called you first?” he asked, giving his emotions more time to decide whether or not he needed to be alone.
“Rachael said that she didn’t know how you would react so she wanted me to be here for you when she told you.” Lilly sighed, as she began to turn around.
“Wait,” Todd quivered as he stretched out his hand to grab her arm, “what kind of pizza do you want?”