I’m listening to this song,
early in the morning
when raindrops decorate the dark bus windows.

"I guess I'm not prepared"

The pattern of words crawls into my brain,
tickling nerves, shaking loose memories
of the night before, a maelstrom of screams
about my college choices, future plans, and grades at school,
of doors slammed mid-sentence in my mother’s face.

"Family is all I'll ever have and need"

Everyday verses swamp nerves, then brain.
I **** sideways and
knock shoulders with my bus seat mate.
On the backs of my eyelids, I see
my mother kicking a hole in my door, 
memories of cracking wood is
garbled by rain and guitar strums. 

"Pick up my personal pieces"

I've listened to this song before:
in the car ride home after a tedium of classes,
through crackling speakers in bright grocery aisles,
and bouncing headphones when I run circles on the track,

But not in the dark of the early morning,

on a trembling bus speckled with rain water.

"Good things are over fast"

— quoted lines from “The Man” by Ed Sheeran

When my mother is sad

           she buys plants

Crisp chrysanthemums,
      Swaying sunflowers,
         Sunset roses

A garden of love—

           or maybe growth.

I’m not sure.

      Elbow deep in earth,

she plants roots.

Maybe she’s creating new roots

                                 filling the loss of her family
                                                          ­                 of her friends
                                                         ­                             her home

Or maybe
             she likes to look at the colors through the window
                                like stained glass and rainbows,
                                                       a garden of her own.

Life is screaming out at you to end your life.
But don’t do it.
Be that rebel and rebel and live.
Life ***** you away when you are down.
Destroy your feelings.
Don’t let them take your feelings from you.
Be yourself and do whatever you want.
Destroy others by not acknowledging them.

People say ,"You scared the hell out of me".
I think, There is a Hell inside of all of us.
Either we want to get out
Or we haven't got in yet.
Hell inside of us are the voices that tell us negative thoughts.
That are screaming at us to do things.
Are the disturbing thoughts that float around our mind.
We have Hell Inside Of Us.

There're a series of silhouettes standing still in my backyard.
They are the ghost versions of my former selves.
I stare into their dark.
A number of moments go by,
then all at once -
they come alive.

This one jumps his leg.
That one is falling down.
Gyrating in a pattern that isn't quite clear.
That one lights a cigarette.
This one sips a beer.
Circling as if playing a game of phantom music chairs.
I see one buckling over.
Another lunges out.
A patchwork design of folly and crime -
I can't decide what it's about.

If only I could get a top-down view,
then maybe I could see
the purpose of this pointless motion;
this parade of all that's me.

You make me feel nostalgic for things that never happened.
You remind me of someone who I never got to truly know.
Random person in the world,
it seems we'll only ever be granted fleeting glimpses of each other's soul.
Then we'll lay it down to rest.
Some things are best left unknown.