How open is your window,
  how tall is your door

How wide is your pool,
  how slippery is your floor

How fresh is your perception,
  how broad is your scope

How clear is your reflection,
  how real is your hope

How solid are your friendships,
  how many pray tell

How strong is your commitment,
  how deep is your well

How right is your grammar,
  how your words become strong

How your heart achieves freedom,
—turning verse into song

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

She's somewhere far away
sitting on her porch
watching the sun sinking behind the church tower
alone
breathing the warm air
as another day of her life
is going to an end.
80 years and no smile wrinkles on her cheeks
her forehead still a history book
where lines of war and struggle
are deeply written.

Her eyes full of colour,
her heart
a room where hope and sorrow
constantly fight against each other.

Her voice, a joy to hear
though it saddens me
knowing that she goes to sleep as the sun does—
lonely, in a dark, quiet infinity

Learning to accept has been and will continue to be the hardest challenge in my life. Change brings discomfort and one will never know what is to come. At nineteen years old I know I know very little. I know how to make someone laugh, I know that I take life for granted frequently (like most humans), I know that I will 'loose' the majority of people I consider myself close to in ten years or less. Most importantly I know that it is okay.
'Loosing' people is a weird term. Even in death we did not loose that person-we know what happened to them-they are not hiding underneath the couch waiting to be found. The people you 'loose' in your life are probably still breathing and laughing and enjoying their lives. For me, that was the hardest part to swallow.
I did not wish harm upon these people I was once so close to. I wished them all the best and continue to. They are amazing people, with huge hearts, and brilliant minds. However, I resented them for a very long time. It was hard for me not to take blame in something that had no blame to be had. It was hard for me not to think there was something wrong with me because I was poorly treated. 'Loosing' people crushed me. For a very long time I was upset and struggled with my mentality. It was very easy for people to walk out on my life and that made it very easy for me to check out as well. I hated that it was easy for them. I hated that they didn't loose me-they got rid of me. I hated that they didn't know how much I really loved them. I hated that it killed me-and they didn't seem to care. I thought I hated them, but my father had always told me hate is a strong word. People come and go-it is life.
With every person I 'loose' in my life-I loose a little bit of who I was. I just recently started to gain back more of who I am and wish to be. I am slowly understanding that change and this pain everyone feels is a part of life. I always knew it-just couldn't understand.
I am getting better. The silence that followed 'loss' forced me to get to know myself. It forced me to get comfortable with what I had-myself. The silence made my thoughts louder so I wrote. I wrote ten letters to the people who hurt me the most and then I wrote their parents. I wrote until I had blisters. Better on paper than in my head. With each word I wrote I felt myself relax, my breath went steady again, I slowly started to feel myself again.
I started writing thank you letters compared to constant unanswered questions. Questions that I now know will never have answers to. I thanked people for helping me by hurting me because they did help me. In more ways then I could ever help myself. They are amazing people who I am very grateful for. They paved paths which still continue to guide me through life. I thanked their parents for raising me practically as their own.
I only sent one letter out. I sent it to people I have known my whole life-who have watched me grow and help me grow too. My words had gone ignored or maybe even thrown out and it hurt. However their stubbornness only helped me learn more. The feeling of doing something right I felt much stronger than denial. I continue to write these letters because I will never be able to truly thank them for helping me learn to accept and become more of who I am. I must constantly remind myself that though change and loss bring discomfort, it brings clarity and understanding as well. And that is only something to be grateful for.

Anybody read her poetry yet
she's an artist
a word smith
a true poet

Anybody know her joy yet
she's a lover of words
she's good at crafting and toying with words
she's a timeless poet

Anybody know her yet
nope, I don't know you
but I know your words
full of peace and honesty
charms and divinity
love and heartbreaks
undoubtedly you are a phenomenal magnificent poet
mad love and respect for you

with salt sprinkled so that she could take it-
he never asks questions-
she always unsure-
“mustard?”
“yes”- a practiced-egg-flipping ****
spurs a continuance of motion,
an un-thought,
a silent presentation-
then swallowing:
an un-thank you,
quick like horse pill one-hundred,
a you-got-it-pre-made,
articulate, deliberate, unimpeded,
like the supreme court.
They go home and sleep in the same bed-
under same blankets-
wrapped in same blackness-
you swallow- on average- eight spiders in your lifetime-
sixty-four funny feelings
under-impressing a supposed truth.

A morning distilled into solemnity
I sit here waiting for something
a bird of ether
to remind me:
quintessentially
I am Asterope
a rock
one of the
Magellanic Clouds
I am eating my dust
everythingandnothing

Rockskipping
lipstickingnothing

To think is to pretend

Fantasizing being
shall we
waltz in whimsy?
Methinks ‘twould be lovely
cradling stars
for a moment
fickle and breathless
(see how easy it is...
and then death comes

and

death is
( )

why a poet?
because a poet
hears the words
which sing the
purest harmonies
because a poet
paints their portraits
in pastels
of phrases
because a poet
dances their agonies
into leaps of faith
and pirouettes
of passion
because a poet
sees
the beauty
in the commonplace
and captures
the moment
in a snapshot
of ink and white
because a bloodless world
cuts itself
a thousand times

and the poet bleeds

Life is…competition.
Everything starts with “She’s a good person, but…”
And what does that even mean—‘good’?
It’s such a tricky word…
It trudges and collects, rolling and sticking and melting into a mess.
It covers and confuses.
It oozes…
‘Good.’
It is cavernous and claustrophobic all at once.
Because what do you tack onto that word and what do you leave out?
And how much is too much before good is no longer good?
Before it turns to flaws and flossing teeth—
Revealing surprising grime on white napkins.
Now she’s “‘Mary,’ the kind soul with an eating disorder.”
Life is disorder.
***** fingers constantly filing and misfiling,
sealing cases closed with oversized labels that undermine the contents inside and the very boxes that hold them.
And what does it mean then?
When you are a rectangle and I am a square,
When Mary is placed on the shelf over there?
I am not scared
of the brown—not ***** blonde—roots creeping up from the top of my hair,
of the pimple on my chin.
But what makes me cringe is your satisfied grin when you notice that her daughter
is not quite as thin…
not quite as thin;
It is a sliver of a win,
Like the sliver of cake that you take to your plate
for fear that your trousers might break—
and then—
gasp you’ll belong with them,
cardboard congregated in the corner,
stacked and packed together,
the ones with jean-zippers torn asunder.
I cannot help but wonder
what life is…