I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)

I wish
I wish I liked STEM
I perpetuate the stereotype,
women studying English,
and art,
and languages

My love of the arts,
and the humanities,
Is regressing women's history

But it is my right
My right to study art,
and languages,
and theatre

Women's empowerment
And fight for equality,
is so I can study humanities,
and Tiera Fletcher could study rocket science

Painted painted painted painted painted
paint paint paint paint paint
It’s hard to describe an overload
When the in comes in and it just won’t go
I stare at a wall, I shake, say no
But I can’t say no when the shutters close
I can’t say no when there’s no more no
And all there is is green and pink and paint
Paint paint paint paint paint
There’s no one thing that makes me go
A tindered flint to ignite my woe
It could be anything: hair, a cat, the snow
But today it was paint
The word alone made me quiver
Shake and tremble like the words of winter
I stared at the wall to shake the feeling
Locked myself down ‘til my senses stopped reeling
And soon I was feeling and seeing, alive
The tidal wave ceased, it didn’t crash but subside
And I was still here, claw marks in my sides
With the smell of the paint just waiting outside.

This disease struck me
Like a brick on pavement
Hard

Everything was
Perfect
Then that brick came along
And with the slightest movement
Destroyed everything

“Count it
Perfect it
Measure it
Clean it”
The voices say

Why can’t I let them go?
They keep repeating:

“Count it
Perfect it
Measure it
Clean it”
Why won’t they stop

“Count it
Perfect it
Measure it
Clean it”
I don’t understand

“Count it
Perfect it
Measure it
Clean it”
Someone just HELP me understand

This disease is about
Perfection
But it's the biggest
Imperfection about me

"I hope to arrive at my death, late, in love, and a little drunk"

we do not write poetry
we write mirrors
which are held up
to curious faces
who read
looking for their
own reflections

To the next person who says St.Patrick’s day is all about leprechauns and rainbows:
I will grab my ancestors’ immigration papers and beat you over the head with them.

Tho' modern pen has lost a cursive touch
and words archaic; poet's old cliches,
electric type has still the phrase to clutch
and render beauty's make through sonnet praise.

Have I then prompt to key my quill to prove
iambic worth has ink for grace so rare?
Tho' words cannot do just, nor then improve
but page her beaut for those that cannot stare.

A lady's fair in metered writ, romance!
And have so in; revered poems of old
now newer peach must too afford a chance
to muse a bard, that none her flair withhold.

Let modern sonnet's ode new blush to art!
And tho' from present phrase, they still impart.