The civilization of
poets has thinned out.
There's a drought of
metaphors and symbolism.
We are all prisoners in
a musty attic.
Where is Emily when
you need her?
I'm afraid they've gone
the way of the graveyard.
Too much ***** and
too many broken hearts.

Where have all the
painters gone?
Sunk deep in
cobalt blue.
Artists resurrect!
Come out and play.
These are days full
of sumptuous sunrises,
and nights laden with neon.
I long for those
Jagged edges and brush strokes
that bleed pain and love.

Art changes our world.
It makes the brutality
bearable.
The smell of paint and old
books, transport us to
a gentle place laced with
ambrosia that we all
should drink.

I was just 13 years old when Vincent Van Gogh took me out to a wheat field and shot me in the chest. He said I'll let you in on the easy way out because eating yellow paint just doesn't help but god, doesn't it sound poetic? He said he craved ***** things in a letter to his brother but when the paint didn't make his art any better he used bullets and blood instead.

I was just 16 when Sylvia Plath opened up the oven for me. My snow boots turned to puddles and the smell of cookies muddled with the gas filling up my head. She said putting words to paper just doesn't hash it and a poets mind is nothing but ashes so better to let the thoughts burn.

I was only 18 when Virginia Woolf tied stones to my hips and led me adrift into open waters. Gasping while my hands struggled to stay above the waves she told me that this was the only way and that stories were just stories. She could write a million of them but never escape the loneliness of being unable to evaporate inside the pages.

I was 21 years old when Ms Monroe told me it was as easy as falling asleep and swallowing some seeds that would feed and feed until they felt like yellow paint. Easy down the throat like the men that she'd known who now tear at my curls. She said wanting to be loved comes at a price that money just can't buy and pills will always be cheaper.

I am 25 years old and have carried their woes down my arms and legs like Marley's chains. All the gun shots and flame rots and drowning spells and yellow pills have beckoned me with promises of a happy ending. They convince me that all artist's lives end the same but I know that they don't have to. So—here I still stand, clutching their art in my hands, braving a world that they were too good for.

To the dancer in the dark: what you do
isn't a walk in the park.
So don't be afraid to let someone
shine a light on you.
To the singer in the shower:
you know as well as anyone
how music can heal.
So let people hear your power.
To the sketchbook artist:
one person's trash is another's treasure.
So, please: don't throw something away
even if it doesn't give you pleasure.
To everyone else:
you all had dreams at some point.
If you're friends with artists, respect the hustle. Respect the passion.
Help keep the dream alive.
Because dreaming is still
how the strong survive.
But they can't do it all alone.

“I think there’s something wrong with you and that’s okay,” she sings with all her heart
and strums the guitar with my pick.
I’m in charge of the chords,
holding the guitar so
she can reach it where she sits.
We dream it up together, but
I phone it in
I admit.

A, D, E - 1, 4, 5 -
arbitrarily chose.
She keeps it alive with her prose
Just 5 years old
A poet with her eyes closed.

You can be anything you want to be, and that’s okay as long as you’re happy.

Like she knows
The greatest longings of the whole of humanity,

Like she’s peered into the depths of the vast ocean of broken hearts,
And know this is the best place to start…

Like it’s easy.

“It’s okay”, she sings with closed eyes,
and strums the guitar in musical bliss.

And it is. For that moment. For a heartbeat.

It is.