Congratulations!
It’s finally over!
You’ve climbed the mountains and trekked the canyons
Now it’s time to meet the future.

The past four yeas
Have been challenging and rough,
But we’ve chosen our careers
And high school’s not enough.

University’s on the way.
There are many more paths to tread
And more adventures to slay
All widespread.

We’ll be all across the world
Some here and some there
Not knowing the next place we’ll be hurled
But we’ll be well prepared.

We’ve all known each other for a while
Some longer than other
But through the years our lifestyle
Will keep up close together.

Our travels and experiences
Will unite us
Across the long distances,
Shortening the crevice.

Congratulations!
It’s finally over!
You’ve climbed the mountains and trekked the canyons
Now it’s time to meet the future.

I miss that feeling
you used to give me
every time I saw you.
It was like a fire in my chest
that set my bones ablaze
and warmed my world.
It was like the stars aligning
as the Moon kisses the Sun
goodnight.
It was like seeing you again
for the first time and remembering
you loved me too.
But now the fire is gone
like a kindling in the rain.
And the stars seem crooked
against the dark gray sky.
Our love doesn't make me
breathless and excited
for the future.
My heart doesn't leap
when I see you.
Your eyes don't sparkle
when you say my name.
And here I am trying
so desperately to hold it all
together because
I just can't seem to accept
that all we had,
all we used to be,
is fading.

for a moment, the word stops breathing,
your heart quits pumping and bleeding in the
only healthy way it knows how.
there is silence—and then there isn’t, not anymore,
the sky is shattered by lightning and your
pulse jumps with every rumble, your body flinches with
every roar and the sky is turning far darker than it was a minute before,
the wind is like a turbine, going round and round and round,
tearing, ripping, and seething, you can see the clouds descending,
you’ve been through this time and again and you know the power
this twirling cloud will be rendering, you should be inside,
you can hear Mike Morgan yelling over the static of your TV
“prepare yourselves for the damage this will bring!
hide under mattresses, bathtubs, if you must under the kitchen sink!”
it’s coming your way, it’s picking up speed and you try not to imagine
what has made up the debris, you come to your senses,
realize it’s real, accept the fact that it’s not a drill, you grab who you can,
you shove them down stairs, you start counting heads and start saying prayers,
the cellar is dusty, you choke for clean air but it’s howling outside
and you know you won’t find any out there, metal is screeching,
someone is screaming, sirens are bleating out to anyone who cares,
it takes three men alone to make sure the door doesn’t tear off it’s hinges
in the height of the scare—and suddenly it’s over, you can’t here anything from anywhere.
the world again stands still, but it isn’t holding it’s breath,
it’s watching a thousand electric sparks die a last death.
you push against the doors, you need to breathe better air
and you can hear someone telling you that you need to take care,
but you push and you shove and you break free of your prison,
you climb out to see how your world has faired,
but there isn’t
anything
there

I do not remember where we were.
I can not fathom why you said it.
I do not recall if I was crying.

But I do know that you were drunk.
And I know that these words shaped my life.
From the moments they left your lips
To this moment and beyond.

"Son, complaining only makes you look like a bitch"

I never complain even when I can barely stand.
My tongue remains stilled.

Weakness is not something a man possesses.
The world has enough boys.

Every now and then I get
flashes of you
lighting up the sky
booming in the night

soaking the world and
disturbing my sleep
with sights and
sounds and
saturation

I used to love
these storms
holding an umbrella
for you
but drenching myself
in the process

but tonight I keep
my shelter in
the hall closet

and let
you
drown

I always have this idea that you were the catalyst
The match that lit my pyre ablaze
I always say that you broke the camel's back
To a simplified extent,
This is fact
But not only you alone truly broke it's weathered back
A mixture of good and bad
Big and small
It all shaped this funeral pyre of my former self
Waiting to be lit
And create something new
For so long I wished for a change in my world around m
When all I needed was to revolutionize myself
There is a slight anxiety still talking about last year's affairs
But for all intended purposes,
This is not me meticulously searching through your words to figure out what went wrong
This is me building myself
Understanding what I have gone through to create a new me
A better me
You lit the pyre,
But also kick-started the revolution
It's been about a year since it began,
And for lack of better words,
It's fucking awesome.