Have you seen the faces in the queues so long
Like the world has stopped until the next loud ****
Have we become immune to the system is the system wrong
There's no life left in the faces of the queues so long

In your life

There are Times
When you Create

and Times
When you
Allow for Creation...

Before you judge
Another's heart
Examine your own
Inside and out.
What you criticize
In another
Is what yours
Is all about.

Thank you,
For making the quarry,
Giving me some glory,
For taking those stones,
That were in this place,
And turning them into the building blocks of my happiness,
I feel like I never say it enough,
Thank you
For taking the hardships and turning them good,
Now that you've taught me,
I can help others,
And succeed in my dreams.

women don't know how to love
and neither do men
it's a mean world
it's a cold one
full of children
who've got the bends,
coming up too fast

Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know,
You are too strong to know everything
Too strong,
Can you hear me, too strong,

Do not be afraid of the crowds,
They are to small for you,
Petty muggers,
Hear. how they make noise like  starved  mosquitoes,

Do not be intimidated by knifes,
Your eyes are too round to be unsharpened
Listen to your own steps, your own steps
Cutting. the dead. Dead. Corners. of the streets.

They’d waited too long to say

“I love you”.

3 words. 3 syllables.

Yet they held millions of emotions unspoken.

and now that they’d done it, they wouldn’t,
couldn’t, stop

they told each other all the time. In the end of the argument and before the good news.

In the middle of the storm, even though it was hard to see, and after, when the raging winds had settled on a breeze

before the rising sun turned the sky pretty colors and after it flickered out and faded away into the dark

Underneath the stars that their love had been etched into

There was no love until death for them. Because it would never stop. Their love was beyond. It rose above any border that would dare to try and stop it. There was no finish line

because they were each other’s end game.  
-L.R

A light went out on Earth for her
The day we said goodbye
And on that day a star was born,
The brightest in the sky
Reaching through the darkness
With its rays blinding light
Lighting up the Heavens
As it once lit up my life
My broken heart left you behind
Where always in my memory
Your lovely star will shine...

When love dies slowly
We are reluctant to blow on its embers
But quick to cry on its ashes

Why is poetry dying
when we still have the gift?
If we still have water
then we still have a ship.
We can sail to the places
these words take us.
We are still shaken
by the words that make us.
Why should we let poetry die
when there is so much to explore?
If only people read it
and discovered more.

Eating my beyond burger with a fork and knife,
drag race in the background,
my Samantha doll by my side.
This isn't loneliness anymore.
This is just life now.

I'm not very good with words anymore,
maybe I never was.
So little has changed and yet everything has.
I still long for love.
I still want to be wanted.
That might never change.

Yet now this lonely world is one I've come to accept,
come to love.
I may be my only friend here,
but that's one more than last year.

Nothing I create is good,
but I'm learning to create anyway.
I'm learning to share my bad art,
at least it's art.
Right?

I dream of slitting the throat of the dog next door.
Someone outta shut him up.
I used to think that was an evil thought,
now I know there's no such thing.

I turn 21 in 2 days.
Math. Yuck.
I'm old,
getting older every second.
Whatever.
I will grow into this skin,
I'm sure of it.
Maybe.

I'm grateful.
More than anything I am grateful for it all.
The pain,
the pleasure,
the guilt,
the anger.

Pills,
family,
friends,
dolls.

No one reads these except me.
So this one is for her.
For you.
Anne,
my love,
my villain,
my biggest fear.

May this year be kind to you,
may you be kind to it.
May you listen to your spirit guides,
may you accept what you never could.

Growth is sticky and wet,
Knowledge is thick and grey.
May you be the light and the darkness,
the cut and the band aid.

More than anything,
be okay.
You're gross,
in a sort of beautiful way.
May you be okay with that.
Truly.




Bad art is still art.
Right?
I think so.
For now.

an itch beneath my skin
dumb
maybe
hungover/just happy

i can only reach it with a knife
his violent voice
destruction and obsesssion
ultraviolet light
morning, sun/star strife

i need help
because i never know if i leave these nights with my life

only stops with a blade
cravings
hiding from  myself in the shade
am i just happy
i think i'm dumb

I love you
I Love the rain
The mist  
The clouds
The smell of soil

the cold seeps into my bones
like tea in a cup of hot water

and like the hot tea
it burns me within
with its touch

i hate it

and as i sit on a warm bus
peering out the window
thinking of you

my hatred only grows

time will heal
and silently
collect the scars
that are
meant to be
left in the past

after all
love
simply isn't enough
to make us last.

To this day,
your name
still hurts my tongue
but I still say it anyway.
Sometimes I like to
hear my soul
gently tear itself
apart.

In the cold, dark
        of January,
         I remembered
              you
        the most.
  As the chill
      snapped bones
              like branches,
     as the afternoons
   bathed themselves
in gray,
     as the birds
and the backs
      shook,
so did my lips
   around your name.
I'm so happy
     January is almost
over now.

When the sun hangs low
still waters reflect mountains
Yet you hold my gaze

There is a fire inside you
Like that of a rising sun.
You’re the promise of a new dawn
Like the purple and the orange of the setting sun.

You’re the sound of the Ocean
That can still be heard inside a shell
after a million days.
You’re the poem and the rhythm in it
And finer when they words don’t rhyme.

You are stronger than your past,
Stronger than your doubts
And even stronger than your fears.

You are more than what they tell you
And much more than you thought you could ever be.
You my dear, are beautiful and complete
Because the fire inside you is, YOU.

Love is like a squid
really odd and weird
all this time it hid
then suddenly appeared

Making you fall deep
down to the oceans floor
taking a giant leap
where you've not been before

and suddenly it's gone
sometimes in a blink
but poems like this live on and on
written with it's ink

So if earth cascaded through the destruct of heavier metal stars about the time I was born
Is my blood a beastier metallic and drawn
to dirt and did the days
when I learned to read pull harder on sunlight, ribbon ing it into the jet stream and I never gained
trust.  No matter the sky I short sell breathing for the rust.
Moments are so apocryphal they had to molecule Bible
The spiritual sleeve between breathing pool memory
In these sun dipped hesitants.
We are just the  taunt whip strap of discovery of Gravity between sea and heavenly dead bodies like the moon
Slowly unravelling our bloodstreams
And I watch the party revellers in tinsel and gabardine be the molecules scientists claim for history
So my need to teethe every human
It's Astronomy

I have so many feelings
But the one that holds me now
Is exhaustion

So I must rest
And let sleep restore me
So that I can emerge
Into a new day
And experience
It’s many treasures

Everytime I close my eyes,
I see my world burning down.
There's this fire behind my eyelids
that the tears can't put out.

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems like *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

Late night texts
Sleepy eyes
Small smiles
Butterflies

Stolen moments
Held inside
Beating heart
Stupefied

~

Left alone
Tear filled eyes
Chapped lips
Scarred thighs

Empty promises
Cast aside
Broken heart
Terrified

~j.l.