Everyday he passes by her door
Never gaining the courage to knock
The name on the mailbox-
C. Angeles-
Left him with a smile
But everyday when he passed, he saw her
Long hair billowing,
Smile intoxicating,
Eyes laughing
He realized he never had a chance

Everyday the same boy walked past her gate
Jet black hair,
Eyes the color of the sea,
Lips like a rose
Notes he dropped named him J. Lawrs
Everyday when he stopped
She waived, but he never saw

He sits alone in the living room
Flipping through books from his childhood
And sees her
Angeles
He used to pass by her everyday
Thought she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen
A scrap from a newspaper falls out
It rests on his shoe
“Christin Angeles- Dead at 29 from accident”
A note scrawled beneath
“Next time, don’t wait.”

His wife enters the room
Looking over his shoulder she says
“Who was that?”
“Someone I wished I’d talked to”

He sits alone at a bar
People swirl around him
The only conversation he has is ordering another
He stands to leave
As he walks to the door the bartender asks
“Same time tomorrow?”
“Yeah Leo. Tomorrow”
His voice heavy with sadness

He drives
Faster and faster
would anyone miss me?
a singular thought passing through
Over and over as streetlights pass above
would anyone miss me?
His foot presses down
He closes his eyes
would anyone miss me?
He lets go of the wheel
As he lays motionless inside the car his journal opens
*would anyone miss me?

Just once I’d like to her a goodnight sleep
One empty of panic attacks
Worrying about how to pay for college
Or what I have to do before graduation,
Hell even something like whether to go to prom or not
It’s all happening at once
Here I am
About to be an adult
No clue what’ll happen next
I just hope someone will catch me when I fall
I just need a goodnight sleep
And hopefully these worries go away

The alarm has been sounded
“Abandon ship, before we sink into a sea
Full of broken code
Connection errors
And unusable links”
Yet I say, let us stay
Let us go down with the ship
This ship is one built of words
Many have bonded quickly to each other
A community that will flourish despite a lack of home
We may not have much time left together,
But the time spent will be cherished
We are more than a website,
We are poets
And I say
We go down writing

I’ve run out of things to say
Sure I could tell you simple things,
I got into college,
No idea how to pay
But that’s boring

I want to be able to say
“I went to so and so’s party
Where we all got so ******* wasted”
But that’s not me

I want to be able to say
How much all of this helps me
Not just emotionally,
But physically too
Without this
I couldn’t sleep
I would be too hung up on stupid *******
But here I am
About to fall asleep
Wishing I had something to say

I feel vagrant
Passing through this world on my way to nowhere
Of the world, but not in it

I feel invisible
Passing through busses, trains, hallways
Yelling out ideas and opinions
But nobody hears them
My stories echo through the crowded halls
Mixing with the cacophony of nothingness

I feel empty
Devoid of anything but ache and stress
I’ve given all I had already
Yet my life is just beginning
So I pick up the scraps left behind
Hoping to salvage enough to make a whole feeling
But the pieces don’t fit
So I leave them where they were

I feel like I was born of the Earth
But I’m not here
And I’m not sure if I ever will again