I stare at the shards on the ground
The dulled blue, green, and red sinking into the spreading coffee
I stare as my finger bleeds

I remember when I found it
At the warehouse sale for a discontinued show
I saw it and new it had to be mine
That was many years ago
Since I used it every chance I get

My favorite mug
Brown with blue green and red squares
Circling around the rim
The handle fit my hand perfectly
The cup just large enough for a morning coffee

I stare at the pieces on the ground
“Same”
I whisper

I hadn’t spoken in days
I was home alone
And nobody called
When I parted my lips to cry out
They slowly stuck, cracked and dry
I gathered the shards of the mug from the floor
Sticking my wounded finger in my mouth
Searching for a bandage
Dragging the coffee across the floor with every step

“Life’s a *****, and then you die”
“Yeah. But sometimes, life’s a ***** and you keep living”
The point is simple
Life’s a *****
And we all have to find a way to cope
But some people can’t
Life just keeps ******* them over
So more and more they draw back
Waiting for society to lend a hand
To pick them up
Some people need a hug
But everyone turns their back
Creating a wall that further shuts them into a corner
Huddling and waiting for someone to come...
Waiting....
Until they give up
And succumb to the darkness beyond
And all they can hope is the next step isn’t as hopeless

Yet another dream about him and I

A few months ago was the first
Where in class we planned an art heist
Leading us to some “alone time”

Last night I had another
Just as vivid as the first
I could smell the wood of the pencils
Be blinded by the classroom projector
Hear the footsteps of the approaching teacher
Feel the cold plastic of the chairs on my skin

Here I am
Wondering why I dream of him
When we’ve grown so far apart

One question was asked:
“How can I develop and open myself to my personality and not be embarrassed?”
Just be you
If people truly care about you
They won’t leave, they’ll support you
This isn’t to say that you should go and do anything you want
But as long as it’s safe and you know it’s morally and lawfully right, I say go for it

Don’t hide behind a mask
Show yourself and all your beauty!
Love yourself!

“Too many questions” Aughra said
She can’t answer mine
But I may be able to answer yours
Ask away

I am now stuck here
Inside my home
With nothing to do but think
And all my thoughts have grown dark

This was unexpected
A sudden break between acts
The stage goes dark
The curtain falls
And nobody knows when it will rise again

It’s 2016 again
I’m in 8th grade
The last time I was truly myself
— Truly happy—

Standing at that desk
Just talking to my old best friend, Nick,
Though he went by Nicky then
About the sound of one hand clapping
The election, and how ****** up Trump is
Our plans to hang out and play D&D over the weekend

Ms. Johnson, my favorite teacher, walking in with her tea
The brown liquid perfectly poured into a clear glass mug
Tom raises his hand
“Ms. J, are you drinking whiskey?”
We all laugh at the preposterous question
And we go on with our day

English, math, history, science, PE, and Spanish
The classes fly by
Tristian and I go to my house
Sit in front of the Tv and play Mario Bros
Not a care in the world
Homework could wait until tomorrow

When he leaves I start prepping for tomorrow’s game
My parents come home and cook dinner
My sister emerges from her room to eat
We watch a show
And I go to bed

Things were simpler then
Things were better then
Can we go back?

Every adult does it
Some major event happens
“Oh you don’t need to worry about it!
You’re too young to need to know about this!”

Actually, I do need to know
I need to know **** that affects me
“Govn. To Close Schools 7 Weeks”
7 weeks without school
Stuck in my house
What’s the plan for my education?
How long is my graduation delayed?
Will school be closed for longer?
I need to know this

“Don’t worry about it!”
It’s affecting my life
I need to know what’s happening
I’m smart enough to know
That we aren’t 100% ******, but just how ****** are we?
Don’t brush me off
Inform me
Without knowledge, how am I to survive

Here’s the thing
The largest pandemic
Is panic
When media take big stories
And don’t give facts
“CoVID-19 will **** you through money”
**** that, your money’s safe
“Deadlier than the flu”
Yeah, but we know what the flu is

People are panicking
“We’re all gonna die”
Calm down,
Most deaths are from those already sick
Or our elders
The immunocompromised

Bottom line:
If you’re healthy, you will live
But don’t just take my word for it
Do your research
Learn for yourself
And yes, wash your hands
But you should’ve been doing that anyway

There’s a practice called kintsugi
Where you take a shattered object
And fill the lines with gold
Leaving marks of past mistakes
Showing how we can all come back
And the beauty that comes out of them
But what if my marks
Just make me more ugly?

I feel empty
Not sad or depressed
Not happy
Just empty
Void of all emotion
As I lay here and wonder
“What am I doing here?”

Why do you hate us?
We are people, human ******* beings
Just like you, we look for love
Only, we don’t always follow the rules society gave us
Because those rules say that we can’t love
Without love, we wouldn’t be happy

People wonder why depression is worse—
Why suicide is worse—
In the LGBTQ+ community— my community
It’s because people like you tell us we can’t love

Do me a favor, and really try to focus
Imagine one day, you wake up, just like normal
Your crush, partner, fiancé, spouse, whoever
Is gone... only, you can still see them
They sit on a bench across the street
You run outside to get to them
But a wave of people start yelling at you
Telling you to *******
That you’re a *******
That you don’t deserve to live
Because you are in love with them

Do you feel that pain?
That sharp stabbing pain, right in the heart
To be an arms reach away from each other
But never able to touch?
That pain is what I feel
Because I get told
“You ******* f_ggot.
You piece of ******* ****.
******* *******.”
Just for loving the person I do

Next time you want to come up to me
And tell me to go die,
Just remember that pain
Remember what it was like
To be so close, yet so far away

Just remember I’m human too

Why is it always the boys who are dumb as ****
Why are they the popular ones?
The ones who are smart are always alone
Left to wonder why
Yet the dull ones, the ones without a brain
are swarmed with people
Why are they always chosen first
Why am I the outcast?

I almost caught myself
Asking someone to come and change me
To make me who I’m not
Because I need to be someone else
Then I realized, only 3 more months
Then I can be who I am
Without having to hide it from anyone

I just told her
We were standing in the kitchen
Light shining through the big window in the living room
Boxes still piled on our table from the move
She just stood there, stirring the mac n cheese

“When did... when did you know?”
The question I expected
But I still didn’t have an answer
“I just knew”
My voice quivered as she turned to face me
My sister’s kind eyes growing softer
“How... has anything happened?”
I told her everything
About Kiera, Jaben, Anna
I told her about things I had never said aloud

When I finished talking she stood silently
“Who else knows?”
“Nobody”
She poured the pasta into bowls
Dug out utensils from the cluttered kitchen drawer and started eating
We moved on
The room silent, save for the light clinking of spoons on ceramic

“Did I tell you about who I’m dating?”
She asked, grasping for something to talk about
“No, you didn’t”
And we went on
Like I had never said anything at all

Here we are
Another Friday full of parties
And I’m all alone
Sitting on my couch with my phone and my thoughts
And all I can think of is a single question:
Who the **** did I *******?

I see story after story
Post after post
Of people eating drinking and being merry,
People I know
People I thought would invite me to ****
Yet here I am alone
And my thoughts grow darker the more my screen lights up
And all I can wonder is
Why am I alone?

I am utterly and completely alone
No amount of jokes or conversation will change that
I guess some cosmic being said “**** him”
And wandered off
Leaving me to fend off giants of depression
With but a few witty remarks
But it’s too strong
And as it beats me people stand by and watch
Because I’m damaged goods now
And I don’t deserve any ******* help
No matter how much I plead
And I ask over and over
Why won’t you do something?
Why are you just standing there?

The beast holds me down
Pushing me deep into the earth
And people watch from the edge of the crater depression made
As I claw and struggle to free myself from its grasp
And I give up
Because no matter how much I try
How much I beg
What jokes I make
I can’t win alone
And nobody’s there to help

We threw our stuff in the back of the car
Backpacks
Jackets
Skateboards
Firewood
I reach for my phone and it’s not there
I left it at the beach site we used
We shut the trunk and climb in
“Where are the keys?”
“Aw, ****”
We dig through pockets and consoles
Nothing
“They’re in the ******* trunk!”
An hour after of trying to pry open the trunk
Of his old mercedes
“What if we open up the panel in the back?”
“What?”
“Yeah, I just noticed it, but it goes to the trunk!”
So I pull out my small knife
Pry open the panel
And we drive to my buried phone

Something I’ve caught myself asking
Especially when I tell someone
“I don’t care anymore”
But where is he now?
Is he still planning on being a prison guard?
Is he still with that girl he met when he got there?
Does he were wish he had stayed here?
Over 2000 miles apart
And months since we spoke
But it would be nice
Just to hear his voice

I keep thinking
Is there more to life than this
More that I can do
Here I am 4 months away from graduation
And all I can do is wonder
Is there more to life than this?
Sitting in my parent’s house
Writing ******* that will be read by only a few
Worrying about **** like “what do I need to do?”
Is there more than just hoping I survive each day?
Is there more that I would have done
If I were someone else?
In every class I hear
“Did you see what happened at the party”
Or
“You can stay over right?”
Every story I see party after party
Bowl smoked after bowl
And I wonder
What did I do to be home alone
In bed at 10 o’clock
Is there more than this that I can be
Is there more than this that I can experience
Is there more than this to being alive?

A room full of people
Will never make me feel welcome
No matter who they are
What they’re doing
I’m always out of place

I stand at the back of the room
Desperately clinging to the one person I know
But they find someone else
And there I am
Alone in a sea of faces

So I sit down on the empty couch
Sitting and watching chaos unfold around me
People wandering in and out
Sitting down and making polite conversation
But their posture says it all
They don’t want to talk to me
They just wanted to sit
But there I was

So I sit
And wait for someone to leave
For someone to walk out that door
Making it okay to walk out
And be in the silence
Where I can wander freely
Without having to speak to anyone but myself
While cars whoosh past and city lights flicker
Blocking out the beauty of the sky

Sure, apologize for calling me a Fa++ot
Doesn’t do you any good
Not gonna say
“Oh, you apologized
Guess the homophobic remark to the bi guy is forgiven”
Because your apologies are *******

You’ve called others fa+s before,
And I fought against it
But you didn’t change
What hope is there for me to wish for now?
Nothing is forgiven,
******

I look left, then right
The signal clicking behind the plastic sheet
I pull out
And look left again
I see it and slam on the brakes
THUMP!

“What the **** is wrong with you?
Do you know how to ******* drive?”
“Yes ma’am. I’m sorry this happened.”
“Back the **** up and give me your information”
So I do
Keeping calm and respectful

“Can I have your phone number?
I can send my insurance to you”
She closes the door and drives off
*****
Dad, call me ASAP
The phone rings
“I was just in an accident. Sending you pictures now.”
“Okay, but are you hurt? What happened?”
I’m fine
I tell him the story
And I break down
“Take your time. Calm down and drive home.
You’re okay, that’s all that matters.”

I sit in my freezing car
Tears and snot flowing down my face
I punch the visor
Crying, I wipe my face
Signal,
And drive off

The flame quivers
A bead of was slowly drips down the side
Onto my waiting hand
I sit there
Finger burning
As the droplet hardens
Becoming slowly more opaque
And I do it again

With each drop I think
What am I doing on this planet?
Who am I going to be?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?
A thousand questions as the flame flickers
Until slowly
Like my spirit
It dies
And darkness closes in

It’s what I got called today
By one I considered a friend
Just because I beat him at a video game

There is no going back
He’s had his chances
Each started with “I’m sorry for the stupid ******* I said.”
But this time it’s too far

I’m not a “******* fa- -ot *****”
I’m a ******* human
And deserve to be treated as such

Why do we torture ourselves so?
We listen to our sad music
Making us depressed
Leading to overeating and intoxicants
Intoxicated we think of when we were happy in our ex’s arms
Even if you’re happier in your new relationship than you were with them
Your ex leads you to guilt
Where you feel like calling them
Just to say hello, and hear their voice again
But if you do that
You know it will only end in tears
Yet you pick up the phone instead
And call the number you swore you would never touch
But there you are
The phone ringing
Until they pick up, call you a ******* *******
And hang up
So you call the next one as a new song plays in the background

Those three words were all Grampa said to him
As the classic car glided down the road
Grampa looked over at his 5 year old boy
And motioned for him to sit on his lap
“Spirit’s what you need in this world kid
Otherwise you’ll crumble faster than a paper in the rain”
The kid took the wheel, driving faster and faster

Eleven years later
Grampa gave him a box
“Take good care of her
And remember, keep your spirit”
That night Grampa welcomed the icy grip of death

On his gravestone were the words
Spirit’s all you need to survive, keep it safe
Resting on top were photos
The car driving down the same road
The boy behind the wheel growing into a man

Eleven years later
The man drove to the cemetery
Tears streaming down his face
“She left me, Grampa
And I know I only need spirit
But I need you more
I need you to tell me that it okay
That I don’t need her
I need you to tell me what to do”
He sat there crying over his Grampa’s grave

He drove home
To the house in the middle of nowhere
The house his Grampa built
Sitting empty save a few boxes
He climbed the wooden ladder to his treehouse
He sat with a picture of his kind faced Grampa
Tears streaking his cheeks
He walks over to the chest he kept his toys in when he was a boy
Digging out old cars
Army men
And yo-yos
Till he reached the bottom
His toys surrounding him he noticed something
The chest had a fake board in the bottom

He pulled it up to find a note etched into it
I won’t always be there for you
But know this
It will all be fine in the end
Keep your spirit, for that is all you need
I love you
He climbed out
Got in the classic car
And drove
Hoping someday it would all work out

A purple house sits on the corner
A tree grows from the back yard
A grey trimmed porch wraps around
The bright golden mailbox full of mail
A deep blue door like a portal to the stars
The driveway where her car sits with popped tires
She approaches the house
The steps still cracked from where he fell
As the police tackled him
She opens the door still scratched from
When he had came at her with the
So she threw the lamp
Walking around she runs her hands along the walls
Where he pinned her while she tried to run
The couch in the middle of the room
Still soaked with blood where she clawed him
Tears streaming down her face
Down the hallway
Where holes in the wall marked where he tried to stab her
To the bedroom where he tried to smother her
For the pain had grown too much

He sat at the bar
She sat next to him
They talked and drank till closing
He asked her back to his place
She declined and took a cab home

The next night he sat at the bar
She walked in
They had a laugh and a drink
He asked her back to his place
She declined and took a cab home

The next night she walked in
And he was gone
She asked if the bartender had seen him
He said “not tonight”
She had a drink and waited
After an hour he hadn’t shown up
She took a cab home
A man was sitting on her porch
A bouquet of roses drooped in his hand

“How did you know where I lived?”
“You took a cab” he explains
“When you told him your address
I wrote it down
Because there’s no way in hell I’ll let you,
The prettiest woman,
Walk away without trying
So here I am,
Dinner?”
He held out his hand
She took it and pulled him inside

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 have no clue what you look like
Or what your voice sounds like
But you care
We’ve both been hurt
But together we can pick up the pieces,
And fix our broken selves

Though I’ve never truly met you,
Seen your face,
Heard your voice,
Felt your touch,
I feel better knowing you’re there

A chill flows through your veins
A smell bitterer than cigarette smoke
A taste sourer than a thousand lemons
A deep black and red that blinds your vision
That hard “t” at the end lingering in your ears
A monster that forms at the slightest dissatisfaction
The slightest opportunity missed
Beating you until two more take its place

You don’t want to read the long ones
You want the gist
You’re tired of hearing me *****
You want affirmation
Well here it is
Short, sweet, and to the ******* point

It’s four months later
And I still remember that dream
The one where I ****** a friend
While we were in a park in downtown
Because we both needed it

I still remember the words we spoke
The sound of the birds fluttering through trees
The feeling of the cold air breezing through our hair
The taste of his mouth inside mine
I still remember the time of day as we stared into each other’s eyes

I don’t know why I remember
It feels like torment though
To remember so vividly
Just driving my lust

It’s been four months
I still haven’t told him about it
Not because I’m afraid of his reaction
But because he’s happy
And he doesn’t need me to **** his life

I want an island
All that’s there is a house
My friends live inside
Every day we toil in the gardens
Working to eat
Working to live
But because we want it

Once a fortnight a boat docks
Bringing some supplies from the mainland
Bringing workers to fix what we cannot
No technology
No need for money
No need to get ahead

We can come and go as we please
But we choose to stay
Not because we’re afraid,
But because it’s nice
We live in peace without worrying

We wouldn’t worry about war
We wouldn’t worry about famine
We could just grow old,
Until we pass
And a new group arrives
Picking up where we left off

A date
**** me
Either way
I stopped caring a long time ago

It’s all we want out of life
We don’t want to have to worry
“Did I do this right?”
“Do they actually like me?”
“Did I do all of my work?”
We want to be able to sit and relax
We want life to be simple
That way
We can stop giving a ****

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

Science says
“You need 9 or more hours of sleep a night
To stay healthy,
Refreshed,
Happy,
And acute”

School says
“**** it! Start at 8:00 AM!
Run for 7 hours!
Give ‘em another 3 hours of homework a class!
They can take it!
Who needs sleep?
Who needs friends?”

We say
“**** it! Who needs sleep? Who needs homework?
We need to be experiencing life!
We need to figure out who we are!
Figure out what we want to do with our lives!
We need to explore our minds!
We need to find out how to deal with emotions!
We need to know how to be mentally stable
And how to prepare for life!”

School says
“*******!
You’ll learn how to be depressed,
Sleep deprived,
Automatons!
You’ll learn how Shakespeare wrote great plays!
You won’t read any though,
You’ll be too busy solving math you’ll never use!
No time for that though!
You’ll need to know in life that atoms have rings
These rings have electr—
What’s that?
Oh! Time to learn how to buy a home!
Just kidding! Taxes? Ha! Won’t need ‘em!
Here, take a test on things you didn’t learn!
You failed?
That means you ****!”

We moan, groan, complaining about how we have no time
“We want sleep!
We want lives!
We want to see the world!”

“Well *******!”

So
I hear you’re moving back
I just wanna say one thing
Let’s keep it civil
If we run into each other
No “I hate you”
No “You *******”
No anything
We just pass
Because otherwise
**** gets ugly
Fast
...
...
...
So see ya around, maybe



Oh, and by the way,
Don’t **** with me or my friends
We’ve had enough ******* for a while

A soul is a gateway to our true intentions
Usually clear, bright, reflecting what we feel
But pain warps it
Blurring the window
Dimming the light
Absorbing the suffering of those around
To cleanse it
We write
We draw the darkness from inside
Using the pain as the ink
The suffering as the pen
The honesty as the paper
Until we can see light again

Who am I?
What am I doing?
I’m drifting this way and that on the river of life
Being pushed along by peers, teachers, family
But where am I going?
I find myself moving swiftly
To a waterfall
At the bottom many jagged rocks
Each of them labeled
Depression
Loneliness  
Bitterness
Anxiety
But I can’t steer away
Fore my enemies have taken my paddles
Broken the rudder
And left me helpless
My only choices
Abandon ship
Or wait and hope for someone to save me
So I sit and wait
But nobody comes
Nobody’s here to help me
And it’s too late
The boat of my conscience starts twirling
I near the edge of the water
And hope the bottom isn’t as close—
As dangerous— as it seems

1
It’s only been two hours