usually im thriving on change
but now change is thriving on me
i used to be buried only in silver linings
but clouds dont have handle bars.

im liquid and mutable,
no solid foundation,
i have daydreams
but they comnstantly **** me dry,
ive had lovers but they never called,
the pretty girls get to go to college with daddys money
well my father doesnt believe in me,
doesnt talk to me,
all i have to offer is art

and he wont trust what he doesnt understand.

a vision thats been so clear lately,
im packing my bags with ocean mist shampoo, a camera, a toothbrush, blank notebooks, shooting star earrings, vanilla incense,
catching the next flight to wonderland.

dissapear.

not that this town,
the only place ill ever call home,
hasnt brought me so much,
it has shown me its many hidden paths,
all the best spots to duck into with the friends that drift in during the summer
but never really stay,
secrets through the sweet potent smell of smoke,
the writing on the wall:
"are you living your dream?"

so im wondering.
is this what my whole life has built up to be,
a skyscraper of long-term memories
encoded then stored to forever be pulled up from file drawers?
lessons learned and regrets thrown in trash bins,
barely scratching the surface of those i thought i knew so well,
hands in the oven
and wading in water,
rainbows over ambulances,
the city in flames,
strawberry fields,
bear tracks in snow,
freezing cold spring in hardly standing tents,
dazed morning afters,
bruises and scars and reckless lucid dreams,
diving headfirst into the shallow end,
over and over again,
chasing the world through a lens,
artificial perspectives;
how i watched so many fall for them,
drinking their life away.

the moment i realized i was lonely, but i would never be that alone.

a series of events of which i still dont know whether or not were unfortunate.
i dont want to be another high school angst heartbreak cliche,
the almost-smiling girl lifted into the dawn, away.

but this head is raging.
"the heart is the weakest ***** in the body"
and the medicine just isnt working.

somehow, i believe, new streets and sunsets,
unfamiliar faces on littered beaches,
every corner a turn i wont hesitate to make,
will bring back the fragments i have dropped along the way.
because i just want to believe.
i want to, finally, be.
i'm starving.
i want something more.
give me anything.
i want to overdose on everything miraculous that there is yet for me to walk on. maybe drown in northern lights.
maybe paint my hopes in passion red and off-turquoise-seafoam-green.
maybe chance a stranger, a kind voice to be exchanged with mine. one i could trust, could crawl into and sleep.

I opened a book and flew
to a far distant land
I disappeared from my room and the mundane sounds of everyday
This world was alive, this island of infinite adventures
George, not to be called Georgina
and the other three, and the doggy
I have the faintest memories
Except they aren't quite like memories
I don't remember words, but broken videos and sepia photographs
like I lived all these stories in a a past life
a life where everything seemed monumental-
huts were mansions,
shrubs-forests, people-giants, moments-eternity

Siting on a bed and making shapes out of bugs on the ceiling
on grass that smelled green, making smoke monsters out of clouds

In these idyllic wanderings into imagination
Homework was the tripping hazard
Map Stencils? Arithmetic?  
5+18= STAY INSIDE THE BOX.

When I open the pages now,
its never quite the same,
I wonder how someone could be named ****
and how their parents let them own an island
and why they never grew up.

So I pick up something with more pages
and longer words, and complex thoughts
and subtexts based on isms, and context

But the words stay on the pages
and the pages in my hand
and my bed in my room, with me trapped within
I hear my cellphone buzzing, and a notification about nothing on facebook
So I put a bookmark, never returning.

I think it happens when you're thirteen,
the initiation, rite of passage
they lock up that secret part of your mind
and put the key inside your old journal that you never use (because journals went 'live')
Welcome to the real world! Now you must find yourself!
Who are you? What do you want? What's the quickest way to get it?
Find a path and tread it carefully; don't wander or hover, or smell a water lilly, or stare at a worm, or chase a butterfly.
Just keep moving, till you get to that destination- where you'll find applause. (Oooh..applause they say.)

I'm walking and walking and walking.
But I cant find mansions or forests or giants.
Everything seems so small, so vivid.

I see the builders, not the castle; the tricks, not the magic; the camera, not the fairy tale.
I try to veer off-coarse into the wilderness
I try to wander but my footsteps seem so measured.
I start running and the roots of trees trip me, and the branches
scratch my face.

I fall and open my eyes and see the endless true blue sky.
I think there might have been a lake that glimmered with angeldust,
and I heard whispers of laughter that kept bouncing off the water.
There was something about the wind, like mystery in the air.
I felt on the verge of something, a clue, a challenge
An untitled adventure.

As I began to leave reality behind and lose myself in this strange, faraway land- a key turned, a door shut. The answering machine beeped.

I know now why the famous five stayed young forever.

Soul searching
a popular past time
amongst those people here
with a penchant for a rhyme

Mistake making
we do lots of that too
if we didn't have experience
what would we have to share with you

Heart ache
another common thread
Sometimes broken and abused
sometimes ignored and left for dead

Good humour
perhaps a shield, perhaps a sword
sometimes deflecting true emotions
with a deftly wielded word

Compassion
it seems we have it by the score
and we share it with our readers
that's what poetry is for.