Just appreciate your youth
go wear silly & funky stuff, cut
your hair ,change your hand writing
go for a new pair of shoes
Dang, pick a favorite new color every week
until you cycle through the rainbow
and then do it again
change what you think young is
Pull of the masking tape that says 20, clean off the sharpie lines that read 40, laugh at the fact that next it you wrote 60, baby head for the jugular and once and for all liberate yourself, no age is the right age
for feeling youthful and fully alive
no age comes with requirements

When my mother plays foreigner, I know she is sitting on the carpet playing tracks  pensive or standing by the stereo alone dancing in the living room like I would find her alone and eyes closed. Sometimes drifting into the kitchen for a drink. Which in my mothers case is lemonade or manzanilla tea because she doesn’t “drink”. Today, within the song she picked and shared,  I saw her at the precipice of heartbreak as I have been many times.I saw her palms and her eyes in my own face reflecting off my hand phone’s screen as it auto locked.

There are two boughs but only one
below the water bending, breaking against the overflown river’s current -its bark moist. His actions raining down drowning him. The lifebuoy are his roots growing amongst  surrounded in the dark soil. It’s absence of light propelling him to grow.

First he pretends not see Lily. Then, she comes near. And he says “Away Lily”
“Shoo Lily” and she responds with calm “ but you howled so I came”. He pauses tucking his fangs

I see the outline of the milk gallon carried - domestic errands-
in her left hand that holds a black plastic bag. Her body is over tilting
like the stem of a flower to the right side to compensate for the weight carried, for the age and the toll of years on her body where canyons are scattered and her short black hair has thinned as does everyone’s time on earth

I feel the weight too, as the ripples of a pebble
tossed in a pond within my heart,
and I wish to carry her bag but I am turned down

The collar of her shirt red rose petals tilting outwards still fragrant and beautiful to watch slowly descend the haebangchon hills

When you come so far to be left
   with no response for months, years until

It feels like an eternal dance floor where hope has propelled
  you to stand at the periphery watching as they dances with another

When you come so far to be the last kid chosen for teams
  only to be told that to include you would be one too many (odd you)

It feels uneven, but not uneventful how your heart                breaks
  and still the blame is never split like you wish it were
       (some for you, some for them, some for time and some for life’s  required modules) 

the candy during recess is not  split fairly  
                     When you come so far fairness dissolves
                     off of  the countenance of the other kids as they begin
                      to grab what they can

And you wonder if that is what they did to you
                   grabbed what they could and left
                   or if that is what they think of you
                    
It feels like a tragedy or a terrible comedy cast,
                  staged and off broadway now
                  maybe they feel the same

The dancer who does not want to dance under the disco ball and the ones that want to dance but are standing around waiting might just feel the same.

There is a lake in my eyes that fill
and dries with seasons of life.

I cannot predict when its shoreline
will recede out of joy or sorrow.

I simply know there is a lake.