you said “maybe
if you
          let it out
a little
         more
you wouldn’t
       explode.”

But
        you
                don’t
understand.
    ­            I
                    cannot
      let it out
                  slowly
like air from a
                       balloon.

all too much it’s all too much it’s always too much it’s too much too much too much too much too much too too too too too too t

It was such
Fine stitching.
Beautiful scenes and
Vibrant colors and
Lovely textures and
Art.

Oh, art!

But then we just had to
Turn it around and see
Its tangled underbelly, its
Mistakes and messy messy messy
knots.
—YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO SEE THAT—
i’m sorry, please, i’m sorry.

Just-
just-
turn it over all we have to do is—
NO.

You are what you eat
And you write what you read.

I have never read the greats
Except an occasional poem for class,
And I feel like a heretic for saying that.

I’ve never willingly
Read Shakespeare or E.E. Cummings
But instead:

I read the words of online poets
Consuming their ink—
Or should I say pixels?
I graze their crimson lining as they
Turn themselves inside out to
Let the whole internet see.

I rise with the wave that they weave with their words
And then when it crashes, when it crashes down
I go under as if drowning was velvety soft and I
Let it wash me onto the shore.

You are what you eat and
You write what you read.

Rarely do I read stilted lines and perfect form
So I write like a mess and a surge and a storm.

We ran
From something
Unseen. We were
Two, a man and a woman  

River flowed red
He is steel. And her tears
Bullets. We are
Bayonets and gun barrels  

The earth flourished
With steel, straight statues
Of trees and undergrowth
A perennial memorial  

Buried, we were
Under the earth
Meant to last forever
Meant to simply be  

Red silence
Enveloped the world
My brothers...
Glided between the trees  

Creatures joined
Those of all kinds, prowl
Across the land
Around their brothers  

The earth split
We are the valleys. Gashes
Along the veins of the earth
Runs red like streams and fountains  

Wounds dried and flaking
Freely beasts roamed
Lands demarcated
Trampled, trodden  

We are echoes
Within the canyons. We stalk
Like spirits, like steel
Behind fervor, behind craze  

They lost
Time was forgotten
Time was reclaimed
Remade  

We do not know time
We do not sow
We do not reap
We do not see
We do not hear  

The world is never silent
But the underground is  

How would you feel
If you knew that
The world was hollow
Held up by rifles...

In my bones, I am a poet
And every word I trail shows it
Like a fingerprint to trace
Conjures an image of my face.

Any essays, I might write
With golden flourish, thrilling heights
With wide crescendos, rumbling frisson
Soft like silk and smooth like ribbon.

So when my teacher does request
A lab report or written test
I may bring tears to their eyes—
Still, I did not get it right.

I am being drawn and quartered
By each expectation pulling away,
Tugging at my fragile sense
Of identity (if there ever was one)
Until suddenly, oh no! So suddenly
I am in pieces, and each person has only
A part of myself, that is all I can give—
I gave myself the death sentence, they’re
Only the horses that tear away my
Skin.

As they bolt away, I wonder
How far they will go until they
Realize
That I am no longer Whole.

I sit here sinking
Into the dirt,
Without feeling because I am on
The precipice of numbness,
A mere step away from screaming.

A noisy impatient fly
Humming by my ear like the fluorescent light overhead
Near imperceptible, but in the silence, grating
As it sung out, buzz, buzz, buzz, out of itself,
Always droning, never a pause in the incessant
Static.

And you, O my soul, where you sit,
Trapped in a cocoon of web, never quite alone
But immovably stagnant, perhaps once learning, chasing, dancing, Seeking that elusive something,
Till exhausted by the endless journey, only ever wishing
For a home
That you never found, but barely existing you continue, O my soul.