Remember the beauty
Of silence.

Remember when
Monotonous blab
Wasn’t used as a substitute
For art.

Remember when I could trust
The words of others.

How the heck
Am I supposed to say everything
That’s in my head
When there are only 171,476
Words in the English dictionary
That are still used?
How am I supposed to say
What I need to
If there are not enough words
To express it?

Sometimes I feel
Like artists got it easy.

Help me
Because the world
Is turning grey.
The color
Once so vibrant
is seeping out
And leaking into our graves.
Love is fading
And hope is too.
Feelings are being buried
So far beneath the surface.
Beauty is pain
And pain is beauty.
Even if it hurts
I don’t want all my pain
To be gone.
I want my emotion,
Even if it kills me.

Do you know
Where the wishes go
When the wishes are wished away?

Do you know
Where the hope goes
When sadness and pain
Drives it away?

Do you know
Where the knowledge goes
When people don’t want to hear it?

They go to the minds of the poets
So we might return it back
To the very people
Who banished it to the dark waters
Of hurt.

Scars are hidden behind this smile
Evil is hidden behind the good
But I shall not be vanquished
By my own darkness.
I shall not let it take over.
It shall not take over,
Yet I steadfastly believe
That the light should not mingle
With the likes of me.
Yet I steadfastly believe
That I do not deserve the light.
What a conundrum
I have found myself in.

Vague as it seems
My whimsical means
Of writing seems
To be working for me.

I’ve been down in the dumps
Been up in the sky
I’ve written about being stumped
And I’ve written of lies.

I’ve written of rhymes
And I’ve written of soul
Thank goodness my ideas aren’t drawn from a pool
I would’ve been dry by then!

I’ll meet you in the meadow
Where the sun never sets
And everyone can forgive the mess
We made where
No one judges
Meet me there
I wanna see you there
I want you to come with me
Where we can finally
Be happy.

Together.

I recognize
Your inner face
Your memory
Is not erased
Your disposition
Ever shifting
But your inner face
Will never change.

Evening falls
And I’m sitting here
In the dim light of the moon
Waiting for my life to move forward
To move on.
What a waste it is:
To just sit and gaze
At passer-bys
Passing me by.
I wish to move somewhere
To something
Be something.
Where
When
And how
Are not my concerns.

This room is so crowded
I barely have space to breath.
People try and chat with me
Their sound resembling a buzzing bee-
I don’t know if it’s just me-
But I still feel incomprehensibly lonely.

When I’m gone
******* a balloon
Fill it up with helium.
When I leave,
String purple yarn into the balloon
Walk outside
Wipe your tears
And let your fears
Float away.

We are Lithium and water
We are nitric acid and paper
We are nitric acid and hydrazine.

We are
e x p l o s i o n s
f i r e
a n d  d e a t h.

Start
Try again
Give up
Try again
Start
Rip yourself apart
Give up
Try again.

You try
So hard
You’re life
Is no longer yours.
Burnt out
You want to quit
But you can’t
No you can’t
Until you reach perfection.

Reassure
Realign
Reality.

Resign
Reduce
Reprieve.

Relieve
Retri­eve
Restart.

Possess
The mess
That I am.

I lied
I don’t want to be tied
To you because I know
When you fly you fall.

Toss
My heart aside.
Like trash
You don’t think of me
As trash
Right?
Yet you throw
Everything I’ve given you-
Everything I tried to give-
Away
Into the garbage.

Remember where I came from.
I will always
Carry the ashes in my memory.
So I constantly
Dream of fires burnt.
Nevertheless, I
Carry my dreams into reality.
I will not be afraid to
Keep you in my heart and mind.

Feelings are temporary
You should never act on feelings.
But is this correct?
I am unsure.
I think I would rather have a flawed world
With love
Than a boring one
Without it.

How monumental it will be
When humanity realizes
That what is now
Won’t forever be.

A beat
A rhythm
A melody
Melds into the harmony.
Bass vibrates
Into my soul.
Music.

It’s such a shame
That crap rappers
And social media
Had to ruin it.

Beauty.
Do you know what that is?
I think not.
I thought I knew it too.
But beauty is not objective.
It is not attractive.
Beauty is realness.
Beauty is finding joy
And light too
Within the dark curtain
Of night.

Flowers in a field
They reach and grab for the sun
Daisies and daffodils
Roses and carnations
Poppies and sunflowers
Reach for the stars
Reach for the sun.

If creativity was a pond,
It would have grown stagnant by now.
The slippery moss of logic
Would have plagued the cattail of imagination
And the pond would grow murky and muddy.

Thankfully,
Creativity is like a river
Always full of life.
Things come and go,
Things are created there.
Moving water.
Never growing stagnant.

You cannot tie this one down.
No way, no how.
You clip my wings
I’ll fly anyway.
I really don’t care if I fall.
I’ll try anyway.
Dear lord, I’ll try.

Tell me when to sit
Stop
Learn
Speak.

No
Don’t tell me what to do
Only I tell myself what to do.

Yet you scream
Within the large depth of my ear canal
“LISTEN TO ME”
“YOU ARE WRONG”

But no.
I am right.
Don’t tell me what to do.
You can shout my eardrums ******,
But your foul filth
Will never make it to my mind.

stop
go
stop
go
go forward
go towards me
I SAID PUT ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER
AND WALK TOWARDS ME.
walk
stop
pause
LISTEN.
go

I figured out
Why so many people
In the world really ****.
There is only one logical reason:
They must have traded their kindness away!

With their kindness
Their empathy disappeared
Their sensitivity ran away
And humanities hope
-quite frankly-
Just left.

But why would they do this?
You might be asking.
This query used to puzzle me too.
But I have figured out what they were trading for:
Money and power!

Oh what a waste it is
To trade away hope for riches.
But humans are far more dumb than we think-
Maybe that explains it!

I feel like
At best
I am a roller coaster.
I fluctuate
Like the relationship status
Of my Aunt Meredith.
Just kidding.
I don’t have an aunt named Meredith.
But the thing is,
I’m happy,
Then I’m sad,
Then confused,
Because I don’t know
Why I am sad.
I’m excited
And disappointed
And skeptical.
I am altruistic
And egotistical.
Fluctuations:
The story of my life.

I’m supposed to be writing an essay right now.
I’m not, as you can see.
You know, it’s funny how I’ve written 400 something poems already
But I can’t write an essay for the life of me.

The dumb fool says,
“Forget and forgive!”
“Move on!”
“Get over it!”

The wise man says,
“Forgive but do not forget.”
“Move forward.”
And
Holds you while you cry a river.

I used to think that
Time ran slow as peanut butter
Just to annoy me.

I don’t think that anymore.
Now I think
Time speeds by like its trying to imitate The Flash
Just to annoy me.

A burst of color
A tinge of gold
A rescue from the cold, dark, grey.
A fleeting rainbow
A whisper of light
All of these colors
Take over the white
All of these colors
Take over the white.
Do not be afraid
To be colorful.

Write to tell
Write to talk
Write to hell
Write to Mars.
Write for love
Or write for hate
Write just because
Write yourself away.

It’s always loud.
Too loud.
The world is always whistling
Around.
The planet is spinning
On its axis
A wee bit to fast.
It’s always loud.
My mind is loud.
My friends are loud.
I just wish
Everyone will just
Quiet down
For a little while.

Most of my poems
Are purely rhetorical.
My questions too.
I still want answers,
But I am absolutely sure
No one can answer me.

Do you remember
When things were simple?

Hello, guys.
I got a question for you:
What do I sound like?
To you, of course.
I mean, you’ve never heard me.
But when I read ANYTHING
I read it in a voice
Because I am picturing their voice.
I want to know what I sound like.
To you.
I want to know if you’re correct.
I want to know if you hear me.

So
I put up walls.
I guess we all do.
To block out the wind and rain.
But I put up a house,
Wrapped in chains
All boarded up and stuff.
This is my mind.
I live there.
In my mind/house
I love painting.
I paint wonderful masterpieces
But no one can see them
Because no one can get in.
I’m boarded up.
And I yell and yell
But no one hears me
Because I don’t really want them to
But I do.
I really do.
Illogical beyond measure, I know.
But logic is for robots.
This lady’s an artist.

I am a cliff.
And I’m a person falling off the cliff.
And I’m the person PUSHING myself off the cliff.
Wow, how masochistic.
I don’t enjoy pain.
And yet
Every time I see a cliff
I jump.

I have a fairly great life.
I am one of the group of fortunate people
Who get to go to school
Who have a kind family
And a roof above my head.
I should be thankful.
I am.
But I’m mostly sad.
I am always afraid of what may happen,
Which probably will inevitably happen
Because life does that sometimes.
I feel like because I am fortunate
I should be happy.
But it’s so dang hard for me to be happy.
I don’t understand it.
Sometimes I wish I was diagnosed with depression
Because then at least
I would have an excuse.
I would have an explanation.
But instead I am left with a sadness
That I can’t explain.
I don’t deserve to be this sad.
My life is awesome.
I don’t have a chemical imbalance in my brain.
I’m pretty sure I got a good amount of serotonin in me.
It’s just me.
But if it’s so easy,
Then why is it so hard?

You tried to burn me down
I was wood in a fire
I was kindling drowned
In gasoline.

You tried to burn me down
And you did
You burned and burned
Until I was reduced to charcoal and ash.

What you didn’t know was
Charcoal makes art
Charcoal inspires others
Charcoal is art made from ashes.

Talking to you
Is like walking on thin ice
Covered in eggshells
And infested with mines.

As monotonous
As life can seem
Somehow I still get caught up in it.
Or maybe I find it so boring
That I tap out of reality
And into my imagination.
I am a very idealistic person,
I’m afraid I may get lost in my ideals.
Wouldn’t that make it hard
To accept someone for who they are
If they didn’t match my ideals?
But I don’t actually know what my ideals are.
I always thought I was open-minded.
Maybe I am wrong.
Well, I must be, one way or the other
Because one cannot believe both.
Or maybe they can.
Do shades of grey apply to life
As they do to color?

I have always thought in words.
An inner monologue
Always was busy with thought.
Today I was thinking
About differences.
We all have differences
We are different
We embrace these differences.
Or, at least most of us do.
Well, anyways,
I thought:
Aren’t we all human?
We are-at the core-
The same.
We are equal in our humanity.
In fact,
Sentient creatures of all kinds
Share a certain humanity-
A certain awareness-
That all living things hold.
So therefore,
Why do humans, who so intensely value their own humanity,
Why do they oppress
And afflict pain
Unto their fellow beings of humanity?
Of course
I am not an exemption
Of the **** sapiens habit
Of inconsideration.
I am imperfect as the rest of you are-
I just want to know what drives
A few select humans
To be so unkind.

Turn that frown
Upside-down
Fake it ‘til you make it
You say.

Change your attitude
Wipe your tears
And turn around
Your day.

I am not saying
That you are wrong
(Although you kind of are)
But I’m just saying
All these things
Are easier said than done.

Are things simple
And I’m over-complicating them?
Or are things complicated
And I’m over-simplifying them.

There is right
And there is wrong.
Simple.
That is, until you meet humanity.
Right things seem wrong,
And wrong things seem right.
No one knows
What is right and wrong anymore.
Where’s the manual?
I think the world is broken.

I feel to much.
Oh, it feels wrong to say that,
But logically, it could be true.
I tend to let my feelings
Get in the way
Of thinking.
But it feels to wrong
To not let myself feel.
But it seems the only way
To not make mistakes
Is to not feel.
I have been taught
To feel, but not to much.
Or to take a stand, but only if it’s uncontroversial.
They say be yourself, but only if your are normal.
Society tells me that no one can be perfect,
While also telling me to not make mistakes.
What do I do?
Which is right?

I know
That there is no one to blame
But myself.
But I feel like
It is wrong
To put all the blame on me.
It might just be
Because I am myself,
And I do not wish to be the problem.
But it is the truth.
I am the problem.
Is it justified
To believe I am at fault
And to believe I am the problem
When I am?

I know.
All of my poems
Are just excuses.
You keep on saying that:
“Stop making excuses!”
I know I made a mistake.
I wish I didn’t.
You are the very person
Who taught me mistakes are bad,
Whether it was directly or indirectly.
And I believed you.
I keep on trying to justify my mistakes.
I’m sorry.
I know I made a bad choice.
But I guess I’m in denial
That I made a mistake
‘Cause didn’t you say mistakes are bad?