PRETTY LIES CANNOT DISGUISE
THE EMPTINESS BEHIND YOUR EYES
YOU LOVE TO TALK AND HATE TO THINK
WHY DO I EVEN TRY TO SPEAK?
YOUR EYES ARE CLOSED
YOUR EARS ARE CLOSED
YOUR MIND IS CLOSED
YOUR MOUTH WIDE OPEN
UNLIKE THIS FLOW
OF INK TO NOTE
YOU’LL NEVER KNOW
THE HEARTS YOU’VE BROKEN.

As I write this poem,
Barrelling toward me are
College applications and
Dual enrollment classes.
Everybody dreads it but
For most of my life, I anticipated
Going to school with the
Hectic excitement that comes from
Imagination only a child can have.
Just like every year since
Kindergarten, I seriously
Lack confidence in
My ability to do what I
Need to do in order to
Overachieve as expected, but unlike
Previous years, I
Quiver with exhaustion earned by
Regurgitating information about
Systems that I will never
Truly need, but am tested on.
Useless, useless, useless,
Very, so very useless is how
We feel now, both the lessons and I.
Xanthan complexion, nauseous, nervous,
Yellow like the school buses I want to
Zap away, but climb aboard anyway.

Not worth the climb
Unless you’re scared of the fall.
Not worth the love
If you can lose it.
It doesn’t matter one bit
Because if you care at all
Deep down,
You must always choose it.

If you won’t miss
The one you adore
It’s limerence,
Infatuation,
Lust, not love.
If you can let it all slide
Between your fingers like sand
If there’s no ache when you say goodbye:

What’s it worth?
It’s not worth a dime, no time.
What’s it worth?
Nothing at all.
If it’s worth
Even a bit of your heart
Then it must leave a hole when it’s gone.

Is the only thing
That is easy in life.

Sleep
Cradles you like a baby
And whispers sweet dreams in your ear
Making you forget
The cruelties of the world.

Sometimes I wish
I could stay asleep
All of the time.

Who doesn’t?

I’m not here
All the way so I
𝑷𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒉 my skin
Between my nails to
Try and 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍 something but it’s
Like 𝒌𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 a stone and
𝑾𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 if the rock 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒔.

Who would want to be a leader
In this world full of tricks
Where problems keep arising
Enough to make you sick

Who would want to be a leader
In a globe that slowly melts
Burned up from global warming
And the heat you’ll face if you fail

Who would want the power
That everyone knows corrupts
When everything you do
Will never be enough

Who would want to be the person
Everyone depends on
To make the hardest decisions
You must be stone strong

Who would want to be a leader
When you sacrifice yourself?
The most human part of you
Compassion, put on a shelf
To be forgotten.

D̳o you
E̳ver just
A̳ccidentally
D̳issociate so
E̳verything
Y̳ou see
E̳scapes
S̳ight?

I thought you were ok
Guess it was too early to say.

Now you collapse in my arms
Your walls fall down, broken charms.

Your tears soak me to the bone
I feel cold, you feel alone.

You’re not alone.

the rain
hit the window
glad that
in the safety
of my home
the cold, wet drops
don’t reach me.

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...

My heart took me places
My head could never go.

I crave affirmation
I live off of praise
Why do I need this?
Is it my fate?
“You just want attention!”
That’s what I’ve been told again and again…

Maybe they’re right.
Maybe they’re not.
Maybe I just can’t be alone with my thoughts.

It snaps in
With a sigh
Of relief.
Seems like
My mind was missing
A few puzzle pieces.

But you,
You fit right in.

I just don’t know
How to live a life
Thinking that everyone
Is bad all the time.

Everyone’s wrong,
Inherently wrong,
Ever so wrong,
Then who’s good?

Me?

No, I am far
From the best person
I know.

To believe otherwise
Would be to put myself
On a very high horse
On a very high pedestal
On a very high hill
That I am 𝘯𝘰𝘵
Willing to die on.

“Thanks for asking, but 𝑰
am fine, just a little tired.
𝑪𝒂𝒏’𝒕 complain, you know?
Everybody gets a bit
stressed sometimes, what with
all that we’ve got to 𝒅𝒐.
It’s not like 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 is any different
than any other day, any other person.
𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 somewhere has it far
worse than I do, so don’t feel sorry
for me. No, 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 your compassion
for a person who really needs it, not
𝒎𝒆.”

the flower has eyes
and she watches
as her pale petals curl and
turn brown on the edges, she
watches as she wilts, as her leaves
start to dry, she watches
as the parts of her she used
to admire start to fall, piece by
piece, and she watches as she
disintegrates,
becoming the dirt and she watches as
the housekeeper sees her and frowns and
then throws her away into the
trash.
she watches as she becomes
trash.
and she cannot save herself.

COUGH COUGH! BLEGH!
I’ve come down with a case of “meh”,
I’ve got tremors and shakes
And “that’s due today??”
Nearly putting me into bedrest.

There’s so many things that need doing
And I truly cannot keep assuming
That I can avoid
The results of my choice—
I jumped in the ***, now I’m stewing.

Will this be my undoing?
One might have guessed
That I’ve quit and I’ve stopped
In an unending rest,
Am I still the best?
My grip, it is slipping:
Like an old, beat-up ragdoll
Whose threads won’t stop ripping.

I inhale
All the words and the pages.
I consume
All the plots and the ink.
I require
The letters and spaces
Like oxygen that I need to breathe.
I exhale
My thoughts onto paper
So that they won’t ever die.
I release
My viscera into the water:
My soul caught up in each line.

oh, don’t worry, you’ll find them.
you’ll know them by the stitch
in your side, bent over shaking with
laughter,
the day you miss the bin and
the carton sails straight
into some poor, unsuspecting soul.
you’ll know them by their side-eye,
that single-second, inside joke—
hair-braiding, thumb wars,
secrets whispered in the dark.
and one day, a boy will break
your heart but they will roast that boy
like a marshmallow over a fire.
you’ll know them by the
unbreakability
of a pinky promise,
by the knee-****, camera-flash joy.
you’ll know on the nights so late
that even taco bell is closed,
by the three-hundred bad pictures
of you on their phones.
it’s sticky leather seats in the summer,
all mess and love and side-by-side.
and when four years are past,
caps tipped, turned, and tossed
and you’re standing in a football field with
a runny nose and wet-streaked cheeks,
you’ll know them by the way it
aches
to wave goodbye, to go home because
you’re not 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 home at all—
you just left it.

I am not one
I am made by my experiences
I am not me
I am what happens to me.

Yet
I am the only one
That is
What I am.

The little girl and her Mama are sitting on their sofa by the fire.
As her Ma closes their storybook, the little girl Amara asks her Mama,
“What is a reason?”
The story they were reading was about a boy
That boy was always searching for a reason to live.
A reason is your purpose, what keeps you alive.
The little boy lost his.
He spent his entire life looking for his reason.
One day, he ran into another boy.
This other boy was also looking for his reason.
They played and talked and laughed together.
They grew up together.
The little boy thought the other boy was his reason.
That is, until a small child was delivered at their doorstep.
The little child became their reason.
Soon the child grew up, and had kids of their own.
A little granddaughter was born, and she became the boys’ reason.
The boys grew old, loving and holding and caring for all
Their reasons.
They died, in each other’s arms, thankful for their reasons.

In reply to the little girl’s query, her Mama spoke,
“A reason to live is your reason to love.”
The little girl was content with this answer, and smiled back, sweet as a spoonful of sugar, saying, “Then you’re my reason.”
Her Mama held her little girl close, and said, “You’re my reason too.”

A sea of silent people with
Zippers instead of lip and teeth
So long it’s been since they’ve unzipped
They calcified like coral reef
And sometimes it is hard to breathe
When your captor is a feeling.
Their words are knives stuck in their sheathes,
At nightfall, they dream of screaming.

Their shoulders slumped, they knew that if
They sang or sighed or gave a speech
Before it was too late, their scythe
Would never have to reap and reap
And reap, but no, they sowed the seed,
If only they’d been believing
But they dug a grave, where they sleep
At nightfall, to dream of screaming.

Their kids don’t cry, instead, they writhe
Inheriting their voiceless grief
No words to soothe the kind of life
That never, ever knows relief
As it was stolen by a thief
And his name is Never Needing.
Their fear, it thrums to its own beat
At nightfall, they dream of screaming.

They waste away, they cannot eat
But now, death itself is freeing.
Their dreams once were the sun and sea—
Tonight, they just dream of screaming.

I dot my i’s and
cross my t’s,
a perfect ballerina
dancing across the page.
Graceful as a butterfly
soothing like a summer sunset.
Sweet, simple, flawless.
But already there are
scribbles, mispelings,
blots of ink and suddenly
this perfect canvas is no longer
blank.
Oh, to write like a wildfire,
no remorse or formulaic
meter!
Just bared wide, torn open
displaying my wholeness as
us poets so often do.

i race across the boardwalk and
i taste the waves,
throw my phone into the ocean and
find some form of freedom—
whatever’s left will do! I’d do
anything to find out who i’m supposed
to be, i guess that should be me,
but i’ve never met that girl
(𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦?)
so instead i keep running and
you might ask from what but
only the Lord knows that and maybe
my tide-worn mother too but once
she tried to tame the frizz out
of my hair but it didn’t work because
she never expected to have a firecracker
for a daughter, 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳
𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, but i left that all behind so i could
race across the boardwalk
and taste the waves, but now
i am here and somehow the salt
tastes bitter.

Nothing made me angrier than when
You expected the best from me and I
Felt like it was unfair, and I couldn’t do
What everyone else could, that I didn’t
Have the tools, that this was a race but
I was positioned behind the
Starting line.

I thought you didn’t understand.

And you didn’t.

But you pushed me farther than I thought
I could go, you told me that I could do it—
That I had to.
You held me to that same gold standard,
On the bad days and the good days and
The days in between, you never wavered
And you never gave me the option to
Quit.

So I ran that race, and I ran it fast
I sprinted and leaped and speeded past
Everyone else, despite where I started,
And all I could feel was the rush in the air,
The breath in my veins and the wind in my hair,
The power of my stride, the power of my will,
The strength of my wholeness, this strength I could feel,
And every time, I thought I could not do it.

You did not know my pain—
Yet you pushed me right through it.

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.

H hope
U understanding
M meaning
A anxiety
N niceness

What makes humans
Human
Is emotion
Is kindness
Is the things
Held in our hearts

I haven’t been here for a while
To make all my readers smile
I used to write every day
Guess that went away,
Anyway
I’m sorry!

Terribly
Terribly hot
“…No way…”
“…today was really…”
“..every day…”
“…she’s been acting so…”
The conversations
Blend and babble
Around me like
A brook and the bird-calls
In the mountain green
The leather seat
Sticks to my skin like glue
I bobble and bounce and I
ACK! Gosh **** turns!

I see the stars
Bright, shining
In my mind.

I’m blinded
By the unhidden
Beauty of planets
Stars
Nebulas.

I see Asteroids
Asteroid belts
Space rocks
Remnants of failed space missions.

I see more
Indescribable things
Concepts
I see concepts
I see love and happiness.

I hear music
Magnificent music
Harmonizing in the deepest reaches
Of the Universe.

I see Time
A great river
With golden sand brushing my toes.

I touch the fabric of the Universe
It feels like the softest fleece
Times infinity.

I smell brownies,
Roasted marshmallows.
I smell lavender,
Sweet sap
That somehow don’t clash.

How is the Universe so beautiful?
I never want to leave this Universe in my mind.

The sun
High in the sky
Like it’s standing on
A mountaintop
Balancing on the peak.

It’s lunchtime
All of our stomachs grumble.

We sit at the table.
Sandwiches!

Do you know
What happens
When two stars
Collide?
They either
Turn into
A gargantuan
Mother star
Or a black hole
******* the life and light
Out of all that dares
To exist.

Do you know
What happens
When two people collide?
They either
Turn into a wonderful
Sun that gives life
To all that dares
To exist
Or it flushes
Away the light
Of both people
And reduces both
To heartbreak.

A million stars in the sky
A million hopes of mine.

A million people passing by
A million people who are kind.

A million hearts beating for one person
A million brains battling emotions.

A million people
Yet only one
Can be you.

A million hearts
But only one
Is yours.

A million loved ones
But only one
You love.

A million lives
But you can only
Control yours.

A million stars in the sky
More than one
Lighting your path.

Pit-pat, pit-pat
Shoes slapping on the floor.
Pit-pat, pit-pat
A quiet knock at your door.
Pit-pat, pit-pat
Raindrops, water pure.

This generation
Is obsessed
Begging for an ovation
This nation
Is in preparation
For the worst
But it’s already started
Things have gone south
Into the uncharted
Hard-hearted
That’s what I am
You are
We are
All the phony stars
The famous people
Standing a top their great steeple
They’re not better than us
None of us are
We try
But this world is so bad
It’s enough to make a grown man cry
Grown men cry
Single moms sigh
Because this world is going south
No one trusts
Each other anymore
We ruined this world
Anger swirls
At this world of ashes
From the fire of hate
I hate
This hate
Contradiction.

I strayed from a path,
A safe, sound path,
Surrounded by a dreadful
Dark forest.

I was pushed from the path,
The safe, sound path,
By an evil, evil, entity.

Sent spinning into that
Dreadful, dark forest
While people try to push and pull
Me out of the dreary gloom.

All it does
Is send me spinning
Faster and faster,
A tornado whipping through the trees.

Only one, one only
Can slow me down
And lead me over the brush
Back to that safe sound path.

Betrayal, lies and fire
All gather and conspire
None of them ever tire
In the game to ruin me.

All is dark where light go dies
Rotting flesh and buzzing flies
Acid rain and burnt-red skies
In the place where evil resides.

A hell all inside a person
Where the adversary would be found spittin’ and cursin’
Several demons mix up a death potion
A sea of red, a burgundy ocean.

Oh, and I mustn’t forget
This is the place your personality is set.

We are all fighting battles
We are all fighting wars
With our own consciousness
And the ones we adore.

I’m not talking about military
Not government
But on hardships abound
Our energy is still spent.

Our trials sometimes don’t show
We don’t want others to know
But we’re all soldiers
In the war with Ourselves.

I submerge myself
In the unreal.
I breathe it in
Pretending it’s air.

It fills my nose
My mouth
My lungs.
Too lost in ecstasy
To know I’m drowning.

And when I break
The surface
It sends pins and needles
Through my brain.

So I sink back
Slowly, just slowly
Letting it envelop me
The descent, a deadly comfort.

Do you know me
Really?

I don’t know if I know me
Really.

At this certain age
It is so hard to determine
Whether what we are
Is what we are
Or if it is what we are expected to be.

I’m over here spending twelve stupid years
Becoming a parrot who repeats what she hears
It’s not for the learning, it is for the grade
So I turn off my brain seven hours a day.

I’m wasting, I’m wasting, I’m wasting my time
Even that phrase is a waste of a line
And I’m sick of all of these definitions
Pressing on in, getting marked in red pen—

What am I doing here?
You convinced me there’s answers for everything,
Unvarying, black-and-white lettering,
Supposedly bettering, more like you’re fettering
Me like a prisoner, mental inhibitor
Wish you were valuable, you little swindler,
I’ll play your game, ‘cause that’s all that it is,
A paper to frame, that is all that I get
But if I’m wasting away at this desk,
Forced in the system, then I’ll be the best.

i don’t want to be sad.

but for once, i wanna cry without laughing.

i don’t know why it’s so hard to simply cry

like a normal person.

if i’m gonna hurt, i’d rather hurt

the way most people do.

so, brain, you better be taking notes.

delicate as snowfall brushing your cheek
and wind flowing through on an open-topped peak
but when you go home, when you go home
the warmth washes it all away.

when it captures you, raptures and
seizes your soul, you feel it take hold and
suddenly
you cannot recall
what once was cold and no longer is
but still, a silent strange feeling
lingers
until you are left with your tremors, your
trembling—
the imprint, the mark of a melody.

There is a lightbulb
In my brain
That is cracked
Not working
And is barely not shattering.

There is an idea factory
In my brain
That is shut down
Rusted
And barely standing up.

I am out of ideas
My brain is not working
My mind has become catatonic.

My ideas have called sick
My good words have taken a day off
And my rhyme quit its job.

My rythym is on vacation
My inspiration failed the interview,
And my structure decided to collapse.

I don’t know what to write
So I write nothing
Unless nothing turns into something
And my sick tree bears fruit.

Are we meant to dissect
These poems with laboratory
Efficiency and precision?
Are we meant to
Pull them apart and
Split their seams and
Inspect them for flaws?
Or
Are we meant to
Let them spill into us and
Let their loveliness warm our
Souls!
Let them speak and sing and
Sweetly stutter, with a flutter
Let them trace our spirits back
Let them, like a flame, attract
Us until we are, like moths, consumed—
To love a flower, let it bloom.

Afternoon
After school
After lunch.

We settle down
And let the light
Filtering in
Calm us.

The adrenaline fades
And the tiredness catches up with you.

Yawn,
You say.

Yawn,
She says.

Yawn,
He says.

Yawns are so contagious.

It’s not a remarkable rarity,
Not a ruby reflecting the rays
Of the sun, indeed, serendipity
Is like salt in the Monterey Bay.

It’s the dollar you find in your pocket,
It’s the hummingbird visiting home—
The song you would keep in a locket
If you could, for it plays like a poem.

You needn’t be lucky to find it,
It is not a matter of chance.
Open your eyes, be unblinded
And you’ll see it in every glance.

The moon, the stars, the heavens on high
Are not hidden—simply look up to the sky.

People say
That you’ll just know
What you want
You will have a gut feeling
A vision
An intuition.

And I do have a gut feeling
I feel like I have been punched in the gut.