I don't know where I'll be
In 4 years,
But I hope it's somewhere beautiful
And with you.
I don't know where I'll be
In 3 years,
But I hope it's staring at the stars
And with you.
I don't know where I'll be
In 2 months,
But I hope it's on a park bench
And with you.

I don't know where I'll be
In 1 day,
But I hope it's somewhere beautiful
And with you.

                  t.s.

Wherefore art my purpose in life
I'm filled with passion, love, and fight
Bursting with spirit until I'm overcome
By social anxiety and a long line at the grocery store

I want to be good but I'm without determination
I've been taught leadership, sure
And I don't want to be a follower
But do I want to make others into followers?

Is it possible to do good and not be a hypocrite
To organize people for a purpose
Without taking advantage of them
Without rewarding their efforts fairly?

Verily I remain a thinker, a ponderer
And regrettably not a man of action
It must be a moral quandary that keeps me at home
Because I could never admit that it's only fear of failure

Why so serious all the time
Why do the poems never rhyme
What's the meaning of
"2 AM
Standing outside
Smoking a cigarette
Talking to a trash bin"

Why do we have to act so wise
I'd rather set a poem to music
Than to set it on your eyes
But here we are because I messed up
And got no talent for anything but the abstract

I climbed to the top of a mountain
And rolled back down in a barrel of oil

I threw a plastic bottle in the ocean
Just to see what would happen

I visited the tropics, both of them
And littered in each one

I am the creator of worlds
And I am the destroyer

We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

Anything can
look like a poem
and sound philosophical
simply by moving
the words on
different lines.

Am I doing it right?
Is this
really
talent?
Art?
Effort?

I think I am trying.
Really, I am
I go back and change the order
and I break lines
where it sounds right
But it does not take me long.
Not at all.

I try to be
intentional
and call it natural rhythm.
Instinct and style taking over
I alternate between
agonizing every detail
like When to Capitalize
and publishing free form poems without looking over them twice.

How is writing supposed to feel?
Should I labor?
or should it flow?
Or do I get to decide?

I think the things I talk of
mean something
at least.

But am I just
pretentious?

fooling myself into thinking that
using common poetry formats
somehow makes my work worthwhile?