“When life gives you lemons
Make lemonade”
Past that, no instructions
No passed down successful recipes
There’s nothing there
About how to go
From a sour fruit
To a delicious drink
In this cookbook that makes no sense,
With a mix of different languages
And scrambled pictures,
There’s everything else
Pages stuck together
Pages missing
Scribbled correction of improvised recipes
But no instructions
From anything successful
Only pictures of what should result

Very few go to the store
Planning to buy a lemon
Usually, it’s the “perfect” couple
Not yet in the scopes of life
Not yet a target
So in love with each other
They decide to take on the challenge
Of a lemon
Before they even buy it
They’ve got a peeler
A blender
A juicer
Room in their hearts
And high hopes
A recipe they’re sure to work
Not realizing that lemon in their eyes
Will still hurt

For the rest of the shoppers
That lemon isn’t wanted
It’s thrown at them
With the speed and intensity
Of a major league pitch
Breaking the catcher’s glove
Taped with a note that says
“Handle with care”
“Good luck”
But no recipe
This ignorant “couple”
Doesn’t know the first thing
About dealing with this…
This…
Accident
Mistake
Error
Slip up
Life wrecker
Unwanted
Unplanned
Lemon
So they do their best
To take what they’ve got
And see if just maybe
They can make that **** work
Realizing that’s all there is in the recipe
Stuck between
“Lemon” and “Lemonade”
Partly ripped
Scribbled in the margins
Thrown in there with the same intensity
Is simply
“Make that **** work”
Whatever bitter drink that comes out
Is forced to do the same
Add this
Add that
Sprinkle a little bit of
“What the hell is going on”
A dash of
“I never asked for any of this”
And sometimes just a smidge of
“This might be alright”
The flavor is constantly changing
Getting worse
Getting better
Then it tastes like tears
Salty at first, then bitter
Then it’s too sour
Then it’s too sweet
With that occasional
Flavor of orange juice
And all that’s asked is
“Where did I go wrong?”

But right before
It was all ruined
Before it was a mistake
It might’ve been good
Sweet
Savoy
Tingly in the way
That makes your upper lip curl
Just enough to tease
Just enough to make you constantly wonder
Maybe it was good
Maybe
Just once
You might’ve had
Lemonade
Sweet
Savory
Lemonade-----J.M.

Let my mind roam this world
Each nook of river and valley
And shall I grow bored
When all is explored
I'll hope for a spare galaxy

One poem
Amongst many
Lost in the storm on the sea
Just another drop
One message in a bottle
Amongst many
Washed up on a beach of the hopefully stranded
If it's found, then it's amazing
If not
Can't love to lose what you never had, right?

I have seen the stars
They’re above my backyard every night in the sky
All I need to do is look up
Bright lights millions of miles away
They’re just stars
I have never seen...these
These are not stars
These are moments upon memories
Written in the night sky for everyone to see
But only for the special and strange few to understand

That little one to the left
Is something given
Something taken
It is in the front seat of a beat-up used Ford
The interior torn like wolves to a pair of Toms shoes
It is the closed eyes saying
“Trust me, I’ll never give you a reason not to”
That bright sun of someone else’s galaxy
Powerful enough to melt an Oreo milkshake
The way your laughs melt my troubles
Yes, it’s corny
Our star
Beats down on our moments
On your gleaming hazel eyes
Holding answers to the questions I’ll never regret
On my beaming smile
For pure happiness truly radiates
An infectious tune coming from one set of speakers
Causing everyone’s heads to bop in gridlocked traffic
It is something given
Something taken

That little one to the right
Directly in our line of vision
A bullseye we both were fortunate enough to notice, saying
“You hit the jackpot”
It shines down on an empty football field
Pitch black in the midnight glow
Directly in its line of vision is two hopeless romantics
Not two broken hearts
Each half in need of super glue and a symmetrical partner
But two full packs of Gummi Bears
Each doing just fine on the shelves
Till they realized that the company of the other is more than welcomed
And that one can never have too many Gummi Bears
Others will raise the question
Does one really need to have two packs?
It’d be a lot cooler if you did

The beaming star directly in the center
Would be the perfect one to now create some metaphor
About a weeping willow and a joshua tree
Or perhaps something cornier, if possible
But before I can, fortunately, there to save me
Are your lips on mine
Two packages spill into one
The lines of possible poetry waiting to be written go blank
All I want to do is reciprocate
The giggle
The smirk
The downright laugh-out-loud
Your reasons will remain a secret
Gone with the midwestern night wind over the turf
Mine will stay hidden with me
Because honestly, how outright dorky would it be
If I were to say
That you, the brightest star never given the chance to shine in the night sky,
Tasted exactly like Oreo milkshakes
And Gummi Bears

They are not just stars-----J.M.

The power of three dictates
That it takes three times of repetition
For something to take effect
A speech is more powerful
When the title is repeated 3 times
A question hits deeper
When it’s asked three times
The punchline is always funnier
Repeated three times
Ha, Ha, Ha

1
I dialed the number
In tears
Crying hysterically
Instead of taking a walk
And getting fresh air
I shut the door to the confined 4 walls
Hoping that a stranger on the phone
Would have the answer
More than the birds and the sky ever would
I emptied my soul into a voicemail
Because a text wouldn’t do
I emptied my soul into a voicemail
Because the silent begging for help
Apparently wasn’t loud enough
I emptied my soul into a voicemail
Yet always clammed up
Once the therapy session started
Probably because it wasn’t me worried about my safety
Yet, every time an innocent pair of eyes asked
“You okay?”
I forced mine to reveal
“Of course. Just tired”

2
I didn’t even wait until the room
See, if I had waited
If I had said “Let me walk home first before calling”
Then, “coincidentally”
I might’ve been hit by a car
Or “accidentally” fallen
From a bit too high
I was, again, in tears
Begging on my feet
Because I’m not going to get on my knees
For someone who doesn’t want to answer
Begging on my feet
That still, they’d pick up
Despite the unread messages in a bottle
And my lost pleas among an empty sea
I needed them more than they wanted to listen
Begging on my feet
For the strength
To keep walking
Despite all roads taken home pointing towards collapse

3
I called
With a chuckle in my breath
And a smirk on my lips
Robin Williams smiled the most
I called
For ***** and giggles
Just to humor myself
To get high off of bitter memories
And wishful regrets
I called
Just to let you know
I’m still here
I know you’ve never answered
But if you get my voicemail
You can always hit me back
Even if it’s just to simply say
“Hey”-----J.M.

Bus stops
Train stations
Awkward social gatherings
As cringy as family reunions you’re forced to go to
Except nobody has the embarrassing stories
That you hate to love to hear
Gas stations
That broken down 7-11 on the corner block
That has always been there
Where each stranger is as...strange as the next
The lunch line at school
Where you pass by those same old, soulful eyes
That have watched you since the first day of school
With the wild hair and stubby little fingers
That have watched a thousand broken promises pass by
Airports!
Airports where you are given the privilege to witness
The curious-as-can-be toddlers
With limitless imaginations
Not a care in the world, despite mom and dad always fighting
They don’t care
They’re still roaming around in their own universe
Running in circles with their arms spread out
No, sorry
With their wings extended out
So close to flying, just like the planes outside
They’re the same metal cages
Except nobody has told them that they’re not supposed to fly
Yet
In the passionate air guitarists
The professional lip syncers in the bathroom mirror reflection
And the truly skilled piano rockstars
That don’t quite exist yet

In the hopeless poet
Filling up pages
Like the ****** addict
Pushes in the needle
Both unaware of their coming demise
For just as there are those who overdose
The poet will eventually run out of ink
They will both search frantically before dropping to their knees
And the only thing left to clean up
Will be the diseased needles and ripped pages of scribbled nonsense
Sorry for the shoutout
In the teenage boy
Struggling to face his depression
Because he’s told to “be a man!”
In the teenage girl
Struggling to face her depression
Because she’s told “it’s all in your head, you’re overreacting”
In the teenage them/they/theirs
Struggling to face their depression
Because they know who they are
It’s the rest of the world that’s confused
So they’re not allowed to be themselves
Alice in Wonderland made more sense
All three are struggling to tame the uncontrollable thoughts
Criticized by the close minded Twitter posts and careless comments
All three are struggling to fight the daily battle
To ignore
To break through their ceilings
And finally have a chance at reaching through to the heavens
Desperate to escape this hell
Designed by those surrounding the warriors
Except they’ve just punched a whole through the roof of their coffin
And the small space is now filled to the brim with dirt
Suffocated
By the uncontrollable thoughts
Like Harvey on Huston
Except these three aren’t “Huston Strong”
They aren’t going to emerge from the dirt
Warriors once more
I’m sorry that I wasn’t there

In all those
Who get goosebumps when listening to a song
That they can feel is from another lifetime,
And who know that their adjective “weird”
Isn’t an insult
It’s a brand of respect,
Your see it
The Lost Ones
Each singing a soundtrack to their life
That they desperately wish they wrote
Yeah, you-----J.M.