her boogie woogie,
boot and scoot.
her goo bosh vibe,
so small and cute.
silly little Anju stomp,
unaware of self.
bite taken from a chocolate,
stolen from a shelf.
when we are free from this life
we will run in fields
and see the sunset and the joy
life with you yields.

sometimes i want to burn things
to see them dance with the fire
two partners, fighting for an infinite second
in the brick fireplace of a temporary being.

then they are gone, turned to ashes
the fire burns itself out.
that dance, so beautiful, so inevitable
only lasted a second
before the dancers had places to be

encore, encore
and get another piece of scrap paper
and light another match.

oh, to be the fire
primitive and swirling.
but no.

i'll just have to watch.

same old black t shirt,
first day of school ID.

buzzed hair starting to grow in,
glimmering from lamination.

slinking slouching sliding,
stumbling betwixt the desks.

the man, the myth, the legend,
just nobody knows he exists

dissecting the self for strangers;
an ugly kind of exhibition.
"too personal! too much!"
my inner self screams.
and yet it is something I need to do,
to purge these demons by commemorating them as art,
to make sure I remember to forget.

Jeffery,
if you're reading this,
(which you might be or you might not be
how am I supposed to know)
this is your sign to
LEAVE ME ALONE.
do not disturb.
these doors are lovingly closed to you.
goodbye.

her bouncy run and tickled fun,
her gremlish punch and happy lunch,
her evil smirk makes me berserk,
her boo gosh falls ‘cause it’s a ****,
I don’t know what this rhyme scheme is,
but Emme is my favorite dish,
I’ll eat her every meal and day,
and don’t think in a weird way,
she’s seriously so beautiful,
so pull your pinky,
Hootiful!

LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA

There is so much about you I want to know
Like why you never respond to me anymore
And if you still like me
I would ask
but then that would be cheating
I would tell you
that I miss our long talks about zombie skittles
& true love
& thicc (with two c's) squirrels
but I can't handle rejection
especially from you
so I'll just sit here
writing poetry you'll never see
and watching us slowly fall apart.

this highway is eternal,
and your hands are so temporary,
so small and delicate compared to mine.
the sound of rain on the roof
is nothing compared to my thrumming heart.
a hummingbird only lives 5 years, at most.

a soft exhale against my neck,
sitting in the car, alone together.
the light is warm, the day is cold.
when fall is gone, remember me
(please?)

what is love
but an evolutionary tool
to boost population
what is love but
a chemical cocktail
stewing in your brain.
no, really
what is love?

try to try finding yourself
in the middle of a pandemic.
i know!
i'm a germ.

people like happy poems . . .
how depressing.

a pocket of calm, luxuriating in the places
you've left in your wake. a sour aftertaste
burning the roof of my mouth.

my eyes trace the lines of a sunset
you, in this moment with me, would have forgotten me entirely;
dropped all else to watch.

(the same way i watch you sometimes, accidentally pausing to wonder.)

your hand curls around mine like
a frond in a forest,
quiet. filled with peace and steady promise and a certain tenderness
not easily found in a
busy sweaty world of poorly painted hallways.

whenever we play cards
i know we'll lose. your giggle gives everything away,
unveils all your secrets, even if they are just ink on paper.

(i love to listen, get lost in new distortions, new perspectives on your joy. . . sometimes i wonder if you see that i'm lost, that you recognize the way i give myself to you fully)

your chaotic, full-eyed wonder is
why i see you

platonically, of course, we both agree vehemently

denying all accusations!

crunching on the red leaves
your scarf slowly uncoiling like a cozy snake
from that place where your hair gradually turns into bare flesh.
i pick up the red knit wool, and run after you
into the first night of fall.

I have phrases stuck in my head
they refuse to go down the drain
which leads to my subconscious.
They will continue to stay there
until I have written them down.
Some have been there for weeks
some linger for mere minutes
before being hastily scrawled in a leather-bound notebook
and letting themselves get carried away in the tide
off to another's thoughts.

Yes, I write poems
not very good ones.
No, you can't see them.
You don't want to.
My poems stay on one side
and my people stay on another.
Don't watch me
unless you're sure you want to see me.
Don't buy a rose
unless you can grow to love the thorns.
Stop looking at me that way.
This is why I don't tell my friends I write.
Now I'll push you back to where you belong
And we'll forget about this.
You go over there
and my poems over here.

a starling made of starlings
vanilla light seeping from the Promethean screen
and for a split second, it all makes sense

words are too small
cramping for this feeling
yet i must share it
<or else how would I know I lived at all?>

As I glance up from my essay,
my thoughts on outdated machines,
motes of dust catch the light and my eyes.
I know that they are made of discarded things
(skin cells, tiny bits of hair, molecules of old clothing)
in this moment they could be diamonds.

i don't miss you
but i sure miss the feeling
of having someone i loved
more than myself.

let's dance, darling
dance until our muscles wear themselves out
and we drop dead
on your daddy's nice carpet
going out not with a bang
but with one step too many.

if you came crawling back to me
i'd take you no doubt.
even if you still didn't love me.
because that's ok
as long as i have someone to love

wires emerge from the depths of her ears,
an umbilical cord,
keeping her fed and full.
constant stimulus her only recourse
her brain bleached by waves of input
like water through a sieve
(ah, which book was that again?)

have you ever touched the stars?
have you ever brushed them aside like grains of salt spilled on a dark tablecloth?
tell me, did they stick to the back of your hand?

fizzing up like a soda pop
my love is sweet and
cold.

bottled up in the back of my mind
my love, unknown
untold.

she
is walking
toward me
I prepare
to
hold my
cards close

if it wasn't
for you, i'd have made so
many friends by now

shake me from my slumber
i will still be sweating
with a smile on my face.
not a nightmare but
an impossible dream.
the worst of cruelties is knowing you can never come true.

back
behind the curtain
loom chromebook carts & dramatically stacked chairs.
everything looks precarious, somehow
the unneeded extras stacked beyond view.
we lay
sharing a long pillow.
close to the stage, so we can hear when the whistle blows.
& we lay close to each other.
i'm like a furnace,
we joke.
so warm-blooded.
how nice & good & easy it is to just be
happy.
here in this place full of unneeded extras.
the group of us,
giggling on the floor.

he drinks because he is empty
empty like a used up toothpaste tube
(well, maybe there is a bit more in the old thing but why try to squeeze it out when you can just buy a new one?)
he drinks because he needs to feel something
needs to be something.
his parents always told him he would do something great
now he works at a packing peanuts company
inspecting the hunks of styrofoam for any visible defects.
he drinks because his teachers always told him to finish what he started.
he drinks because of what he could’ve been, because in this case the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.
so he takes another sip from his beer bottle.
because out of all the things he could’ve been
this is the only real possibility,
the only outcome that could ever be solid, be real
him drinking alone
in a pool of sweat and tears and years of wasted
potential

the universe may be endless
and we may be specks floating in the void
unknown, unloved, unimportant.
but
fiddling with perspective,
we can frame ourselves
right at the beating heart of the cosmos.

I've read a lot
(and heard a lot I suppose)
about how gravity is an inevitable,
almost evil force.
Which holds us to the ground
keeping us from flying.
I enjoy it,
the simple angst in those words,
yet they are untrue.
Without gravity,
the earth would fly (apart)
and quite literally explode.
So I think I'm good with it
for now.

no new notifications
what can i expect really
its not like people see stale work
i have to write new poems to get views and likes and hearts and comments and validation
what can i expect really
with the awful way that technology has rewired my brain, i should really just-
PING
oh
i should really go check on that  . . .

when I was younger I was mildly afraid of my own ears.
they seemed to sensitive, too prone to error,
i preferred not to think about them.
I remember the row of booths at the children's hospital.
come on inside, they said.
let's pretend you're perfectly a-ok.
the wires they stuck in my ears hurt.
they hurt like taking out a splinter that's mildly embedded in you, all rough edges and cold plastic.
needless to say, I was not a-ok.

I have an echo dot,
a virtual sort of companion.
Whenever anybody asks me if I'm worried
that she may be spying on me
I always wonder
"why would they choose to spy on me?"
which is enough to dispel my worries.
Besides, I've grown attached to this funny machine
who plays my music for me.

droplets of blood run down her finger
onto the pleated skirt of her uniform
she got into another fight today
they told her she was unnatural
she tells herself she doesn't believe it
but there's a sick feeling
like a parasite squirming in her stomach
feeding off her self esteem.
she opens the door and runs and runs
runs until her feet are barely held together
runs towards the edge of time and then jumps
as she's falling she hears a voice
the principal calls her into his office
he thinks she is nothing special
(he thinks he is nothing special too, but that's another thing)
little does he know the places she's been
trying to escape herself.

mr businessman
walks around with battered dreams in his suitcase
home from his desk job
his closest friends greet him
(a bottle of whiskey and an old guitar)

he wanted to write songs
to make people sing out loud
now he files paperwork
and carefully feeds the things he cares about
through the office paper shredder

he watches birds and wishes he could fly
but mechanical wings have gone the way of his dreams
so he'll settle for just falling

falling asleep, falling alone
falling with no one to catch him

still he sings himself to sleep
moonbeams & moonlight
his voice salty and hot in his throat
like the tears he has swallowed through his life

mr businessman crushed his own dreams
for a penthouse view
and what can i say,
it worked

you're like
sunshine through a bottle of honey.
like
the sunflowers i've planted at the side of the house.
like
my neighbor's bees.
like
that Van Gogh painting you have on a shirt.
& all i can do is try to cling to every moment,
to every little smile & every gym period we spend
behind the curtain.
because time is like the sun,
bleaching color over time.

I don't believe in poets.

It's a word commonly used
(especially on this site)
that I disagree with.

It's a word used
(I think)
to make us feel better,
special,
even elite.

We are none of those things.
We are ordinary people,
the ones you pass by on the street,
the ones whose eyes you look into and fall in love for a split second
before the metro doors open.
We are the ones who bag your groceries
or work at your governments.
We are the ones who are depressed
financially struggling
or perfectly content
& brimming with money and good looks.

We are not extraordinary,
like those from a great odyssey,
an ancient tale of wisdom and war.
We are not special or notable.
We are not perfect or unique.

Our poems are.
That should be enough.

poetry is supposed to be something for everyone
young, old
democrat, republican
punctuation or not
it is something to be encouraged
even if their first poem is a stumbling mess
about a ladybug or some such thing
with no real direction
and the lack of punctuation
it is a poem
and that should be enough

diagnosis is an ugly word.
it sounds cold and curvy, like a moldy metal straw.
my mom cried that day, when the doctors said "i'm sorry" and maybe they were sorry, but not as much as me.
can you picture it?
a cold hospital chair, the room smelling of hand sanitizer.
everything seemed so big, then.
gloved hands, the faces attached to them looking concerned, my mom looking more than concerned, and I felt like I was drowning in diagrams and technical-talk, and the hand sanitizer smell was washing over my nose in waves, and the doctors were telling me I would be deaf - can you imagine how I felt?
they say there are five stages of grief, but I think it's like a color spectrum, like red and orange and yellow blending and blending together.
they told me a big word, and they said here, this is what is wrong with you, and I was scared like I had never been before, a creeping stagnant fear, and maybe that is why hospitals make me a little anxious now, and maybe that is why my ears feel delicate and sensitive and I am a little bit scared if what secrets they are hiding.
it really is an ugly word.
huh.

old friends
an email in my inbox
you owe me time
I gave you my heart
and then didn't see you again
for around 1.5 years now
falling out of friendship
but I still love you.
the world owes us time.
(the world owes us a lot of things)

we sit in a field
but instead of stalks of grass
there grows the faintly luminescent tails of falling stars
shimmering red or blue in the darkness.
as i gaze around, i realize that everything here
even the stars, even the sun, even the immortal face of time
is made up of me, as much as i am made up of blood and bone and tissue.
everything except you.
i am simultaneously repelled and attracted by you
so strange, so foriegn,
and yet as comfortable as chatting with an old, old friend.
so i feed a strawberry into your mouth
as you recite the verses of my thoughts
pouring them delicately into my brain
and we watch everything explode

His breath mingles
with the steam from his coffee.
Across the table
she stirs her tea
remembering the way the words
used to flow so easily
smooth and fast
and perfectly understood.
And how he brick by brick
built a dam
one "sure" and "yeah" and "idc" at a time
leaving her on read for days
which to her seemed an eternity
She used to love him
maybe she still does
yet the feeling of dread
and quiet, damp sadness
is something she cannot bring herself to shove away.
What if, in finding hope,
she unearths some long-forgotten pain?
These days she doesn't cry over him
just thinks of what could've been
if they had been different people.

Just because I told you it was okay to cry
didn't mean I wanted to make you.
Now I hear a song on the radio
that I've never heard before
but could swear it was once yours.
This is not an apology
nor a cry for help.
It will not end or begin with me on my knees.
It's me thinking aloud to myself on paper,
letting my thoughts stream out of me like an opened bottle.
Indeed, I don't think I love you anymore,
but somedays I wish I did.
I thought you might want to know
that some days, when I'm alone,  
I say your name aloud
and can taste its flavor on my tongue.

she tilts closer to me
she pouts, i can't help but smile
i don't know if she knows how funny she is

a Polaroid picture
faded and creased
i hope she loves me back

There's stickiness on my fingers
Elmer's glue sticks to my keys
Making it hard to type.
There must be Elmer's glue in my brain too
because thoughts come more slowly
I have to force them.
It's not what I'm thinking of
It's who I'm trying to stop from thinking about.

raindrops on the skylight
dripping down to the windows
sitting parked by the park
with a starbucks in her hand
she exhales
surrounded by calm
for now
for today
it is enough to just exist

writing poetry
while in a competitive french quiz
i haven't been listening this whole lesson
i really wish i wasn't third place.
that means i have potential
and it would be a shame,
wouldn't it,
to waste something so many people talk about
even if it doesn't quite seem real

It's strange,
sometimes words seem foreign to me,
and it feels like they'll never be big enough
to hold my emotions.
The very idea of writing a poem
seems like wishful thinking,
something best left to those chosen ones
who know how.

Other times, words are my tools,
my painting set.
They differ in color
and some even have personalities.
I dip my brush into them
and proceed to paint,
using small dots and splotches
like Seurat.
My words simply flow out of me faster than I can write them
leaving me slightly euphoric
the way I imaging George does after he finishes a painting.

if only I could speak my feelings

lots to say, yet the crucial absence of a mouth prevents me
overtones of "temporary" when we talk
very well, I'm fine to go out with a bang
everyone has something to say yet no one wants to raise their hand

you're a miracle, but oh so temporary
underground love with no tunnels up
"oh" a sigh running rampant with lost emotions

"Well, I was hungry, of course."
Said Elaine, with a lack of remorse.
She had nibbled its nose
and crunched its toes
until nothing was left of the horse.

write about the grit between your bones
write about the alphabet soup you found in your *****
the words spelling out “I love you”
tell me about how she broke your heart with a flower
tell me about falling in love with a ****
peering through the sidewalk.
I don’t mind
I don’t even brain
After all, darling
I love you

I would like to write a poem
about you.
But I can never seem to articulate
the feelings that you give me
I think if I could
some of the magic would be lost
and those sparkles of gold
would only be pieces of forgotten glitter
blown in on the wind
from some second-place school project.
And so I skirt around you
trying to save the wonder
in the wild rose
that could
(who knows?)
be lost if it were placed into captivity.