Mom makes you smile for a picture in front of the bus
on your very first day of school,
"You only have one first day of kindergarten!" she says.
But every time you hear the scratching of leather seats,
You are back to that day
When tears rolled off your tiny pink cheeks,
onto the front of your Lion King tee shirt
The first time you ever had to be afraid that you
would never see her again.

Brother tells you not to worry about the boy that bothered you,
the impact of a fist on his right eye is a warning
that guarantees he'll never disrespect a girl again.
But every time you step in the pebbles on a playground,
You're still struggling to run just slow enough not to slip
yet fast enough to keep from being caught and held captive
by the first boy to ever kiss you without permission.

Grandma tells you to "appreciate today" every day
because you'll never get it back.
But every time you hear the crash of waves against a shoreline,
You're there with her in your favorite place in the world.
And the sun is overhead with looks of never coming down,
But you'd be okay if it did because you swear these colors of
the sunset don't exist when you see it from anywhere else
And you never feel so close to God as you feel right here.

Dad is sad when you're growing up
because you'll only be little once.
But every time you get the surprising scent of metal and grease,
You're five years old again and dad is getting home from work
and he lifts you up in a hug and you bury your face in his shirt and breathe in,
And you're confident that he will carry you to bed later that night
on that same shoulder when you fall asleep on the couch.

You're told over and over to forgive
and your mother keeps trying, too.
But every time a green van passes by,
you're a vulnerable twelve-year-old with a record that says easy prey
and you're back at that police station and you're both still crying
and forgiveness still seems so far away.

Everyone tells you that "first love"
is something you only feel once.
But every time September rolls around,
You're still staring back into the first eyes to look at you in awe,
His palms feel sweaty in yours but you don't mind.
And you can still taste his lips and smell the sweet mint Stride on his breath
and you feel everything.

It’s strange how they promise that you can't turn back time,

yesterday is gone,

today will only happen once.

Because I go back all the time;
And I still feel everything.

exposure to you was the worst thing that could've happened to me, you taught me wrong and that it was good to hurt. you told me i wasn't good enough, that i was an introspection of disaster just waiting to happen. you weren't ever a loving hand to hold, you were the hands that burned me. you told me i was spiteful, naïve, and that i sang all the lyrics to your favorite songs wrong. you always walked around with balled fists and eyes darker than the embers sitting in the fireplace from love letters i wrote you that you didn't even pretend to read, in that moment i'm pretty sure that i burned holes into my shoes from staring at them for so long. i tended to tiptoe around you because you cut my lips with broken promises and gave me swollen black eyes. when i was with you i learned that the truth hurt because with you i didn't just get a slap on the wrist, i got 3rd degree burns from the words you said to me that are forever burned into my heart. i can't remember the last time i took a breath without getting choked with the hands of a man that was supposed to love me. the day i packed my bags was the day you told me malevolence would follow me wherever i went, i chose not to believe you. but i was wrong because you can see the burns, bruises, and cuts to prove that you kept one promise.

The Earth was ours.

We filled its fertile fields full of
Plants of our own choosing: our own design.
To provide for ourselves we drained the Earth
Because the Earth was ours.

We populated the islands that
The Earth had built for us from its own skin.
Like parasites we kept it alive for our needs
Because the Earth was ours.

Then one day the Earth spoke:

You who crawl over my face,
Unthinking for the blemishes you build.
You till my skin and plough my bones, you drink
My tears and feast on my flesh. Slowly, my fiery
Vengeance has brewed, bubbled upwards
And wrath shall be known.

It will begin as a rumbling.
You will think I tremble with terror at your might
But the movement of your monuments is more my
Laughter at your lowliness. The hallways of your houses
Will be hewn by themselves as my body convulses to be rid of the
Sickness of you. You will sound your two-tone Armageddon sirens
In vain as my thunderous thoughts tumble your towers
Fragment your foundations. Break your brick walls.
Stone on stone will spark, igniting infrastructure
And your cities will burn.

But it is just the beginning.

I will bury you.
I will bury you in the fire of my fury.
I will bury you in the ashes of my anger.
You will solidify, screaming, into silent stone.
You will choke, child-like, on my smoke.
You will die by my hand: your home.
And I will bury you.

And this to me is easy.
I am greater than all you build from
My body. So I use my body to wreak ruin:
Reduce your greatness to rubble and dust
Because the Earth was always mine.
I was always my own.

My family has music in our blood
My grandpa lead singer and bassist in his band
An uncle who plays keyboard
A cousin who djs another cousin who plays drums
Ive tried starting bands working on solo projects
Lyrics and sounds I cant replicate from my mind to others ears
I know the counts got the tempos I just want everything to mesh together
I realize ill never move up at work they cut managers and leads
So I really need to do something with my writing

His request was quite simple,
you could hear the same desire
in his voice that I have in mine for hers.

It’s not as cliché as
what most people would say
& even it was, it’s still a classic.

Thanks Jimi,
you rocked,
standing next to hers!

What is one more,
just another sleepless night
With the vague touch of familiarity
into my sanity you bite

Beloved bed upon who I lay
rest body but not sight
Ask for one moon of forgiveness
or ask if free breath may be right

For just a simple exchange
a wink of sleep I fight
Even in those few moments
my dreams now raised to a new height

Forgive myself I cannot
continuing as lost souls their blight
Rolling back and forth
in my bed as winded kite

Your words roam in my mind
what you said holds so tight
But I beg of you
that one tormentless night you might

For it is darkness I seek
but you only provide white
Not knowing what can be done
to escape the inevitable and forth coming light

Waking up at 0330
to get into formation
to march two miles
to take your ***** ******* laundry
to the cleaners is weird.  
Like this **** couldn’t wait.
Like what the hell are we going to do in combat?
Stop the ******* war,
tell the enemy to hold back the bullets
while we clean our clothes.
Christ, we could have
at least gotten up at 0500
to do this ****.
Besides, it’s peace time anyways,
who really gives a rats ***
if we have ***** clothes or not?
Certainly, not the enemy!

I want to split you in two,
tickle your cherry stem
& sprinkle you with sugar drops.

I've thought about marshmallow,
some vanilla cream
on top of your lemon tarts
& rolling my tongue
to spread it.

Honey dripped onto your flower
would be tastier than flaked-baklava,
a little whipped cream
& nuts would certainly
finish you off.

But I do dream of stuffing your pastry
with my creme-filled cannoli.
That would be the ultimate dessert,
don't you think sweet lady?

The last time I made an 11:11 wish,
I asked God to remind me
what the definition of amazing was.

And then you came along.

I almost thought I was going half crazy
because you were half perfect and half impossible;
Please tell me how
You were able to demolish walls I had put up
To stop girls like you from
Making my nervous stutter come back,
Or how you show me the Earth
In your vibrant green eyes;
Two worlds spinning,
Two different realities,
You put me in a new world,
You have me playing hopscotch on the clouds -
Please, let your lips put me on high again.

I'm not exactly sure
How you could numb my whole body
With just one touch,
And I'm still puzzled
As to why my stomach scrambled
When my fingers filled the gap between yours,
These freezes in time come along
With my heartbeat halting -
The only thing keeping me alive
Are the shocks you send up my spine,
Explaining how you leave the hairs on my neck
Standing at attention.

I find constellations
In your freckles,
Marvel at the aligning of stars in your smile,
Trace tails of comets down your curves,
Let's come back down to earth,
Cause earthquakes from how hard you hit me,
Dive head first into my mind the size of the seven seas,
Swim to the new places and things you've shed light on;
This new world you have shown me,
I feel like an alien on it
Because I didn't think it really existed
Before our spaceship took off.

I'm not too sure
I want gravity to pull me down again.