I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next

maybe
some
promises
are
better
left
broken

sewing the open wounds shut
hurts just as much
as the wounds themselves

a little less like an alarm,
a little more like being trapped in a burning building,
mistaking the fire for warmth,
mistaking the heat for passion,
mistaking the smoke for breathless bliss,
but things that promise light seldom go unheard,
and you aren't any different

Death
is
the
Confession of
when the past
comes back
to haunt

i'm sorry
i don't talk much.
it's hard
to think
with all this
chaos
in my head.
quiet people
have the loudest minds
and it's
loud enough
in here.

someone once told me
pain is like water;
you need a little
to know you're alive,
but too much
will drown you.
and now I think
isn't it funny
how the things we do
to feel alive
are the things
that can **** us?
i suppose
it's because
we just want to feel
**something

An open mind-
An open mind is
        An open door
        An open window
        An open book-
        An open book
                Full of blank pages
                        Nameless
                        Wo­rdless
                        Silent
                Paper before the ink-
                        Ink
                                ­My tears are droplets
                                of ink that I cry into
                                poetry
                     ­   Ink
                                My blood is droplets
                                of ink that I bleed
                                into poetry
                        Ink
                              ­  My sweat is droplets
                                of ink that I work
                                into poetry
                       Ink
                                Tears, blood, sweat
                                Salty
                     ­           Like the sea
                       Ink
                               A bottle of
                                       Stories unwritten
                                       Words unsaid
                                       Promises broken
                       Ink
                               Emotions that I bottle
                               up and reveal only in
                               my writing
                               Things that could've
                               been and almost were
                               if not for
An open mind

Forsaken
stars
Exposed
to the death
of
corruption

If I sit on my roof
and block out the light from my house,
I can forget that I exist.
I can swim among the constellations
and lose myself in the bittersweet triviality
of our existence.
I can break free from the intoxication
of my life wasted on autopilot.
I can pretend that I am merely thoughts,
free of the weight of a life
and of society
and of reality.
I can question things
and depersonalize
and forget this anchor of a body
and all its bitter consequences.
But,
for now,
all I can do
is lay beneath the stars
and forget.

emotional stakes
are changed
when a young girl,
tasked to bring hellfire,
lays off the trigger

i don't want to look there anymore for fear of the clockwork ****** that i make of my own memory every time i pass that house on Sheridan Circle. it is filled with the ghosts of childhoods well spent but long past and i can't help but think how the rope by which the old swing used to hang looks like a noose, which it may as well be. maybe one day i will swing from it for the last time.

i think the reason why i fell so deeply and helplessly and utterly in love with him was that he was not broken. i thought that maybe loving him would somehow unbreak me, make me a little less shattered than i was. i have seen and felt and fallen and broken and aged and heard and been more than i ought to have but there's nothing i can do about that now. and so i was drawn to his innocent, unbridled naïveté, which may as well be the last thing that has been left untouched by the bitter darkness of this world.

your energy is intoxicating
if this is addiction
i don't ever want to be sober

Dear misogynists,

Let’s be very clear here.
Boys are not ******* by nature. It’s not in their genetic makeup to automatically be mean-spirited or cruel. Being born with a ***** does not predispose anyone to being the kind of person whose hands make a welcome mat of my hipbones, who licks his lips as if looking at an appetizer, whose breath laced with tequila, privilege, and desperation slurs "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, baby?" from the other side of the street.
Genetics does not do that. Society does.

Dear misogynists,

It is the reason I know Title IX better than my own social security number. It is the reason I have to clench my keys in white-knuckled fists when I walk home from school. It is the reason I avoid eye contact at all costs because that "counts as permission." It is the reason I am told my mouth is useless unless he's the one putting something in it. It is the reason women all over this ******* planet get asked "Well... What were you wearing?" because apparently my outfit speaks louder than my voice, but you must not have met me because I can be pretty **** loud.

Dear misogynists,

It is the reason I am told "You know boys won't like you if you don't stop with that feminist crap." Who the **** asked you? If you think that passionately wanting equality and not being afraid to voice that is "crap," I don't want you to like me anyway; in fact, I want you as far away from me as ******* possible. I don't give a **** about your disapproval and I never will.

Dear misogynists,

Maybe you're right - "locker room talk" is as American as baseball, or apple pie, or roofies. "How could he possibly help himself? If he saw you in that dress, what was he supposed to do? NOT assume you wanted him??"
YES. That's exactly what he was supposed to do: NOT assume I wanted him, or anyone else in the room for that matter. Stop excusing ****** harassment because "boys will be boys;" my skirt is not an invitation, nor is anything but the sober word "yes" - and I include the word "sober" because yes, it does make a difference.

Dear misogynists,

So no. I don't give a ****.
And no. I won't stop with "that feminist crap."
And no. Boys will not be boys. Boys will be held accountable for their actions, just like everybody else.
And yes. I do kiss my mother with this mouth, but you can keep dreaming.

Signed, a Feminist

demons rarely come dressed
in a red cape and horns.
no.
they come dressed as
everything you've ever wanted.

my bones are hollow
like those of a mother bird's
but when i force myself to throw up,
the only child i am feeding
is the madness
that lives in the nest
of my own mind

No
I will not only speak when spoken to
No
I do not belong to you
No
I do not belong to anyone
No
I am not a prize to be won
Not a trophy to collect dust on a forgotten shelf
Not a perfect doll with lifeless eyes
Not a possession
Not a territory for you to mark
Not a piece of meat
Not whatever you want me to be

And yes
I do kiss my mother with this mouth

if you had asked me as a kid,
"what do you want to be when you grow up?"
i could've rattled off a whole list
but i never imagined i would grow up
to look just like all the skeletons in my closet

perfect matches
seem to stare down the
stars,
but together, there's
chemistry - which
turns to
tumultuous
dreams
despite the fiery
mystery

we found our
wings
but
the world saw butterflies

Again, it's a
mystery

I don't believe in heaven
But sleeping in your arms is the closest I'll ever come

hearts are wild creatures
that's why our ribs are cages
but maybe that's why
they sing so often

why do we
hold ourselves back?
we tell ourselves
not to fall for
the boy in the cafe
or the ******* the train
or whoever it may be
because what if they don't like me?
my answer is
then they were never worth your time.

don't risk missing out on what could've been
when all that was holding you back
was you