Have you ever sat and realized
that birds sing for themselves
that trees werent made for paper
that you werent made for me?

Have you ever sat and asked yourself
how many times have you cried
how many times have you laughed
how many times have you fallen in love

Have you ever sat and sobbed
about her
about you
about me

Have you ever let the wind take your hair
without pulling it back behind your ear?
I believe your hair is pretty when it's free

I think for a moment, it belongs to
the world
to the birds
to the sand
to the waters
and to me.

In seventh grade I watched my friend bleed out
Holding what was left of his leg, he whispered, "This isn't good."
They say that the human body contains eight pints of blood
I counted nine.

When you were born, no one knew.
No one knew how intense the galaxy inside of you was.
How each star would illuminate your eyes,
and how you would illuminate mine.

In tenth grade,
my dad didn't talk to me for three months.
I didn't know who I was for three months.
My light became darkness as his love became emptiness.
Father, love me the way I love you. I pretend not to,
please be the same way as me.

Your heart grew faster than my hands, brother.
I hope someone loves you more than I.
For I am what you are, everything without and within,
forever and without the night.

Mother,
do you feel what I feel? Do you see what I see?
Am I what you imagined, more or less?
Do my words matter? Does my heartbeat pound alone?
Do you love me?

You are what illuminates my eyes, Queen Anne's Lace.
With or without, from your eyes to mine,
silence with noise, electricity moves throughout
yet I am calm. You are what I know,
and all that should be known is that
you deserve to be happy.

In twelfth grade my father tried to stab me.
If he was successful, it wouldn't have been the first time
one of his actions got past the surface level.

It's not your fault, burning rainbow on the water.
Adaptation without reclamation I find you in my translation
as hurt yet elation. Mother.

My kaleidoscope,
so soon,
mirroring colors and shape.
Am I looking at myself?

I don't care if you don't comprehend, the words I say or how I end.
And if you don't understand the words that pass,
your eyes, like your heart, are transparent glass.
Taste throughout, with blood mixed in, the way I beat has always been
to know, to show, to allow what I see now to be seen,
may I know what I let go is what I'll always mean.
Thunderbolts from your mouth, good luck to me because I am shocked.
There is no lock. There is no lock. There is no lock.

I live throughout different years, with evolving eyes without resolving fears.
I've been afraid. I've been lost.
Kaleidoscope.
No longer, no more.  
My heart is an open door.

Blood stained pants.
Hands without.
With every word,
every shout.

Up until my insomnia meets me
I lied when I said I forgot
I was scared what you'd think
If I said that  I love you a lot

People have only cared for minutes
Leaving me to care for days
When I look at you all I can think
Is please don't go away

I can see me in your eyes
I dream of dreaming with you
I can trace your scars with mine
My thoughts are bleeding through:

My Talia, I know what it's like to not be seen;
what it's like to be alone in a crowded room.
For you, my star, I want you to know:
that no one shines as bright as you.

I can taste you moving on my skin.
My gasp is air you sustain.
hand in hand, under an umbrella
with you, I am safe.

I'm an avid reader of books,  many different books
Tolstoys War And Peace took me seven days to read
Lord Of The Rings Trylogy just 3 days
One of those books I've read just once
The other I could almost quote
word
for
word
I read some truly great works of poetry here
Some simple with a message loud and clear
easily understood
Some long but with a rhythmic flow
the sort of poem where you cant let go
Then there is the long drawn out dirge
full of metaphors and unusual words that I don't even understand
I might read it once,  try to understand then file it under done
I just write the simple stuff,  that's what I do best
But, no matter how or what you write its all good.

                           After all, poetry is not a test ~
                      it is an expression of our humanity.

Pasta

They ask, “what is poetry?”
I’d give them a bowl of spaghetti.
Naturally they’re taken aback.
No surprise about that

Still I’d tell them,

“Here, take a bowl of my tiny soul.
If you look into it well enough
You would know that it’s not just a mush of twenty-six alphabets
See, I took the sticky dough that composes my mind
And shoved it through the tiny holes I call standards
And carefully pulled out the strands of words.

I’d tell them,

“Then I would pour the red sauce, my personal favorite,
That I cooked up with my blood and tears.
If you taste them correctly, a voice will sneak into your minds
And speak their reality.
Although it may hurt, that way you will see.
That’s my poetry.”

I would tell them, but I think they weren’t listening because
They would just drink up the whole thing like hungry savages.
And I would quietly stand there in awe
Because they wouldn’t understand.