You want to be near me
but also have your space.
Fiercely independent spending days in bed
gives way to the shisha hangout.

                              In one moment, an ecstatic smile
                              is murdered by your melancholy eyes.  

You're confidence surges when you're straddling me;
a tiger ready for the passionate bite
yet you cry like a sick kitten at your own reflection.

                              You don't mind holding hands, kissing my forehead  
                              but then tell me you've just been pretending.

You tell me "I love you,"
but then "I don't know what love means."

                               You feel something is missing
                               yet are most comfortable laying next to me.

And yet I don't mind all of these contradictions...
for some reason I still want to be in your presence
because I have faith and hope that one day
you will see how much mental anguish
emotional confusion yet pure white-hot
right from the sun warmth you've given to me.
And I hope and have faith that one day
you will see what I mean when I speak
I LOVE YOU
into your heart and soul.

She is a pretty little bird of a rare species..
Flying so high … high up…and sometimes low…
Endless search for the strongest branch to rest..
In a familiar wood…She wouldn’t know her fate
Until one fine day she was put to a test…

She is a pretty little thing…
So bizarre… a special one of its kind…
One day she was caught, tied and locked
She trembled, she felt so scared but she was trapped..
Snatched was her freedom, robbed was her life…
Taken was her dignity, stolen was her identity…
She is a lonely bird in a golden cage…
She doesn’t whistle sweet love songs
She cries everyday she cries …
Ugly lullabies… Bitter sweet love and defeat songs
All that glitters are not pure gold….
In her golden cage, she frantically stumbles...
She falls… suffocates in fake luxuries….
Hiding behind those radiant smiles, what a fake she is…

Cold, cold lifeless life…false sweet words of love and empty promises…
She’d rather die peacefully in the woods so free
What life is an extravagant life?
In the comfort of her silky linen bed ,
Her heart aches and she dies everyday

Her face turned white..Her heart turned cold
She breathes slowly she is so freaking cold….
In this golden cage… the iron bars feel so cold..
She cries and waits for the day to come by…
The day … the final day that she would be sold…
She is just a pretty little bird in someone’s castle
Trapped in a golden cage, she’d lost her soul…….

She may be ******.
And she may check my fingers-
Slam her hard metal pole down on them-
Each time we practice lacrosse.
And she may roll her eyes
At
Me.

But I don't hate her.
I feel sorry for her.
Because I think I'm the only one
Who pays attention
Through the laughter and fun
That
He touches her.

And she makes a joke out of it
So her minions snap out of their dazed state and
Chuckle a little bit.
But his crawling fingers are greedy
And her words are scarce.

All of the brain-dead minions
Laugh when she jokingly screams,
"****!"

Except me.

the funny thing about time
is the way it grinds your bones to dust
while they’re still sitting in your flesh

we can all feel it,
we pretend we don’t, but we do

you feel it when you wake up in the morning
having dreamt of your childhood
and the sound of your sister’s laughter is still ringing in your ears

you feel it when you look up from a book
and its not your brother sitting in the chair next to you
but a strange fellow with a deep voice
and a nose that looks remarkably familiar

and strongest of all, you feel it when at the dinner table
your mother asks you what you’ve been up to for the past 18 years

see, the funny thing about time
is the way it grinds your bones to dust
while they’re still sitting in your flesh

just the other night, I pressed my palms together
and I called on a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile,
to ask where he’d been

he told me he’d been spending time with my father
because the man really needed some company
without his oldest son to talk to

oh and while I have you, he said,
your mother called
she told me to tell you
that your bed is made, if you ever want to come home

1.
Because you are lonely too. And you know what it's like to spend hours waiting for a notification that someone values what you say. Verification that some of the people in your box of friends still walk through your forests waiting for trees to fall.

2.
Because you didn't understand the metaphor and so it must be deeper than your reach. Because people who appreciate poets are more approachable than poets themselves, and are far less likely to spend Saturday nights alone.

3.
Because the words look like family. Because when they pass your teeth it's as if your heart joins in chorus, and their syntax wraps cozy round your shivering bones. Because their eyes look like yours and because they know how to cut you, but don't.

4.
Because you are in love. And if a raccoon tore a hole in your garbage bag, ate last week's green chocolate cake, and returned it to your porch shortly after, you would see poetry in it. Because poems look like pies through rose colored glasses and it's really hard to find a bad pie.

5.
Because you hate this poem but won't tell me. Because our relationship hangs on your approval, and you know I'll expect you to make me feel ok about writing this. To tell me people don't appreciate real art anymore, and that's why no one else has responded.

6.
Because it doesn't rhyme, and there are numbers separating the stanzas that force you to read the last line slowly. Because it references Facebook and so it's something you can relate to. Because it's cliché enough to be memorable, and a little out of the box but still inside mine.

7.
Because you know why I wrote it. And you know that seeing your name beside it will be all the consolation I need. Because their is loyalty in a signature that even our forefathers acknowledged, and because it's the best way you know to take sides.

8.
Because the last thing you liked was McDonald's French Fries and you're looking to diversify your portfolio.

9.
Because you want me to remember you. Because we haven't spoken in years outside of birthday wishes and silence is a hard habit to break. Because neither of us is sure who the apology belongs to but because you're willing to take a step on faith.

10.
Because you know the impact an echo can have on its target. Because we all scream from stages built with fearful hands. We carry microphones in our pockets on nights too quiet to sleep and purge our lungs of their angst. Because this cave can not be empty. Because words are not like family unless they are spoken by someone we love. Because some nights all I need is a name to believe I still have my own.

It’s clear to me now
Why some burdened men and women
Try to lose themselves

Before I saw no intent
For drowning oneself in the sticky entrapment of alcohol
For burning away one’s heart and one’s fingertips
For vivisecting the pain and stopping the pulse of the problem
For inhaling the stench of despair and smokey desires
For wrapping oneself in the poison arms of another, if only for a night,
As a desperate attempt to seek comfort and affection

Not that I am not loved
For I know how much is given up for me
I know how much is sacrificed that I may walk the paths of my peers
If only to saturate the steps as a shadow

Not that I am a burden
Of this I am also made sure
‘Till the sleeping guardian of days awakens and sends his horsemen unto the earth-
I could be told that I am loved and I am treasured
I could be told
Yes, told

Temptation was a distant planet
Floating in the same path as I, yet, too far for concern and too different for comparison
But yet
It seems that I am even unsure of the physics of this world
And some unseen force that I should have accounted for (and failed)
****** me into its many tearing, sharp moons and blazing, sarcastic stars
Until I found myself composed of their same dust

Sometimes I think that I am disadvantaged by love
That because I am nurtured and privileged to some recognizable degree
I have no excuses
That because I can venture the haven of my room and come back
With all of my bones intact
And all of the neurons firing
I have no excuse for physical pain of the embodiment of my heart
That because I am told, “I love you”
Everyday
An automatic response
I have no excuse for the damp, echoing void I feel
That perhaps is the lack thereof
If someone would just hit me…

But I must haul myself across the fields
And I must carry myself onwards
Yanking on the lifeless pieces dragging behind
Because to fall into false help and lying love
Until two years time-
Or, worse yet,
To be ungrateful
Is worse than the weight of bearing all and being carried
Clueless, obtuse, waste
When they already suffer enough

I only feel the kindling of warmth when I bring the fire to others
But even then
Daddy locks Prometheus up
Because somehow, the little brat even managed to ***** that up

And now I’ve gone and wasted an hour
Thrown away the precious gift of time
For writing this spineless catharsis of complain
When I should be thanking
As I’m working,
Studying,
Reading,
Mending,
Anything but creating this raging text of teenage angst and ill-excuse

I only encourage myself when I fall back into the white riverbeds begging me to fill them with life
It’s no wonder that when I picture myself happy
My queen and I reside miles past the familiar horizons
Alone in an uncharted temperate road that stretches
On and on
Taking me forever away

Two more years