A gift from the sun
Golden rays of heat and warmth
Shine down upon us

The impossible is possible again
it gives us all the courage to stand
The sweet notes of music
It tells us things words can never say
Inspires us to try by day and day
something we create
but so beautiful
Life with no music
Is not life at all
Living is our choices,
our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions
music helps us find those dreams
I wonder if when I sing,
the whole world is happy
For maybe just one second,
they all feel a flicker of hope

What makes a poet?
A poet is not a writer.
No, a poet is a composer
A poet is an artist
A poet creates masterpieces without paint
A poet creates songs without music

Poets can find meaning in anything
Poets can make the most overused things original
Poets can pull emotions from the depths of their minds
And put them on a page

A poem is made of a complicated simplicity
A poem is a silent melody
A poem is a persona
Immortalized in words

I am a single voice.
A single voice in thousands.
How can I be heard
Over the clamor
Over the chaos
Over the turmoil
Of thousands of voices?
A spoken word
Can only say so much.
But the written word
Can say so much more.
They say a picture
Is worth a thousand words.
A poem
Is worth a million
A poem says what no one else can say,
And does what no one else can do.
A poem
Can reach
Beyond imagination,
To places in your heart,
Your mind,
Your being,
You didn’t know existed.
A poem
Can be anything

That is why I write.

Can I be a poet
If I have no inner pain?
If I'm young and hopeful?
Optimistic and cheerful?

Will my poems be loved
If they're not about strife,
Sadness,
or heartbreak?

Do I have to be bitter
Or angry
or annoyed
to be a poet?

Do I have to write about grief?
Do I have to write about angst?

Or can I break that standard
Of poets always being heartbroken?
I want to write about joy,
Laughter,
and Daydreams.

So I will.
That doesn't make me any less of a poet.

I write my best poems when I’m PMSing
Because my emotions are on high
And I
Have an attitude
Like, “**** it!”
So I don’t overthink
The words
And also
Because when you’re lying in bed
With cramps
You have about two other options:
Watch videos
Draw
And both of those get old
After a while
So I write poems instead

The other day I woke up with a breeze in my chest,
With my mind partly-cloudy
Sun peeking through the gray, and the forecast
Predicts sunnier weather to come.

The other day I stood up and blood rushed through my veins,
I drew a breath and expelled
The stale air, and then, I did it again.
I was breathing.

The other day I put one foot in front of the other, and
Instead of sending echoes up my spine, I felt
My footsteps thump on tile. In that moment,
I realized I was real.

The other day, the little storms in my cells dissipated, leaving
Dewdrops as goosebumps on my arms, a rainbow in my smile,
And head tilted towards the sky, I cried,
Because I’d forgotten how blissful it felt to be okay.

It’s so nice to see the sun again.

She wore stilts to seem on top of the world
She wore long sleeves to hide her insecurities
She wore a mask to hide her face
And kept her hair long to hide the line
Where plastic met skin

When she takes it all off she sees someone she knows
And realizes how much she envies her stranger
So she tries to become them again,
But she can’t get escape from the way the mask makes it hard to see,
From the way the stilts stab the soles of her feet
From the way the skintight clothes won’t let her breathe.

She
Can’t
Breathe

So she suffocates to please the people she hates,
Saying things like,
“When I’m skinny enough,
When I’m popular enough,
When I’m good enough,
I’ll stop.”
But she is never good enough for the one person she hates the most.

She hides her paper as she confesses her loathing
So that no one can see her graphite tears.
She wants someone to ask “Are you okay?”
So that she can cry to someone other than the journals she’s been documenting her self-destruction on for months.
But of course,
When someone does ask,
She puts on her mask and says,
“I’m fine.”

Like specks of broken ice
Dancing ‘cross the sky-
Soft as the music
of a flute floating by-
As lovely as jewels
Hung up in pride,
Stars hypnotize
With sparkling eyes.
Like the moon in the water,
you can’t look away
Sleep soundly at night,
stars are gone by your wake.
As curious as a sly fox,
who always seems to slip away,
stars are mysteries,
Best left unsolved, anyway

I always left the lights on,
When I thought my nightmares were true,
But I’m not afraid of the dark anymore,
And I’m NOT afraid of you.

You can try to haunt my dreams,
But it will be a grueling fight,
Because I know that you can’t hurt me,
Whether or not I keep on the lights

I’m not frightened of your claws,
They can’t rip me from my bed.
You’re an imaginary menace      
I know I made you in my head.

So you can try to come and haunt me,
But I’ll dismiss you with a yawn.
I’m not a child anymore,
And your power’s long been gone

Square stones surround a lake, bright blue
Flirting with the leaves, their hues
Vivaciously vibrant and ever refreshing
Dotted with robins and cardinals nesting

They sing for me, a lovely song,
My attention lingers far too long.
And the water doesn’t make much sound
But my shoes are tapping on the ground

Everything lush, so perfectly fragrant,
It's hard to believe that it ever was stagnant.
The pollen, the sap, the freshwater pond
Of this lively scene, I am growing quite fond.

A breeze blows by, and I am awed
By its gentle pushes, how it prods
“Let’s go!” It laughs, and I follow its lead,
The guidance it gives me is all that I need

For it to be bitter, I was braced,
But I’m surprised how sweet it tastes.
Like iced tea on a summer day,
Here forever, I could stay.

What is the difference between a pure man
and a sinner?
Who decides what is Holy and what is demonic?
Why are they right?
Why do we have to listen?

They’re wrong.
I don’t believe it anymore.
The only sin I could commit would be to let this end.
If that makes me a demon, a sinner...
Then I will fall.
If it means that I can be with you.

Though I am of Heaven and you are of Hell,
our love will not be defined by the split between
Sin
and Purity.

They say the kiss of an Angel is the one touch that can forgive all sins.
My love, I am your only sin,
and you are the keeper of my purity.

I love you.

My story isn’t done
Because I wrote the words “The End.”

My life is a neverending series of sequels
Each with varying quality.

My story isn’t sad
Because I cried in the middle of it.

Nor is it a funny one
Because I laughed two chapters ago.

My story isn’t published
Because those who know how it goes read it as it is written.

Others get excerpts
But I will never be for sale.

Falling down is scarier when you can see the floor
No floor, no bottom,
No bottom, no promise,
No promise, no risk,
No risk, no danger
          

                  No danger










No danger











                                                                    Bang.

I have never prayed to God.
I don’t trust something that
calls itself all-powerful,
omnipotence is a bottomless pit of
pride that i refuse to feed or fill

i guess it says something that
i’d pray for you now.

is it still praying when you’re angry?
i won’t ask God for help,
i mean to clock him upside the head
for his arrogance
for his selfishness

i want him on his knees,
begging for forgiveness
like he asks of his precious
little
disciples.

whatever god is watching,
be it him or her or them,
i hope you know that I
Hate you.

i Hate you.

I’m a poet who doesn’t understand poetry.
I see all these words and phrases stacked up against each other
And they sound pretty
And they sound meaningful
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish there was a dictionary for poets
That tells you what things mean in plain English

Because let’s face it,
Poems aren’t written in English,
or any language that normal people can understand.
Poems are written in feelings,
Which is why I think that there’s no such thing as a bad poem.
Because no one speaks in someone else’s poetry.
We get a choppy translation
And sometimes that bad translation can make it seem like their language is gibberish.

Sometimes you can learn to speak another language,
But you’ll never be fluent.
Because as soon as you learn a word,
It’s going to change.
And every time you relearn it,
It’ll change again.
And even if you think you’ve got it down,
There are ten other people speaking ten other dialects,
And everyone thinks that theirs is the right one.

I’m a poet who doesn’t understand poetry.
Because I don’t write in English,
And I don’t know anyone who does.

For everyone I’ve left behind
And all the things I’ve left to find

For all the times I’ve laughed and cried
For all sweet and off-tune lullabys

For vocals lost and voices found
For plush green grass and frozen ground

For all the things that caused me fear
And all the things that keep me here

For every sight yet to be seen,
We welcome the year 2018.

We spent so much time saying “I love you,”
That we forgot to fall in love.

They wring my neck like rubber, and it’s harmless,
They say, as I’m writhing on the ground,
Throat crushed,
Chest heaving,
Mouth a fountain dripping wine.

A testament to sins chosen by those
Never condemned
And though it isn’t fair,
There is a reason that they are not the ones
Dead on a cross

They would not die for our sins; no, they live for them.
And the wine we spill, from every artery, alcohol
Burning, turning
Our insides to rock,
They drink to have a good time.

To a God that isn’t there I pray while the others listen in,
And they whisper their pities,
But I have not asked them
and they cannot provide an answer to an question nonexistent
They can only wait, and watch

The day they find wine in pools on the dirt,
Perhaps they’ll find it in themselves to look up
And see that the face of that God,
The one to which I pray and to which they spit empty confessions,
Is not there,
Or perhaps just does not care

Perhaps they will fall to their knees as wine drips down their own chins,
Finally, finally they will understand what it means to bleed
Catching the wine in their hands as it run off my fingertips they cry,
Not because they wish for me to be whole again
But because they know I will linger.
A stain.
A testament to their unpardoned confessions,
Their plea for innocence where they deserve none.

Or perhaps,
They will take pleasure in knowing
That the nails they chose to drive into my hands finally cracked bone.

The girl with a dragon in her chest is always learning.
When she opens her mouth, snarls echo
Up her throat and rattle her teeth,
So she learns not to speak.

When she opens her heart the dragon burns the passerby, and you can only treat so much blistering flesh before your run out of gauze, so,
she learns not to share.

When she opens her mind the dragon laughs.
And she’s learned enough by now to know
how to fix it,
So she learns not to dream.

The girl with the dragon in her chest knows not her own strength,
Or maybe she does,
But she doesn’t want to remember it anymore.

I mean, breaking brittle bones is not pleasant for anyone, especially those who are constantly in casts, so,
She wraps her own wrists and waits, and
learns not to be strong.

Her breath comes in puffs of smoke, filling
The already dingy room with
A layer of dusky darkness,
So, she learns not to breathe.

The girl with the dragon in her chest has
no room for her lungs but
That’s fine, because she has a rib-cage
to hold the dragon and another cage to hold the flood.

The girl with the dragon in her chest is
boiling from the inside out, but,
She still takes hot showers and doesn’t
drink water because it’s hard to slay a dragon
When you’d have to cut yourself open to do it.

like sour-smelling spores
we throw ourselves to the breeze,
sea-spray wetting our faces with
hollow tears.

helpless to our leaden blood
we trudge forward,
and there’s no comfort in being
last in line.

and then,

like dominos we fall,
shaking hands pressed tightly
to the sallow skin of our chests,
lost for breath.

a quiet moment as the rocks meet us,
bone-shards and sea glass
painting the shoreline
with shimmer and red.

i can’t breathe, but though
blackness swallows the edges
of my vision,
i have a second left to see.

I see, a thousand feet up,

a thousand counting down.

When it started,
I felt the butterflies coming back.

But it was different this time.

No longer could I feel myself floating, instead
fear followed the fluttering.
My heart had grown thorns in defense to stop Last Time
from ever happening again, the butterflies
didn't even get a chance to fly
before their wings were clipped.

Corpses littered the floor. Decay followed.

That was the end, I thought.
I'll forever smell of rot,
It's what I deserve because I do not
want to have to romance an empty shell again.

Days went by, and the rot became compost.

I think it was when I heard You sing
that the first flower sprouted.
A drop of color in my mangled, gray meadow,
the sweet scent of pollen amidst the miasma.

More flowers grew, from the ashes of What Used To Be,
Away from the Last Time,
and towards the You and Me.

The old butterflies are gone, but it's fine,
because I found a new one.
Only one.
It flits around the First Flower.

I named it after You.

It’s quite a task, isn’t it?
To push away the memory of her hands
weaving through your hair, tracing the
line that lead to the nape of your neck,
to suppress a shiver at the distant whisper of
such (undeserved) tenderness.

Why couldn’t you just watch your step,
you wonder,
let sleeping dogs lie.
Nevermind that when you laid down beside her
you woke up with
fleas.

Flee.
No, because you were never strong enough.
What is it that you wanted, you wonder,
and what was it that you got?
Her eyes still stun you, despite the distance.
Was that feeling butterflies, or nausea?

Or was it...love?

What a word, “love.”
And if you loved her,
(my, doubt is such a fickle thing),
is it true that the only return you’d ever see
was her brand of
suffocating intimacy?

Oh, but you craved it, didn’t you?
You spoke your wish out loud
and half-hoped it wouldn’t come true.
You miss the way she held you,
but God,
it hurt so dearly sometimes.

Such desperate selfishness, you realize,
to tell her that you loved her.
Her touch still lingers,
tucked away deep under your skin,
and you can never decide:
reach for it, or push it away?

I wasn’t an ending,
and it wasn’t a goodbye.
Maybe that’s why you still see her smile
in every sunrise,
see her scowl
in every star.

You wonder if you could have kept her.
You wonder, then, if you would have.
You feel her hands in your hair
and her breath on your face,
lay there half-alone and half-asleep,
murmuring your questions to an empty room.

It’d be easier to live for the moment
If there were ever a moment worth living for.

You, long ago, sutured the holes in your heart
with twine you braided from you own hair, you
dried your eyes on the soft part of your wrist and promised
that saltwater and daydreams would be the only things
you’d touch it with.

Trying to iron the wrinkles out of your skin has never worked before
and it won’t work now,
you know that,
but you have a steamer in your hand and a breach in your stitches,
so maybe it won’t be that way this time.

Emptiness is the only way you know how to be.
Or, maybe,
you thought you’d finally closed the hole
only to find that it was a shoddy job at best
and an act of sabotage at worse.

You know who the saboteur is. Don’t you?

The lump in your throat goes supernova, stealing
your breath.
Why can’t it take everything else, too?
You used to say you never cried but now there’s an ocean in your eyes
and sea levels are rising,

You are a mish-mash of messed up, mixed up metaphors and
whipstitches that are losing their stick,
rip them off one by one and see what happens,
but don’t you dare act surprised
when you don’t find anything inside.

Can you even bleed anymore? Answer honestly.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.”
Einstein said that.
Well, you say he was wrong.

You know that’s not true. But you don’t know anything anymore, do you?

i never stopped waiting for the bell.
i thought i could drop the routine of waking up before sunrise
when turning 18 felt soul-changing
so i never stopped being afraid of the dark

it grew up into a fear of the unknown.
i never stopped waiting for the bell.
i leave a life behind me for the first time when I am 5.
10. 11. 13.

i wish i could remember what it felt like to be 15.
if i could scour my girlhood again i would leave a note where i left it, where
i never stopped waiting for the bell
i fell asleep with my head on a desk and woke up fully grown

with the life of a man and the face of a girl
whose sweaty hand I take, who makes me drag her through every hallway
with ringing protests, "You're ruining my life! I don't want to be here!"
i never stopped waiting for the bell.

she rushes, she doesn't know how to wait, how to listen.
every time she's told she knows nothing, a conscience too brittle for violence
shoves a fist behind her back. paper shreds litter her bedroom floor
and each slash of red ink is her only proof.

I never stopped waiting for the bell.