i don't know what to do about this bright-eyed boy
with perfect teeth and banter,
i just know he swore to me he wouldn't be another echo of my past lovers and
promises don't mean much to anyone anymore.

Life has hit me mercilessly
shotgun blasts to my soul
tearing out pieces of it
leaving holes that need filling
with little or no hope I push on
still reeling and out of control
I continue to smoke and drink
and think to myself that maybe
there will be an answer
in something I've wrote
therefore I write and write
in spite of my lack of ambition
just in case I find
the truth that I've been missing

In eighth period no students rest
their heads on their desks today.
They are afraid that the moment
they look away, they will turn back
to find they’re not people anymore.

As for us, we had a voice at least.
We had a dream of being
the teachers with the same last name,
the English teacher with the periodic
table on the wall, and her wife
who teaches monomers
like they were grass’s leaves.
Is that a complexity you can understand?

You can repeal our hope
of exchanging rings—
our feathered thing—
but we will still converge
on the ninth graders of your nation
to be sure your face has not tinted
them with your fear. There will be
no redshift here, only a drift
of progress. There we’ll be,
stationed in the inspiration
of youth to undo
your unfathomable bigotry.

Those who can’t, teach.

everything is bathed in white
less pure than summer,
muddier, grey but piercing.
the drab and dragging cold
reaches through to touch bone
and turns everything to slush.
for once in a long while,
everyone is as muted as I.