I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm.

Maybe one day we’ll wake up
And all these will be a prologue
Then the real story begins

Don’t write me poetry

It’s never worked before
Vanity, all of it, vanity
And I don’t want any
More-words, just-words, nothing-but words

I don’t care for
The structure
The way
It is so easy to steal
Phrases
lines
Automatic sigh-bringers
Used a thousand times
By history’s pen and
Those more worthy to hold it
than you

All you did
Was take the bag
Of scrabble tiles
Rattling and clacking together
And shake
Once
Twice
Thrice
Forced
Farce
Until you were satisfied with what it gave

And you threw away the rest

That’s not art
That’s strategy

It’s too neat
Neat like summer
Neat like children’s books
(not the good ones)
Formula following
Empty and hollow-ringing

Give me something real
Instead
Give me the ramblings, twisting
wanderings of your mind
give me the dark places
the secrets
the mysteries that lurk in the depths
like sea dragons
like the ocean itself
there is so much more
so much wilder and deeper

so
grab my hand and pull me in with you
don’t flatter me while dipping our toes
because why
why would we choose the ship
the safe little dingy
bleached wood, branded logo on the side
when underneath
lies atlantis
and
the depths

I try to give up poetry
Like it is some horrible habit
Instead I find it is addictive
As I try to pull away
It breathes it's literary nicotine
Down my throat
And it seeps into my heart

Yet when I read another's art
It makes the cycle repeat
As once again I feel shame
Truly it is an addiction
Just one that I can't stop
There is no rehab
For a poet's vice

My favorite brand of cigarette, passion

i keep your
Love
in my back  pack

it rattles around
                  slaps against
my math and communication textbooks
i take it out
   ; ; ;           when i see happy
                                                   couples on campus

and i spread it on my palms
like {lotion~~~
it leaves my hands
                         glittery
            and very soft.



I keep your
LOvE
          
in my pocket.
it jingles and jangles
against my keys and my hairbinders and an old bracelet that broke [[[i'll put it back together eventually.}

I like to
I like to stick
I like to stick my fingertips
in there.
and swirl your love
between my thumb and
,forefinger,

some
sometimes i pull it out
and i
smear it on my
eyelids

           so everyone will know why my eyes shine

As I stand here, outside my work building
stealing a smoke break
I wonder about God and the universe
and how much happier it makes me feel
to believe in other things

That the sun was a running man
chasing the stars in that endless black
run man
run fast
run free
but freedom only gets you
slipping and sliding in circular leaps
around our earth, almost like
a clumsy mouse in a stationary wheel
and these sneaky stars
always one step ahead at sunrise
or at his heels in sunset

My mom’s a Catholic woman
she won’t believe in the running man
her stars are not stars, no
her stars are rosaries in purses and
priest’s words
taught words
holy words
but holy words are also
human words, are they not?
It never made sense to me
that a person could live their whole life
repenting it

But then again,
my dad used to have me work in our yard,
picking the weeds outside
and he let me treasure them in a vase
he never called them weeds,
they were always
dandy-flowers
wishing flowers
wildflowers
but wild only gets you
believing in the sun and
keeping shrubs in vases
All of which suit me, because

In the lonely nights of endless black,
I have the company of my own stars
and when holy words of weeds fall back
I remember that—
wild humans are only wildflowers

Anything can
look like a poem
and sound philosophical
simply by moving
the words on
different lines.

Am I doing it right?
Is this
really
talent?
Art?
Effort?

I think I am trying.
Really, I am
I go back and change the order
and I break lines
where it sounds right
But it does not take me long.
Not at all.

I try to be
intentional
and call it natural rhythm.
Instinct and style taking over
I alternate between
agonizing every detail
like When to Capitalize
and publishing free form poems without looking over them twice.

How is writing supposed to feel?
Should I labor?
or should it flow?
Or do I get to decide?

I think the things I talk of
mean something
at least.

But am I just
pretentious?

fooling myself into thinking that
using common poetry formats
somehow makes my work worthwhile?

all my life
i've been preparing faces
to meet the faces that
i've met

friends
family
the man who delivers newspapers
at our doorstep each morning

i've laughed at their silly jokes
as they tossed their heads from side to side
in naive stupidity and their sheer ignorance
a pompous lot, the human race i tell you

i've acknowledged their staunch morals
and tried to make them my own
as they scorned at the girl in a skimpy dress
and chewed on mutton bones gluttonously

all my life, i've been trying hard
to blend in
with people who've shown me
that i don't belong with them

and tonight when i shed gallons of tears
i have only my bed and pillow to share
i've learnt that my sadness
is my very own