How do you communicate with
someone who is always going back on their words?
How am I still in love with someone
who only seems to tolerate me?

I dont demand respect a lot
I'm not the kind to hold my position above others for control
But I do demand human decency

I'm old
Now I know what you're thinking
You're twenty
You're young
But the truth is
My bones groan and pop with every movement and my eyes haven't shown in this daunting world for quite some time
We grow up sooner now
Which is strange to think
Because I'm not 14 and married with 2 children
But we grow up sooner
Because this world we live in is harsh
Its cruel and they stopped giving us rose colored glasses at birth
I've been here before
I'm old I say
And you laugh with lines on your face telling of age
I guess I will never make you understand

And I want to mark you as my territory like how girls mark theirs in Bobby pins on bathroom sinks

I know talking about the future scares you
I'm sorry
It's just that I never saw myself having a future
And now with you
I can see it
I can see us
And it gives me hope
So I see our future
And I want to tell you how excited I am
I know it scares you
I sorry

I used to believe in the tooth fairy more than Santa claus
It's funny how our childhood brains find fallacies in the impossible
But a tooth-crazed fairy?
Well that made perfect sense.

--It's weird to think about

I'm suffocating
My body is shaking
Panting even
Why cant I get any air
Should I go outside?
Outside of this body
This prison of mine
Trapping me with it's human needs and desires
I want outside so badly
I can almost see it
I can see the trees
I hope they come for me
Air will soon follow

I wait for the day I shoot vines from my fingertips
Long for the overgrowth to take my body back to the earth
I've taken so much from her
I'm sorry I love the feel of paper over a computer screen in my hands
The smell of ink and yellowing pages always gave me more comfort than any keyboard could.
But earth, darling, I promise you
When I return you can make me into the most beautiful foliage
Print a book on me.

Sharing my poetry with the world is terrifying
It's like I'm showing a part of myself that I'm still afraid to admit exsists
I dont know what it is about having others read my writing that is both thrilling and absolutely petrifying at the same time

Sometimes I smile so hard it makes my soul crack instead of my teeth
And the tears fall
And the dam that was that smile cannot hold back the true emotions anymore
And I wonder
If even when I was truly happy
If I was just faking it all.

When I write a love poem you're always in the back of my mind
But these poems aren't entirely about you
I often find myself writing from someone else's perspective
I'm trapped in someone else's mind and memories
I hope to meet her one day.

For as long as I can remember
I believed that I would die young
I'm still here
Age twenty
And I still wonder
If death will show it's face soon
I've tried to meet him many times
Clearly he's avoiding me for a reason then
If I am still here
I'm still here
Death,
I'm still here

Can we go back to a time when I didnt know you?
When I didnt have these feelings everytime I looked at you?
When I couldnt read you with a glance?
Back to when I didnt realize how important you would be?
I want to meet you again
I want to talk about the trivial things--like what your favorite color is or what you wanted to be when you grew up
I want to relearn your little habits and ticks
Relearn all the things that set you off
Like how you have to chew your food the same number of times on each side of your mouth
Or how you pick at your ******* on your left hand when you feel uncomfortable
I want to go back to when I met you
When I didnt know that you were the other half of my soul
When I didnt know how fragile and beautiful you are
When I didn't see that you had been broken so many times before
But you dont need to worry anymore
My mom worked with fine China so I will treat you like porcelain I swear.
Let's go back
Let's watch the stars again
And stay up talking for hours again
And rediscover each other
Let's fall in love for the first time again
I promise this time it will be easier
I promise this time I wont take you for granted
I promise this time I will treasure every moment
Let's go back, okay?

   --Time traveling?

It slipped out of my mouth before I could choke back the words
I love you
To me those words are forbidden
The meaning of which I never allowed myself to indulge in
I never found myself worthy of them until now
I love you
It felt so natural
They way my tongue lightly teased the roof of my mouth and finished off at my lips in an "o"
I never thought that those words could feel so light
I always imagined they'd pummel out of my mouth like a brick
Hitting the ground with such force the tenderness of the moment would be shattered like ciderblock
Yet these words weren't bricks
They didnt break like I always thought they would
They weren't accompanied by twangs of fear or anguish
I love you
Instead I found myself smiling.
A gentle tugging at the corner of my lips
Captive to my puppet master, the strings pulled them so high my teeth were showing
I was crying like I always imagined I'd be doing
But it was out of jubilation
Of relief
Of safety
In the comfort of knowing these words which held me back in fear of their power for so long were words of power not for their daunting significance but for their freeing ability
I never dreamed I could fly
Some dreams are so foolish no child would deem it possible
And saying I love you was a nightmare of mine
But hearing you say it back--
Knowing that no matter what you said that I didnt regret it--
God, how I felt like I could fly in that moment.
I have no fear of those words now
They give me comfort
I love you
Such power only eight letters hold.
I could finally allow someone to see my heart
I'm so glad it was you.

--I spent years beliveing I was unworthy

I dont claim to know a lot
Like I still dont understand what it means when people say to lift with your legs instead of your back
Believe me I've tried many times and it's always my back doing the lifting. My legs can take it too. My thunder thighs arent running from a challenge but somehow they can never manage to be the ones doing the lifting
So I'm a little lost on things like that
But one thing I am absolutely certain about is you.

--Headspace

It has been said tears excel as makeshift
facials
How understandably then my skin is raw

    --I haven’t cried this much in years

She loved me I knew, but that was difference
between us.
I was totally and completely in love with her.
I had fallen into an oblivion of skewed rationality in
her midst,
and she would never cease to catch my breath in
my throat,
or fill my lungs with her radiated serenity.
I fell deep into a pool of which she
would only see the lilies of the surface,
but it would never ripple for her.
And so, I had to let her go.
If there ever was a poisoned reason in this life,
it would be falling madly in love.
And I would rather breathe that poison
every second of every day of every year
just to see her floating in ecstasy with someone
else
than to be wading wrongly in love with me.
She would never love me as I her.
She would never lose balance in my kiss,
or become drunk off my scent like I did hers.
She would never stand in a hurricane
just for a chance to hear my voice calling in the wind,
And she would never fall into a tragic romance with me.
She loved me, I knew,
But that’s where the power of words come in.
She loved me, but I was in love with her.

    --An attempt to write romance:
       from my high school years

Growing up,
my mother always said
that life isn’t always fair.
I’ve come to realize
that this is only one of the
many lessons that I will take
away from my mother

    --But it should be

Walking in tap shoes on tile floors is an
excellent metaphor for life
if you’ve never attempted then you’re
unaware how thrilling and absolutely
freeing tap shoes can make you feel
suddenly your entire body is an instrument
the world is your audience
you don’t need rhythm
those who know nothing about the art
will still be enthralled by the sounds
coming from your feet
But when you walk on tiles you have to be careful
one wrong move
one miniscule shift in balance and you’ll be on the
floor accompanied by the lovely sound of metal
scarping polished tile akin to nails on a chalkboard.
On tiles you walk with care
Slipping so easily
But those sounds
The beautiful clicks as you walk
They radiate so much more power than
stilettoes on a quiet church floor.
Next time it rains listen to the drops dancing on the roof.
They perform for you.

    --They still sit in my closet

I had to take a CPR class last september.
and my instructor told us we learn this
to save lives because everyone has a reason
for living
going around the table he asked us why
we were alive
family
friends
people that anchor us to the world
all the answers you would expect
for someone who was asked why they were still
alive
but when he asked me I told him I didn't have reason
how was I supposed to say that mine is spite?

When you died I did not tell anybody
I carried on my life as though you were never in it
I did not cry for you
With no visitation your funeral was short,
but I still didn’t find the need to have
anyone there but me.
You were not buried
That didn’t seem to suit your personality,
A swimmer, free, should never be held
down by the harrowing weight of dirt.
A cremation seemed unsuitable too. You
were so frail in death no ash would be left
behind.
I flushed you in my porcelain bowl
One last final swim

    --Sir Cinderbrick Linroy the Third

When I find a word I do not know the
Meaning of
I run it over the ever-changing terrain of
my mouth
repeat it with its jagged motions and soft
slopes until it becomes meaningless and
familiar on its roller costar ride of my
tongue
The supervisor releases its safety bar at
my teeth and the word slowly makes his
way out of the vehicle with wobbling legs
over my lips
I hum in pleasure
A new word is a new mystery
A dessert waiting for its purpose of sweet
indulgence to be discovered beneath that
picture perfect guise
My mouth is a fork scooping it up into my
vocal chords making itself known to my
body in a burst of flavor I have never
known before.
And I am in awe of how the linguist like
chefs craft such masterpieces.
When I find a new word I grab a can of
spray paint and graffiti the closest brick
wall in my mind with its shape.
How incredible it is to bring such beauty
to a blank canvas
I learned cursive in the third grade
And I am thankful that these human
hands have the ability to scribe new
vocabulary in more form than one.
To see its beauty in a different font.

    --I failed out of college as an English Major

I do not have a green thumb
I guess my color-blind eyes which have a
natural disagreement with blue and yellow
could never handle the mixture of the two.
Still, I try to be the green I cannot see
Home depot thought I was interesting
seven cacti bought on impulse
with the small hope I would be able to
keep them alive in a cat infested house
with my soul a lover of dark rooms
I once read that plants died even with
immaculate care because the curses
others were placing on you were being
absorbed by the living plant instead.
So to those who curse me, please stop.
I impulsively bought seven cacti and I can’t
go back to home depot three weeks from now
hanging my head in shame.

     --Envy, greed, wrath, sloth, pride, gluttony, lust

My greatest trick will be a disappearing
act where I do not disappear but appear
to be.
I will stand on hollow ground as you
The audience
Watches with lackluster eyes
No applause
No awe
No response
You continue life as though mine did not exist
Never existed
I will stand before you
Shouting
Screaming
Isn’t my trick amazing?
I stand right before you but you cannot see
I will reach out trying to reverse my trick
But I never learned how to turn myself back
That part will never interested me until now
So I will stay in this standstill
And you, my audience, will continue to
Marvel

    --When I was younger I wanted to be a magician

If I could redo my life
I would change more than I probably would be able to
I would pursue the arts
As my heart has always felt at home on the stage
I would listen to everyone who told me I was worth more
I would take more time for myself
I would stop trying to please everyone
I would read more books
I would go on more night walks
I would keep in touch with more people
I would be kinder and softer and more understanding
But most of all
I wouldn’t be me

  --Experience and Regret make a person

I have always had a fondness for
Tattoos
My mother always hated them
I never understood how my mother,
A lover and pursuer of the arts,
Could dislike them
How such beauty
Could be wrong

If in fifty years I regret my tattoos
I will at least never regret my life
I will never regret wondering what it could
have been like not to worry about how I
was perceived by others
I will never regret focusing my image on my peers
I will love my tattoos in their wholeness
I will love them because they made me free

  --There’s something powerful about reclaiming your body

My tap shoes spoke words louder and
with more confidence than my voice ever
could

  --They still do.

I left my soul in ink on paper and I’ve
been writing ever since trying to get it back
When it left me I became hollow
I only feel complete when I’m burning
my mind in black
In words
In feelings
In worlds beyond imagination
But when that book ends,
When that final word leaves my finger tips
When the ink runs out
I lose my soul all over again
I left it in ink on paper
and I’ve been trying ever since to get it back

  --Is that why writers are always lonely?

Like some terrifying ****
Stealing my voice
Gluing me in place
Driving a knife in my chest
I know the words she spat like a book
I had read a hundred times over,
Yet it always seems like the words
rolling off her tongue are fresh ink on the page.
Oh how I wish I could stop them

    --When I look in the mirror

I’ve had strings on my
wrists and ankles from
the moment I stepped
foot on this stage
    true they are not
metal chains but they
    hold me the same way
    
    --I belong somewhere unattainable

Contrary to most Catholics my mother
believes in reincarnation
I clearly was a fish
bigger in my mind
longing for the ocean but trapped in the
needs of freshwater
But unlike my mind
my soul longs for puddles
I was a fish in a past life and I’m still
trying to get used to the idea that I am
now on land.

    --Is this homesickness?

My favorite bruise belongs to you
A galaxy on my neck
The colors change like northern lights
And while I act differently I do not want
them to fade
I would tattoo my colors
Colors show the world I am taken
Colors show I am willing to give a part of
myself to something bigger
Colors make the world brighter
Northern lights turn even the darkest night
bright
My galaxy will fade
The small colonies created from broken
blood vessels will surely die out like a
plague
Black they called the last
How ironic the darkest color is always the
first to go

   --An ode to hickeys

I used to love apologies
When you’d admit your wrongness in lew of
my rightness my pride did somersaults
with my ego
I would spend hours admiring their
acrobats and my posture would reflect
their newly practiced muscles with ease
Your apologies were music to my ears
until the bow broke the string
Now the music isn’t right
The gentle hum of my ego doesn’t find
comfort in your shame anymore
I now beg you to stop the music
It has become a terrible scream
A high pitched ringing no one else can
hear but I swear it’s there and I’m not just
crazy or lacking potassium
I want to grab a needle and thread and
sew your mouth shut before you can ever
apologize again
You cannot control the weather
Don’t apologize when I say that I’m cold
You cannot control my sleeping habits
So don’t apologize when you hear how I
couldn’t sleep last night because I
was craving something but didn’t know what
it was and I couldn’t go to bed without it
Don’t apologies to me
When you say you’re sad please don’t
apologize
We are all sad sometimes
There is no shame in realizing our
happiness is only skin deep sometimes
When you say you don’t understand the
joke I just made please don’t apologize
I promise I will explain it to you differently
even if it loses its humor that way
I know you can’t control how your brain
deciphers the meaning of words
When you read my expressions wrong
please don’t apologize
It was my fault for not seeing your
hesitation and confusion and failing to
comfort your headspace with promises
that I’m not mad or upset
I promise it’s just my face and you
heard me the wrong way
That’s okay
I hear things wrong sometimes too
But please don’t apologize for being you.

          ---Autism is funny that way

I don’t know what it was about you that
made my soul easy
I trusted you with the deepest pools of me
I did not know myself.
Underwater cave exploring is a dangerous
profession,
And I am so lucky that you feel bold enough
Crazy enough
Trust in me enough to do so.
It’s not easy to show others these parts
of me
To know me is to spend years on a puzzle
only to have that dreaded last piece go
missing.
Only my solution isn’t as beautiful as
slowly building art
And it’s much more time consuming.

    --Letting people close