“They say people want to be like who they admire, become the people who've touched their hearts. People also say a lot of things about teenagers. Especially those that write. They’re naive. They’re blind to cruel reality. They’re all dreams and no backbone. You wanna know why? They read. The books they read reach into them and draw pretty pictures on the walls of their hearts. Suddenly every other kid is chasing after these larger-than-life dreams of worlds to be built and stories to be told, naive, blind, dreaming, stupid kids reaching for the stars even though those pinpricks of light are older and farther than you could comprehend.

“What those books never show you is all the wannabes, washed up and jaded. ‘You were so close but so far.’ But all these almosts is all I see, and now I'm afraid to even dream of the stars. It's not like I’ll ever see them, right? The sky is smothered by all the hands reaching toward it.

“I’m afraid to dream, [omitted]."

“Don't be. Won’t do you any good.”

snort. “If only it was so easy.”

false tundra of clouds
up close, the moon hurts my eyes
wing cuts through this scene
with the false ground and false sun,
the horizon blurs, confused.

When they get to the aquarium, the  kid asks if they have a Great White shark exhibit.


The volunteer says no, we don’t.


The kid asks, “Why? are you afraid he might try to eat people?”


The volunteer chuckles at this and tells him no. no aquarium has successfully held a Great White shark live for more than a few days.


You see, in order to stay alive, Great Whites and other sharks, like hammerheads, swim on their own continuously through the ocean, never stopping, never slowing, tramping a perpetual journey with many miles to go before they finally reach “sleep”. If they stop, the oxygen rich water around them no longer flows over their gills and into their bodies and they suffocate from the strain of being at rest. So they keep going, like lost children searching for their parents in a very large amusement park.


This need to keep moving, this need for space, has made it extremely difficult to keep them in our meager glass human death cages. When the Monterey bay aquarium managed to capture a juvenile that didn’t thrash itself to death like the adult sharks they netted before, it bashed its head against the tank’s sturdy walls until the shock of being dragged out of its home and put in the equivalent of a coffin killed it.


But, the volunteer continued cheerfully, we have other kinds of sharks here. We have zebra sharks, which don’t need to swim nonstop. In their natural habitat, they just lie on the ocean floor all day. The kid agrees to go see them


The zebra sharks are not lying on the floor nor do they look like zebras. They swim slowly  past him, leopard spots dotting their ridges on their backs, their fins, their long tails. “They’re called zebra sharks because of the zebra like patterns of the juveniles,” the volunteer explains. The ones we have here are adults.When they become adults, they get the spots and those ridges you see. Sometimes people mistake them for leopard sharks, which are a totally different species.”
The kid stares at the zebra sharks for a full ten minutes, looking for a sign of resignation at being called something they weren’t anymore, at collectively being referred to by a childhood nickname they had long outgrown. They did not seem to care.


He gets bored and goes to other exhibits, the split fin flashlight fish blinking on and off in their darkened tank, the touch pool, the medusa jellyfish with their trailing tentacles. But the sharks are what he remembers when he leaves, and they’re what he remember when he returns three months later, six months later, two years later, three, five, ten, this is what stays with him, the sharks in our tanks and the sharks in the ocean.

My brain is like an empty glass bottle
Once it burst with ideas,spilling over the edge and
becoming poems.
Now my mind is dry
Hit it hard enough,
It may shatter
Now all I can do is cry--
--scream,really--
and wait for my angst at my
writer's block
to fill the bottle again.

Men might someday break
the boundaries barring us
in our bubble of
Oblivion,but we might
go and shatter ourselves too.

people always talk too much
and I try to sleep anyway
but silence is hard to come by
and you must silence
everything
with a knife.

(purebred aggressiveness
is preferable to casual ******)

even when solace arrives
in the morning,
as punctual as the mail,
your bloodstained hands
have still come away empty
and you still want to be held.
(too bad you don't let nobody
touch you, too bad they get the idea
after the riposte to the heart)
Of course they have survived it;
we lived in a civilized day and age,
after all,but they will still
steal furtive glances at you,
like they're waiting for something to
drain away the remaining time
until you next explode.
it's a fair price to pay
for the skill to breathe words
like mere ambient gases,
for free thought
and a good pen.
at least , I fell for it.
I was never good at bartering,
and what more could I ask
than to wield words?



and so the cycle continues!
life,death,ashes to egg,egg to
firebird,
firebird to ashes.
people will continue to
misjudge where they've stabbed you
and you will continue to
obediently burn all letters
and end up
listening
to Thom Yorke sing about
cheap *** and sad films.

i.
a girl in a dress the color and texture of storm clouds and cigarette smoke, which whips around her ankles in the wind. black hair in her face, you watch her twirl. her feet bleed on the dry cracked earth.

ii.
days pass and she's still not home. no one worries. no one cares. she'll be fine.

iii.
once, in spring, on a weekend, she dragged you to the beach and you waded waist deep into the cold Pacific. she dares you to go farther and her reckless ravenous joy makes you grin.

iv.
she will never love you back. you understand and stand back. she is storm clouds and cigarette smoke, and you are meatspace and books.

v.
'you read too much,' she tells you. 'and always fiction. that's why your head's in the clouds all the time. what's wrong with this world?'

vi.
'i don't think she's coming back this time.'

he lifts a cig to his lips. 'that's what i tell myself every time.'

vii.
she can't love you back. she can't afford to.

'tch. what a melodramatic explanation. plenty of people disappear.'

viii.
you always meet her in that field.
the cracked earth and solid toned sky a background to your memories of her. they're a part of her, in your mind. you go there to think. the field is part of you, too, now. it feels empty. you feel empty.

ix.
'the thing i don't like about this world is that she will never return to me, or love me.'

x.
she's in the field on a spring sunday and it feels like worlds are colliding when you see her face. you go to the beach and you wade out hand in hand.

Words gone unsaid, hanging in the air like overripe fruit waiting to fall; a sickly sweet guillotine made of things past their prime, cutting through the awkward silence. Pen and sword are equally sharp, being two sides of one coin. Crying disguised as fatigue tears melt into the crowd of rain and sweat; blend in don't smile don't laugh. clouds hide skyfuls of hurt I hide my face in my hands I hide my smile, tuck it away to be used later. happiness preserved for special occasions sadness used only in private. changing faces like changing clothes has become second nature, but I cannot hide from my emotions .

a child with a heart as red and raw and open as a wounded hand, goes the story, but this is not a story and this is a wound that won't heal. I stem the flow of ******, red hot emotion and hope for the best. It's claustrophilia, not agoraphobia; look under the table and you will see my private pains, my jealousy pressed between the pages of this book, emotion folded up small and placed in a niche no one can reach. I was meant for moonlight, the low road, "a heartbeat in a volley of heartbeats", so to speak. I used to think solace and solitude meant the same thing and they do. To me.

Your icy glaze
Freezes everything
I snap my jacket collar up
against the cold,but
no use;
your cold beauty
freezes me in my tracks
a thin layer
Of frost
makes everything glitter
with malice
And a hint of
quiet suffering.

ah, the anonymity of virtualization. a place where words are broken into bits and therefore harder to trip on. if only I was so eloquent in meatspace. some have achieved a subtleslick lethal elegant, a fluid flowing smooth-like-butter love affair with words. writing, like seduction, takes practice and street smarts to master. my relationship with words is fragile-soft shy. young love, cautious and sweet. a virginal coyness; the words maddeningly slip through my fingers like dreamsand. I chase after the right words through hyperbolic forests, slay dragons, kiss her (what else would Language be?) soft and hard, love her wrong and love her right. but girls leave you, always, starstruck and drunk with love or infatuation or lust or all three. Even language. even language.

what's inside?
a fish? a duck? a bird of paradise? candy? lizards?
or something more exotic -
a dragon?
a platypus?
a firebird?
pterodactyl? sea serpent? roc?
maybe a village, or a girl, or a death, or all three?
eggs are wild cards. fate puts a baby [_] inside, and it claws its way out when gets impatient of sitting pretty. we are all basically eggs waiting to assume a shape and shake off a shell of past dreams and childhood nicknames.
yes they're delicate. so they can break apart when needed. so they can enclose themselves gently around a realm of potential, but it is a maze, not a prison. escape is the ultimate end. birth is the ultimate end.

most try not to come too close
daring only to stand in front of the
barbedWire fence
those familiar with the minefields
know to tread lightly,
know where to step
creeping between along an unseen path
the mines sense the slightest touch
and explode
unpredictably
the shrapnel stings all but
the largest of hearts
and the
most minuscule
Of egos

i wish i could cease
to exist
i wish i could disable mines but

I'm only a stupid artist.

We try to force out the right words,  past our tongues and out our mouths but they get caught in our throats and we never say anything, silently choking.
Other people always leave you behind and hit you too hard.
I am Salieri to
the cosmos' Mozart.
I guess by now it does not
matter
what I say. You've
probably stopped reading by now.
I don't mind if you have.
I mind why though.
Anyway since you're not here
I'll say whatever. Bubble. Lasers.
Viruses aren't alive, but they ain't dead.
I pretend to be a shark sometimes.
I'm a thief. Don't **** me.

I don't want to be alone

when the sun surrendered
to the moon's seductive words of sleep
into my mind did
I delve deep--
I visited my memories
Piled carelessly on shelves
An endless library of my emotions,actions and reactions
which with every new day evolved
"Tell me,"I ask,"what is happiness again?for I've forgotten
what it's like to be free
Of gloom,to be unburdened."
"You still know joy,"my memories whispered,"we know you remember.
"We see what you see,hear what you hear,and make it somewhat sadder or sweeter."
"It's almost left my life,"I retort.
"I am idle with indifference,
I can't feel pain nor joy;why chance
pain by living your life at all
when you cannot feel other emotions?Why not just die?
Why bother?"
"Because there is always a way out,"
my memories reply."There's a door,
a ladder,a vent,a reaching hand.You
may be imprisoned,but there's more
to a prison than hopelessness and locks.all locks have keys,now you
must find yours;before you lose your way;there's no going back if you do."

with that in mind,I went home and dreamed of leaving;leaving the confines of the system,leaving my
sorrows behind me.

everyone around me shines brighter
bigger,more ambitious than me
their dreams are infinite;
they form a giant
shimmering
cloud of hope
our fallen brethren say,
"It's too far away!
You'll never reach your destiny
before you burn out."
still they disregard all the warnings,
their unfiltered confidence blinding
photons racing through time,
straining upward toward someplace better,brighter
reaching toward a dream too high
burning bright until nothing's left
burnt up in the atmosphere
of someplace better than here
wanting a ground beneath their feet
wanting some love to hold them up
wanting somewhere to belong
long after everything burns to ashes
and everyone heads home
I'll still be trapped in this vortex of
depression
waiting for a loophole out.

The spectrum of colors
carpet the garden
Flowers can mean anything to us
Flowers can be
Hope
Love
Mourning
Joy
Peace
Rebellion
Family.
But in the end,flowers are only flowers
Innocent and oblivious to
human whims
They grow for the sake of the flowers,
and only the flowers.
We coax them and tame them and pick them and give them meaning
but they don't understand us.
How would they?
We do not speak the tongue of the flowers
And if we did,would they have words for human emotion?
They wouldn't care
Anyway
They don't need to understand us
We would still make flowers our symbols
And they would look on
As if we were beneath them.

don't cry,darling
say what you need to say
it's okay
if you hurt them back
I'll hold you up
when the world's overwhelming you
you don't need to know how
to deal with this
because I'll teach you
to fly away
from your troubles
you'll grow silver wings
like mine
and
we'll glide
                away
                          together.

I'll protect you from all harm
and grant your vengeful wishes
because I was once like you,
alone in the world
wanting to
strike back,
wanting to fly away.

Everyone needs a guardian,
for the world is
a cruel place.

why did you disappear
I still need you
by my side
the monsters creep closer
and I can't fight them any longer
I'm fading away
As I'm losing my grip
on reality.

where has my angel gone?
back up to heaven,
recalled by God from
his mission so he can attend
to more important matters?
maybe I was dreaming all
the while
and you weren't ever real,
just a wisp of smoke
blown away by the wind.
the wind,the cruel wind of reality
who blew my empty glass heart away
and cracked it
I'll become strong enough
to hide my heart
far from cruel Reality
so it doesn't shatter like
the sheer window pane
separating Innocence
from Darkness.

come back soon!
for
my innocence wanes amidst the
sadness
and I don't want to lose you,too.

The facade of happiness crashes down again like everything else ever built on lies.I fall down another metaphorical hole today,just like yesterday,just like that last time Fate ******* me over.if only depression was an equation I knew how to solve without a shrink and a calculator.suffient satisfaction for the lithe,hungry beast within me is as scarce as absolute trust.but this flood of 'if only's will drown my sanity(or whatever this mindset is) out.

late nights of Radiohead,bad capitalization,and venting have taken their toll.prose and verse trickle out of me a little smoother when in darkness,anyway.writing is so much like bleeding it scares me.nonetheless,I told myself I'd keep writing in third grade and I haven't stopped since.all humans bleed,it's natural.the most ******-up part,though, is our wanting to leave stains so not every trace of our existences are lost to the void.

did you know
that
the space between
a hedge and a wall
is just enough
space
for someone to hide?
when playing
hide 'n seek
I don't think
it's fair to have
two seekers on bikes
after one
barefoot
hider
but then again,
what can you
expect
from someone who
ignores their
"friends"?

sun in your eyes
tilt your face to
the sun,keep the nose
up!flick your wrist and
release it gently,watch
it soar on fragile
white paper wings
Little Paper Icarus
giddy with freedom
from the labyrinth
of broken friendships
Free from the walls
of rejection
but little paper
                               Icarus’s fragile wings fall away and with him  my heart drowns in a sea of sadness and regret

everything is arbitrary. we novelists survive on chance encounters and sad books. I move like a stray cat between library bookshelves and keep my head down. no I am not a poet by choice. no I don't like being one. I don't like bleeding. it hurts and so does writing sometimes. sometimes writing hurts less than usual. fate is still pale and thin and twisty, like the tentative whorls of a mushroom's root system. I'm still like a stray cat, nosing around libraries and parks. I'm still hungry. this book still doesn't make sense. I don't feel like I learned much. mostly I feel tired, like the tiredness is pulling down into the pillow. maybe I should sleep. maybe I shouldn't.

You set out without a clear intention. You jot down vague sketches,
plans for prototypes.
Each iteration is
a little better
than the last.
It grows. It develops
into something familiar, yet
completely different.
Something new.
The gears fit better together.
You make it smaller and more compact.
Each prototype gleams with pride.
look.
it says.
I am special, I am beautiful, I am
a marvel of engineering and metaphors.
Look.
It is ready. You let it out, watching as
your machine, your invention
revs its engine and zooms off
into the night. It will plant itself
into people's minds and make them
Think, make their
gears fit better, make
them familiar but
completely new.
it is a poem. a machine called a poem.

For once this isn't about you.
For once I can breathe freely.
For once the ocean doesn't remind me of hunger and blood and daring, and therefore of you.
For once you're not stuck in my head like a sad love song, a bubble of bittersweet that resurfaces holding a reflection of your face.
For once it doesn't hurt when I find your hoodie, still under my bed, still stained with ketchup.
For once I have the courage to put it away, to touch it, to touch the sore spot where you were once attached to me.
For once missing you isn't an urge to run to you, it's just wanting to stay and watch you go.

if no one's going to respect who I am and that I'm actually trying I might as well just **** myself and erase every trace of my existence because if I'm that unimportant and you don't need me then I guess I don't need to be here but I can't go anywhere else so I'll just die
maybe I'll just delete and burn everything I ever created because it's all crap good for nothing crap and no one wants me
don't feed me a ton of pretty lies about how I'm necessary and wanted and all that **** because I've heard all that crap before
other people always ***** me over and I want to SCREAM
mark my words because no matter how lonely you are,company always makes it worse.

of worlds, distorted and tinted with lies and memories by perspective .  the layers alternate between true and false, but no one knows which is which.  all they know is that each is stranger than the last.

(what if all of them are false?)

(what if all of them are true?)

(what each layer is neither, but a muddle of self and circumstances and fog?)

each layer is a labyrinth of time that tunnels in and out of itself like a knot.  people wander through blind and dazed, carving years of verse and murals into the walls in layers, layers and layers of words and swirling scribbled sketches. that's all we are and all we leave - graffiti.  everyone dies in the labyrinth. no exit exists, just another labyrinth with new graffiti. there's no getting lost, at least, when the path you choose is your path and therefore right.

The world will tattoo your secrets
Onto the palms of your hands
To teach you
To sleep with fists closed
And to never show anyone
What you hold in your hands
It is to teach you
Sleight of hand
It is to teach you
How to hide in plain sight.

The world will carve your regrets
Onto the inside of your eyelids
So every time
You close your eyes,
Everything you need
To just forget is
Burning bright and fierce in your face.
It is to teach you
To keep your eyes open
It is to teach you
How to never even blink.

The world will stamp your mistakes
Onto your tongue
To teach you
To keep your mouth shut
And to always think before you speak
It is to teach you
The power of words
It is to teach you
How to choose your words carefully.

The world will write your weaknesses
On the walls of your heart
So every time
You let someone
Steal it and break it,
Your flaws all spill out
On the ground for everyone to see.
It is to teach you
To be coldhearted and cautious
It is to teach you
How to keep your heart safe.

The world will graft wings
Onto your ankles
To teach you
When to run away
And when to stand your ground.
It is to teach you
speed;
It is to teach you
How to escape.

The world will brand road maps
Onto the soles of your feet
So every time
You’re looking for
A way out (or in),
your feet already know the way there.
It is to teach you
direction
It is to teach you
How to navigate the world.

By the time
the world is done with you,
It will have left its marks.
Wear these marks
Not with shame,
But pride,
As I have failed to do.

The world is a string of bubbles. Each bubble is a smaller world and within each one is another world until all you have is a tiny spherical sheer shiny egg-bubble holding a person, separate yet connected to the rest of the world. Mostly separate. When a bubble pops another bubble already has encased its contents. When you look through the layers of filmy greasy dream-colored skin of bubble within bubble within bubble within bubble within bubble, reality gets blurred, filtered, distorted by perspective. This is why you can't see my pained grimace when you laugh forcedly and loudly, why I can't see why you're so cold at times. This is why isolation is inescapable.

sometimes I still wonder how the light gets into my eyes/bouncing off invisible particles in a soundless rush/the photons dance on my eyelids and blur through the stupid tears that come when you look at something that's too bright and wonderful/like the sun/like happily glowing streetlamps/and your eyes tear up because there are too many photons that traversed lightyears of space just to fall softly on your face and in your eyes/when you don't deserve it/and it is too much to comprehend the many photons of light and the distance between their home and your retinas/so the tears leak out/

I think it is better to be happy and learn as you go/to evolve and die progressively/to be foolish and hungry and wondering/so there is room for the simple pleasure of finally getting it right/and eventually we will all die/leaving a trail of emotions and insignificant traces of a life almost well lived/but we still lust for more/even when we have enough/so live fully/live like the movies did/live as fleeting as happiness and as unpredictable as weather/because that's all the life we imperfect beings will get/as long as we are infinite in each other's eyes/we will be immortal/or something very much like it/like light/fall softly upon the earth/like light/linger on the fringes of life

laughter: a mask
and a medicine for his pain. they pay him no mind.
to them ,
he is barely a person, a tool. his
flesh melts into metal, his arms levers, his face flat and featureless.
he mocks his fears and flaws,
his pain,
secretly hoping that
will make them
a mere joke,
a fantasy.
it fails, it always fails, but the smiley faces stenciled on his exoskeleton
of reassurance of his state of mind
are still there.
so he clatters on, joking, grinning,
his laughter his mask and his medicine.

I read this poem once that said
if you run fast enough
you can leave your loneliness behind
Yet sometimes trundling along
some winding country road,where the
power lines split the night sky into sections and the fog
blurs and obscures all the other cars
so just the headlights cut through the dark,you suddenly find your loneliness sitting next to you in the car.)especially if you have sad music on.Loneliness finds you in the oddest places,doesn't it?at parties,when you sit against the wall and break away from the hubbub of people.in a car with your family.public places,just walking around watching people.)But sometimes I find trees are better than people.sometimes books make good companions.sometimes the loneliest places are the most beautiful.I don't know;that's how I feel sometimes.I don't know about you. I don't even know your name.(but--and I know this sounds cheesy--maybe we can be lonely together,and suddenly realize the other is lonely,too,and wonder where the other person is in this strange lonely world.

somewhere within myself I am/there is a little girl crying,
love me
love me
into the dark.
I keep moving and
don't look back,
don't look down
and try to grow stronger
so my self cannot be pierced
and hurt the little girl I am/inside.
skin colored armor becomes thicker,
until I am the armor itself,
folding in on myself into a package
of impenetrability.
I am full of holes,
full of contradictions, though,
and I cry myself to sleep, crying
love me
love me
into the dark.
it is the quiet kind of crying
that tries not to bother you
don't mind me
it mumbles
don't mind me
the words claw out of
my skin-colored armor
and are too tired to be loud when they emerge

when this happens
I hide under my blankets
so the words are birthed out of my voice into the warmth and the dark, like a child should come into the world. in the dark it is easier for me to pretend everything is okay. it is easier to fall asleep/in love in the dark.
the only times I am not afraid of the dark are when
I am too sad and tired to
be afraid of what might be there.
when I am no longer afraid, it means I finally embrace what waits in the shadows . it means I give up. it means
I surrender to my weakness.
it means I'm tired of being armor, being protector, and want to be protected,
to be
loved.

If life was an equation
maybe I'd know someone smart enough
who could explain it
to me
But maybe
life's a physics concept
only geniuses even know about
and even our brightest minds
only vaguely understand it
Maybe life is
actually a massive machine
that runs on the fuel of passion
generated by endlessly
running people
on hamster wheels
Maybe life
is an elaborate lie
created by
shadowy figures behind
the scenes,
intangible shadows
never seen,
never heard,
never touched.
I could sit here
all day
and think of reasons why
life makes no sense to me
but it won't make me
one
       iota
closer to understanding
life.

my brain wants to do something and
my body tries to comply and i
***** up time after time and
sometimes
                  it's
                        all my fault
      
but sometimes
                           the colossal mess
Belongs to someone else

and
as long as it's not
in my territory i'll tolerate other's
sloppiness
but if they ***** up my business
why then
if they stand close enough that i can see them,i would rip them open
without a thought
because they should have done it a
Little ******* better
so they don't ***** with people's
Stuff.

Yes,I'm talking to you.You smart ***.

either I'm sick or someone else is cuz I feel like something deep inside is collapsing like an umbrella in a storm, or maybe I'm just a romantic

this song feels like rain and nostalgia, which despite what the local papers
have told you, fits its name like a glove

what is sanity anyway

I should go to sleep and let the twisted narrative of this world writhe and wind around below,on its own, like the root network of some insane mushroom

one
girl biking
                home
Past the track,scratched in the dirt
the lanes for races
Three
         Two
                                           One.

number one in the race,
and one going home
                                /alone.

in fencing class,only one victory
on bad days

Bad days meant
that
she became
that one girl at school,under the desk
growling and snapping
then she was
that one girl outside the
counselor's door
waiting silently to see
the one who would listen to her but only because she was paid to
                        
but
good listeners are good listeners
--and the one who listened listened
until
that one awkward silence when there's
nothing left to say

and that one girl was happy to be lonely for the first time

(she missed one period)

one click from her bike
as gears shift
pedaling on,
she carries herself away out of sight
to the one place
she's alone, but not lonely

pedaling
away from that girl under the desk,
growling and snapping
away from that girl outside the door
away from the one who listened
pedaling towards
home

Above,the damp grey clouds hang
from the sky
weaving into a
mesh of secrets
guarding the moonlight
from dark tarnished humanity,
/below where the trillions of oblivious stars are one/
down on earth,
we humans are shattered
into minuscule pieces
and the stars would weep to see us shattered(like this)
and that one girl biking home
is only one piece
in millions of pieces
of
one.

infection
infection
infection
infection
infection spreads among innocents
even faster than ever
The world goes inside out
falling apart in a great collapse
of our childish dreams
Hope acts as Novacain
for all the jaded
but no matter what,the feelings
have faded
We
****** the masses
then raise them
again
again
again
we fall all over again.

crying in bathrooms
I slam the panic button
but they disconnected the wires
Or did they disconnect me?
I pray for others' sins at night--
why pray for mine?

not like they'll be forgiven now.

Kairos has passed;
it's too late to fix it
or even dream of the future
(we could've had)

So I guess I'll remember you instead.

we're all puppets
strangling in strings:
many puppeteers pull
at the strings
tugging us toward
Different destinations
the puppeteers choose us puppets--
or do us puppets choose them?

      and they

use us in their shows,their
Meticulously
planned out games
of desire,
needs and wants
victory and
defeat.

                sometimes!

    some mysterious string
drags us away kicking and screaming
or maybe
we follow that string curiously

and our other strings break,
leaving the puppeteers with the
bitter taste of disappointment

and that other strings leads to the
                                                 painful
               Truth

we refuse
to face;
the Truth
we chose
to avoid
at the price
of freedom.

Some say the color of emptiness is
white,like untouched snow
like a
blank canvas.

Some say the color of emptiness is
black,like the vacuum of space
like a
black hole.

I say the color of emptiness is
red,like one’s eyes after crying
like the
blood on the ground.

Red is the only color
bold enough
to say it:

Your spirit is gone
Your soul is gone
Your sanity is gone
Remember them
Remember me.

If only I could find the right words
for this pain,dull and throbbing
If only
I could find the words to say
What I mean to tell you;
I leave the unbroken silence to
hang in the air
like fog,
thick,
Suffocating.

Maybe if I could
pinpoint
the origin of all
this *******
the shaky hands and
bouts of angst
But the message field
is as blank as my face,
still.

the stars come crashing down
for them,why not for me?

Why can't tell you I miss you in a one paragraph email,not four?
Why can't I tell my mother
I feel like ****?

Why can't I find
the words
                "I'm sorry"

Within my soul?

6/8 timing
Breathe in,breathe out
don't make eye contact
Golden squares of precious sunlight
fall staggered on the table in the morning
don't cry at beautiful things
pianissimo,false cadence
a major chord unfolds like a bird's wings
close your eyes and lift your head
to the sky
keep a low profile and
let your deeds speak for themselves
the countermelody fades in and out
sneaking out the
back door before they realize
it came in
swallow the fury scalding your tongue
and keep it down,
and try to keep your face straight
even as it festers and burns your insides
staccato sixteenth notes
the spaces wedged neatly
between each one
Karma is only an anime character,
but justice runs invariably
in the marrow of our bones.
even if you hold the world
in the palm of your hand
you cannot hold onto it forever.
time eats everything you have,
so savor it while you can.
enjoy this life;
they don't have room for mortals
in paradise.
Keep walking,keep playing,
until the end of your line
with one eye on the conductor
and one on your music
with your heart on your sleeve,
as your very soul flows through each note.

each emotional wound becomes an inkwell of blood.  each crack in my unstable mind lets in sunlight.  each dent in my ego catches rainwater and dreams.   everything is repurposed,all lemons squeezed dry for my metaphorical lemonade.

but no matter what/
I'm not
made of talent
but/ no matter what I'm /

still inferior/
no matter what,  I'll still be/
a shell of wasted/

potential,  each mile / traversed
there's two ran away/
no matter how I /

use and abuse myself,  I /
am still
useless
in their eyes.   /

I don't even know what to say anymore about life. I don't know how to put this into words, because the world changes and grows and elopes like a starry-eyed young girl delirious with dreams and young love. Words don't change, whether in print or spoken aloud. No matter how many times you blink it still says "'wars are not for winning ,' Koschei said.'They are for surviving.'" I don't know why Koschei the Deathless would need to stress the importance of survival when he has no issue with survival himself. I don't know.The meanings of words change, and context change, but "The Hollow Men" always ends not with a bang but a whimper. Life goes on, turning and turning like the root structure of a tree, going in circles to avoid bedrock. I read the same old books and dream the same dreams, then whip around in a gust of 6/8 time to discover new books, which grow old again.

i want to be loved i want
to be feared. i am good i am special
i am different .
respect me. i want your love.
i am hungry for something to call
my own and i am greedy.
slap me kick me hate me
but do not think of me as
pathetic
it hurts me and i will hurt you.
i am not scared of hate, only
disrespect. i don't want you to
think i'm petty. think i'm weird.
i just want to be loved.
no one loves me for who i really am.
my selfish side. my hungry heart.
the parts i hide

knowledge hurts

oh look
a smiley face--
I didn't expect
such blatant cheerfulness
in so gloomy a place

where did it come from?
is it a relic of better times,
of a time when there was
less grief
and people smiled
because they were happy to
be here?
Or did someone
who ached for
something better
idly leave their mark?
if the latter
I would like to
shake this rebel's hand
and ask them
how to survive the madness.

what happened to us
the seemingly solid life we led
melted and blurred
like crayons left
in the heat
I grasp at anything I can
but nothing is solid enough
to pull myself up with
I shall fall off the precipice shortly
so I'm glad
not everyone has been
dragged down yet.

fact: our subconscious decides actions half a second before your conscious even wraps itself around the situation.

fact: peer pressure can make people do the craziest ****.

fact: jellyfish are immortal. certain species can revert to an infantile, earlier stage of their life cycle when needed.

fact: humans cannot. this is one of many causes of our obsession with life and death, innocence, time, and many other subjects pertaining to similar matters; this inability is one of many forces propelling and pulling us towards the great unknown.

fact: this makes humans bitter and jaded and contemplative. this is something to continue to investigate.



fact: my subconscious is cruel and strange, having fed on a great deal of dark poetry and books I was too young to read.

fact: I get angry sometimes, and easily.

fact: I do stupid things, but it's not always peer pressure.

fact: I am bitter and jaded and contemplative sometimes, but not being a jellyfish is only one of many forces propelling and pulling me towards the great unknown.

fact: I hate you.  fact: I love you.

fact: facts aren't always true.

fact: I'm sorry.

request: Please forgive me.

fact: it's okay if you don't.

teen angst drips leisurely
from every clause,every verse
I read and hear here,
like bittersweet honey
metaphors pooling on the
sidewalk like
Summer rain.
  >how fitting.sadness and hurt raining on our savage revels of youth that were doomed from the start.

I remember watching
the Summer rain fog up and blur
the car windows as
Grandma drove me home
on the last day of sixth grade,
breathing more freely already,
now that the burden of
fake smiles and schoolwork was over.
I thought back to last summer.
Oh,that homely bookshop in Columbus
was a reader's paradise.
a labyrinth of books,endless fantasy worlds to dive into.I wanted to stay a little longer,just a little more,
more,
more--

I was so naive .
Maybe I still am.
But you can't hide behind
what isn't real)

paper is simply so onionskin thin,and raindrops
are so cold and wet and heavy.

>We left eventually,
strolling back to the hotel in the
Summer rain .

I spend
hours
listening to
music
that no one
else likes.
I draw on myself:
my arms,my clothes are
covered in pen

When I younger,
I would eat the
junk food
my grandma gave me
when driving me home
from school.
I lied to my parents
about eating the food;
"No,Mom,
no,Dad,
I didn't eat
what Grandma gave
me."
I always lied to my parents
but they found out anyway
and they never believed me
again.

My sweetest addiction
is lies,
sugary fantasies
that never fill you up
The gluttony just makes you hungrier
for the
truth.
Today I am
an honest person,
but I still crave lies.

But
if I crave lies,
why do I also
want the
truth?

ever searching for you
in the places you usually are
you're the missing piece of
the puzzle
and it drives me crazy that
you're not coming back
I never realized how much
I needed you
until you were gone
the gaps you left
in between moments
make me nervous
that
something happened to you.

sometimes in vain
I hope that you'll return
even though you're
gone forever.

darling,
you're the one who got away
and I just wanted to say
I'm sorry
I left you behind
maybe someday
I'll
   find
         you

                     again.

It's late,and I must go
Please take care until we meet again.

how am I supposed to be witty
if I must rhyme in lines of three
these poems are idiotic,third degree