2,000 poems I've liked on this website,
2,000 poems that touched my heart,
2,000 poems that have made me smile, laugh,
Cry, and most importantly, feel.
2,000 poems that I've liked on this website-
Scratch that- community.
Whether you realize it or not,
Your poems really have changed my life.
Every time I log in, I am amazed at the
Diversity of the people who have found and
Created this amazing community.
Despite the glitches and the haters,
There is a large number who help,
Encourage, mentor, and support.
I know you all have lives outside of this community,
But I wanted to thank you all for the time you put into this.
It's become a large part of my life,
And reading your poems has caused me to examine myself
And learn things I didn't know before.
So, I thank you.
I'm sure I'll have another 2,000 poems
Liked before you know it.

2018.
Loads of knowledge, literally at our fingertips,
Yet no one knows what to do with it.
We don’t want the billions of videos,
Facts, and pictures that are available to us.
As a human race,
We are craving something more.
We crave sunny days,
Gentle fingers through our hair,
Adorable newborn puppies running for the first time.
We crave a cozy family movie night,
Tucking obedient children into bed,
Sending them off to school the next morning with no worries.
We crave the fulfillment that our favorite meal brings,
The joy of spending a day with friends,
The comfort of a good night’s sleep.
Because the simple and everyday things
Are the ones we can never have.

Sadder than any words
My thought
Comes softly down
Ending again at you.

I think it’s funny that
After faking your emotions
For so long, you lose track
Of what’s real and what’s not.
When you’ve been pretending to be happy
For so long, and suddenly
Those feelings become real,
Who are you to know?
Why shouldn’t the feelings
Be just another act that
Your brain hasn’t caught on to yet,
But that your heart remembers
Word for word.
Sometimes when you fake it
Till you make it, and you make it,
You don’t even believe your emotions.
But even though
It’s okay to not be okay,
It’s also okay to be okay.
Remember that.

A is for Abigail, who shared with you a kindergarten trauma and
then forgot who you were in eighth grade, like Belinda, who
left without a word one sunday morning after mass, C is
Catalina, your best friend’s ex-best friend, who went
with you to Daana’s book launch in texas, and
Enrique, who you planned to room with in college but you hear from friends
crashed his car into a tree and joined the saints, but Flores had
another kid and his man bun is
slicker than ever and Gumaro, who you helped teach
english in fourth grade is still
hitting the gym beside Hiris, even as she
works at la perla full time and overtime, beside Isabella who
no white girl would talk to in middle school because they said she
smelled like dirt, or Juliana, punching
numbers into a cash register at the dollar general thinking
of falling in love with Kruz who made a
perfect vanilla cupcake candle in home ec but couldn’t
cook steak to save his life.  
Lucio remembers kissing you on the mouth in the church
nursery but he is now engaged to a white girl you’ve
never met, and he remembers a particular
messy Maria who would draw like her life
depended on it, and a Nadia who would cry in english 11
because her parents couldn’t help her with the homework
but still kiss him after her soccer games, who no longer
bothers to call Olivia, even though they were teammates for
a decade and now she works at her own sports shop with
a daughter who could have gone pro if only.
Profe, who was a migrant “helper” at your elementary school,
laughs at it all, remembering yelling at parents in spanglish,
although you heard her husband yelling at her on the phone at lunch,
laughing when Quito broke one of the chairs that the school bought with
its 4 million dollar bond that drained money and morale, who went
out with Romani and started a band in seventh grade that took
longer than usual to fizzle out, and the bullying stopped for a while, though
Sergio would never forget how it felt to bend down for hours with
bad black bruises up his back, wouldn’t ever stop
reliving every labored breath spent both here and there.  
And Thalia couldn’t even make a living, recalling almost
forgotten days of swingsets and slurping
pelon pelo rico tamarindo under the orange tube slide.  
Her ex-husband Umberto everybody but the feds
forgot about, and V is for Victor, the high school goalie who had to quit because he
strained his wrists in the fields, like Wanita, who is trying to raise
money for her second hip replacement, like father Xavier, who carves statues of
woodland creatures for the children he could never have, and
Yesenia, who sewed and sewed until her fingers curled and her
forehead wrinkled beyond repair, and she tells you that Zaida, who made the
best tamales in town, is now gone to the saints, and no longer
fears anything, even the government and their obsession with
small white slips of paper.

So much in a name, in a hyphen, in a tilde, but no, it
should be under V—“virgulilla,” and their names should be
written in your address book but instead
they’re in a list at some office in
the States underneath “undocumented” and “illegal.”

Always there, never wavering,
Always there, always stabling,
Always through tears,
Always through fears,
Always as the end draws near;
Always e'en though there's nothing to fear,
When he's right by my side, being my
Always.

Every tear I’ve cried,
Every complaint I’ve uttered,
Every cry of pain I’ve screamed,
You’ve been there.
I’ve laid my heart bare to you,
Always open, available, vulnerable.
I’ve given you my all, 24/7,
And yet what do I have in return?
A mauled and maimed heart,
Torn apart from exposure to the world,
To you.
Yet I can’t find a way to shut my heart,
My nature won’t allow it.
I will always give away before I take.
I’m always open.

I know you’ve seen many Christmas poems today,
And will in the days to come,
But mine will be different, I pray.

Amidst all of the gifts and presents,
Among the crowds of relatives and good food,
We cannot forget who is always in our presence.

God the Father and God the Son,
And God the Spirit, are present;
The Trinity, three in one.

Although the presents are fun,
And you realize your crazy uncle is actually kind of cool,
We have to leave time to remember the birth of God’s Son.

If not for him, we wouldn’t be here;
Without his birth in lowly Bethlehem,
All of the gifts and happiness would disappear.

So praise God this day
That God arranged the ****** birth;
Praise God every day
That He sent His son to Earth.

Some think that a well thought out compliment
Is the best gift to give me.
What they don't know is that it stifles me,
Buries me under yet another layer of self doubt,
Wondering yet again, “What if I fail them?”
What if I'm just a fake, a fraud?
What if suddenly I wasn't so amazing, so perfect?
I love to be treasured,
But what happens when everyone
Finds out I'm just fool's gold?

I will always be scared.
I cannot say that
I have always been nervous
Although
Now I know
This is just how I am.
I have nobody.
It would be wrong to say
Someone would care,
If I destroyed myself again with my thoughts
I am just a worthless wreck
Nobody can convince me that
I am a warrior.

In the dark
The beast,
The inward struggle
Is not asleep.
The cold creeps,
Comfort grows far away,
My heart doubts
But we arise with the day.

Perfectly curled caramel hair
Cascades down her shoulders,
Bouncing in time with the music.
He can’t help but savor every
Fragment of her movement as he
Traces the camera around her frame,
Capturing the dance.
She’s an actress in every sense of the term,
Her eyes sad yet powerful,
Her body hurting yet beautiful.
The music ends and she stops, breathless,
Her hair that has fallen in front of her face
Flowing up and down as she catches her breath.
“Did you get it?”
She asks him,
And suddenly he’s back to himself,
Back from the world her dance took him to.
“Definitely,” he says, and when
Her dimples break her face open,
The camera is still rolling,
For he doesn’t want to miss a second of her beauty.
She isn’t just poetry.
She is art.

He put all of his
Trust in the Savior, Jesus
Christ, and all was well.

We started in seventh grade,
When our ancient, grumpy teacher
That no one liked decided to give
Our second hour science class
Assigned seats.
By some great happening of fate,
I was placed next to you,
The loud, obnoxious prankster,
And I, the quiet, shy nerd.
The class at first was torture,
Yet soon became my haven.
A+ lab partners we were,
And soon A+ friends.
Though outside the classroom,
We were nothing.
We had our own friends, our own lives;
Until sophomore year, when you
Caught me coming out of the library,
John Milton in my hand.
Words were said, promises were made,
And the next day I had your hand in mine,
And we were something.
Two weeks later, under the light of trillions of stars,
On the top of the car you “borrowed”
From your strict father,
You kissed me, slowly, tenderly, lovingly,
And I felt true happiness for the first time.
On graduation day,
You caught my graduate cap,
The sun rays making beautiful patterns
On your tan face, and wavy hazel hair,
But you spun around and gave it right back to me,
To leave me for a college in California,
Thousands of miles away, away from everything
You’ve ever known.
And loved.
I tried to get over you, I really did,
But my mind circled the same tracks,
Went over the same ruts,
And I always came back to seventh grade,
When that cranky teacher gave us our
Assigned seats.
I blamed him, thinking that those
Assigned seats were the beginning of
My broken heart.
It wasn’t until four years later,
That I saw you in a library,
Hiding in the shelves, peeking through
The bookends you moved yourself,
That I realized that those feelings never left.
You had come back for me,
And those bean bags in the kids’ section
Of the library became our new assigned seats.
One day, about a year later, you didn’t take your seat;
You went down on your knee instead.
The wedding was casual, yet beautiful, as you said
I was in my light blue dress and beaming smile.
Our seventh grade science teacher sat in the front row;
The seat we assigned to him.
A week later, he went to the seat that
God assigned him, and we were back in that church,
And this time I was in a black dress and crying.
Years passed, and suddenly I found myself
In front of a classroom of my own,
Assigning seats to my own seventh graders.
The quiet, shy nerd shot me a desperate look
As I set her books down by the loud, obnoxious prankster.
I saw my own fear reflected in
Her eyes, and I simply smiled calmly at her.
Maybe some day she will be as
Happy as I was that I was given my
Assigned seat.

let’s live our lives
barefoot

let’s live our lives like
small children,
children so precious that their simple presence
evokes tears in the eyes of the most
stoic father,
so precious that the image of them
snoring softly in their Thomas the Tank Engine bed
causes the stressed mother to smile a mile,
so precious that when one of them
pushes back the blonde, wispy hair of the other
the photographer can’t help but laughing as she
captures the moment

let’s live our lives like
children who are not afraid of nails and rocks
in the backyard, but who are
obsessed with finding that elusive
white grasshopper that their uncle
promised was there,
like children who endure countless foot baths every day
in the heat of summer but the pads still blister
and their feet still turn brown
but they don’t care,
like children who have just smelled a flower
for the first time, who have experienced the
sharp pain of a first bee sting,
like children who are in awe as a deer
peeks quizzically at them from above the bush,
tail twitching, eyes twinkling

let’s live our lives like
children who make up odd games that
they remember years later, a complicated one that involves
Patty Cake, jump rope, tag, and somehow
hop scotch and charades as well,
like children who wander away from their house
for many hours, exploring like Columbus,
drawing detailed maps of their small neighborhood,
beautiful crayon stick figures dotting the horizon,
like children who capture and dote on an assortment of
toads, grasshoppers, frogs, moths, and butterflies,
like a child who thinks the worst sin is to
**** an animal that the Lord has made

let’s live our lives like children, with a
loving and unwavering faith in the Savior,
with eyes unaltered by the
whips and thorns of life,
with minds unchanged by the
Judas Iscariot’s of this Earth

let’s live our lives like
small children

let’s live our lives
barefoot

Because of you,
I’ve been at my lowest of lows,
My darkest places,
My 2 am’s with flowing tears.
Because of you,
I’ve been at my highest of highs,
My brightest places,
My 2 pm’s dancing in the rain, mocking my tears.
Because of you,
I’ve been on the edge of a cliff,
So high that there would be no going back;
Luring me to a terrible, rocky place.
Because of you,
I’ve flown off the cliff,
Soaring on the wings of an eagle,
Never to come down to that rocky place.
Because of you,
I’ve experienced the most terrible
Emotions I’ve ever experienced,
The most harmful, toxic, poisonous times.
Because of you,
I’ve experienced the best
Emotions I’ve ever experienced,
The most beautiful, wonderful, complex.
I guess what I’m trying to say is
Thank you.
Thank you for showing me the
Highs and lows,
The desperation and the freedom,
The horror and the joy.
I am what I am
Because of you.

I was withdrawn,
Sullen,
Angry,
Then to my forest edge you came one day,
Sailing in on a
Bed of clouds
With a rainbow smile.
Although I tried to climb the trees,
Your bed of clouds was too high,
And you didn’t dare go down into the forest,
For fear your cloud would break.
The sweet pang I felt as I watched your
Rainbow smile ascend on your bed of clouds
Would not be soon forgotten.
But as I awake from my dream,
Your memory fades
As the wisp of a cloud.

The harsh light of my phone blinds me,
Yet I need to do something.
The darkness of my bedroom surrounds me,
And the light is my only connection to the world.
I hesitantly open my messages,
And I feel my heart wrenching wide open.
A chasm forms, a deep ravine, a wild earthquake
That irreparably defaces the land.
Tapping your name releases aftershocks,
And I steel my heart for the worst as I
Scroll to the very top and read
Every single message.
All I want to know is, when?
When did I suddenly mean nothing to you?
When is the moment you threw me out of your life?
And why didn’t you tell me?
I keep scrolling, trying to assuage my pain,
Yet each word, each letter you typed, holds so much,
I’m overwhelmed, and my canyon widens.
My breathing is labored, I can feel myself trembling,
And the tears have only just begun.
I turn off my phone.
Darkness.

I was sixteen when the machines came.
The letters “C-A-T” screamed at me from across the street
As the harsh yellow tore at the roots of the
Cherry trees across the street.
Of course the orchard had never been mine,
I had not planted the seeds and curated the
Beautiful blooms through their short lives,
Picked the cherries off the trees myself.
But what about all the photoshoots I’d done
Among the gorgeous white blooms,
All the times my friend had walked through
The rows of trees to get to my house and
Left paint splatters of cherries across the kitchen floor,
All the sunsets I’d seen through the leaves
That made me nostalgic for things
I had never experienced?
What if I’m growing up and moving out
And can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that
These plants that have smiled at me from my
Window for over a decade have returned
To the Earth?
What if these days the
Weeks are crying when they should be glowing and
The absence of trees is simply the target of
One of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind
That remind me that change is the only thing that’s
Permanent?
I wish that the emptiness of the field could be replaced by
Happy little white blooms
But instead the CAT machines screech and moan
And all I can feel is
The ache of old nostalgia and the
Peculiar nostalgia of the unknown.

When kids write their birthday lists,
They want the newest Iphone,
A certain brand of jeans,
Or the best Jordans.
Is this what growing up is,
The moment you realize those
Things don’t matter?
Because if I made a true
Birthday list now, I would want
World peace
An end to world hunger
A way to make college more affordable
Better patience with those I love
A way to deal with my insomnia
A man to hold and cherish for life
And for the world to have more compassion
And destroy all traces of hatred.
I wish I could stop all my worrying;
I wish I could write birthday lists like I used to.

I wish I didn’t
Have to wonder about your
Commitment to me.

That boy who you see in class everyday,
Yeah, the one with the long hair that covers his eyes
And the dark, ratty sweatshirt?
Do you know what he goes through on a daily basis?
His mom is a crack addict, his dad is in jail,
And he's the youngest of seven siblings.
The only real food he ever gets is
The “terrible” school lunch, which to him
Tastes like heaven.
The only real exercise he gets is from
Running away from his mom when she's high,
And the only real alone time he ever gets is
When his mom locks him in the
Bathroom for days at a time.
So don't get mad at him for
Missing your group's presentation day,
Or for always asking you for your food at lunch.
Get mad at the people who make
His life at school as bad as home,
The people who talk loudly about his horrible hygiene,
Who laugh when he doesn't understand a math problem,
Who visibly flinch whenever he walks by just for the fun of it.
Get mad at them.
And then get mad at yourself.
Be upset with yourself for having the power
To help this kid and kids like him, and ignoring it.  
Be upset with yourself for talking
About him behind his back,
Refusing to share your food at lunch with him,
And for avoiding him in class.
Be upset with yourself.
And then do something with this anger,
This passion you have built up.
Share his story, help someone like him,
At least vow to never, ever, let something
Like this happen to your child.
I wrote this poem.
What will you do?

“Mommy, why is the moon running away from us?”

A sigh from the front seat,
The wheels bouncing on the Michigan potholes.

“Honey, it’s not running away, it just appears to move with us.”

A moment of silence, except for the soft hum of the engine.

“But why, Mommy?”

A slight groan from the front seat as a speeding car passes.

“I don’t know, our eyes are just messed up, I guess.”

Bouncing pigtails from the toddler car seat, humming her song.

“Mommy, are we almost there?  I’m scared that the moon will catch up with us.”

“I thought we were chasing the moon.”

“But now it looks like it’s chasing us.”

Trembling hands grip the steering wheel tighter, knuckles white.

“I’m excited to see Daddy.  Are you, Mommy?”

“Don’t call him that.”

Her voice was dangerously low, almost the same pitch as the hum of the road.

More pigtail bouncing.

“But he is my dad, right?”

Pursed lips and clenched teeth.

“Yes.  Just try to be nice.”

“Are you talking to yourself, Mommy?”

Attention taken from the road, eyes wandering up to the moon.

“Mommy, why are we running away from the moon again?”

A sigh from the front seat,
The wheels bouncing on the Michigan potholes.

“I don’t know, we’re all just messed up, I guess.”

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas
Presents, presents, presents
Is that the definition of Christmas?
Cookies, cookies cookies
Is that the definition of Christmas?
What is the definition of Christmas?
Family, giving, love, and most of all
Christ.  This is what we should think
Of when we think of Christmas.

My past is too much of an influence on my present,
I know it's a problem.
But whenever I look in the bathroom mirror,
I see my 15 year old self,
A cigarette hanging out of her mouth
Just like the one that is currently in my mouth.  
Her hair is still dyed dark purple and out of control,
Spiking out of her head
Like she just stuck her finger in a light socket.  
She takes the cigarette out of her mouth
And smoke clouds up the mirror.  
I watch her hand reach up through the smoke
Into the real world and take my cigarette
Out of my mouth and toss it in the trash.  
I can't decide whether I've gone completely crazy
Or if that encounter was the
Best thing that ever happened to me.  
Why can't it be both?

I am on Mackinac Island,
Lying down on a big white lawn chair
In front of the Grand Hotel.  
The faint scent of fudge
Lingers on the air so I can almost taste it,
And my hair is getting constantly blown
By the wind that flows among the
Chairs, grass, and music.  
The music comes from the direction of the water,
Where an old style jazz band has
Temporarily set up shop,
Creating gorgeous silhouettes
Against the orange and pink sunset sky.  
The purring of the clarinet
Bounces off of me like the waves are
Bouncing on shore,
But even lighter than that,
Even lighter than the
Wings of the seagull trailing overhead.  
The clarinet drops in and out of sync
With the waves as the silhouettes start to
Bounce to the music.  
A distant bike bell dings,
But it matches so harmoniously
With the music that I don't notice it.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
A constant cycle interrupted only by
The saxophone and drums occasionally.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
The sun is set.  
Silhouettes turn to shadows.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
Waves, bike.  
Waves.

Waves cleave the cliffs
The birds ride the wind
The night fills the soul
I cleave to you

The sand polishes the toes
***** tango in the sand
Stars perform ballet in the black
The fire sparks against the stillness

Waves cleave the cliffs
The birds ride the wind
The night fills the soul
I cleave to you

My words stick to the
Roof of my mouth like peanut butter,
Like white bread,
And no matter how hard they try,
They can’t escape.
Lucky to make it past my brain’s thick fortress,
Now they sit useless at the tip of my tongue,
Wishing to come forth but my mouth
Not forming the words.
My vowels languish in my throat and
My consonants sit listless,
All my verb phrases and direct objects
Lie in a jumbled mess,
Too disheartened to make a move.
They know that if they leave my lips,
Others will take them and cut them up,
Mince them like onions,
But the only person who will cry over them is
Me.
Eventually, too many letters will clamor at my
Lips for attention, and my throat will
Close entirely,
Never fessing,
Admitting,
Confessing,
The things I feel.

She doesn't know why she feels this way.
Why she rides a roller coaster
Every time she looks at him.
Why she feels butterflies
Whenever he smiles.
She doesn't know why
She stays up at night,
Thinking about his smile, his laugh.
She doesn't know why
All her dreams include him.
She does know that
He doesn't feel the same way.
He doesn't talk to her,
Completely ignores her,
Doesn't even know she exists.
Can this be called love?
Can the feelings be real?
She knows she will have to move on,
She has to get over these feelings;
If they were even real in the first place.

My fingers flit over the keys,
Possessed by a mind of their own.
The smooth plastic of the letters,
The small bumps on F and J,
The overused comma key,
All are alive.
The laptop understands me, it’s an
Extension of my fingers.
Without trying, my thoughts flow,
Gracefully, effortlessly, tirelessly, they flow.
The harsh light of the screen produces an
Almost alien-like glow, shrouding my face
In unnatural radiance, leaving it flushed.
Yet the darkness of the room is all around me,
The stillness of my surroundings haunts me.
I am the only thing alive,
The only thing still awake at this ghastly hour.
I know if I shut down, turn off the glow,
I will be left alone in this gloominess.
The computer makes me feel wanted,
Secure, safe, protected.
I must get my words out, I must tell the world
What I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, what I am.
Before the world turns to darkness...

Silence
Can
Have
An
Echo.

What if I was immune to all negative emotion?
What if I couldn't feel pain,
Sorrow,
Fear,
Anger,
Jealousy,
Anxiety?
At first thought, this would be a good thing,
Something to celebrate, to revel in.
I couldn't be hurt,
Sad,
Scared,
Angry,
Envious,
Anxious.
But what about my positive experiences?
Would they mean nothing?
Without my bad experiences, would my
Good ones be forgotten, lost in the void?
How can I feel relief when I've never known pain?
How can I appreciate happiness when I've never known sorrow?
Without fear and anger, how can contentment and pleasure
Be measured?
How can jealousy and anxiety stack up when we have
Everything we need and have no cause for worry?
How can life be lived?
What new ideas, experiences can be gained without negativity?
How does the world thrive without a contrast of emotions?
Would feeling nothing or feeling everything be better,
Better for your mind, your body, your world?
Your soul?

Dancing, you are Spring;
Birds flock to see your song, yet
Night falls and silence-

Silence but for the
Stars and moon who mock us in
Our bed, our Winter.

I have experienced a lot of things in this world,
Maybe even more than I want to.
I’ve felt the sorrow of losing a friend,
The inevitable grief when you realize
You’ll never hear them talk again.
I’ve felt the sun on my back,
The wind in my face,
And the soft, tender pressure of your hand in mine.
I’ve felt the clock tick slowly,
Night after night,
The pressure of sleep that hasn’t come
Attacking my head like a battering ram.
I’ve felt a lover’s kiss,
The warm hug of a friend,
And a mother’s comfort through tears.
But why?
Why have I experienced all this,
Why was this made known to me?
For what purpose am I here,
Experiencing these things?
I guess I’ll know when the experience is over.

Every year visits to grandparents occur,
And the grandkids have “grown so much,”
And they need to “put bricks on their heads”.
Every year the family is updated about
The sports and the activities,
The good dates and the not-so-good dates
Of the previous year,
The births and baptisms,
The deaths and funerals.
Every year we endure the
Sometimes awkward, always long conversations
With the friends we see just once a year,
Maybe less, and every year we seem
To get further and further apart,
And the conversations are shorter,
Maybe even just a “Hey”, and you
Wonder why we can’t talk to these people anymore.
Why do people so close to us in heart become
So much more hard to communicate with in person?
Is it technology, fooling us into thinking
That we are connected to each other, when really
We don’t know each other at all?
Is it time, slowly eroding our years of
Memories and similarities, leaving us
Longing for the “good old days” instead
Of embracing the new ones?
Is the problem simply us;
Are we not willing to create new memories,
Go through the stresses of trying to forge
A new relationship when distance
Becomes an issue?
Maybe that is the problem.
Yet no one is willing to fix it,
So every year is the same.
I’ll probably be writing a poem about this
Next year.

I am trying to
Smile even though my heart
Still sobs over you.