Little girl
Why do you sit so?
Wires spread across your lap
Connecting your head to something not there.
Do you not go outside?
Pale is your skin and so fast your fingers fly
Switching seamlessly to different devices
Wires stitching your reality together.

Old woman
Why do you stare so?
Clutching your purse
As if it was a link to sanity.
Do you not know how this works?
Wrinkled is your skin and in your eyes hardened judgement speaks
Blue veins showing in your mottled hands
Thin as the wires in my lap.

Little girl
Have you ever seen the face of the sun?
In my day the children were active.

Old woman
Have you not seen how the world has changed?
We are no longer allowed outside.

To be diligent students, we use technology
To connect with friends, we use technology
To be active in our society, we use technology

Do not take out your phone and tweet a picture of me
Comments disparaging of my generation's addiction to connection
And hold your head high that you have done right.

Do not shake your head at something you did not have access to
And deem it "useless" or "unneeded".

Do not scorn something you do not know.

But
If you would be willing to change with the world
I am a good source to learn from.
Just ask me.

Numb to the winter
Numb to the sun
Numb to the pain of a lost loved one

Numb to the laughter
Numb to the cheer
Numb to all the happiness i hear

But perhaps not numb;
Just simply cold
Please oh please warm up my soul

Mechanical pencil with heart of lead
From the darkness to you i fled
Fleeing for lack of hope
To keep me from putting my neck in the rope
Your grey lines mark and on hands streak
And sometimes make the paper squeak
But when I need to write things down
You run my thoughts right out of town
So I had a new idea caught
And carved into my skin as I thought
Mechanical pencil with heart of lead
Can you bring my soul back from the dead?
(My blood, my blood, is much too red)

I. The joy
Oh my god, the overflowing, the sheer exultation I feel when you are near, the way my heart feels full up with happiness that I am here with you. Sparkling waterfalls glistening in the morning light, reflecting and refracting the small prisms of light into a display of every color, meticulously exceeding the rainbow and all colors known to humanity.
II. The shock
The amazement that someone as rare and extraordinary could find someone as every day as me, and the honor I feel to have someone like you in my life. A vibrant tree frog, verdant and positively glowing like a jewel in a rainforest teeming with life, only to find a common toad as a companion.
III. The trust
Nervous about opening up, sharing interests that might bring us closer together, but might make you think me strange. An old burgundy door, paint peeling off to reveal a vibrant teal beneath, with ancient brass hinges, swinging back in forth according to the whim of the wind and creaking slowly.
IV. The relief
Thankfulness that you did choose me, that you chose someone. Grateful that it was me, excited about the fact that you reached out to me as I did to you. A beaming smile, eyes filled and overflowing with tears, slowly streaking down my face until I can taste the salt in my still-upturned and slightly open mouth.

The first time: A breath of steam, rising from a deep-toned, treacle brown liquid, turning darker by the minute as the leaves slowly steeped their essence into the scalding water, providing me energy enough to open my eyes... and look straight into the fogged glass, the first clear look of the world this day.

The second time: A tickle in my nose, rising in intensity, making my eyes scrunch in reflex. AAACHHOOOOO! I open my eyes, newly released from the lids that caged their sight, and see... fog.

The third time: A building frustration, a feeling of falling, trying to grasp all the responsibility given to me in less than an hour, and failing. Hopeless, I know, and useless as well, but I go though the day's events, each one compounding upon itself in my hindsight assisted by the salty water pooling in the corners of my eyes until I can't see anything at all... Oh wait. It's just the fog in my glasses.

A glorious midday is upon us
The sun dripping in our palms
Like water scooped from a crystal clear lake

Watch me fling it out, watch the ripples on the surface

Ripples like rocks that you skip into the ocean
Flying from your hands, gracefully leaving a pattern until it sinks
Washed away by the constant motion

Back away from the waves that you created
Right into my waiting arms

And as the sun melts into the horizon
A memory washes over me, quick as a wave
Of our hands, desperately scrambling to catch mere drippings of sunlight
While the stars' light washes over us.

I need to do
So many things

But all I can bring myself to complete
Is this poem

So maybe
I should.

How can you not appreciate the clouds at dusk
Set ablaze by the sun,
Saying it’s final farewell to the only day that will ever be like that
In all history?

How can you not see the beauty in the light shining through
The conflagration of colored leaves,
Dappling you and everything beneath the trees’ limbs in resplendent glory
Turning your surroundings into a different planet?


How can you look at the night sky without stopping in your tracks,
Twirling
Trying to drink every twinkling corner of the heavens
In with your own two eyes?

How can you look at something so spectacular
And brush it off,
Like dust on your coat?
For if you look closer,
You will see
It was stardust.

Sheet music
Nothing more
than black dots on black lines on a white page.

Then why is it
that when I play those notes
I see color?

Maybe sheet music
is a coloring book.

Strange how a person can brighten your day
Someone you have never met and never will meet
Suddenly sweeping the gray away with a positive comment

Curious how a website can validate your feelings
Calling your insecurities to attention and dismissing them
Chucking them into the bin where they belong

Silly how something online
Can make you feel so special

Green buds peep out of the
Stone cold earth
Defiant
Rearing their heads to the sun, their leaves unfurl
Stretching from a long winter's nap
Longing to ascend to the brightest point in the sky
Or to be the next best thing
Colors develop, going from
Light verdigris to
Translucent periwinkle to
Show-stopping magenta
In a couple of days
Their petals
The most delicate of velvet
Like stroking a butterfly's wing
And as their beauty transforms the world from unforgiving
To something magical
I sneeze.

"Kids just don't have any respect for their betters these days..."

Well
When you decide to come home from work
To see your kids seated in the same spot they have been in since they got home from school
Laboring over homework that really never ends
A chores list laying forgotten on the counter in front of their eyes glued not to their phones
But to the massive pile of work that even you couldn't hope to accomplish
And instead of encouraging them to finish their work
Shout at them for not taking your needs into consideration,

Remember that every period of every school day (That's 6 periods, 5 days a week)
Every single one of their teachers is telling them the same thing
To forget the other work and prioritize theirs.

Recall that even before their homework that they have extracurriculars
And colleges are looking for not just academic excellence but social too.

Remind yourself that on top of THAT, they are constantly under pressure from themselves as well
No one puts themselves through hell without mental conviction
And certainly no lazy student would ever take initiative unless it was extremely important.

Your chores pale in comparison to the ocean of stress floating in the minds
Of the very people you berate.

And bear in mind that you are not their betters
For respect is a privilege to earn,
Not a right to have.

I wear this smile on my face
It feels so often out of place
My lips stretched tight over pearly teeth
Eyes showing the truth hidden beneath
And in the corners of my mouth
A drop of blood drips slowly south

But when the facade is wiped off at last
My expression and my emotions seem
mismatched.

Human decency is seeing if someone is hurting
And helping,
Right?

But they come closer
Asking
"You ok?"
Patting me
Hugging me

Theres too many
I don't want this
The world is spinning
Im going too fast

And all they can do is touch me
As I shiver in silent protest.

Writing may be a talent
But it is not mine to claim

It is yours
To judge me worthy of.

Writer may be a title
But it is not mine to claim

It is yours
To bestow upon me.

However

My love for writing
Cannot be judged or bestowed upon
It simply is.

And in that way,
We’re all poets.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a chore
That everyone forgot they had to take care of
Until the last moment

Sometimes
I think
that if
I stop
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
                rise
I won't
back to
the top

I'll
just
crumple at the bottom

Inky tentacles
Reach out of the book
Searching blindly
Until they find me.

My face hovering above the pages
Spell-bound by the lilting voice of a fictional character
And the world that I can never be a part of.

Harsh words melt
In the fictitious sun
And worries blow away
Thoughts on a wind in a different dimension.

They reach out,
Those strings of alliteration
The descriptions of beautiful places
The characters' internal struggles
Forming into tendrils of words and ink that stroke my face softly,
Then jab into my heart.

I am held captive till the very last page.

She shook the teacher's
Hand so fast it was like she
Was running away

"*******."
That's what she said to me.
And I would be the first to admit that I am.
But when she shouts at me
Selfish
Worthless
Callous
I rebuke it immediately.
(I can't do anything right.)
"*******."
I get out of the car.
"Thanks for the ride.
Have a nice day, mom."

I walk into school
With her words ringing in my ears.
*******.