Greater than signs
really do grow into alligators
and feast on their prey.
Telling my Algebra II teacher this
won’t get me out of doing my assignment.
I swear,
they change every time she turns away.
I attempt to keep my eyes down
as I’m avoiding scaly beasts and impossible math problems
and instead fix my eyes on the clock.
It is even more complex than complex conjugates.
Every second is assigned to each minute
and I’m assigned to do problem number one on the board.
The seconds travel down the spiral staircase
taking two, maybe three steps at a time.
Take a step back and countdown from ten
But that doesn’t stop each second from dwindling down.
Sometimes years even jump the entire staircase.
Irrational numbers, decimals and pauses
Deep in my chest
Long division, long sigh.
Then the scatter-plot line graph exponentially decreases
And goes flat.  
Feet tapping to unknown time signatures in the waiting room,
One tear making its way down my cheek.
Plus another.
Eighty thoughts per second
And I feel like my heart is going ninety
I tried to count everything but was disappointed
to know that I can’t count even a fraction of anything.
Blame it on my dead calculator,
erase my incorrect, hard work
and start over.
“Will someone help her with problem number one?”
They sigh,
their annoyance multiplies.
Sorry to waste your time.

My first time at Mission Beach
the salty scent of mist left me stunned-
aerosol could come close
to the ocean air and gentle heat,
but it can’t be bottled and sold.
Still, the waves toppled over in mass production
and pulled.
My clumsy big toe stumbled on the mouth
of a cracked olive-hued glass bottle.
No handwritten quill pen ink
or musty ivory pages with tears at the crease,
not even a desperate S.O.S. pleading to be read,
but its emptiness was all I needed to know.
The whiskey on your breath told me everything
as you toppled over.
You toppled over,
and I pulled.
Lips cracked and eyes flooding
your rosy cheeks
now bitter forget-me-nots,
I counted your ribs in the frame of your body that day,
the same way you once counted the freckles
stretched across my face.
Sun-kissed, basking in the sun,
you missed the boat and you’re trying to run
on empty bottles.

November and May, opposites but
Somehow we're the same
Except that I am so desolate
When you're in full bloom
The wind still blows
It's just the temperatures that change.
In November, the birds don't want to stay
The leaves have already left
And the wax on the candle has estranged our strange skies
As we hide behind the last shiver of the impatient Thanksgiving flame
Still, May's meadowlarks are able to sleep at night
As their woven nests rest
In between the young buds
And May's thumb flicks the flame bright.
But if I can't sleep in the sound dejection of November
Then I don't think I'll make it till May.

Snap goes the lead that has led me to believe that it isn't the pencil or the paper but my grip that is too forceful
Anger, not from the paper cut or from the broken pencil tip
But fury from the tips of my fingers that still aren't fast enough to compete
I never was quick enough on my feet anyway
I must keep my distance now
Even if that means I slow my pace
It doesn't matter since I'm always in last place
The thoughts however, race
And viciously they break into scribbles on the page
It will break again
I shouldn't have anticipated a different result
You are not at fault,
My sturdy oak.
They chopped you down and you had no choice but to fall
Into the the hands of the broken writer

I'm in such a state of panic for what seems like no reason, to you.
But what if the story of your life was all at the tip of a quill pen.
The words are running out of ink too fast as they unravel on to the page like a tangled ball of thread coming undone and at any moment the weak thread could break.
Tangles take time to unravel.
That's the danger of rushing this but all of this waiting is making my heart weak as anxiety swallows my heart into a  seemingly bottomless chasm.
I have so much to say but my words seemed to have become knots in the thread. Still tied to you and as soon as you decide to fly away my malnourished veins will burst.
A part of me has been stolen and I'd file a case of identify theft but I never knew who I was to begin with so maybe I've always been nobody.
There's no ink left anyway.
I keep writing and no words are visible.
There are only light indentions of where words are supposed to be and if you tilt your head a little to the left you can almost see what I was trying to say.
But no amount of squinting or light on the page can make these words real because they are only glimmers of dying ideas.
The future is unwritten and I'm out of ink.
As pure and gentle as your flawless feathers seem I don't have the ink to write with.
This feather doesn't do me any good if our future isn't flowing from the quill.
I feed the fire with the pages of my life as if I'm a hoarder of pens with unlimited pages in this journal
But I only have just this one quill pen with no ink and I'm on the last page.
You'd be panicking too.

Gunshots and bombs exploding
My bones are soggy to the marrow
But it's something so peaceful as a summer storm
Yet it has sent me into war
Thunder and lightning,
My rain-soaked clothes
Something so violent as my heart splattering across the pavement
Pebbles piercing icy chills through my veins
Yet I love the way my heart pounds.
My blood showers down and the children dance in the scarlet puddles
As if it's some kind of game.
They must find amusement in bruising up the pavement
The way they stomp all over it
The pitter patter of their skipping feet
Only leave a muddy mess behind

The magnificent Midwest.
Where ****-heads migrate only to make a living off of welfare checks and a lack of motivation.
Scattered across the land in clusters,
Making up towns of shattered trailers.
Even in the greyness of winter we beat ourselves to death against snowed in windows
Searching for the sun, just like moths to street lights,
or lips to flickering flames
Death is everywhere.