Today is life changing
A fetus born to a world
Naked a bare
Mother takes son to share to the world
Braces his feet for the ground beneath him
She teaches him to walk over Mountains
Silence Earthquakes
Calm Stormy Seas
Till he grows of age and takes his own journey
Without his mother, a boy does not become a man
She gives him the knowledge to be brute and stand through the cold world around us
Shares the secrets of kindness and forgiveness
Grudges are never the way to go
Just to understand when people can change no more
A mother makes you indestructible
In a world designed to tear you apart

I told you under the warm sun how awkward I am
I screamed that I can't flirt, the waves washing at our feet
I wallowed in the fact that I make any situation painfully awkward
In a confusing reply, you nodded your head
Proceeded to talk to me
Gave me that false grin that lied when it said "I can fix that"
Made me fall for you while you whispered everything the world had done wrong
Described in extreme detail on how you yourself would make it more beautiful
Then you kissed me
That world that hurt us both, now far away
Things were going to be okay

That was months ago
The snow has replaced the warm air
The waves now frozen
They too wish it never ended
What they don't know, is that people are like continents
Slowly moving farther apart from the day they meet
All I can do is keep telling the ocean that it's okay
She drinks from his mountain springs now
The same springs that poisoned her
While I roam freedom
It's okay, ocean
I'm okay

Show me a rock, I'll show you a rose
Show me a model, I'll show you a small town girl
She has a beautiful mind
Seeing the face value of the color in your eyes
I want to know you deeper than you know yourself
Let my body be your canvas
Carve your secrets into me with an ink-less fountain pen, filled with your fiery soul
For I am the mighty oak
My bark will scar over
Your secrets safe for the keeping

Get out of my head
Thoughts of you are pounding the walls of my inner thoughts
Blaring "Thunder" so loud, I can barely think
My heart can no longer pay your rent
But, I want you to stay
Reluctantly paying your dues
Just so you don't move too far away
If you don't mind, I'll pour us some tea
And talk about the future

Roses are red
Your cheeks
Violets are blue
Your eyes
Open them
Let the sunlight graze you
Index, Middle, Ring
Brushing your cheeks
Seems less like you're sleeping
You're working
Every move you make
Subconsciously
Making me
Fall for you

We are people
Cut by words
Bruised and battered egos from a world hungry for innocence
Bleeding ink and scabbing over with metaphors
We’re healing
Whisper words of truth, revealing new sight on an old world
Your language is strange to this place
I speak with you
We are poets

I’ve got snow up to my ankles
**** to the world, I am not cold
The world is warm, this snow feels like fear
I look up realizing the moon is beginning to rise
The sudden instinct to turn the other direction
And run
The sun it starting to set
The snow around my ankles instantly slows me down
The fear it fills me with, turns
Making itself clear
I don’t want to be left behind

The first thing I felt was the dryness of my overly-chapped lips. My back ached. I hadn’t slept on a real bed in days. Leroy had left my side since I last woke. I needed to eat. The pain from the hunger was becoming unbearable. Three days without food. Seventeen house since my last drink of water. Your watch is your best chance of survival.
“Maybe I’ll find a river today.” I sighed in hope
“It’ll probably be filled with sewage and dead fish like the last two.”
I had to keep reminding myself that this world is worse than it once was.
I’ve been torturing myself with the thoughts of suicide lately. Slitting Leroy’s throat so he isn’t left to fend for himself. I was Caught off guard by something grazing my leg. My shoulders relaxed when I saw it was only Leroy.  The wet blood on his jowls suggests to me that he managed to hunt down a squirrel.
“You didn’t save any for me? *******.” I chuckled. I wish he could understand me. Something about the way he panted made it look like he was smiling at me. Maybe he could hear me.
I rubbed his neck, taking the time to admire all his individual fibers. I’ve always adored his calico coloring.
I got up. The sun was beating on my forehead. I needed a hat out hear. My watch read “December 18th, 2500. Oxygen content warning: LOW”
I remembered growing up with my mother saying how it snowed once when she was really little. She said it was only a few hundred years ago when this entire area of Canada was covered in snow. at least 20 feet of snow a year.
I never bought into her stories, though.
The sun is so hot. Mother talked about how there used to be people with pinkish skin. Pale even. That’s ridiculous. There’s a reason why everyone is dark. The sun bakes everyone.
I felt my stomach rumble. I need food.
My watch started beeping angrily, which is never a good thing. “OXYGEN DANGEROUSLY LOW” read on the screen
I shouted “Run Leroy!”
We started running, obviously Leroy easily pulling away, my feet pounding the pavement with every last breathe I had. The hard part is deciding where to run. You never know where the oxygen is. You could be running to more nitrogen and carbon. You could be running to your death.
In-fact, I think I was.
I was getting dizzy.
I couldn’t stay focused on running. I just wanted to lay down.
My foot landed on a large crack, and my foot rolled. I could feel my ankle snap.
In a daze, I managed to look down. The boon protruding from my skin.
I fell back. I started hyperventilating.
Leroy came back.
“Run, you stupid mutt!”
He wouldn’t. He just stayed there. He licked my ankle. If hurt so much but it had a pain that eventually became enjoyable.
He turned and started licking my face, trying to get me out of it. I could feel my heart feeling like it was about to erupt, all the while hearing Leroy’s pace of breathe begin to quicken.
Everything started going dark.
The last thing I saw was Leroy’s big brown eyes.
With the shadow of a man above him.

Today I will wake up
Make coffee
Get dressed
As always

I'll walk to the bus stop
Sit on a seat where plastic meets rubber and cold calls it home
Take a sip of coffee to warm my throat
As always

Walk into school
See the same friends
Eat the same breakfast
As always

Go to classes and get the same reminders of owed work
Eat the same low standard meal shoved into my mouth like cows being fed
I'll go home
As always

Argue with my sister
Sit on my bed
And sleep
As always

But this time I'll wake up
Slightly earlier than my nap usually lasts for
An unfamiliar buzz in the air
Coming from my phone
Your name across the screen
Telling me that you'd like to be
My always

Falling in love with sarcasm wearing a onesie
From across the pond, I see your smile
Shining with a sparkling nose ring right above it
The sun hitting you just right
One day I’ll see you
You’ll see me
And we’ll grow old giggling about “poot” and “vee-tuh-min”
To everyone, you’re just another brit
To me, you’re royal family
Princess Brit

I saw you this morning,
You made me weak at the knees
Next time I'll brace myself
For when your smile breaks my heart

The last time I saw you, you hugged me and said
"I'll see you this Christmas"
The morning tinsel never looked so beautiful
Baring reminders that Daddy isn't coming this year
Again

My skin has been itching for three months
I’m not sure why this is addicting

I’ve crashed a car in my head 3 times today
My mental awareness consistently letting go of the wheel
The Anterior teeth of my mouth have started to yellow in disapproval
I’m not sure why this is satisfying

I’ve been taking toxic psychotropics in light doses more than twice a day
It’s warmth is comforting as the jittering and hyperactivity become null
Bags have formed under my eyes
If you were to open them, their roasted smell would overpower you with stimulation
Constantly on my toes for risk of Insomnia and Narcolepsy
I’m not sure why this is outstanding

Adrenaline is being forcefully factored into my body
If this is the bullet, I’m biting it after an appliance pulls the trigger
As the high passes, it ripples through my mind
An otherwise calm sea, tidal waves pound the shores of my subconsciousness
Vacuum sealed can are filled with awareness
Sleep has become a rare odyssey
Warm comforters are replaced with long trachea trips of boiling beans
I’m not sure why this is alarming

Double trips become tripled and troubling to my mother
Arguments over the hours I shall harvest from the night are increasingly frequent
Slow to roll out of bed in the morning
I don’t hit my carpet, I splash into sugared preparedness
In my backpack hides a cup full of GI Joes
I’m not sure why this is troubling

If anything, I’m drinking a medicine that prevents death by 10-15% for 13 years
The New England Journal of Medicine was happy to acknowledge my existence
Till they announce anything different, you’ll find me taking a mud bath
I’m not sure why this is disgusting

Tell me everything that’s wrong with it
Because from where I’m standing
There is nothing wrong with
Coffee

An old rag doll gather dust in attic corners
Mites and spiders making homes of old memories
Stained with happiness, dust collects over it
The young girl who once played with her sun up to sun down
Is now married with children
The rag doll left forgotten
The mother left with nightmares of leaving a friend behind

It was 2 a.m. The moons rays shone brighter than a diamond in it's showcase. The 'thump-thump' of my heartbeat seemed to echo through my body. The forest was quiet that night. Quieter than it should have been. Not even a crickets back and forth harmony. Drops of sweat began to carve their way down my face. One thought repeatedly resonated  in my mind.
'Where is he?'
I started to question if the fallen tree I had taken shelter under, was hiding me well enough in this lightest of darks. I could see the moonlight dance on the keys of my cab, but if I could see it, so could he.
Snap!
I felt my heart stop beating. The sound was so close. A lot closer than I would have liked.
'Should I make a run for it?'
As I gained the courage to flee, I felt a cold leather glove on my shoulder. The glove yanked me towards him. Fear sank deep within me as I tried to shake free. His strength much mightier than mine, there was no fighting him.
He placed a cloth bag over my head with two mismatched holes cut out of them. They were meant for my eyes, but only my left managed to see through it's designated hole.
I saw my assailant.
He was not alone.
There were three others accompanying him.
All three were disguising their faces with white robes from their head to their toes.
It all came to a point at the top.
I noticed another white cloaked person, a lot shorter, hiding behind the leather gloved man.
That's when I felt it.
It snaked around my neck, it's threaded components piercing the cloth bag over my head, and jutting into my skin. It irritated and itched, but they arrested my hands together with a zip tie, so itching was impossible.
I felt one of the men grab me fiercely by the waist, and lift me onto what felt like my own cab.
I confirmed it by the yellow chipped paint out of the bottom left of my vision from when I backed into one of my clients mailboxes.
They said nothing the entire time.
Neither did I.
My tears were telling them everything that I wish I could scream.
One of the men nodded, followed by the approval nod of the leather gloved man.
He slowly raised his leather glove high into the air, confident of himself.
My stomach dropped.
I heard the cabs horn flare, and the tires squeal.
Gravity made an appearance.
I felt the snap of my neck, yet no pain followed.
The flaring horn silenced.
I opened my eyes. My vision was blurred.
The smell of my mothers pancakes, told me exactly where I was.

Gold sandy beaches flow from her follicles
Eyes like oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific are storming with jealousy
Her personality washes over slowly, low tide waves calm treacherous nerves
I use to navigate these water so well, acting the part of a sailor
These days, I consider myself lucky to hear her crash against the shore
My fingertips will never forget the feeling of sand between them

4 Fe(OH)3(s)
Rust
It tears down machines
Break apart metal
Eats progress whole and ***** out orange confidence
Another day without Rust is a day deserved

Rusty
Bubbled laughter has overpowered any sadness so strongly
Hearing my name from across a hallway
I could hear it from planets away
I get butterflies when I see him
I shout back RUSTY
A day without Rusty is a day lost.

The rich life has always haunted me with jealousy
I want to swing bats for money
Make wishes for the girl that people take photographs of
I want to be asked to do commercials for large corporations
In the back of my mind, fear lies in being forgotten
Wake me up from this dream
Bacon cooking up stairs
I can settle for the life I have
Keep the fame
Family comes first

Your skin sticks to mine in the moment
Hoping your freckles stick to me like a fake tattoo
The time hasn’t changed on your clock in what feels like hours
I swear this has been an eternity
The world stops around us
We’re making love
Love is feeling like magic
Your scent stains my skin
Hoping this moment never ends
Our bodies tense with synchronized pleasure
I can feel your smile across my lips
Your happiness tastes like home

I hate people
The way they look at each other
They’re never sincere
Back stabbing one another as if trying to peek at human anatomy
Silently admiring the brown hair three seats away from me
The way your smile curves around face could teach armies how to love
Only peeking at your eyes when I know it’s safe
I like you

I drag my index finger along the broken hearts on my english notebook
Slowly creating an indent on the cover as the ink beings to fad
Fingertip starts to mimic the cover of my notebook
I look carefully at the way it’s smudged
The broken heart has smudged together becoming whole
Thinking to myself
Maybe my heart could take notes

Teammates supplement for family
Black and white pentagons are the walls around me
Studded shoes fit snug as skin
Practices beg for offerings
We give them Blood
Wanting more, we give sweat
Arguments with my family bring tears
We fight for every moment
Our pulse pumping with the seconds on the scoreboard
The score is never important
All that matters is our sisterhood
We are one

Road maps act like walls
Feeling like continents are purposely putting distance between us
I dream of you, and you of I
You miss me, as I miss you
The only thing to lighten the desire
Is to stare at the sky
To know you’re staring at the same stars

friends
and family
thought
He
served
for
passion,
He
survived by
memories

I’ve spent countless days at the top of a hill
Keeping eyes fixed on an Oxen
I am in love with the Oxen, yet he does not love me
It’s his lack of ferocity that makes me humble
Power is ingrained in his physical make-up, yet he spends hours relaxing
His jaw in constant rotation, others surround him, he barely takes notice
Before I know it, the sun is ending it’s shift
So I must say goodbye to the Oxen
For I must return to a husband with hungry fists

I bear invisible masks across my face
Countless shining lights pointing at my skin
My pores suffocating beneath their heat
Reciting old words others find foolish
I find them beautiful
When I speak, I hear silence
Emotion flowing from my body
Frantically climbing to my peak of exhaustion, this mountain is limitless
Those lights cool off
Darkness engulfs me
There is silence
As I tune back to reality
Thunderous hands pound my eardrums
I await for the next script

I haven’t been in this world very long
Not much makes sense to me
Priests thieving from the hungry to get closer to god
Building temples in honor when others require shelter
My opinion is never heard, my voice too mellow
On two knees, I beg God for a voice like his
He presents me with pen
They will hear me
Through ink

Open window breezes tickle my rib cage
Laying on my bed shirtless, I’m exposed to the world I’ve built in my bedroom
Comforters and bedsheets intertwined at the edge of my mattress
97 degrees of heat are pin-balling their way through the air
While a blanket of snow lay dusted on the lawn
Thinking, if I leave my window open long enough,
I can melt away all of the glistening perfection
Leaving enough mistakes in this world
To think I belong here

Little orange dimples wallpaper my skin
Trying to palm my aggression by dribbling in agony
I’m free
Legs criss crossing
Arms are tossing in the air like I’m praising a buzzer
Building hopes and dreams on driveways and wooden glossed tiles
Behind me is a river of determination that I myself poured
This is where I am an artist

Clear glass bottles are gathering by my bedside
My throat’s a drain, washing away the stains on my gullet
I’m poisoned
.08% is easily surpassable as long as the problems keep on coming
I’m running
I’m stumbling
Everything’s blurring
I’m home

My grandfather used to tell me stories of scary monsters
Monsters tall, Monsters wide
Monsters who’d like nothing more than to bring you down
He’d tell me how these monster are everywhere
How we cannot escape them, only learn to live with them
My grandfather long gone, those stories still ruminate
I found that the monsters he told us about
Were ourselves

She worked in a cold environment
Her hands smelling of cinnamon
Her smile as smooth as cream
Her love was timeless like the broken clock on the wall above her
A spring together led to a summer apart
Followed by the fall
Winter became my cold environment
Ice cream never tasted so sweet

I can see stars in the sky
Constellations are putting me in a trance
Lost to my thoughts, all I can do is float through space
Visiting each bright fiery cloud, all an individual Earth
Slowly pulling myself home
The sky turns brown
The color of her eyes

A sailor loses his wife in a shipwreck in early Spring, 1953
Never remarrying, the sailor sits in his beach house with his son
Staring out to sea, day in and day out, watching the waves break against the coastline
Fall, 1984, the sailor has a stroke
The sailor does not speak for thirty-one more years as he lays silent in his cot
The summer of 2012, his son climbs the stairs to his fathers room
As his son leans in to kiss his father on the cheek
His father whispers to him
‘There is a diamond in that ocean.’

There’s a dried paintbrush in the bottom of a drawer of an unsuccessful artist
He sits the edge of his bed wondering what else he could do with his life
This city only sees him for his past
So he travels distant lands, to hills found only in stories
Leaving only a note
‘Let your body be your canvas’

A boulder lays in a stream for centuries
The trickling water slowly smoothing it’s rough edges
Ending up a pebble at the bottom of that unforgiving stream
Slowly being covered by others
That little pebble, is still a boulder

Dimly lit motel rooms
Dried tears of runaways on the vintage carpet floor
Emotions stain the walls like cigarette fumes
There’s a bible in the nightstand drawer
A reminder that there’s a piece of peace hidden amongst the chaos

A field of yellow roses
All with their own magical aspects
A lone red rose exactly thirteen feet from the forest edge
Different than the rest
It’s our imperfections that make us graceful

Take a step forward
Smiling, and graceful
A pair of bubbly cheeks
Waiting to be called
Beautiful

We give power to words
Turning pens into swords
We’re lost to which is mightier

The definition of family has no meaning anymore
Christmas bells no longer make a crisp sound
Turkey basters have lost their ability to enhance a golden brown taste
A family extended by arms
Are more divided than united
The definition of family has no meaning anymore

I have an army at my sides
Teenage soldiers marching along side making no commotion
Ready to shoot cartridges of heavy emotion
and landmines of loud music
Marines scream their motto ‘Semper Fi’
We reply with an attitude as if we’ll never die
Everyday, unknown soldiers
Our brothers and sisters are dying
in drama filled warfare
Someone tell me these crosses on
Highway sides are okay because
too many populate the green surface they’re held by
I can’t stand hearing how a
14 year old gets shot by a
15 year old now locked up for
16 years all for
17 oz of ****** so now a cop can tell
18 family member some ******* about how kids make ******* decisions because
“We don’t know any better?”
From swing sets and sand boxes to
Slick rides and ****** tension
We’ve been changed from overalls to overrated double standards
As a whole we’ve lost out innocence
We’ve been termed as the lost youth
So let’s get maps to find out way back
3 paces east and 4 to the north
We will end where it all began
Chances are that 90% of people won’t get
our fascination with funny pictures of
Cats on the internet, but that’s because they don’t
understand the generation the 90’s gave birth to
I’m only 16 and growing up scares the **** out of me
I don’t know what one person can do to
stop every disease and flu from passing
through and staying true to humanity
Tom Wargo was quoted as saying;
“Growing old is mandatory;
Growing up is optional”
If this is true then I want to stay
17 on the inside, I’ll be
82 on the swing sets laughing away.
Other parents will whisper and wonder
But I won’t care.
As long as I can stretch my toes
to touch the sky and grab it’s mysteries
I guess that’s why they say plant your foot firmly
in the front door because my toes can’t latch onto nebula's.
So when I fall I’m going to need a platform to land on
If we rely on one another to thrive, strive and survive
Then where will i fall to if my generation single-handedly kills one another till nobody is left?
We live in the moment but the moment has passed
So seize the next moment and live for tomorrow
So when tomorrow becomes today
You’ll be ready.
We
Will be ready
We won’t be killing
We won’t be stealing
We won’t be lying
and most importantly
We won’t
Be
Dying

I’ve been labeled with a term that begins with P and ends with oet
But I owe it to to those listening to explain the steps I’ve taken
225 days of mistaken tippy toes and battles fought arresting a demon to keep him caged thirsty
He stays thirsty
Drips of thick liquid that bring cure to others make his body sick but his mind goes at ease
The random shocks of pain that jolt throughout my body telling me to get more is a reminder that this struggled battle will never be over
This devil on my shoulder is whispering terms of endearment while the angel is tirelessly hanging off my biceps trying to whisper his words of truth
There’s no other way around it
I live by the standard ‘once an addict always an addict’
I am an addict
Before that fact jumps down your throat to join the heart that jumped up in it, let me explain
Addicts like me work long *** days breaking their back to break bread and emerge victorious in their ocean of mistakes
Instead of treading H20, it’s theraflu and pepto,
I used to be drowning but now I’m only waist deep
Slowly, day by day, the drain taking it away makes the level of pepto low
Soon, maybe I’ll be able to say I’m in a puddle getting my tippy toes wet in OTC’s
Then it’ll dry
My tongue shall stay dry
Like that of the demon that stays
Caged
Thirsty
Waiting for a day that my mentality meets frustration so great that I’m attempted to sling that syrup down my throat so suddenly that my stomach acid is left in wonder
Silently slipping into a comatose state that no soul may recover from
To prevent this, I’ll pin praying hands to my nose and speak to a God that I’m not even sure is listening
As I apologize from straying away from the path he’s set for me, I’ll look forward and realize that the hurting is gone
Indeed, more will come
But there is no fear in these eyes
My mother’s soft touch on my shoulder
Friends cementing their hands to my spine to make sure I stay standing
I feel safe and secure to stand on a cliffs edge while the oceans muddy water rushes at it’s walls
I will not fall
Because I just showered
And I intend on staying clean…

Two teens with too much time left to themselves
Both experiences represented by flat lines on hospital machines during sad times
Flipped on it’s *** end quite literally
My youth is my virginity
Finding religion suddenly
Praying in my head “God, if you exist, don’t let the ****** break”
Her face in angst
I begin to flake
Spine reverberates
Elbows Shake
Bedside table vibrates
Text message
Receiving
Mom: When will you be home
Response: I won’t, I’m leaving my old self on these bed sheets
Send
My youth is my virginity
Time becomes an illusion
Not knowing how long we’ve been doing this
Minutes become seconds
Seconds to years
Years are months
Months.... minutes
I alone finish
Quickly getting dressed separately
Previously so ecstatic to slowly peel each others layers away
An eternity of silent eye contact jam packed into countless repetitive heartbeats
A mix of misinterpreted expressions cross our minds as we sink into the realization that we are no longer children
Our youth is our virginity
Your inner thighs have defined the ending milestone of my childhood
In return I thank you and grace you
No other person I’d rather have that connection with
Though we’ve long departed, our current standing is disheartening
Let’s give birth, not to children, but to friendships
I want to to represent my life with a cobblestone road
Being able to get to the end to find success, not regrets
I hand you the first stone

Vibrations of steel block engines have been lulling me to sleep lately
Eyelids swaying up and down like the back and forth of seaweed on the ocean floor
I count yellow dashed lines like others count sheep
Feeling my consciousness slip away, I’m drowsy, I’m dreaming
I dream of a golden city
A golden bay along golden grass rooted in golden soil
Golden streets with golden stop lights
Golden cars parked in golden parking buildings
Gold Telephone towers powered by gold electrical cables
I begin noticing something strange about this city, as it shone so brightly with a golden sun setting as the city’s own back drop.
There were no inhabitants.
No pigeons.
No stray cats.
No dogs scavenging for spare scraps on starving stomachs
Business Men in suits are found littering streets all around the globe. These streets lay barren
Little girls playing hopscotch and jump-rope gone as if the city misplaced them all.
My stomach dropping as I drop to my knees
Panic attacks bring back memories of family and friends
The beautiful faces of girls I once loved, and ones I may never be able to
Questioning if reality was the dream
I am alone in a wonderful Jungle
It’s not easy to be alone in a City of Gold