12% why does my father treat me like his son instead of daughter
15% library inside ribs, it holds a world instead of lungs
21% school is an injury education is attempting to bandage
29% there is a reason i used a calculator for these percents
33% hangout with nature and let it break your heart

the sun is reaching out her rays;
they pierce through the barrier
that divides insanity from tranquility
and shine brighter and brighter until
suddenly, i am lifted from the depths
of my comfort.

my hair is dancing underwater;
as soon as i break surface it knots on my back
like the braids my mother twisted
when i was a child (so innocent
and withdrawn from harsh reality).

childhood was a gift that i did not learn to cherish.
since i was young i knew of the therapy of water;
how you heal a burn by running it under the faucet
or how summer days beckoned a thirst
only it could satisfy.

so then, when i dove into the pool,
life cascading around me with injuries
i could not heal with a dab of a wet cloth,
how could i have known
it would not fix my existence in the same way?

the bottom of the pool tastes like relief
and broken memories, the water is seeping
into my soul to heal the wreck i've caused.
as the liquid fills my lungs
i am resurrected by the sun;
the hammock of her rays assures me that
i will forever be healed.

English teachers were right when they told us always to finish our sentences. They said that fragments lead to grammatical errors and a loss of idea cohesiveness. They said that ramblings overexcite the mind of the reader into a state of faulty comprehension. Full sentences engulf the paper; there are no thoughts left behind. Maybe that's why poets are so **** sad. You see, when I started using fragments, I began to exclude ideas that were too ridiculous to put into words. Now I am haunted by the thoughts I never finished and the words I was convinced were better off silent. The fragments couldn't connect in my mind and they couldn't find their syllables and they wandered off looking for you when you could only be found in commas and periods and sentences containing only one conjunction. Fragments create halves of moments and halves of feelings and maybe if I was more careful I wouldn't have created a fragment of you. Each sentence has a subject and a verb but the ambiguity of the subject in a fragment does not mean that you were not there all along. Nowadays, it's too hard to read my writing without wanting to burn it in the fireplace. I want to watch the flames flick away the broken rhythm of our past and join the fragments into whole sentences and whole paragraphs and whole stories but I can't find the punctuation. Maybe I should have listened when my teacher told me to combine ideas and make whole. Maybe then I'd know that complex sentences do not always lead into complexities. Fragments cannot stand alone and make sense. You could not stand alone and find your sense in me.

when it seeps into my pores my hands shake
no one can see it but I know it's there
it may not exist but it still makes me panic.

it is 3:14 and I can't control the weather
sometimes giraffes stick their heads in the clouds to see better
sometimes I make up facts to distract myself from the panic.

it is 3:16 and I can feel it in my bloodstream
of course there's nothing there but my panic notes otherwise
if this is a disease why am I the only one dying?

it's 3:19 and you put your hands on mine.
the warmth washes over my skin and I feel the tension escaping,
like you are ******* the venom from a fresh wound.

it's 3:58 and you are still here
I can feel you seeping into my skin but
there is no panic.

Two years ago I met a boy that knew how to finish crossword puzzles
without picking up a pencil.
I didn't know how he kept track of the letters
but he said that you don't need to write them down to remember.

Two years ago the boy and I became friends.
We wrote stories together,
roamed the streets carrying flowers from the meadow,
and arose from the friendship a cliche couple
comprised of poetry made with teenage wonder.

This is not a sappy love story,
nor is it a depressive tale of separation.

Sometimes you meet a person that has the ability to crawl into your skin
and make whole the most vacant parts of you.
They grip onto your cells
and preform symbiosis with your mind
but that doesn't guarantee an infinite presence.

Stories have the power to outlive their creator,
but sometimes the story gets crushed underneath those who made it.
Crossword puzzles can be easy to complete
but sometimes the letters don't even need to be written down.

The relationship you have with someone will always be everlasting
no matter when the story ends or how the puzzle is understood.

Two years ago I met a boy that knew how to finish crossword puzzles
without picking up a pencil.
I didn't know how he kept track of the letters
but he said that you don't need to write them down to remember.

I remember every month you would get a haircut
because you couldn't stand the strands touching your face.
You blew it out of your eyes
and folded it back from your forehead
but you weren't at peace until it was gone.

When you left,
it wasn't entirely your fault.
I liked tomato soup while you liked chicken noodle;
you watched television in the mornings while I flipped through the channels at night;
I couldn't blame you
we just didn't work out.

Yet in this moment I am biking past your house,
it is late and I can see the television flashing through in the window shades.
It is when the house is out of sight when I start thinking of you;
the yellow dotted street line is your spine and I am tracing the curves with my wheels,
the leaves strewn across the road are your freckles and I am so lost
in a sea of your anatomy that I do not even notice the headlights.

They say before you die your life flashes before your eyes,
but all I see is the television through the window,
strands of me draped across your face,
and how at peace you must be now that I'm finally gone.

when the first flake of snow falls onto the ground,
it melts into the earth and waits
for the others to pile upon it.

only then, with thousands of others blanketing
and falling and dancing across the sky
will that one snowflake be defined as snow.

thoughts react similarly.

one thought can too easily melt into the earth.
but with the addition of many
there is a revolution, a war, a definition
with the power to create more definitions.

a movement depends on the voice of one
but the idea expands to plant seeds
so flowers grow even when there is no soil.

we are the flakes that give meaning to snow.
do something about it.

so many thoughts inside my head
but they won’t come out.
trapped between the folds of my mind
overflowing like an ocean contained
in the space of a stream.
i want to paint the world in your eyes
and i want to explain
the sensation of your touch.
it’s been so long and i yearn to remember
but all i see is blank paper
a blank notebook
and blank memories.
maybe it’s not writer’s block
maybe i just forgot.

WHEN I WRITE ABOUT YOU
I WANT TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS
BECAUSE YOU ARE MOMENTOUS
AND EXCITING
AND WORTH SO MUCH MORE
THAN LOWERCASE LETTERS.

YOU ARE THE SUN BEAMING AT NOON
NOT LIGHTLY ON THE FACE
OF DAFFODILS AND CHERRY TREES
BUT SCREAMING THROUGH WINDOW BLINDS
OF TEENS TOO BEATEN DOWN
TO CLIMB OUT OF BED.

YOU ARE FUZZY CHRISTMAS SOCKS
AND HEAVY QUILT BLANKETS
NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR WARMTH AND SINCERITY
BUT BECAUSE OF THE WAY
YOU ENGULF EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH
AND MAKE THEM A PART OF
A SEA OF COMFORT AND REMEMBRANCE.

YOU ARE 3 AM EPIPHANIES
YOU ARE THE END OF A STORY MADE OF PROMISES AND BUMPY PLOT LINES
YOU ARE A BOUNCE CASTLE AT A KID'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.

YOU ARE CREAM CHEESE BROWNIES,
STARS SPRINKLED IN THE SKY,
THE FINGERTIPS OF A KINDERGARTNER IN THE WINTER
TOO STUBBORN TO WEAR GLOVES.
YOU ARE EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD
ANYONE COULD HAVE ASKED YOU TO BE
BUT YOU ARE MOST DEFINITELY NOT
LOWERCASE LETTERS.