R    R    R
O  O  O
  P  P  P
   EEE
   Our
  Tiny
Hands
  Would
    Grasp
       The
     Colorful
      Intertwined
         Threads as
           It keeps us
            All together.
               Our small frail
                 Faces grow and
                   The rope now fades
                      To brown becoming
                        Strength and freedom
                          Scaling mountains tall
                              And high. The rope
                              Is now saving the life
                               Of the man who slips
                                Or falls. It's amazing
                               How this small dusty
                               Rope, the one sitting
                                Thrown in the corner
                             The one that saves that
                        Mans life when tied
                    Into a circle loses the
                Meaning of life. It now
             Becomes a noose to
             Escape from your
          Dark days. That
      Same lifeline
  Now an end
To life. Now
Take that
Rope and
Twirl it high
Above your
Head watch
It become a
Game, and a
   Challenge full
     Of fun rope the
       Cows and grab your
         Friends which this rope
           Let's you catch. Now add
             A second circle and the
                Cowboy tool becomes a
                   Bow to tie your loves
                     Precious gift and teach
                       A child to work their shoe
                          Change the bow into a
                           Knot and it becomes
                         Your undoing, tying you
                     Back holding your hands
                  As you struggle with
               Your strenghth. It's
           Amazing how a
      worthless string
Of twisted twine
Becomes our
Entire lives
Saving them
Holding them
  Tying them
    Ending them
      Cheering them
        And keeping them
         To some it is a
    Collection of strings
Twisted to form a
Strong enough
Rope. To me
They are the
Strings of life
Put together to
Form our
stories
  R R R
O  O  O
P   P    P
E   E     E

I once saw a butterfly, its left wing was broken,
and it fell over and over, its legs crushed with feeling.

What is beauty?
We ask ourselves as we pile powder on our face like cement over our flawed skin.
Most attribute "beauty" as a physical trait, something you are either born with
or must qualify as to achieve happiness.
I think beauty is in the scrawled message at the corner of a Post-It note shoved in your right pocket
and in the tears welling to your eyes that have not yet fallen.
I think beauty is the hair unstraightened with wide tired eyes
and collaped words stumbling over themselves.

All we know about beauty was bottle-fed to us.
As a society, we have set aside what is and isn't beautiful.
It is unattractive to have acne, obscene to have leg hair,
and a downright sin to spend less than twenty minutes on your hair each morning.
But I've counted the zits on your crumpled forehead
and wrote in the stars the strands of your hair.
Your beauty's unbroken and awesome and perfectly celestial.

I've touched a million dizzy tulips, their heads nod off to the storm and rain.
But you held me even when I was unforgiving and broke me through the icy winds.

To me, beauty is not just what encompasses us, what we are born into;
Beauty is the yet-to-come and what you've tranformed to
after moments of fading lights and sick feelings.
Beauty is weaved into our minds, where no one can touch.
It's not in our appearance, nor in our actions.
Holding yourself high isn't cutting it for me.
Beauty is intricate thoughts, what you desire and feel.
I can't see beauty until you tell me by the dying light of noon
how much you'd love to change the world with your fingertips.

I once saw a butterfly, its left wing was broken,
but I swore it was beautiful.

It is all over.
We are no longer kids but we still are and we are begging for someone to understand that, or at least to pretend they do. High school is done and so is my bottle of anxiety pills so that must mean something, it has given so much to me and also taken away so much from me I think we're even. High school was hard. I had problems, everyone did. But I guess that at the end what we're all going to remember the most is the amount of hours we couldn't get to sleep before finals. In high school I learnt that it does not matter if you are suffocating and you want someone to notice and help you and be your saviour, it only matters if you want it to matter. I also learnt not everyone is worth looking at, with eyes that could have spared looking or glancing at books I already returned to the book bank and I will never see again. High school is not about how many times you go to parties or you get asked out because, if you have a different perspective of it all, the movie dates do not drive you to graduation and the smiles for the pictures you take in parties are not the same smiles in the pictures at your graduation day.

I have not cried one day yet over my already done childhood and half-way done teenager-hood, because I already cried enough with a few things I'm quite ashamed to write about now. Perhaps the day it all sinks in and I see my friends not here with me but there with somebody else I'll cry. Or maybe not, or maybe a lot, or maybe my eyes could fill the rivers I didn't cried in all this period were people cried like maniacs while seeing pictures of them with weird haircuts and faces full of acne.

To sum this up, high school was crap. But we all love crap.