You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to **** you.
You died before I had time ----
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My ****** friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You ----

Not God but a *******
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the *****.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagersnever liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you *******, I'm through.

Heart thumping
Face on the desk
We're talking about suicide
And I know what comes next

She tells us not to look
We have to close our eyes
She says it's an anonymous survey
And I wonder if I should lie

Raising our hands is a yes
And everything inside me
Screams no while I
Try to calm my bouncing knee

I raise a tentative hand
When she asks if we've considered suicide
That tentative hand raise is the largest step I've taken
And part of me feels peace deep down inside

I still remember
Her kisses laced with chap stick and wine
I remember her emerald eyes shining
In the dark
I remember her whispering
"To be continued?"
I know she had blackened lungs,
A messed up past
And a crooked heart
But I still loved her
With all of mine
I remember that question
That haunted her
"How will we ever get out
Of this labyrinth of suffering?"
I know all this
But I will never know
The last words she spoke

I refuse to stay silent
I've participated in the day of silence twice now
The first time in 8th grade
We got cards that explained why we weren't speaking
I stayed silent the whole day
And felt quite special about it too
Lunch was a long game of charades
And I thought to myself
"I can't wait for the next day of silence."
And I hardly thought about why I was being silent
To begin with

9th grade I did it again
I brought a whole pack of sticky notes with me
And by the end of the day,
I felt the need to plant a tree
To pay the world back for all the paper wasted
I broke my silence by lunch time
Because my friend needed to tell me
How much she wanted to ask this girl out
And I wanted to ask this boy out
And I went home that night
Hardly thinking about why
I was (mostly) silent that day

April 11th would be my third year
Participating in the Day Of Silence
If I was participating
Which I won't be
Not become I'm homophobic or anything
Oh, no
But I began to think about being silent
And what it accomplished
What does it accomplish?
I realize it's supposed to be symbolic
Of LGBT youth whose voices are forever silenced
Because they decided their life should end
On their own terms
Suicide is a taboo word
A stigmatized topic
I'm not gay, or bi, or trans
But there are nights
When suicide looks easier
But I can't tell anyone I feel like this
Because no one likes discussing ugly things
And we'd rather live with the pretty lies
And it's much easier to fake a smile
Than lose all my friends
So what kind of message are we sending
When we stay silent on subjects like suicide
And students stay silent
Because they don't want to speak in class
And then feel like they're doing the world a favor
Making some political statement
I want to tell the story
Of the girl who got kicked out of her house
For bringing another girl home
I want to share the tragedy
Of the boy, bullet in brain
Because he was born a she
I want to be the voice
Saying "It's okay."
Not censoring my words
Maybe I'm misinterpreting
What the Day Of Silence is all about
But at least I have the power to say
You will never silence me

Behind these hazel eyes
There is a monster deep within
It bubbles deep inside
And always gets under my skin
It's irrational and stupid
And yet it's everywhere
Yes, I get it, she's perfect
But could she be perfect over there?
It's just my insecurity
I tell myself all the time
But I still find myself searching you
For evidence of a nonexistent crime
Dreams in which you love her
Easily cloud through my mind
When you and her walk ahead
And I'm left behind
It's not that I don't trust you
No matter what I heard
I'll always completely trust you
I just don't trust you with her
These green eyes are blocking
Out my sight
They won't go away
Try as I might
Green eyes
I only want you and me
Behind these loving hazel eyes
Lies a beast named jealousy

My ribcage protects the heart
Constricting the love that's overflowing
And slowly dripping out
All to avoid any possible blows

My ribcage does not protect against
The stupidity of my brain
Who fell for the kind of boy I was warned about
Because of the one ***** that can't feel pain

And your hands became my ribs
They held my heart tight
My heart was in your palm
And I prayed you'd treat it right

Turns out you had a collection of hearts
Each varying conditions
So you put my heart in your back pocket
And it entered decomposition

The ribs protect from physical blows
And without even touching me
You've reached past my ribs
And stole the breath and love out of me

You'll always be two steps ahead
In this game called 'the chase'
You'll always cross the finish line first
Because to you, love's just a race
You'll hold my heart
You've already won
Because you took off running
Before I knew it had even begun

Giggly and red eyed,
Stumbling over your feet
And words
Rolling joints behind school
Feeling the highest of highs
And we're dreaming on cloud nine
Just for a while
To numb the pain
And forget our war torn wrists
And we can see a silver lining
When we're with dear Mary Jane
And it's now that I realize
These are not problems,
They are our solutions

I put the blade down
Once again
The gleam of silver shining
Obstructing my view
Imagining metallic
Deep in my skin
I pick it up,
Put it down,
Pick it up again
Recovery
Or
Relapse
I choose the latter
REVERSE
I choose the latter
Relapse
Or
Recovery
Pick it up again
Put it down
I pick it up
Deep in my skin
Imagining metallic
Obstructing my view
The gleam of silver shining
Once again
I put the blade down

He always told her
He liked the way
The moonlight silhouetted her face
And she always told him
She liked the way
He held the small of her back
When they swayed

And they had a hideaway
Where they always found each other
A park on a lake called Otisco
They'd walk and hardly notice the time
Gone by
And one day
He took a pocket knife
And carved their initials
Into the bark of a dead
Tattooed tree

They came every single day
And even though it belonged
To the community,
They felt it was theirs

And the sun rose and set
As did the moon
And they took time with them
And the soles of their shoes grew old
But this remained their spot
That they would always go
And they both wished they could
Freeze time
And lie on the grass
And memorize each line
On each others face
As they were now

And the wood on that tree
Slowly decayed
And the two lover's hearts grew old
But they were still every bit in love
With this park
With each other

And that girl
Now walks through the park alone
With tears falling down her
Wrinkled face
And she never notices the stares
And that tattooed tree had fallen months ago
She's beginning to forget
The exact lines in that boys face
Or the exact way he held the small
Of her back
And nothing scares her more
So she sits at the bench
She donated to the park
With the plaque that had
Their initials engraved
In dedication to the lovers
Who loved this park
As much as they loved each other
And she longs for the day
They'll walk beside each other again
When she makes it to the Pearly Gates
Until then, she'll just put one foot
In front of the other
Getting older with her shoe's soles
Walking in the echo
Of the love she once had