Sometimes I spread my hands to the sky certain that they can grasp the stars but they can't, yet I keep reaching anyways.

And there's something beautiful about spinning on a field when the only thing visible is the night sky, and the only thing insignificant is you.

When I was young the thought of the world revolving around the sun intrigued me, and those moments somehow made me feel at one with the world.

Spin, spin, spinning, but then I would stop and my feet could no longer keep up with pace of my head, so I’d go flying in all directions just like disillusioned men when they go stumbling down streets unfamiliar to them.

Sometimes I wonder if the world is the way it is because it is in chaos and no one even knows.

Like somehow everyone is at a disadvantage,

Like no mind is sober because of a natural disposition pinned against us by gravity.

What if that is why men do the things they do, because I always wonder under what spirit do they operate, what demons have they encountered, that cause them to be possessed with this hate that makes *** slaves of the unfortunate, orphans of the unprepared, single mothers of the lovers, victims of our children, and on and on and on and on again.

Life just keeps moving and we just keep making the same mistakes. generations pass, people die but no one understands that we are just animals, caught in a war against ourselves.

Against our greed, our pride, our lust, our security, our beliefs.

We are so full of ourselves that we don't notice what is happening around us, we don't know that the world is spinning at 1000 mph; we have lost touch with the things that matter, lost all connections with the truth in the sky that enlightens anyone who dares to approach it.

always forgetting that it is the beauty of the moon, and the millions of stars that remind us that We Are Insignificant

But instead we are grounded and we have stopped so our feet cannot keep up with the pace of our heads so we have lost our balance.

You know I'm afraid, I'm afraid for my life.

On morbid days I envision myself in my coffin, I see my lifeless body and the pastor walking up to the podium, he says,
"Jal, he was an average man, maybe a bit eccentric, tragedy struck and this young man was taken away from us way too early by the devastating actions of an unidentified person.”

I watch the whole funeral and in curiosity I wonder which belief was it that killed me, or was it something outside my control like the color of my skin.

You see most people pray to be put down while they are sleeping by the famous killer, old age, but I don't know if I'll make it that long.
I've always said I want to be fully aware of the moment I die.

That's why when I was young on family road trips, when the only thing I could see was the 350 ft. ahead of the car illuminated by the headlights, and the determined face of my father, I would fight to stay awake because I couldn't let death take me by surprise.

But now I'm eighteen I occasionally have nightmares of my loved ones dying, but then again I don't really sleep anymore because death threatens to come at any moment.

A terrorist attack could shatter the windows of this house I consider impenetrable, or even a hungry thief thinking irrationally about his rationality.

This is the world we live in.

The world is spinning off its axis and things that used to seem so far have slid closer and closer, until I’m looking right into the eyes of death.

From 9-11, to Westgate, to genocide, things are closing in on me, and the “what ifs” are no longer so improbable and I am afraid.

I'm afraid that the world will never change, that people will stay the same, that I will go insane.

I’m going insane.

Could people just understand, could we just stop for a moment, grab each other’s hands and walk to open fields together at twilight after all traces of the sun have gone, could we whirl around with our heads to the skies, our nature abandoned, and our bodies in sync with the world,

Could we just spin and spin and spin until we once again become what we were made to be.

Could we just be more than animals?

it has been exactly a month
since I tasted salt on my tongue
and felt sand between
the ridges of our blankets.
the only thing I ever learned
from my parents
was that a boy
who loves his mother infinitely
would love me just the same
and you would've given yours
the world;
when you kissed my throat
could you taste the waves again?
I am so desperate to be the deepest parts of the earth-
I have veins like rivers
and you could dip your hands in.
my whispers may be cloudy
but my mouth is a cavern
the noise produced is dark-
you stole my sunshine, and you know
I don't think I've ever been so pale.
translucent and glowing like ice packed in piles beneath the stairwells
(in the neighborhood
where nobody knows my name)
it is warm but I love you just the same.
winter frosted the windows
shut for us
and when you dragged me
in front of the mirror
I was wide eyed and shaking
and you made me look
at my reflection-
"you look so beautiful"
the whole planet
should have looked in at the girl
with the cigarette
shaking between her lips,
and the bruises on her hips,
with the veins like rivers,
the cavern mouth
filled with diamonds,
that were planted by your kiss-
one day, I will be carried by the wind
or rushing through the sea-
and you will peer down at yourself
in the ripples of water,
see your reflection,
and you will look so beautiful.

I was born with a knack for reading and a passion for writing and a terrible, ten cent memory. although I can't recall what I ate for breakfast (unless your mother made it) I can still remember the first time we met.

I remember looking up at your apartment, seeking refuge from the cold, pushing away "this is a bad idea" and thinking maybe honey colored windows and smokey air could change my life. plants hang like bodies behind the blinds. now I think "this was a great idea" and I still can't decide if I should've ascended those stairs- two flights- right into your life. you were sitting on the couch and wouldn't look my way because the cigarette between your lips was far more intriguing. car horns and screams erupt from the tv. this is the first time we speak since I first saw you in middle school, pushing my friends into the bathroom of the wrong gender.

I remember spending every day working my way to the couch. first the floor. then the chair. then beside you. and once I found this place God knows I knew I was at home. I've never liked watching you play video games and swing from roof to roof and flip a truck with the push of a button, but now there's nothing I miss more than the sounds of that glowing controller. only when I traded my dark sweaters for a tight tee had I caught your attention.

I remember the night we taped your mouth closed and your wrists tight and tossed you in the trunk as a joke. I still have pictures. you tried to speak and although your words were muffled, I could understand. I was the translator. and I still am. you told me you'd be satisfied if you kissed my best friend before the night was over. I told you I couldn't handle myself on an empty stomach. I puked all over the side of the car.

I remember trying to start a fire for forty five minutes and chugging liquor like water before our friends returned. asking you to sit with me that night was an invitation to fall in love with me. however, the type of love you showed was not one I knew well. I never let anyone **** me because I was too afraid of myself. but I never stopped you because you weren't afraid of anything. I wonder if you still would have done it knowing how far along id take you. I wonder what kind of dreams you had when you passed out in the trunk and I shuttered in January air, 3 am and the tape from your mouth is on the steering wheel. there is no such thing as silence. there are only hands rubbing my back as I try to remember how the sun feels.

I remember bruises on my thighs that looked like Van Gogh touched a canvas with a blindfold on. I swear I shook for three days after That: when I saw you, when I wanted you, when I thought of you. three things I still tackle with every morning smoke. I used to think you'd never speak to me after that night. who would've guessed we'd have a million more.

I remember the first time you had me completely exposed, and it was not just my skin. I was knocking things off my bucket list, knocking my head on the headboard, knocking on your door at midnight with a blunt in my back pocket. remember when you punched me in the throat on accident? I leaned into it. should've knocked some sense into me.

I remember laying on your bed listening to the messages my first love had left on my phone a year ago. "I love you, I love you. please come back. I love you." you thought they were creepy. I wanted you to need me this badly. I wanted you to hold me when I cried. "message deleted." "message deleted." I wanted to keep you from walking out of the room, and I wanted to keep your mother from walking in. she thought I was a good one. "I like her," she shouted, cackling over the sink. "she's good for you. she's so good for you." she doesn't know I carved her couch with your knife. she doesn't know how you dragged me in front of the mirror and told me I was beautiful. she once called me and told me I used her as a hotel. it was my home. I am still there, somewhere. I remember so many things and yet not one is valuable when I try to find words to fit. I can't tell you what love is. you can read every poem and hear every love song and see every photo and you will never know. but if you give me an hour and a bottle of wine, I can tell you what it's like when it's gone.

Somehow I always find myself coming back to you
Your absence made me feel like my heart had an empty hole
your voice, your face, your pure and sweet soul
Fills the nothingness inside of me
Let's repeat the past and come back to the start
Where you made my life a work of art
Let's repeat the past and not fall apart.
Say you love me once again
Say you love me, sweetheart.

In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul says :
"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

I do not know anything about God except that he was sure to not make us strong enough.
When people leave something, even if they don't see it, even if their memory forgets it so strongly that it's existence becomes less than it has ever been before, something in the world forgets how to grow.
Forgiveness is difficult.
Understanding is difficult.
But no one ever really has time for things that come easy.
Remember that we did not give the world it's color, we are only here to watch it change.


I am only here to show you that even in loss, even in darkness and ways and places that we may never understand, there is always something to see.
I wonder if everything in this world is connected in some way similar to that, and if we, in our most bare state of being, were once broken at the hip from the pieces of this world we hold most beautiful.

I know what the body sings, and what pushes blood inside people's arms and legs, how life and death is the only art that humanity is worthy of remembering. About the ending of things: is there any better way to die than lying on concrete, feeling your Life detach itself from your core and knowing nothing that you can hold on to is going to save you today, knowing that this is simply a conclusion of what was always there?
Remember: we never love anything enough to keep it alive,
and whether or not you want to believe it, you need more than love, because we are not built to withstand something so immense.
But in our lifetime, if we are lucky, we will find someone who makes you feel the way you do when you hear your Mother laughing from the living room.
How even the smallest ways to love things are greater than happy endings and how even in our greatest moments we are simply what we are.

she is self-destruction in a bottle. she
can make fire out of sweat,
feel thorns inside her bones, and
the importance of this is that, oh
baby, the river runs red. time to
kick the habit.

but she's a broken vessel, and she
still sees in black and white. so
her body is in overdrive.
fingers caress her ****** thighs
are you listening? because soon she's going
down. a dance with a devil.
her needle's clean, her tar is laced, and her
throat is sore-she has been drowning.

her parents never loved her. her
wrist became an answering machine. she
is cold- her fingers bruised.
traced the stretch marks on her hips she has never been
with. only this month did the
red turned to white.


and by the time she notices
she realizes it's too late and she
has already
made
a
line
on
the
mirror

I am a single point
I am a hole between
the threads of a quilt
these strings amongst me
are my thoughts intertwined
with the words of others wound
around countless other spaces,
little voids filled with warmth of
fuzzy yarn spun from the
tongues of old
days past
Oh, how this fabric
so filled with holes
keeps me from trembling