The gray before the break
Is bleaker than the deepest black.
In that moment, neither sun nor stars are seen,
With light enough to fumble,
The world, meticulously painted,
Is one fell stroke of desperation;
The contrast of pinpricks stars in deepest night
More hopeful than this false ambition
Right before the dawn.

It hurt
When our souls were ripped apart;
We were made as one.

The agony has echoed through my life
Of the moment when the sun hit my eyes
And you were torn from me
For what has felt like a lifetime,

Of when they announced our arrivals
To two sets of parents
And we were taken home in different cities,

And we were ripped from each other
From loving darkness to blinding, aching light,
Left to wander
Until we might find
Each other again.

You leave me
Devastated
Speechless
Shell- shocked,
Like the ground on the field of battle
Absorbing what remains.

You leave me
In a state
Not unlike
The flight
Of a ladybug-
So swift, leaving you
Wondering
If she had been there at all.

You leave me
Mouth agape
Marveling
At the treasure that had been right at my fingertips,
At the sweetness that my tongue could have tasted,
That I could have filled my nose with all of your molecules,
That I could have filled my arms with every part of you,
That your laugh could have warmed my soul for just a little bit longer.

Hardened men, softened
By a lash, by a glance

Dirtied, uncovered
Soft of heart, sharp of eye

Themselves betrayed
By the stab of a gaze

Calcified, petrified
Of letting the softness away.

The clock stopped

And was defibrillated by the breath
Of the materialized bundle of
Blue skin and slippery warmth and matted hair.

An eternity of pain that lasted hours
Turned to infinity of minutes of suctioning and flashing lights,
Then to days that felt like forever of hospital stays.

The timeless car ride home turned into
Equally long three hour lifetimes,
Each expiring with every hungry cry.

The rest of my life
Is punctuated by moments,
By such realizations as, that

This minuscule creature
Kicking staccato butterfly flutters
Now on the outside of my stomach
Traveled in a horseshoe pattern from the inside to get there;

That I've never felt like such a miracle
As when listening to tiny bellows
Pump air in and out, mechanically rhythmic,
Like a drummer at the band practice of life.

convey, contain, explain the pain,
the unbearable straining 'gainst tons over weight,
like inevitable cracking 'fore porcelain breaks--
to slash 'cross the page like so many small veins,
to set ink a'flowing like filth in the rain,
to put words to paper (less likely to fade
than those meaningless noises that most people make)?

How lonesome, the cold sound, the poetry scratching
the sad, angry nib makes when blanks come a'bounding,
to conquer attempts made at filling the space
(the more full the margins the less full my brain),
the keening, the whining, erasing the phrase
created in lieu of composing my face,
Denied, stamped and branded, made nothing the matter,
               no meaning, validity-- like me, ever after.

Haunted;
By whom, if not the dead?
In origin, to haunt--
To rise from the grave;

Adapted-- often thought of
Memories, things unrequited.
A soul tortured by objects
Is one who never-- even-- lived.

Haunted-- by whom
If not those left
Burnt, unburied,
Dead by theft?

Six million constant ghosts,
In addition to those
Left on speed dial on my phone,

Those placed on this earth, the
Guardians,
Who were cut down wearing green,

And the one whose deathbed
I attended--
They
Will
Not
Give
Me
Peace.

I loved you, once,
And never thought
The paper would read your name.

I wronged you twice,
I lied, I thought I’d find
A better man.

You all went off to war,
On foot, or encased in metal, or in air.

There thrice were years,
Each time I prayed another safe.

All four lovers, tall and short,
Happy at last or forever alone,

It was for me they’d have laid down lives,
And I never thought I’d cry.

I want to fall in love again and again;
With the anticipation of constancy
Forming butterflies with little wings
Before they fly off, leaving pits.

I want to gaze into many different sets of eyes;
That one with crinkles at the corner,
Others maybe blue or green,
And only mine remain.

I think I’d like to recycle tragedy and redemption,
To forever be seen for the first time,
To constantly be revealing my secrets
And be the worship of a man.

I should like this world to be a place
Where we agree to fall in and then out,
With a mutual parting of ways
Once the butterflies fly away.

Most gentle of souls,
Kindred of old,
Who raised me up.
In dreams you linger,
And in the mirror,
And in every shade of red hair.
Though at the end
Shriveled and frail
Strength did not fail.
A story kept alive in Esthers,
What is past
Has not passed.

For the aching hearts left wordless with no voice,
For the early morning hours, dark, promising to break,
For the flowers left unwatered, but not faded all the way,
For the young and hopeful, for those innocent in faith,
For the ageless, be they pages, names or graves,
For the smell of wet earth on any undiscovered shore,
For the babes born today and their grandchildren tomorrow,
For those capable of leading and those content to follow,
For the memories of the faces and the footsteps and the battles and the joy.

Do we possess the power
To realize redemption
In the form of lists of traits and acts

("I will never"s)

Commanded by ourselves,
Expected by our elders,
Or will we

("How can I ever?"s)

Forever pass down flaws--
Habits, addictions,
Disorders,
Imperfections--

Destined to repeat
Mistakes of generations?
Can we break
The chains
Of humanity,

So attached to our material face,
Those pieces of people that God created base?

Can we rise from the ashes of history
And genealogy,
And emerge in plumes of phoenix spirituality?

May we disregard our assumption
That our hearts were molded in order to harden

By hand of God, old age or beast?
May we achieve angelic simplicity
And simply be?

And so she rose
Like vapor,
And disappeared just as fast.
Were her phoenix shape to return
To Earth,
She could not have been less.
After a year
Or ten, surely,
There are just worms,

But the headstone is where They return to pray,
To bring the babes named for the remains,
And the grave- they call her final resting place.
So how to grieve when she is lost?
To a classroom or a hospital,
Where are her bones?
Has she yet turned to dust?
Will her bed be in a cabinet of glass?

Every day that brings peace,
Is the sand on an oil- soaked street,
The resolution to a skidding horror scene.
Collective breathing quickens with the high alert and we begin to speak-

Grant this reporter freedom of the press,
Send her daughter to therapy, the boom put her in distress,
She’ll cover talks that result in trepidation
And count her contacts in anticipation.

Tonight we begin the countdown,
We enter the zone
From the 27th to the 33rd
And we won't speak,
Not a word-
Just let the fire burn,
And when other people fan it,
We'll each have to find another extinguisher,
But it doesn't really matter
Because the last words if ever there were-
"I love you",
And because in a week,
You'll be lowering a veil across my face
And uncovering one in my heart,
And after being made to miss
That one person who is priceless,
When next we part we'll have lived a lifetime
And barely be closer to eternal togetherness.

Grief pools in me like hunger,
And I have an appetite but I can't eat.

Today's horoscope warned me too late,
Sundown on Saturday,

Of the rip tides inside of me,
Of the waves that have lured me out to sea-
Whispering little temptations,
A mother's warmth,
Another's safe embrace.

So I said yes.

Fool was I not to have known,
For my destiny is spelled as brightly
As the sun in the light of the stars
And my blindness is my own shortcoming-

I am a broken vessel to be cast aside,
Worth enough to recycle for the next
To profess grand things and make promises.

I am a thing,
A force like a tsunami,
In whose face men cannot
But break vows not yet made.

Loud in love
To compensate
For the silence
That has taken hold
In all my inner chambers.

And to write
Becomes a last resort,
That I quit once when a man quit me,
But that is naturally my only solace.

I was born to die,
My faith was built to lose its way,
And I fall in love time and again

For though I am "impure"

I am innocent

And the world has not wholly succeeded,
Though it tries with every car crash
And with every war
And with every child like myself
Used and tossed away,
With every ultimatum made
To make  a woman stay-

To make the innocent in me fade.

So it sends another demon
More believable than the last,
More deceptively good, truly,

And perhaps this one has.

I don't know you but I speak for you.
You are the hands
That hold steady my guns,
and my legs
To crouch, attack and run;
You are my wings
With which to fly at my enemy,
And my aimed artillery,
That I may strike him heavily;
You are my stomach
To crawl on the sand,
You are everything but our back-
That's what I am.

I have a wand,
I try to hold on
To the same one,
But I lose them all the time.

And when I wave it
Across the lined white canvas
Things start to come alive
All around.

My head is full of musical notes,
I tried to sing some
But they broke;
For others there's still hope.

The fairy dust my wand streams looks like gold,
It sparkles when I read it,
Warms me when I'm cold,
The letters are magnificent as they unfold.

I have a wand
That turns the music in my mind to words,
I read it back and hear a track,
The playlist of my soul.

Everything I write, the rhymes,
All the poems, all the lines
Are a universe of melodies that's all my own,
And it's never quiet in my mind when I'm alone.

I saw Gaza,
I was there in green,
Not exactly
How she remembers me.

I was different then,
A child, carefree,
Before I learned
I couldn't always be.

At first she was a fence
And then a city etched
Into blue sky
And dust that stayed the same.

She expelled me from her arms
And changed her name
And embraced others
Who spit in her face.

I lost her as a home
And then to her lost brothers.
Last time I saw Gaza,
I was in green.

We're jagged edges,
Some bits of us eroded over time,
We dance around cliff ends and ledges;
Play with fire, love and ice and rhyme,
We are writers,
We give the words their souls because our eyes
Betray our inner fighters,
Take away our pens and realize-
That children of the dawn
Are born into the darkest black of night;
And cynics can be lovers,
And only those who break can prove their might,
Let’s try,
Let’s meet and fall apart
Because you and I
Are like two pieces of a heart.

I want to be on the back of a whale
Surrounded by beaches and palm trees,
The only danger is coconut hail,
The only confinement- a warm breeze.
And if the volcano way back there erupts,
I’ll become a balloon and I’ll float off like dust,
And if the whale goes under a bit,
I’ll hold my breath and go under with it.

I swing from the monkey bars,
From arm to arm, from mind to heart;
Touch base and then let go,
Lose grip and then regain my hold.

Fall down, scrape my knee,
I’m alive because I bleed,
Swinging high scarily, for
I’ll go flying as soon as I let go.

Secrets in the sand,
Things that should be covered, and
Castles blow away,
I can make nothing that stays.

Sometimes on the seesaw
You can’t get off the ground,
But be careful before you start
Throwing your weight around.

Sometimes you have a friend,
Sometimes you play alone,
And the older you are the harder it is
To find your way back home

The advantages of a pseudonym
Are reasons to write under a real name,
For to even those who know me
I am anonymous

The notes caressed.
They opened windows
when I saw no doors.
They beat with my heart
and ran down my face,
wet and stinging and salty.
And even when they were too much
I could stand them when they were loud,
when they were hammers on my soul,
when I couldn't bear them to be gentle.
The notes could laugh,
and if I could see them,
some would look like my smile.
And when panicked they'd all left,
I snatched yet more out of the air
and held them to my chest.
They were sobs that held me
when my body wracked apart,
they were all that was left to love of me.
But now the pain has grown
too sharp to bear within,
now I'm all ache and no song.
All lonely nights of strangers
and dreams of those familiar
with no self of which to speak.
Faces have taken their place,
some for whom I care,
others less.
Now, if I'd let them in,
they'd worm their way into my cracks
and weaken me till shattering.
Now, they all sound like mistakes
and people's voices and things
I wish someone would frighten away.
The notes didn't matter so
when a man could take their place
and I knew who he was.
And they weren't needed
before I knew something was missing
and had at least a name to whisper.
But now the notes just hurt.

Looking for love
Is like waving your hand
Through the stardust above,
Expecting contact.

Walk through it-
It sparkles in your hair;
It sticks to your skin-
You think it's really there.

It's a life of chasing vapor
Whose existence you can't prove.
The realization will settle
And eventually, so will you.

And you will always yearn.
Your heart will always burn
With a flame you haven't found,
And you've not the sense to be earthbound.

Your hand and your eyes
Will remain in the sky
And there they'll remain,
While your heart plummets again.

If it shames you,
If it shocks you,
If no one ever cared enough
To brave it through for you,
If that's not how it was done-
                                  Then run.
Shirk responsibilities,
Hold on to old hostilities,
Ensure a future
For your daughter
Full of mistakes you've already made.
             Do not grace her with faith,
Do not bestow your care upon her-
Let her think it was never there.
Cigarettes, alcohol,
                   Heartache, adolescence
Just ******* and
                  Regular flirtations and relationships-
Don't tell her to say no.
Just make sure she knows
                  They're unforgivable, all of them;
(Make sure she knows both shades that life can offer,
Raise her awareness of the wonderful choice
Between white and black.)
                 Fabricate the pretense that in this 21st century
                 She'll never come across them, not once.
Tell her that safe *** is not
Something she should know about
Because she will just not do it
                               Ever, period
And experimentation with substances and heck,
Even with people, are crimes
That only criminals commit.

And she will learn despite you.
And she will do things to spite you,
And one day, she'll grow old enough to hate you
And she won't care or feel the need
To explain her side of things
Because she will find happiness in her way
And she will have survived long enough
To have learned how to cut you from her heart.
And she won't even have to see you,
And the day will come
When you've become
Just a subject of her art.

Deception or protection?
Is it a lie to deny
Or omit a commitment
Of the romantic kind?

To claim it's for his sake
Is a godly statement I won't make.
I've no hold over lives of men,
Yet by my choice I've changed one again.

Who by heartbreak? Who by betrayal?
Who by the murderous unfaithful?
It seems more deaths occur in the virtual
Than by those weapons wielded by the literal.

Who by knives in the front and back,
Who by fire, famine, plague, animal attack,
Who by crime, who on time, who during youth,
Who by abuse, who by noose- and who by truth?

I love more easily
In the winter,
When the only sun
Is a smile,
And any lack of warmth
Belongs to everyone.

I love more easily
In the cold,
With the frost and the rain,
When all my winter
Sweats and sweaters
Make me feel better
About myself,
Than in the summer,
When there are no excuses
Not to go out and make hay.

I wonder if I'm an ice queen,
Reveling in the ****** weather,
Or just an introvert who likes sleet
And the warmth of your company even better?

We were at war,
and now we're not.
We normal folk
don't hear sirens anymore-
but I know our boys
will always hear the booms.

We were at war,
it was the comma
in a sentence that goes on.
It's difficult to realize
that some of our big family
didn't pick up where they left off,
and some didn't pick up at all.

I'm the kind of girl who glows.
I've never admitted it
Or said or written it,
But I've always known.

I walk down the street,
And people look at me,
And I don't know why,
But it's not because I'm pretty.

I know how to shine,
It's an innate talent of mine.
I sparkle, and when I do,
The people around me sparkle too.

People see what I want them to,
And they all say I'll go far,
And it's not that that's not true-
In fact, I suppose I'm a star.

But the thing about stars
Is that they're lucky and bright
But there's lots more to them
Than being a graceful sight.

Stars hold themselves together,
And they're born with their deaths,
And you'll see them forever,
Long after their last breaths.

Stars light our nights from far away,
And they're never what they seem,
They're lonely, sad, strange and alien,
Infinite, vaporous beings.

Yes, I'm a star,
For all the reasons above,
No one sees beyond my light,
And almost none know the illusion of my love.

A name,
A face,
More ripples
In the lake.

I've never seen this man,
But I'll never be the same.
I am not the faintest ripple,
Though we've never met,

Though we're only close
In the second degree, if that;
Though I might sleep tonight
While others won't.

Those outermost waves
Are the ones for whom
He is just part of a number
Of casualties in the Middle East.

She dreamed of a stage
That was bigger than the world.
A stage big enough for all her fears,
High up enough for all her tears
To flow down, down, down.

She dreamed of a place
That could stand her sparkle,
That would understand
The words in her heart
And the silences between them.

She played, she sang,
She wrote away,
And never told a soul.
No, she never dared to hope-
She only dreamed.

And she'd watch people turn to stars,
At home, and on Hollywood Boulevard,
And her world was dark,
Inside herself
And she woke up every morning.

And her dreams were what kept her going,
And the ink that was her tears just kept flowing,
And when her family fell apart,
And when a "Crack!" came from her heart,
She'd put her earbuds in.

And she lived knowing
That one day the music would die,
That that sparkle in her eyes
Would dull for good,
And that she'd open her mouth and just rasp.

And every day
Her dream slipped farther away,
And the salt-waterline that came from her eyes
Kept growing and rising to meet her,
And she didn't know who would save her.

Today if anyone looked for her,
They would see a pair of hands above the water
Outstretched, protecting a big purple folder,
From a big puddle of pain and broken notes,
And maybe then they'd find her.

It hurts to put him first,
No matter the cost for you,
And to put yourself second
When you know he puts you there, too.

It hurts to come second,
Because he's your natural Number One,
But he's got a family who loves him-
And he's where you end up when you run.

It hurts because you'll never tell him that
Sometimes at night you flashback to crying alone,
In a room that doesn't feel like home,
And gluing yourself back together by morning.

It hurts because you're afraid
That what happened before will happen again,
That you'll need to be for someone else
What you yourself are still missing.

It hurts to come second,
And he never knew
How hard he'd have to try just
To keep from hurting you.

It hurts, and you'll probably never tell him
Because that's just not who you are,
And also because somewhere you know that
Who you're with is not the one who let you fall.

It hurts anyway.
It hurts coming second.
Write yourself some poetry,
Maybe learn a lesson:

Remember to be self- sufficient,
Because you're fragile and you're breakable;
And that that's your problem, not his,
And that as long as YOU have a choice-- choose him.

Remember that it's not so simple
When his Number Ones don't know you exist,
But what can you do, you feel like this
Because it hurts to come second.

I left the room today
With the two chairs,
And the one with its back to the window
Will remain occupied for as long as she rents the space,
Kept company by an invisible jar.

It is a jar that was born with me,
That shared my mother's womb,
And like me, it has grown
Over time and become its own.

A few years ago it outgrew me
And I couldn't carry it anymore,
And so she took it from me and
Set it down on her office floor.

My chest constricts when I try to describe
The contents of this container of mine,
And I'm at a loss for words, or strength, or light.

Suffice it to say that if it shattered
And my sanity had a throat- it would be slit
By such monsters as memory,
Despair, depression and other demons.

They remain there, confined, restrained,
By perseverance, honesty and faith,
By openness, communication and vulnerability,
And the choice of right from wrong.

Threatening me no longer- If
I learn from mistakes, both past and future, If
I choose to do what's good and not only what's easy, If
I choose to surf the waves that sometimes overcome me.

Today I left the room with the two chairs
And a guide, a mentor and a friend
Who helped refine the tools to find myself,
And sift through my Pandora's cookie jar.

If I died tomorrow,
Who'd be sorrowed?

My regular audience, long
Accustomed eulogizers- of
Love soured, years passed, and
Companions lost along the way.

I'd be another sadness,
Another Facebook status,
None would search for COD,
They'd merely state my TOD.

None would hunt my words,
The only treasure trove I strove to leave behind,
None would know or care
That I'd taken my own life

If not directly, then by depressing
Into a state of deep, smothering,
Numbing, tragic blackness.

If I died tomorrow,
My mother would sob.
When asked if I could have committed suicide,
She'd roll her eyes, and never nod.

My father would be broken.
He'd interrupt his grief by joking.

My brother would not believe that I was gone,
He'd interrupt them and insist that they were wrong.

My sweetheart, oh, the only one upon whom thinking of
I very nearly did not embrace the void instead of love-
For ever would you say farewell.
Torn from me in this world and the next,
For love does not survive this life in the way that we believe,
Or so you say, but I digress,
For if I thought that true,
These words would not just be a morbid woman's
Morbid wonderings of other lives and others' lives
After her depart did her part from you.

She got a fish.
Some random person
Handed her a goldfish
In a bag
And she kept it.

And then she got another one,
To keep the first one company.
She bought them a tank,
And pebbles,
And a plastic plant.
And I feel stupid because
I thought we were dirt poor.
I thought she was broke enough
To tell me my dad has to support me,
Because that's what she's been saying.

She's got plants, too.
Five balconies,
And flowers
And herbs.

So now she's got fish to feed
And plants to prune and water,
When I'm in therapy
And I get my own dinner
And I've been hung out to dry since I was twelve.

God forbid her fish should swim alone,
Or her plants beg her for attention,
She'll love them, care as if they were her own,
And I'll cry myself to sleep again.

Unless their novelty will fade.
Unless slowly, she'll be too busy for them, too.
Unless they won't be her babies anymore.
Until they die and wither as most neglected things do.

"I will be what I will be,
I will do what I will do,
And no one is going to stop me.

My children will ****
Or be killed,
They will sin in my name.

I will tear down my temple,
Like a *******
I will crumble these creatures
All made in my image.

Babes will brandish automatic weapons,
Innocents ruled by tyranny,
And I, all- powerful, omniscient as I am
Sit on my throne, laughing.

Or maybe I'm sleeping?
I'm not quite sure.
Perhaps I'm lost in my own Eden?

These prayers-- mere amusements,
Unless I've deafened in old age,
These sacrifices keep alive
The spirit of the good old days.

Men divide
Against each other and themselves,
Some still won't utter my true name,
Some wisely have quit caring.

Who are the heretics,
Who are the prophets of truth?
Allah, God and Hashem,
Is it my name I see above?"

Are any of them you?

I just got shot
Right in the chest.

And I thought,
"Jesus Christ, that really hurts."

I fell to the ground,
Hot blood began soaking my shirt.

And through my hazy agony,
I was aware of the poetry-
Of my dying thought:
That missing you
Killed
Me.

Sometimes in life, a preference
Is but the lesser of two evils,
Like choosing ***** or Gemorah;
And sometimes it is a sacrifice,
As palpable as Abraham and Isaac's.
Sometimes choosing means
Standing by the roadside
With your thumb straight out,
Your heart a wide open chasm
To swallow the sinner in you whole,
And blank eyes screaming "I don't know".
Sometimes you're a Tamar,
And people, bless their hearts,
Think you're a Sara or Rebecca
And you just feel like a big ol' Delilah.
Sometimes your face feels like the Red Sea,
Only the dry land is wet with snot,
And sometimes despite it all,
You raise your hands up in the air
And the sun stands still
In the valley of Refaim or Aijalon.
Sometimes your Temple burns,
You realize your body is the loot
And you barely recognize the ornaments.
But even when you're exiled
In the solitude of your own mind,
There remains the promise of redemption,
And whether Messianic or romantic,
You must have faith in the intervention
That will guide you towards the future from Isaiah.

Words flow like wine,
From depths that rival the ocean's heart.
Colored shades of blue and red,
The hues of love and passion,
No longer unrequited, but-
Suppose the rainbow turns shades of grey,
And the sweet wine becomes ashes?
Suppose seas dry into mere lakes?
Suppose the love becomes indifference,
And the passion turns to lust and is all that remains?
Suppose our words run out or are written on a different page?

I was in love with another, once,
The yellow of the rainbow seemed like gold.
The wine that made us heady tasted like Moscato,
And our love burned urgent like a fire that never had a chance to hold.
It burned out, extinguished
By not a lake, but just a puddle,
And we were left two bodies, unconnected
By the faintest common thoughts, and our souls seemed strangers.
I then saw you, and rediscovered
What I'd forgotten long ago,
But suppose what brought us two together
Happens to us, with someones other?

The meteor is coming
Closer and closer,
The skies are humming;
You feel the earthquake
That will take down your house,
The ground is rumbling;
The stampede is ahead,
And you will be trampled,
Run fast, little girl, you're seeing red;
The barrel is pointed at your head,
The trigger is cocked
The finger tightens, you hear the shot;
It slides into your open blue vein,
It makes love with your blood,
You feel your life drain away;
You're in a two- person spaceship alone,
But somehow that meteor is out for your blood,
And you, silly girl, will get crushed.

I thirst for words,
A thirst you have begun to quench.
It is a need of the literate, I suppose,
To inspire romantic prose.
A machine gun has proven to not be enough,
Only a pen has sufficed to capture my love-
A man who is man in all the right ways,
Who tugs at my heart in all the right places.

I covet an equal,
In content and not just circumstance.
It is the dream of the different, I think,
To desire the sameness a lover can bring.
The opposite tried, I must now turn to kindred,
As an audacious adventurer long last made timid-
I give myself unto this writer's loving,
That he may know just how to love me.

My heart is made of glass,
From grains of sand
Collected with care.
When it came time for it to flower,
It was raised carefully
To a lover's lips
And blown and blossomed.
My heart is now shaped,
It is molded
And will set in time,
But in order for it to be my own
I had to tell him goodbye.

My heart is oh, so fragile,
One touch and it could burst.
It seems that two days
Before I'm of legal age
I'm more frail than I was at first.
For while a rare touch
Would have shattered me then,
It will keep me whole today.

We're in the sun, now.
You have a finger on my pulse
So that I don't bleed out.
If you knew  how crystalline I am
I wonder if you'd let me drop.
You wrote the words to my heart,
The ones that were written on the sand,
You held the glass blower's hand,
You will be the one to set me,
And I trust you with all of my glass heart.

The banks have overflowed,
Winter has come after an autumn
Of months, and a summer of years.
Not an inch of footing for the flooding-
Take the moral high road.

It's odd that in this age
Cheating is seen as
A necessity of success
And not an immorality.

I wish I could walk around
Every day, all the time,
With a cheat sheet in my back pocket
And key words scrawled on my palm.

You're talking
and talking
and talking
and talking
and everything I said
before you talked
was a preview for you
to start talking
and talking
and talking
your mouth off-
just
shut
up.