I've never seen a shooting star.
The city lights are way too bright,
But should they dim somehow,
I'll wish for words to never fail.

He said he'd take me out to see
A shooting star this summer,
And when he doubtless keeps his word,
I'll wish him peace of mind.

All your life, you've wished for wings
While I've learned the notes the ocean sings.
To stroke the sky where it hugs the shore,
To ask the waves if we've met before.
You took your first flight as I was learning to float,
You build yourself a catapult, I dug myself a moat.
Both our hearts are equally blue,
And neither one has learned to hide.
Like lovers' eyes, you're lost inside-
Intoxicating, infinite, new.
We'll gallop together on common ground,
Sea horses with eagles true love have found.
No wind nowhere, dear, ever behaves,
The sky weeps tears and the sea laughs waves.

Where sky meets sea at the end of the world,
Where they kiss and intertwine to the beat of their song,
With the sun as a lone fiery partition,
That's where we belong.

I.                I am a lizard
    I tread the earth like lightning
           Grass sways above me
      
II.             I belong to Earth
       My beady eyes are small seeds
                My tail is a blade

III.       My cousins shed skin
           I am content in the grass
                   I am the lizard

We wait at the same stop.
It's pouring, and we join the huddle of people
Keeping dry under the cold metal.
I expect her to get on one of the Arab bus lines,
Because she's an Arab.
That was racist and I smile to myself when
She gets on the 74 with me.
We end up jammed in the middle, standing face to face
In a sea of human waves, getting on, off, hustling.
There is an Ethiopian lady next to us with a baby strapped to her back.
I think the girl is wistful. I wonder if she's wondering about her future, like me.
Her makeup is better done than mine is and she looks sad.
I wonder what secrets lie beneath her elegantly obscured body.
I remember when I was Orthodox- we were parallel lines.
I sneak a look at her hijab. I wonder if she looks at my hair.
I notice two rings, a diamond and a gold, on her left hand.
She follows my gaze, twitches her fingers nervously and moves her hand.
I wonder how he treats her. Is she afraid of him? Is she sad?
She looks sad. I want to ask her what's wrong.
Does she speak Hebrew? Maybe. Probably not. Maybe.
I want to at least meet her eyes and smile,
So she knows someone noticed,
But my eyes flit and dart away every time I try,
And all I can see is the hate that's been wedged between us since the 20's.
She can't be much older than me, I think as she takes out an Iphone
In a bright pink case, a twin to the one I'd checked in its turquoise case
About 30 seconds ago. We get off at the same stop.
She waits for a transfer and I start walking to school.
I will never see her again, but I hope that maybe our future daughters
Will be able to smile at each other on a crowded bus, and maybe even be friends.

Tan,
Not too big,
Not perfectly slim,
My suitcase has a rainbow- colored ribbon.

My suitcase is pretty,
It's delicate, crafted carefully,
Blemished and recalling antiquity.

My suitcase has faded stickers on it,
Dirt and stains and scars,
My suitcase is clearly well- traveled,
Adding to its charm.
The moment I saw my suitcase
I knew it'd be my friend,
And its handle felt like a mold
Of my small, custom- made hand.

To a child, or a god- fearing man,
Responsibility is undue.
He has no life span,
And all wishes made-- come true.

A child learns the way
Of his father and his priest,
Then the man lives in decay--
That which feeds on fear to speak.

Thin air whispers in their ear-- prophecy;
For better, or maybe even for worse,
A king of men must bend his knee
Lest all bad fortune be a curse.

By the sight of a child, or a god- fearing man,
Black shadows lie in sharp relief.
By mine, though little do I understand,
Knowledge will forever trump belief.

When a wild spirit falls in love,
It locks her up
In a cage.

When a wild spirit falls in love,
She gives all her wild away.

A wild spirit falls in simultaneous love
For boredom does not come easily
To a wild thing.

A wild spirit is a match only for multiple men,
And so she challenges herself and ends up tangled
In a web that can only be woven by a wild spirit in love.

Red words in black ink,
Seductive kisses never leave
The lips of thorny roses,
Full bordeux mouth prints,
Desire for hell's angels
Unrequited, as is planned,
Pain is the ultimate man,
Hands don't approach,
Sight is as intimate as ***,
Whispers of agony,
Enjoyable as only love could be.

Back home
I shower
And my eyes
Don't blink as they're lined
Along with my mouth
And usually I don't do that
But some lines on my face need to be redefined
Like the ocean eroded them
Just washed them away
And I'm dressed in blue and green
And in my ears are pearls--
Because I'm not afraid of the sea,
It was my fault it almost killed me
And the person I hold dearest.

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.

Where do the soap suds go
when they're washed down the drain?
Do they take the dirt and salty sweat
down to the sewers, where they won't be missed?

Once part of me, my veins and tear ducts,
there came a time for us to part, my dirt and I,
so the lathery angels kissed my ***** skin
and purified in instants a sad story of filth.

They wash away in streams of white-
ashes from car exhaust and cigarette butts,
and lines of black, like lung cancer and smeared makeup
and runny lines penned by an unclean hand.

I wonder, where do the soap suds go?
Do they toss my sins to the sea to be sunk
and forsaken, like how they came to cling to me?
Am I truly clean, or must the soap suds scrub my soul?

People ask me,
"Were you born here?"
And I want to say I was,
But this slight of my tongue,
This twist of speech betrays me.
A native loved one tells me,
When he sees the consternation
And despair plain on my face,
That it's only a lilt, not crippling, per se.
But how do I belong here
If I speak with the voice of there?
How do I pause the motion of this accursed pen
And set it scribbling instead from  right to left?
I laugh with them when they hear the way I say a word
And I try to say it the way that they do,
But my "ah"s are too drawn, my "l"s too conspicuous,
My "r"s are not deep enough, my "t"s are too reptilian,
Slippery like the tears I'd shed when they told me
I was writing my name wrong.
I knew no other place, and here I learned to hate,
But lately, for the past 5 years or so,
I've been ashamed of the thing that brands me-
אמריקאית, Amerika'it, American.

You think you're the better writer with
         Your indentations,
Arrogant alliteration,
Games of Rhymation;
When You Capitalize For No Good Reason
OR TYPE IN ALL CAPS;
When you type in italic just because you can;
With thy ineffectual employment of Shakespearean formulation
Or elongated conveyance of your articulation,
                                        When you type in
                                             funny patterns to
                                        better express the  
                                             thoughtfulness and
                                        superiority behind the gemstone
                                                   artist,
And, all- your; meaningful, strategically placed' punctuation!
And perpisfuly mispled wurds bcuz yur so ironic,
And your cryptic title that's meant to come off as genius.
Dylan could crack a skull without a hammer.

Prayer is a thought,
                a frisson,
                 a song,
                 a sob.

Prayer can be all that one is,
All that one aspires to be,
It can be all that one has lost,
The last thing that one has to give.

True prayer is internal,
Prayer is like a snowflake,
Prayer is not printed
Words on a page.

Prayer is not always cathartic.
Prayer is angry. Prayer is hopelessness.
Prayer is more often than not
A last resort born of desperation.

Prayer uttered daily, commanded by a man,
Is prayer stripped of meaning, desecrated,
A holy word on a holy plane
Made mundane.

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.

I see a spark
In my mind's eye;
The spark melds two
And once lit never goes away.

A spark so bright it leaves no choice
Or room to roam love's other corridors,
Its magnetic pull sufficient
To never want to let it die.

I see a spark,
Just in my mind;
That I think I once saw with my eyes,
And now I think that I've lost sight.

I see a spark with someone new,
Illusion or delusion of grandeur?
Make new friends? Keep the old?
Prospecting when I've found the gold?

Mountain air as sweet as wine,
Stone layers forested in pine;
These are another's words, not mine,
And it is she that they indeed define.

She basks in a light that's all her own,
From newly paved streets to ones of cobblestone;
From her blackest of nights to glorious days,
Halos of holiness blanket her mazes.

For those who love her, she does treasures unveil,
And if you will hear it, she'll tell you her tale:
How she fought for her children, tooth and nail,
So that she could newcomers hail.

You'll hear it in her winds' faint sighs,
Her buses' roar, her peddlers' cries:
How long she's suffered through the false claims and lies
Of the ones afraid to see her rise.

We're always balancing on some ledge.
The moment we find a balance,
And catch a breath,
We turn around and, gasping,
Find ourselves on the edge
Of another dark precipice.

Certain ledges threatening my sense of security presently:
1. My bewildering love life.
2. Certain dictators with power over me.
3. The boring, seemingly never- ending summer stretching ahead of me.
4. Fear of conveying false emotions.
5. A unhealthy sleeping pattern.
6. A sense of obesity, coupled with a justified concern regarding different eating disorders.
7. A need and refusal of nicotine.
8. An overwhelming and rapidly reclining sense of loneliness.

Don't speak of ledges.
They're all around you,
Waiting for you to mistake a shadow for a solid step.
Proceed with caution,
For if you don't,
You'll soon wish that you hadn't advanced at all,
But merely remained in the safe tedium
Of the middle of that floor of holes.

Pounding heart, diseased but strong;
She sees his hands and knows that they're where hers belong.
Under attack, she must get back
The things she felt before the virus killed her song.
Unraveling knots disturb her sleep;
A red haze on her young face as she gets to her feet.
She won't let go, through the vertigo
She clutches love and things almost too beautiful to keep.
I know her hands, I've heard her voice
When she called me back to her a hundred years ago.
I love her still and even will
Feel for her what she can't take and hide things she can't know.
She made mistakes, she lost her taste,
And now that she's finally hungry they take her food away.
In love , misused and bruised by hate,
A list of martyred lovers too long for her to say.
A veil of tears, a mask of fears,
Those who know her know she's not difficult to please.
She is shy, and if you ask her why,
She'll cry you tears enough to fill the seven seas.
She was ill and still is frail,
But when you've got eternity it's difficult to fail.
She survived, and she's alive,
With each past life she's gotten harder to unrail.

Winged eyes
Flutter, take flight,
Little butterflies,
Shadow and light.

Mini kaleidoscope,
Can't focus on both;
Prisms, reflections,
Creatures making connections.

Liquid emotion,
Lie detection,
Deceit and love,
Model hearts.

In each-- black holes, perhaps,
Vacuum the world;
Others' merely wander through  it
Under a cover of night.

Blinking back a constant wave of tears,
Like trying to see the road on a rainy day
And smiling to avoid the things you need to say.
Swimming for the breakers, 'cause you don't care anymore,
But they always let you down and bring you back to shore.
Rest easy, baby, close your eyes,
You know it can't hurt if you're empty inside.
You're not at the top of the food chain if you're not there alone,
You don't need a mirror to tell you you've grown.
You never know what something's worth 'till it's almost taken,
With every headline and phone call you feel your heart breaking.
Never been so scared in your life and you know
That that's the thing that scares you the most.

You dream of that week sometimes, late at night.
You feel like a doll in a constellation of light
When you realize that you're only dreaming.
You're only dreaming, babe.
Breathe deep in the dark, count your fingers and toes,
Honest to God, only He knows
What's good enough to allow us to keep,
So live and let live and go back to sleep.

The Brits were twits in '29,
I reckon mandates were not their cup of tea.
I suppose silence speaks louder than a noose,
And that as long as one is civilized, we may agree to disagree.

Enemies share common grounds-
Blood to be spilled, one pair apiece of shoes,
Salaam, shalom, auf wiedersein, tootleoo.

Clutch, child,
Clutch with your diminishing strength,
Clutch with your breakable nails,
Clutch to your chest.

Clutch, child, hold it tight,
Before the nostalgia comes
And removes it from your sight.

Clutch the times, clutch the places,
Clutch Mother Gooses's wings,
Clutch Daddy knowing everything.

Clutch for dear life, your innocence,
Clutch all the things you've not yet given.

Clutch to your sweet heart
Whilst it's not yet tasted bitterness,
Clutch to your soul, dear,
Before it turns to heresy.

Clutch bright- eyed sincerity,
Clutch skinned knees and easy remedies,
And for the life of us, child, clutch me.

I'm not sick,
Love is.
With it's cruel tricks
And double vision.

Love is one- way,
A mirror maze,
It takes your mind
To a point of no return.

Love is pain
Painted pink;
Killing chemicals
Enter your bloodstream.

Love likes triangles,
Scattering ice cracks;
Master of illusions
And puppets.

I'm not lovesick--
Love is.

Give it back,
From New York to Los Angeles.
It's conquered land.
Move embassies from DC to Texas--
It's not a capital just because it hosts your parliament.
Open your jailgates,
Set free those pacifists oppressed by your terrorist democracy.
Take a seat with a target on its back and cameras trained,
Pander to the ones with ready aim
While we count coins to pay for good behavior.

I have rebuilt the temple.
I sense its arches supporting my weight,
Grace and power surging through my core.
I have rebuilt the temple,
A holy of holies resides in my soul,
A place of prayer as it unfolds--
I pray for Him to lend me sight through open ears.
I have rebuilt the temple,
Reignited each sacrifice of old--
No longer severed grace gone to waste,
No longer inside me a contradiction of faiths,
Freedom and beauty rise now from my flames.
I have rebuilt the temple,
Though its shell still stands--
A strip of land,
Desolate and serene.
I have rebuilt the temple,
For it had to be burned,
It had to be cleansed,
It had to be purged.
Its gold's destiny was to ignite
And it indeed was set alight,
Its flames, long extinguished,
Consume my mind in fright.
I rebuilt the temple,
Its sacrifices' horns stood sentinel,
While we awaited their blast
And paid cold cash in exchange for soiled souls.
I have rebuilt the temple,
Adorning it with bands of faith
And simple beauty and lights with which
To guide in sunny nights.
I have rebuilt the temple,
I break bread in its empty halls
And drink immortal wine
And answer the angel when he calls,
In the midst of his eternal watch
Over a box of long- forgotten treasures.
We have rebuilt our temples,
Woman to woman, keep my words,
Let none flow from your lips
To reach undeserving ears,
For a woman's wisdom is her might.
I have rebuilt this temple in my heart,
Its incense fills the corners of my soul,
The holy altar stands ***** within my mind,
And when I die it still will stand and does forever glory.

Pain etched on a face
Clear, simple and dark as her days,
A mirror of sunshine
Breaks as a smile,
Breaks like a wave,
Breaks like the hope
That I imagine is her God.

Not the one inflicted on her body,
The one justifying
The bruises on her skin and heart,
The one in whose ghastly name
She conveniently suffers.

He is not the One, love,
Come with us,
We will carry you on our backs,
You will grow wings in time,
Your pain will heal.
Let me show you the One I know above,
I will show you that prayer is not a belt,
I will teach you to sing praises
Instead of agonies,
I will show you faith,
For I was allowed to stray
In order to discover
What is lost upon your captor.

Oh, how I longed to speak out,
To wear my immodest denim pants,
To sing with my seductive female voice,
To hug his little boy,
Oh, how I longed to throw in his face
That curse which he did make
By use of my Lord's name
In frightful vain,
And then I understood that if
I,
A guest, one who could not be beat
Into compliance,
Do not dare to speak,
Then your rescue must be up to me.
For while strong and proud, poor lovely one,
You will not break your chains
And run away.

Darling, love, sweet lullaby,
I don't know what it's like to die.
Will it take long? Will it hurt? 
Will I just turn into dirt?
Will I still remain your wife,
And reunite in afterlife? 

Dearest treasure, sweetie pie,
Will you promise not to cry?
Will you try with all your might
To stay strong when I see the light?
Will you please hold your head high,
And certainly from pain not shy?

Though ignorant, I do know this-
Escaping is a sheerest bliss,
Not well afforded in one's life
For pride does come before all strife.
Though not deserving,  I suppose
I'll merit an early repose.

Angel with those eyes so sweet,
Please pray it to be swift and neat.
With pen in hand and tears in eyes,
I write to you 'fore my demise-
If wait you must, then be content,
Live life full and then ascend.

All who have felt pain know mercy,
Even the Devil burns in his own fire,
Merely averting from suffering a sympathetic eye.

All who have been victimized
Know well that pity is spared
Only for the lowest of the persecuted.

All who love their neighbors
Equally and as themselves
Seldom feel anything at all.

None have lived to understand
Anything, but the judgments passed
On other souls besides ourselves.

None have seen His face,
Prophesied into near- tangible form;
Describe it if you can.

Our Days of Judgment
Come and pass through ages,
This we know for certain.

We know that we feel and think
And teach what it is in our nature to discover,
For believed truths cannot be false.

We float as specks through time and space
And know nothing but our pains,
But preach these truths as they appear.

So say I, simply,
As a dreamer,
For I'm but a mere creation,

I see my people weeping, and I don't claim
Superior knowledge, but it seems to me
That we are not just collateral damage.

Right, left, full circles-
He was just ***** trained!
Negotiating
Only how long it will take
To get back to the start.

Deaf open minds,
"I'll do it if he does."
Would a lollipop make you feel better?

Science and progress
Vying with unchanging
Human nature
For position of
Kindergarten teacher.

Everyone know's they're right for sure.
They tell their friends,
"Go on, shut him up before he speaks!"
"You both say he started it? Time- out,
Both of you go talk it out
Over my teacher's table,
And if you **** each other
On your way there,
I'll look the other way."
After all, death in the name
Of righteousness is sacred,
And not to be mocked.
To teachers with 6/6 vision, sometimes
Blindness is a gift-
"There's no wrong, and no right.
Hug it out, avoid a fight."
(Kicking under the table.)
Hopefully, the explosion will miss her.

Where there are people,
There will be the same stories-
The world is a huge daycare center.

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?

The wrong eyes
Ignited
Butterflies.

A stolen caress
Disguised,
Denied.

Self- destroying words
Thought; scrawling,
Doubling, dying.

A love poem
Pens itself,
Redirection in desperation.

Because--

The wrong eyes
Ignited
Butterflies
Last night.

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.

This soul you gave
Has lost its way.
It doesn't know who made
It anymore.

Hashem, this soul
Instead of purified
Is petrified,
And heavy and full.

This soul in me's got
A little identity crisis,
With matter and anger tugging war
With rightness.

Perhaps this soul
Is mean, unfaithful.
Created divine, it still can't find
The innocence to make it grateful.

This soul needs help to find it's way,
Restorer of essence to body from sleep,
Return essence to that godly piece,
Allow your presence within me to keep.

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.

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.

There is a bubble shooting out of my hand,
And it's made of plastic hurt and loathing,
And it's as see- through as I am,
And it grows and grows and covers you,
All of you, and your loudness, your rudeness, your obnoxiousness,
Your stinky cloud of perfume and ridiculous eyeliner,
And your burnt hair and bitchiness and stupidity,
And now you're inside of it,
And it's shrinking and shrinking and making you as small as you seem,
The size of your brain,
And you're tiny next to me.

They've just finished telling me
About how they think that a person
Should only be considered an immigrant
(Academically) for her first five years instead
Of the ten that I said I wish were twenty, and they
Manipulate my words the time that I made the mistake
Of telling them that I feel like my personality belongs, and
I turn around and blink and swallow hard and the teacher hands
Out our new textbooks and through my blurry eyes I write my name
Inside the cover and I look down and I rush out of the room to write this when
I realize that I've written my full, god- given name beautifully, neatly-- in English.

The exile was not the punishment.
The return home was.

"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?

What was is gone,
There's no more music on my tongue,
The fire that was there's gone out.

My pen's too full to lift,
There are only tears within,
And all the aged pages won't open.

There are only crude summations
Of disappointed expectations,
No curiosity left for questions.

Shards of the past blowing in the wind,
With fragments of an anthem
And long- forgotten hymns.

Insatiable fatigue,
Irrational though it seems,
Drowns all conscious thought in a sleeping sea.

What was is no more,
I've forgotten all the notes
On that far- away, hazy, unreachable shore.

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.

It's raining and it's freezing
And the wind sounds like it's weeping
And I'm all alone here hearing it pour.

The trees are tired, the world is weary,
Even the black clouds sound a tad bit teary,
And if they didn't let it out they might explode.

And I'm curled up and my nails are bleeding,
Because a biter can never quit cold turkey,
And I'm cold and feeling fat and so alone.

And babe, I've got these thoughts spinning in my brain,
Like the hail and the rain on my window pane,
And I'm wondering what anyone thinks that I'm around for.

And I'm talking to your friend, who's a sympathetic ear,
And I tell him I'm not sure what's going on around here,
And I'm confused and doubting what I mean to you.

If you love me, shut up and show me,
Knowing my family doesn't mean you know me,
And it's raining in this town tonight,

And in my room, and in my heart a little bit,
And I sit here alone watching Frozen while it pours
And the tears not shed feel solid and I
Feel
Cold.

He wasn't anything.
He wasn't white.
He wasn't black
Or brown
Or peach
Or tangerine.
He could have been green.
Was he Asian?
Middle Eastern?
Did he wear a kippah,
A keffiyeh?

He wasn't anything.
I bet he didn't even
Have a belly button.
He came before the race.
He was nothing,
He was
earth.

I cradle the cardboard cup in both hands
And bring it to my face. 
The warmth still lingering on my cheek,
I take a sip and swallow,
Ignoring how it scalds my tongue.
It burns a path through me
As I touch the cool metal of the kitchen counter,
And the caffeine courses through my veins
Never reaching my slumbering heart.