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.

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.

It will happen in a moment
But I expect it will feel like a century,
And his sense of time will obviously be innacurate
And he will know that and so
He will stop trusting all of his other senses
(His eyes did not see the doctor's expression
And the way he approached;
He did not feel the hugs of the surrounding people
That crashed down on him like waves;
And his ears did not hear the final blow,
The final breath.)
And he will go into denial.
I will be battling my own shock
And trying to pick up his pieces and grieving.
Only he knows me well enough to know if
I will deny his denial, but then again
Maybe the shock I feel at the words spilling
Like blood from my pen has prepared me.

Memories come to life
in movies cast by furniture,
while my nightlight plays the role
of a projector, breathing life into my walls.
I realize, with a sharp intake of breath,
that my foot is dangling off the edge of my bed 
and yank it back under the covers
that I sleep under, despite the temperature.
When you're little, you're scared of the monsters,
but growing up is knowing exactly who they are.
Everything is so much scarier in the dark.

Clumsy as words, I dared approach,
And over the edge I bent.
A sight unexpected appeared to me
And reeling back with a gasp I was sent.

I gathered my senses, gazed brave as I might,
And the water within shone a shimmering light,
And reflected the white of a man's final night,
Penetrating the darkness of his final fight.

Weary from a sorrowful walk in the woods on a whim,
And the madness and heartbreaking sadness within,
I had long kept a silence, and my heart was burdened,
And so I greeted thought foe as a friend:

Exclaiming, I realized that no hunt, but a chase had taken place,
That instead I had followed dear death, and I wept.
'Twas then that I opened my mouth in prayer
And then I closed my eyes and I leapt.

If you're in His image,
Then I am too,
And I am not a lesser man
(Or maybe I am).

I doubt His image has a head
To tonsure or to cover as seen fit;
It is, in fact, invisible,
Seen only in faces as reflected.

If I'm in His image, I imagine
Material immodesty is nonexistent--
For if not applicable to you in sight of Him,
I doubt His view of me is very different.

If I'm not in His image, then neither are you,
And every blessing you make is a blessing to rue.
The word is holy, if not your definition of manly;
And if I can't fulfill your obligation you never will, surely.

If I'm in His image,
Then beg my forgiveness.
If I'm in His image,
Then mind your own business.
And if I'm not,
Then neither are you.

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

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.

Time flies if you ask it to,
And shattered trust can mend.
Faith stretches like elastic,
Iron hearts can bend.

Invisible hands will carry loads-
As heavy as Atlas's globe,
Lives suspend on crystal love
And tiny threads of hope.

Coal can be taught to shine
As bright as Athena's eyes,
And no matter how far it is from shore,
The tide will always rise.

Don't let me scare you.
I'm an ant beside a tree,
And if you don't recognize
The look in my eyes,
It's because you're used
To seeing me happy.
All the words engraved
In pencil on my bedroom wall,
Glittering silver
In every corner of my room,
My mind's forgotten how to read,
How to understand the things
Known previously, effortlessly.
I've become the paint,
Flaking off the wall;
The paper plane
That didn't quite take off;
The dog chasing its own tail,
Too innocent to ever give it up.
I've become the initials in your locker,
Alien, but familiar with age;
The poem on the internet,
The rebel stupid sage.
But I'm also all the things that never change,
You know my face, my handwriting, my name,
And you know my lifeline
Better than yourself--
So don't let me scare you.

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.

Shadows lie across the moon lit
Silver dust that shapes our dreams
And darkness moves like waterfalls,
Making nothing what it seems,

The sparkle in my eye like diamonds
Or light on water, black and white,
Beauty unveiled delicately,
I'm moved to flight, maybe I might.

This is a teardrop world
Shed from an eye that can behold
Beauty before it's born, imagination
Before it rustles gentle wings and they unfold.

A dome of sky is within reach,
Dark space and twinkling stars,
Horizons so close I cannot see them
Before the glassy planet shards.

This is the place behind my eyes,
My afterworld, my peace,
This is the place I've not yet shown you,
Perhaps I will, just in my dreams...

It will be a gentleman's agreement
and a lady's choice.
There will be secrets whispered
and riddles that night;
no knees will bend,
and only silver tears will be shed.
There will be a sparkling rock
and it will witness this
from two billion miles away.
In the dark of a mid- August night,
the world will breathe for us.
Words will be too loud
and love will be too sweet.
We'll balance, existing,
like we've known nothing but simply being.
There will be no questions,
no need for answers;
there will be no time forever.

If I say no,
Please let it go-
It's personal.

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

It's looming over me,
with its gaping maw
full of sadistic
jagged teeth,
each one a stab to my
already itty- bitty
sense of security-
and did I mention they gleam?
Yes, I can see myself
and my flaws
and my doubts,
staring at me
from the mouth
of the beast,
my beast,
the beast that lives
within the black part
of my soul.

I stand right there,
on the precipice
threatening
to devour
me alive.
I balance on the eggshell teeth,
on my bleeding toes,
my poor throat
raw from sobbing.

But I don't back away,
though I could try
to struggle against
the evil magnetism,
dark and alluring,
calling to me from
the depths of my sorrow.

I don't fight it
because the beast
knows something
I don't presume to,
and heaven knows
I can't resist logic.

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.

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.

After all, one turns to the beginning.
What questions should be asked?
Can answers truly have no meaning?
A person bleeding tears will end up dry,
Indifference and uncaring masked;
That is the price paid by those who cry.

Some children never grow,
Born in fear and blood and hate.
Still, some profess to know
The secrets that God didn't even make,
Horrors even He did not create--
Such as hearts that will never bend or break.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

This week,
It's all about you.
This month, too.
This week,
He's going to forget about
All the things he says
He never got to do,
And everyone else will
Forget their gossip, too.
This week,
You're the man.
You're a superstar,
With pretty pictures everywhere
And candles drip and shine.
This week,
You're the title, hero, punchline.
Everything you were and never got to be,
Everything you prayed for till the end,
Making you even harder to bury,
Those are the things we'll talk about
This week.

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?

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.

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.

I'd never thought in terms of luck
Until what was given to my peer
Was taken hastily from me.
I prayed for its return,
Upon which, once more, I proved unworthy,
For something better did escape me once again.
I freely sin, perhaps I'm shameless;
Alone in my willing, human ways.
I wish for darkness, with which to sweeten
The taste of the bitterness I bleed instead of grace.
Redemption's the word, but it's a roller coaster,
So to echo words of chosen ghosts
When perfection eludes me and I must beg for something more,
With my prayers answered, but my fingertips still beneath the stars--
True, he struck the rock,
And water gushed out,
Streams flowed abundantly,
But can he also give us bread?

I conquered the giant once.
Was that not enough?

Buzzing in my fluffy socks,
Skipping through school in my PJ pants,
Being locked up in a cozy box.
Beaming, grumbling about the ****** weather,
Pink becomes my color, and I look best when
Dripping, and grinning from ear to ear.
"*******, it got my shoes!"
Rain, Rain, come to stay,
And if I ever have a kid, maybe I'll name him for you.

That night, it was scrawled in silver dust into the stars,
to brand our names into the sky.

That night, our story was written in the indelible ink of the gods,
and my favorite lipstick, and sealed with an immortal kiss.

That night, we came to life, with eyes that were able to tear
and hearts that could suddenly pump our lives' essence with renewed fervor.

That night, a romantic with an angel's smile
and a siren with a history of self- delusion became one, never to part.

That night, we fell in love.

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.

Words cut as sharp as knives,
Every dotted "i"
Stabs through the paper,
Right to the heart.

Hold my hand, I feel
like we're jumping off a cliff,
now we know it's real,
and what can happen if

you hold me tight
and don't let go
at least not 'till
the moon stops being full;

there was a fog
but now it's clear
and it's quite obvious,
to me over this beer

we're sharing something
that if lost cannot be
found and it's dumbfounding
how you lose me

in a place where only you can go,
when you pick up my hand,
we drop our guards down low
enough to finally understand

all the passion in a kiss
in a moonlit country night
with barely any lights on in this
town that's never felt so right.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I like the way his voice snags on itself
when he's tired.

He sees the world in shades of green and brown and blue,
tinted through the eyes he sees it through.

He thinks, but can't put into words--
I like that I'm his self- expression, and
when there's an overflow of mine,
I like that I don't need to write them down for him to read them on my face.

It's a little lonely and a little nice
that I only feel like me when he looks at me,
and I like that he's looking right through what I see.

I like that he'll never, ever have had a broken heart
and I like that he glued shut the cracks in mine,
making it his creation, to know and feel at will.

I like that our color is white, the color of angel wings,
that things that would be dark if done with anyone else
are real because we're us, are pure, are holy.

There is a spectrum of emotion wider than the world
and only he could make me run that length in a day,
and sometimes I like that, and sometimes I lie and say I don't.

Yin and yang, like sun on waves,
with fights on the dark side of the moon,
with souls two big for one person to contain,
that's why we share them-- so there are two.

Don't chase the ghost
That walks these hallowed halls--
She seeks a change.

She embarks on a quest
To leave and start all over again.

My name is Batya,
Beth was a freshman's frustration.
Let me make my own introductions--
I'm graduating names.