All day long,
there are explosions all around me.

Some times they're blue
or yellow or green,
orange or purple,
and even some new colors that I never knew before.

Mostly they are red,
and always they stain my clothes
and mark my skin

And at the end of every day I take the debris
and pile it around me.
On my desk, on my bed.
On the floor and stacked on shelves.
Neatly put away,
or strewn about chaotically.

I hold on really hard,
and struggle to keep my door closed
to keep it from spilling out
to keep it all contained.

The explosions make me think.

What's left afterward makes me think.

I think about why this and why that and why them and why me
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

The more I ask, the less sense it makes.

And so when it's too early in the morning
and the sun hasn't yet risen
I use all my pent-up energy to clean my room.
I don't pay attention to what I throw away
I just want it all gone.

And after, when I've let everything go,
I lay back on my bed
and let out a Deep Breath

There are a few hours left until my family wakes up
and the explosions start again,
so for now I will stare at the ceiling
of my debris-free room.
and think
that everything is Okay.

Eager hands reach out,
brush the starlight
with the tips on their fingers.
They are young,
these hands,
and have only just begun to experience the world.

They have touched slick grass,
plush carpet,
the grimy windows of a city bus.
In their time, these hands
will touch many things.

They will touch beautiful, extraordinary things
just as they will touch evil, corrupt things.
They will touch smiles and they will touch tears.
They will grasp at vanishing smoke,
sink into gooey dough,
and scrape against unforgiving asphalt.

These hands will be taught to love.
They will be taught to learn, to laugh,
to carry, and to mend.
They will be taught to break, to hurt,
to insult and to ****.

And one day
someone will take a grisly, rotting rope
and try to bind them
when they see what I can do.
When they realize where
these hands can take me.

I swear to fight for them
And break the knot
because no matter what I use them for,
they are mine and mine alone.

I know that they can start wars
or smother conflict.
I know that they can find beauty
and turn it into art,
or find struggle and turn it into hate.

These hands are infinite
in their power
and I will never get another set
so whatever I choose to do with them
I hope that it will be
big.
I hope that they will change something
and I hope that they
will do it well.

Eager hands reach out,
Close around the wisps of dreams
With worried fists.
They are old,
These hands,
And have already begun to shape the world.

You broke open my ribs,
and pulled out my heart,
flattened it out,
and sold it for cheap.

Now, like a slave,
it marches in time
with all the other broken hearts,
who lost their own fights.

Why does she deserve you more than I do?
Why is she so much better than me?
Why does she get to call you hers?

It makes me so sad
and so angry
and I feel pathetic
and stupid
all at one time.

My emotions are in a bottle
and I want to throw them away.
I want to open it up
and let them float free.
I want to yell at you
that she's not right,
that she can't make you smile like I do.

But I keep it inside
because I'm scared that you won't see it.
I'm scared that it's all been a lie.

Is that what's been going on?
Have I been lying to myself?
Maybe I'm just holding on too hard.

I don't know what to think anymore.
I'm not sure what to do.
I just want to hold your hand,
and I want to be with you.

Do you miss me? I can't tell.
Give me a hint.
Please. Give me anything.
A secret smile,
a sweet gesture.
Anything
just to keep me going for a while.

I don't want to get off this ride,
but I'm hanging onto the framework.
She belongs here.
Not me.

It's time to give up, I think.
It's time to walk away.
I've lost this fight.
You won't be mine; not today.

I shoulda wore a beard
to be (not) myself.
I stand out,
looking dead to the neck,
sitting in the dugout and scanning the dusty field.

I keep my eye on the pitcher.
My heart is going tight;
tighter . . . too stiff to move. (Weakening.)
I let it get a butchering.

I shoulda got myself outta this.
I never saw such a disgusting joke as myself.

I ask to be a fisher, but He exclaims,
"Oh, old geezer, skinny and bearded,
calm down, ease up, and be quiet.
You've worn yourself to threads."

I belong in an old man's home.
I'm a helluva mess.
I'll ask if he found a **** good joke in me
when I head into The Tunnel.

I was broke in the head and paralyzed,
had rolled "unlucky", with an epidemic of "frightening and hair."
But he laughed,
"Quiet, fisher. You'll pay for your sobbing.
I'm only asking you to give the best you have in you."

I know; think of the future.
I will be in this a long time.
I came for more than the ride
and headed screaming into it.

I won't end this lying in a pool of my own blood.

I want you. I want your hand in mine. I want your smile to be my fault. I want to hear you say my name again without reservation, knowing that there's a string tied to the end of it that begins in my heart and I want. I want to look into those eyes again for as long as I want without someone getting suspicious. Without you getting suspicious. And I want to call you up in the middle of the night, bawling because I had a dream that we broke up and feel your arms around me even though you're not there. I want to call you Baby and know that I'm the only one. I want. I want. I want

You will never look at me the same way. You will never love me like I want you to love me. And I fear, I fear, I fear that these things are truer than the air I breathe but God, I have enough hope in me to slaughter and Japanese army, and we both know that hope kills and her only enemy is emptiness but God, who would want that?

So I hope. I hope, I hope, I hope you might feel even a microscopic but of what I do for you. I hope you love me still so I can stop praying to a God I know deep down I will never really believe in. I hope you say yes. I hope you never tell me no again. I hope. I hope I don't cry over you again, but for you. With you, even. But I hope you never need to cry again. I hope you stop seeing me as a child. I hope you learn that I am not innately independent, never was, never will be. I hope you take my weaknesses in stride and stop being repelled by them. I hope you let me learn to expect less from you, because I can do that if it means that I get to see

You are my best friend. I see you, holding my hand and telling me about your day and telling me that you miss me instead of just thinking it. I see you shutting me out and apologizing later and I see your apology from several weeks ago and know it was sincere. I see, I see, I see a future because I know you think the world of me. Always have. I know

You wear your heart on your sleeve. You make your emotions readily available to the public because you don't have time for games, and so I know. I know you think more highly of me than I could ever ask. I know you think I'm annoying, but you only tell me so because you like to comfort me and sometimes you have to injure me first because no one else will ever hurt me the way you can, and I know a lot of what I know is *******. I know you would correct me if you could read this and I know you just tolerate me but I believe. God, I believe in you and I believe

You do it because you still hold me tightly against your heart, but not in. Never in. I believe that in this state that is just too much for you and I get it. I get it. I'm sorry.

I get chills when you touch my hand, and I get shocks when you catch my eye and I get a fire in my belly when we hug and a fuzzy feeling when you play with my hair. I get butterflies in my tummy when you look down at me and I at you and we almost go in for a kiss and the whole room catches its breath and stops to stare because they can feel it too, and I feel it in my heart when someone says,

"You guys just looked like you were made for each other. Like. Physically."

When someone says, "What? What happened to my babies?"

When someone cries when you tell them we broke up because we were their picture perfect love.

When they listen at the edge of their seat to the story of our last couple of years and keep asking, "Okay, but when did you guys get back together?"

When you call me up because our old song played on the radio and it reminded you of me.

When you say...

Well, when you say anything at all.

That's when I feel it. I love you. I love you in a way incomprehensible to even me and I love you in a way that, to try to put it into words would be ten thousand times a disservice, and I love you the way I love that time of day when the sun touches her Earthen kingdom with warm, golden light and makes the world seem whole again. I love you the way I love the feeling of freedom in dreaming. I love you with the intensity with which a small, broken child loves to wish on the stars.

And I want, I want, I want, to know you love me too.