How can I ever tell you that
in the 21st century,
as innocent as you are,
you will be sexualized.

It started with
one peak under that skim cloth
that made you an icon
Halloween costumes
turned your baby face into
the mask of a "babe"

There are no more dogs
struggling to tear your short shorts
now only mutts scattering clubs
hands dangling onto your belt loops
as if they were in the middle of a hurricane

You, Coppertone Baby, didn't know any better
you were minding your own **** business
vacationing on the beach
when somebody had the audacity to snap a picture
of your ***.
Sweet little girl,
you are us.

You are society's expectations of innocent women
so easily willing to publicize our bodies
printed on billboards
sold in magazines
You put your hair up for vanity
but we tie our hair back to avoid
violent hands
You, Coppertone Baby
will never be known as Cheri,
just like today,
we are branded into the clothes made to hide our bodies
but couldn't do it enough
we are the voiceless

We are the shadows hiding behind anatomy
we are nip-slips
we are on the front cover
of ******* magazines
You grew up not expecting it
merely existing
only knowing the words,
"mommy and daddy."

Welcome, Coppertone Baby,
to the present, not so much a gift
where your first words are now,
"thank you"
the camera is constantly pointed
constantly asking you to sit pretty
you will learn to avoid beaches
and only buy the clothes
that suffocate your skin


I know you were meant to sell sunscreen
but how can I ever buy your product
if I can't even hardly
go outside.

i was on my best friends bedroom floor
staring into the darkness
listening to her even breathing and
the creatures outside that inhabited the summer night
with stiff carpet digging into my freckled cheek
and i realized
that this was something different
once again,
this was something different
the way you said things
was something different to me
that meaningless converstations held more weight in my head
than french vocabulary (because i failed that quiz, but i would ace the one made up of things you told me on those late summer nights)
and maybe that firefly was signaling a future
a chance
a chance i need so badly again
that maybe all those jokes
were meant to be written in stone on a statue in a field
somewhere dedicated to all we were
and all we could have been
that maybe
maybe
maybe
we will be something again
(i can only hope)
that that light in your eyes finds the light inside mine
and that it works
it keeps working
that these times dont last forever
that we keep
going
together
not i as in seperate,
i
as
in
you and me
together.

This is for the guy that will keep up a conversation, and have my back in a bad situation, that has a gorgeous smile that sticks in my heart for a long while. I hope you are less lazy, active and isn't afraid to be crazy. You have good self esteem and don't forget straight up honesty. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough or I could be blind and you may take quite a bit to find if I may say I can't wait to meet you one day.

I read so much poetry about love yet I've never been in love
But I'm not sure if I want to be
Full of longing and sadness
Is it better to have loved and lost than have never loved at all?
I'm not sure
But I've never loved
And never been loved.

But eventually, at some point
you will fade away.

and what happened here will
no longer matter.

There will be no evidence of
betrayal
lust
sin
anxiety
worry  
or anything else.

So why give this importance
instead of everything else?

It's about loving what is in front of you-
nothing else.

We see people everyday we'll never see again.
Why put it all on me?
Why not love anyone of them?

I can't undo what I did,
I would do it again.
The importance of all of it you might never understand.
But that's for you to discover now,
as I can't and won't
hold your hand.
Sorry To Be A Let Down,
but as it is
I am what I am.

What does it mean to be alone?
It's not always simply "On your own."

What does it mean to be one against all?
To have not one set of arms in which you could fall.

If you set me down on a dark night in June
In the woods so thick I could not see the moon

Well I would not sit and wait, nor get up and walk
I'd listen to the wind and I'd just let it talk

Like a ship cast out into a stormy sea
You'd find not one person asked to help me

Can you imagine a morning without another man's chime?
Can you imagine a rich man with not one single dime?

I surely can't and so I try not
So once more alone into the abyss I trot

You think this poem is scattered and unknowing
But I promise within a plot is growing

Now think as if you were alone in the dark
And you heard a wolf yip and bark

Who's arms do you imagine holding you tight?
Who's warm, soft whisper could save you that night?

If someone is painted in your head I do swear
You are not alone, for it is them that is there.