Here is a plant that could cut your thumb
From a strange frond does it become
With its pieces cut fresh
It can disolve your flesh
We'll give it to you as a sign of welcome

My first thought on seeing him
Was "wow, you look dead inside"
But then I remembered
I looked like I'd just been hit blindside

Thursday nights are one of my favorite times
Ever since I crossed the license lines
For then I get to drive a car
To the house where violin lessons are

Little 07' blue cruiser with only me in it
On pitch dark asphalt, I'm pushing the limit
I call her blue puma because citrus is taken
Three cross-country moves later, and only a little shakin'
She's not really mine, but actually dad's
But with two newer cars, I'm the one at the brake pads

It's a school night, but the radio's blarin'
Playing rock from Green Day to John Lennon
In bell bottom jeans, a tee, a faux leather jacket and sneakers
Windows rolled down, hair blowing in time with the speakers
And under fall moonlight, it just seems
This is the closest I'll get to the American dream

Just take me to the stars
So brilliant and so bright
What we were, what we are
Let's learn it all tonight

Let's fly up on past mars
From where we ran away
Healing Homeworld's old scars
We'll take you there someday

Yes, we come from the stars
But now we can't go back
Least not to open arms
For fear of an attack

But one day we'll show you
That land from where we came
But know that once we do
Things will not be the same

So let's go to the stars
Like diamonds in the sky
What we were, what we are
Up in a ship on high

If a tree falls in a forest
Does it make a sound
When the woods are open and
There's only three people around

One of them remembers it
As clear as it was day
Yet as to wether it was real or a dream
She cannot really say

The second has no memory
But he wouldn't say it didn't occur
And he has the vauge memories of after
When little echoes could be heard

And the third may know the answer
But the other two can't ask
Because going down that road
Is taking the devil out of the flask

So did the tree really fall?
Or more important still
Can anything they remember be trusted
Wen they tell their stories as they will

There's a memory of a long time ago
Or was it a dream? How could I know
It's not as if I could ask you as to wether it's true
As if there were anything asking could do
But than I think of the shouting and it seems
Real enough to run from, to want to cry or scream

Was it really a laptop, or was it a plate
That was thrown against the wall, irate
Or maybe the whole thing never really happened
Maybe I misheard something, I was mistaken
Besides, it was nine years ago, I was too young
To even really realize what was going on
But even back then, I knew I was frightened
When I heard a crash before the fight ended

And some days I wonder if I would feel this way
If it was the man doing this to the woman one day
You're against abuse, and try to call out wife beaters
But you applaud a girl who whacks a guy when he cheats her
And I wonder why, if you say you care
Why you sometimes say things that make me wish I weren't there

And I wonder why you don't respect my space
Walking up to my form like you own the place
And I know you mean well, but could you stop
Sneaking up and hugging me in a way I'd rather not
I know you have good intentions, but why can't you see
That there's a reason I'm starting to get a little jumpy

But these are the things I'll never ask
Because I'm to spineless to find out at last
So here I sit, writing an interwebs litany
With a secret profile on a site you'll never see

At ease, I sink down
Into warm lime and salt waves
Forgetting the world

I remember that maroon shirt
A size too large so it hung like a sack
Over my twiggy, seven year old limbs
It was rough and scratchy against my belly
I absolutely hated the color
I was one for turquoise and scarlet and sparkles
This was a cloth of rusty mud, it was purple gone terribly wrong

Of course I protested
Whining at my mother like a cub at her lioness
Why should I have to wear this ugly thing
That you brought yesterday for no reason at all

And then you said there was a reason
In that quiet, somber way you get when you homilize to me
That tone that makes me scared enough to flatten my unruly hair

It was the first time I heard the words
Mass Shooting
But it was far from the last

I went to school that day
I tried to tell the others
Some had heard a snippet or two from mom and dad
Before being sent out of the room
But most just looked at me like I had a third eyeball in my head
They shrugged it off and went back to foursquare
They never gave a **** about the news if it wasn't Charlie Brown
And they never really talked to me more than they needed to

The grownups hurried us all along
Avoiding all mention
Of Virginia Tech
And they would nod and turn away when I told them
How was I to know that they didn't have any answers either

I sat on the swingset
The cyan dome that seemed so familiar in its vast vacancy
Was now so empty and abandoning
The bark chips were suddenly silent
In juxtaposition to my mind

I mouthed out the words
A feeling in my mouth like a jawbreaker too large to fit it but crammed in anyways
I didn't have the words for it then

How could someone do that?
How could someone just walk up
With a special stick and some bullets
And end twenty six lives
Like they were swatting at flies
And how could everyone
Be so calm and carefree
When so much harm had come
When so much blood ran
Turning to a rust color in my mind
Like that god-awful shirt

The day was done
I threw the shirt in a bottom drawer
I never wore a maroon thing again until I was thirteen
I felt glad to be rid of that jawbreaker
And the strange feelings in my gut and neck

But it was not over
None of us were rid of it

Aurora
Sandy Hook
Breaking News: Mass Shooting
San Bernardino
Pulse
Breaking News: Mass Shooting

Guys, one of our competitor's teamates was killed
It was a ******-suicide by his father on him and his mother
So please be considerate

Good God, how many has it been
When did it begin
What should we do
And how did I get so numb
To my semiannual jawbreaker moments

But all I hear is
Who do we blame?

The foreign ones?
Let's blockade them
Because it's not like we were ever that way

Maybe the ones with ****** up minds?
Yeah, they're the violent ones
It cuts me deeper than any work of my own blades

But god and the NRA forbid
That we have shootings
Because we have the means to
That we have a radicals in the U.S.
And they only came from us
But when has policy ever made sense?

All I know is
That we can't keep going numb
To the jawbreakers in our mouths

We'll be coming home tonight
We've seen every sine
A few timely intervals
And I'll make you mine

You'll be tangent to my curves
The approximation will be tight
Like an exponential function
We have infinite domain tonight

You don't need to worry about an x
We've already found our y
Our functions are constant
And the f (x) don't lie

We can carve out our own area
A little sector of secrecy
So as the arc of the night goes on
We'll lie together, parallel, just you and me

It was a strange word on my lips
Staring at the beautiful blue stalk
"One dollar a stem" the sign said
The way it rolls of the tongue when you talk
One buck out, I headed back
To the place I stayed alone
It was too quiet, empty, and sterile
But it sure as hell beat staying home

I placed the little mourning stalk
In the place that she used to sit
She and I never really looked or talked
But somehow, her absence is amiss
So I took a plastic water cup
And those flowers of the evening sky
And in that hospital, like room
I would sit and ponder why

And though I felt alone
And isolated from it all
That drooping stem of delphinium
Made the room feel a little more calm

Because I knew things weren't
Perfect as they stood
But between this and my house
I'd stay forever if I could
But stay forever I could not
I had only one week left
So I buckled down, goal in mind
To make it the best week yet

Delphinium- the name of lonliness
The sound of wonder and fear
The word of friendship and adventure
Oh how I wish you were here

Sometimes the silence
Rings as far in the air as
The echoes of shouts

                           But other days, it's
     The raucous cries of the crowd
            That make the earth quake

         Pause or performance
   The parts worth remembering
              Echo in my mind

I fear the dark in another's eyes
As much as I fear the one of the skies
For while the skies can guise and surprise  
The danger lies with a heart rash and mind wise
The ability for lies and the want to take lives

We must remember
That the U.S. is essentially
An experiment

Tonight I sit lackadaisical
After a week of the last routine
I think back to the start on the mall
The roaring chants of the scene

Has it been a decade
Or only a month
How much longer do we have to go
As shovel by *****
Both millions of times and once
We find the final, finishing blow

Tonight I sit, exhausted
Just thinking about what comes next
Because one senior week, I've lost it
And, politically, I don't have a plan for the rest

Then I think of that day in D.C.
Shouting "This is what democracy looks like!"
Pink ***** hats as far as eyes could see
And millions worldwide trying to get things right

I sit in this booth, so ******* worn out
Just knowing that we've still just begun
I chastise myself for being inactive
It, and sometimes I just want to run

But then I see comics speak on air
And I see some postcards in a store
And I feel like we can really get there
If we keep at it a little more

Set of eclipse glasses: about ten dollars
Tin of coffee: also ten dollars
Watching a receding eclipse in a thundering sunshower with family, friends, and an anxious dog while joking about omens and modern politics: priceless

Is there a good way to tell someone:
"I love you from the bottom of my heart
I hope what that what you desire is done
And that all of your dreams get a start

But if I spend any more time with you
Beyond what I absolutely must
I'm going to loose my mind and do
Something that even I don't trust"

I often feel not quite a poet
All I seem to have in it is a flair for the dramatic
Because half of my account is rants
I'm just another white teen girl with nothing traumatic
And I only seem to write about my parents
When I've had a fight then
Like my muses seem to constantly forget
All the good times and support from them
And I write about problems I haven't been there to see
And compare places I live to where I've yet to be
I say I'm a loner with no one to talk to
But the truth is I stay away and hide my face in YouTube
Because I've got the social skills of a rotten tuber
And I seemed to have learned that chitchat doesn't help me
To see into the root of the issue, it's just more clutter and clatter
And if the people around us are all that matter
I'll be looking for all ways away from the prattlers
Because I love them with all of my heart
But good god, we need some years apart
They call me bubbly, smart, loving, and a doll
But some day they're gonna see through it all
To the weirdest hypocrisy that lies within
That while I'm living near the top
I've been feeling like I'm about to burst without stop
In spite of all of the luck I've got
So I put in my earbuds, tell them I'm fine
And I try to think of accurate, fitting, and chipper rhymes
Maybe I'll put blue skies straight into my lines next time

It's natural to look down
But if you look up
An airbus night is
The best place to be starstruck

Today I go to pack my bags for what
I need in the journey ahead of me
A camera and four books (not quite a lot)
And enough songs to last me for a week
Then comes the clothing and the toiletries
Packed compacted to last for a fortnight
Then I'll pack some card based activities
And something soft for my head to rest right
And finally, a pen, pencil, and pad
For my first trip with this site that I have

When I was a little girl
Playing with my rocket toys
I was fascinated and confused
By the world of boys

I told my mom what had appeared
The boy's odd ways and such
She said "honey, boys will always be weird
But when you're older, you won't mind so much"

And as I've gotten older
I've certainly grown to see
When it comes to the other gender
I know exactly what she means

For all the fires in my heart
And all the verses I try to start
All of the poems that distract me from time
And run loose through my heart and sing in my mind
For all the muses in my head, muttering like one sage
I somehow can't always put it on a page

The greatest difference
In Nova and Dublin on
July afternoons
Is the rain's temperature

"One day, you'll grow up
And you'll make a lot of friends
Or maybe you won't
Maybe you'll just have a few tight buddies
But if anyone tries to change you
you don't need them
You're amazing the way you are"
I told her

She looked up at me
With large, doeful eyes
Nuzzled me and mooed as if to say
"I'm not sure what you just said
But I think I understood it"
As I rubbed her head and ears

At least I can give life advice to a Jersey heifer
Before my program ends and I go back home

I thought I could escape a raptor when
I moved five hours to a new valley
I switched out my life and my set of friends
Those dark thoughts had finally gone from me
One work week in, and somehow they were back
Those feelings I had thought both gone and dead
Three weeks in, and I've cut them quite far back
But no matter what, they're still in my head
So I guess that they'll just never be gone
So with that in mind, I'll keep moving on

Bug spray smells better
Once you start to think of it
As camper's perfume

When I listen to a story
Be it in a theater or on a phone
I don't feel weird about how I feel
I know I'm not alone
Because at every other time
I'm not sure how to be
Because if I let it all out as-is
I'm certain I'd look crazy
But when I read a book or listen to a song
I know that all my bizzare thoughts belong
Because in the end, I'm a sucker for a story
Whether it's on pages or a silver screen

The moon's outline is always crisper
And the stars seem to multiply
When I'm away from the city air
Beneath a clearer sky
And sometimes I don't notice
(I'm more worried about the bears)
But when I can let my guard slip
I never really want to leave there

There are a great deal of things you can eat
After a long day of hiking
Because after a trail in afternoon heat
Nearly anything is to your liking
However, please note that it's almost
Because no mater how hard you try
You can't make good chicken pesto
In two minutes with water and ramen under the sky

One of the best things in life
Is hiking up a massive hill
Reaching the top and seeing the light
As water cascades into a pond where birds trill
And you set down your pack to breathe
And wade knee deep in mountain forest air
And then lie back against cool stones in ease
And bend back to let the current rinse your hair

They wanted new work to excite
To be smart and alarm
So I turned my head from the lector
And drew out chemicals on my arm

I'm walking down a path I know
I got the volume on full blast
I've still got thousands of verses to go
I intend to make each last
But someone walks up to me
Telling me to cease and desist
I begrudgingly comply
But in my mind, I say this:

Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on

It's the end of the day, I'm finally home
All homework and chores have been done
So I walk up to my room, warm and alone
And soon the phone's concert has begun

So I say
Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on

I've got two more hours on this ride
Through a long and quiet night
But I've got a little help by my side
To get me to the morning light

So I say
Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on

Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on