I envy my dog
Because it seems that she's the
Only one in here
Who isn't affected by
Current politics

Some people wear a wolf's smile
Grinning while stalking you all the while
Some watch the world with cats eyes
Keeping their views locked under a guise
Some listen like a deer in the fog
Timidly hearing all through the smog
Some hearts take flight like a turtle dove
Plain to the outside, but soaring above

Standing at the water's edge
A little girl peers over the ledge
Looking deep into the water's night
Without the slightest hint of fright
Gazing at the waves alien world
With her eyes shining meekly bold
She smiles pondering her soon to be realm
An alien earth with her mind at the helm

When I was a small child
I was no lady fair and mild
I was the princess of the wild
As by tree climbing I was beguiled

I didn't like pink princess sets
Sports were something I couldn't get
I climbed everywhere, even playgrounds that were wet
And I loved proving kids wrong on a bet

As I grew into the girl I became
Some things changed, some stayed the same
I love all sorts of clothes, made for both gents and dames
And my boyish reaction to crushes is still my bane

Some people march in a band
For sports fans in the grandstands

Some march in the military
On bases from Hawaii to Italy

Some people march to be heard
Over all the events that occured

And on Saturday, amongst the crowd's clatter
I'm joining those who are doing the latter

"You shouldn't be afraid unless you have something to hide"
Excuse me for trying to choose who gets to see my mind
"I see your Facebook, and I'm allowed to look at whatever I want anyway"
Well, in that decision, I didn't exactly have a say

So Hesiod looked around on an ancient Grecian day
He looked at all the rowdy youth doing things their way
With their sundials and writing
And their chariots like lightning
He concluded that youth were going the wrong way

Why do I feel that
I'll regret what I'm saying
When I text people

Why do I feel like
Every decision is the
Most important one

Why do I still feel
Backed into a corner when
Someone shouts at me

Why do I feel that
Absolute compulsion to
Run away from here

Why is it that I
Just can't seem to make my mind
Function like others'

Walking under an indigo sky
With a cream colored moon shining in her eyes
Sniffing at the ground instead of looking up
Is my little mixed breed pup

Running under a blanket of blue
Chasing squirrels like terriers do
After the chase, sleeping like a log
Is my little puppy dog

Woofing quietly at my feet
Acting like it's time to eat
Staring up hopefully, looking so cute
Is my sixty pound little pooch

Looking at eyes an icy blue
One and two, claws strike true
Looking at a scene of mess and gore
Three and four, she won't see you anymore
Looking at that devil who once played tricks
Five and six, no wonder she's ******
Eyes start to close as life abates
Seven and eight, the night won't wait
For the love of her family and her friends
Nine and ten, could she ever start again

We
Poets
Are by far
The strangest ones
The ones who see rhyme
Where others just see pain
The ones who find darkness where
Others ignore it for the light
The ones who write unabashedly
And yet are still afraid to be themselves
The ones who are childlike in our intentions
But by far more mature in our thoughts and our means
We have to be this way, because being a poet
Is being strange and paradoxical, like life and death

All of these wires that lie by my bed
Leading to lamps, lights, and clocks around my head
Seem to be tucked away, out of mind, out of sight
Until I need to change out my two different lights

There's a scene in "The Hunt for Red October"
When the Americans have the Russians come over
And to lower the tension and show who they are
The men passed around a few strong cigars
Well, if you want to do that where I'm from
You pass your classmates a pack of gum

Some of my friends are filled with fear
Some have no idea how they got here
And while I'm just starting to plan
I'm not daunted by what I don't understand
Since I've been waiting for six and a half years

Some just begin to rise
Others begin to fall
People's sleeping changes with dusk
Heeding the night's call

The early bird tucks in for sleep
The night owl wires up for fun
As people continue their daily cycles
With the disappearance of the sun

It's cold outside, like the tip of a dog's muzzle
It seems like a good day to stay in and cuddle
It also seems like the wind in the air
Invites the intrepid to run out somewhere
So whether you snuggle indoors or trek outside
Good luck to those at the sun's low winter tide

The hunter runs after his prey, and then
It leaps forth into the stary night, which
Swallows it up to be part of it when
The hunter finds their chase to be unhitched
Around the entire globe, we find
That we all have some commonalities
We all have something in the human mind
That reflects our common realities
We chased our prey, only to find that it
Had taken off for the celestial
With our knack for storytelling and wit
We had made star pictures and festivals
It oddly speaks to our human nature
That our stories can become much greater

Can I just forget this year
That started off so fine
I just hope that by next year
I'll have a better time

With all the fighting on the news
In Damascan streets
Makes me wonder how we can
Reject the survivors we meet

Between Brexit and the election
We keep on splitting apart
And all of the hateful ones
Feel free to threaten our hearts

Zika rode in behind ebola
Two crisies on end
All of the panic caused by it
Hardly helps people make amends

The Olympics were pretty great
But still pretty spotty
With bacterial bays, alge filled pools
And the antics of Ryan Lochtie

The globe's heat keeps rising on
Wreaking havoc on our climate
With polar ice melting, it grates
That people don't get science

My favorite sci fi heroes died
Those people who inspired
Those who gave us so much hope
Just suddenly expired

The local subway's been a mess:
It keeps catching on fire
After three times, it just seems
That we can't fix a wire

My brain seems to be getting worse
At being normal or sane
Somedays I just want to run
And dissolve into the rain

I ended my relationship
Of over a year
And lost touch with some friends
Whom I once held so dear

School just keeps getting harder
(Not too shocking to find)
But my Girl Scout and school projects
Might just fry my mind

My mom and I are getting to
A rough patch in our ways
And hiding my intrests from my 'rents
Takes so much of my days

My social circle only gets
Harder and harder to track
And my family's stories sound like soaps
Even though we have each other's backs

So can I just forget this year
Make it all fade away
Can I just go back to sleep
And face '16 another day

So can I just forget this year
Just please make it all end
And maybe in 2017
I'll be able to start again

Why is it that I never seem
To be able to verbalize
The things I feel, the things I see
Why must that action tantalize?

I know how I feel, in every specific way
I know how I see the world fit together
But somehow I'm never able to say
How I think or feel to another

It's all so clear inside my brain
I know how I see and how I feel
But explaining it makes me feel insane
Because I don't have the words for my zeal

It's all so precise and obvious to my mind
But it's always hell to explain
Because I start speaking only to find
That my lack of clarity is near to pain

What seems so solid and crystal clear
In the space between my ears
Falls apart outside my mouth
Because my words' ambiguity drives it south

You ask me why I'm so giggly
When the evening comes about
I laugh at what you cannot see
Until the lights are out

And when you keep on asking why
I keep on bitting on the lie
I've heard faking it is the same as winning
So I'll be a champion if I keep grinning
There are so many secrets I keep out of the light
But, close to freedom, I giggle before night

I used to only wear skinny jeans
Even if it were hotter than it seemed
Then puberty hit
And I had to quit
'Cause my hips aren't nearly as lean

They say that if you lie with dogs
You'll rise with fleas
If that's the case, I'll scratch
As much as I please

I have learned many things from the universe, such as that
We all come from the same life force, the same centrifuge
We are interwoven in this wild world web
We all have many things that we keep hidden
Nature favors the adept and diverse
Nothing lasts forever, even ends
The one thing I've learned from the stars
If I have learned nothing else
Is that it only takes
A single spark to
Start a fire
And one speck
To make
Masses

I need to quiet my phone
the worry will drive me insane
The sound it makes in a room
Embarrasses me for no gain
In a large group, it's fine
No one can hear a thing to blame
but in a small group of my friends
I can't ever let it happen again

Your motive is hate
Your mood is irate
Your news feed is fake
Your plans aren't my fate

I wonder if
The lights in my room
Are telling me something

For every December
Another one burns out
And leaves me with a countdown
Of all the summers left
Until my departure

So I suppose
That by the time I attain that goal
For which I have so long
Yearned, pined, dare I say lusted for
My room will only be lit
By the sun and the moon

Nations rise and nations fall
The great trade places with the small
Those countries which rise above them all
Have the greatest distance to fall

I clutch onto my cool pillow tight
As I descend to slumber at night
When I awake with a hazy head
I find my partner off of the bed

The society saw a black and white dichotomy
He saw the world in his own way, a nuanced greyscale
She jumped in and showed him a world of vibrant hue
Together they found the whole EM spectrum
But when they tried to tell their friends, they saw
That they stuck to the two chroma way
Fearing the loss of light, the two
Ran off to those who they had
Been told were savages
They kept on running
Moving until
Finally
They were
Free

On the first day of junior year
I came to school to see
A video on students rights and responsibilities

On the second day of junior year
I came to school to see
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the third day of junior year
I came to school to see
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the fourth day of junior year
I came to school to see
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the fifth day of junior year
I came to school to see
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the sixth day of junior year
I came to school to see
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the seventh day of junior year
I came to school to see
Seven student councelors
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the eighth day of junior year
I came to school to see
Nine school principals
Seven student councelors
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the ninth day of junior year
I came to school to see
Over thirty clubs
Nine school principals
Seven student councelors
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the tenth day of junior year
I came to school to see
Hundreds of badly labeled classrooms
Over thirty clubs
Nine school principals
Seven student councelors
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the eleventh day of junior year
I came to school to see
Over four hundred teachers
Hundreds of badly labeled classrooms
Over thirty clubs
Nine school principals
Seven student councelors
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

On the twelfth day of junior year
I came to school to see*
Four thousand, five hundred and twenty-eight students
Over four hundred teachers
Hundreds of badly labeled classrooms
Over thirty clubs
Nine school principals
Seven student councelors
Six school police officers
Five different sports fields
Four hallway monitors
Three different lunch periods
Two miles of hallways
And a video on students rights and responsibilities

It's not always wise to trust what you see
Depending on my hairstyle, shoes, clothes, and makeup, I can look twelve or thirty three

Waves crash over me
As the fish swim and I sink
Weightless and blissfull

I swim up above
Wrapped in sea foam and seaweed
My world is at peace

I'm pretty sure the school needs more windows
Because it's entirely possible to go
For a day between thanksgiving and Valentine's
And never once, in your classes, even realize
That the sun orbits above our globe

Why is it that when I'm with you
I can never seem to be myself?
Why does talking with you instantly
Turn me into someone else?
I know this arrangement is a little unstable
But I'll keep it in place as long as I'm able
Because if you saw all the parts of me
All those things I don't let you see
I know you'd react quite badly
So I gaurd my secrets quite madly

I know one day this will fall apart
One day I will have to reveal my heart
But there's a place I need to be in by then
So, until then, I just hope nothing happens
Because if that wall comes tumbling down
And I'm in a bad place for my secrets to be found
I'd never see all of those dreams I have through
So despite the foundational cracks, I still hide from you

And I know things will never be the same again
When I've changed so drastically from beginning to end
And despite all of the advice that everyone's said
I want to get to my goal, so I keep my secrets in my head

If any of my fellow students knows this
This question as long lived as my school is old:
Why the hell do the teachers keep
The cafeteria so ******* cold?!

How great it would be
For you and for me
If we could simply be together
Honest and free

How great it would be
If the world could just see
That we're all human beings
You, them, and me

There are many things I'd like to miss
But I'd never go without autumn's cold kiss
Looking at a red and gold blizzard is the definition of bliss
And under crisp apple winds, nothing seems amiss

There is much to admire about cool autumn days
Wether or not it's clear and blue or foggy or grey
The leaves, pumpkins, and winds join together to play
A day like this can truly go in any way

I say no even though it's a lie
'Cause when I say yes, you don't hear the reasons why

What an era to be alive
When people take spacedives
When scientists engineer better crops like golden rice
When politicians deny the melting of polar ice
When internet surveillance is coming to a peak
When we find answers that took so long to seek
This new era's fashions are young and old
In the face of adversity, protesters become bold
More and more we see environmental protection
And people from all over are making connections
As cities grow with a young world population
We find ourselves perplexed about infrastructure for most nations
Sometimes it seems like nothing changes at all
Then it seems like a revolution from the great to the small
In Dicken's words "it was the best of times
It was the worst of times", but there's plenty of material for a poet's rhymes

One question remains under the cover of this night
Will I bow down or will I fight?
Submission garuntees a place to stay
But rebellion lets me live my own way

Here's to all the concerned gaurdians
Who enact an internet firewall
And here's to all the witty subjects
Who find ways around it all

Sometimes all it takes is a little hope
In this world where presidents *****
When zika rides in on ebola's coattails
When so many relationships begin to fail
When we dismiss facts like we dismiss opinion
When we find the truth behind the "truths" we were given
When lead is found in water in Michigan
And the plains are under water as more rushes in
When extremism flourishes, taking thousands every day
When humans threatened by it are told they can't stay
When big brother dictators try out nukes
And we all just want to give this world the boot
All it takes is a little spark
To start hope's fire in the dark
We will learn and cooperate and grow
Fighting together, we're stronger than we know

Don't tell me where we're going
I don't really need to know
As long as it's far from here
Just take my hand and go.
Let's not linger too long on the past
And please don't go too slow
For night's guise is our blessing
And day's revealing light, our foe