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

I brush my hair every morning and night
You'd think, with this bob, it would stay tame
But if I take off a hat or run under a breeze so light
The cute bob turns into a matted lion's mane

I think everyone has been self conscious
When it comes to how we view our body
How could we not, with all of the images
That we see online and on the T.V.?

For me, what helped with my view of my bodice
(Though it might seem quite weird)
Is that I could've been greek goddess
Like the statues in which they appeared

Bouncing through the snow
pit, pit here I go
Crunching through the ice
snap, crack this is nice
Falling down my yard
Now I'm a snow covered bard

As the day's sunlight begins to lack
I come closer and closer to the crack
For though I swore not
It seems to be ought
What hell will it be to go back

I think a brick wall would show my feelings towards you
Talking's no use, and fighting isn't, too
And I've tried over, around, under, and through
And now I've stopped talking, because what else I can do

My mind raises a cacophony
Of songs from punk to symphonies
There's so many songs I want to hear
Too bad I only have two ears

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?!

In today's complex world
Full of questions and hazards
Where some voices go unheard
And people have conflicting standards
Sometimes I wish
That for a little time
I could be less human-ish
And more canine

I could run like crazy
And bark like a dog
And after hours of playing
I'd skeep like a log

I could jump and yip
As a clever little fox
With agility and wit
I could skip over rocks

I could join the chase
As a strong hunting wolf
In an open, starry space
I could just howl and woof

Somedays I'd like
To be of genus Canis
For I'd enjoy being doglike
When humanity gets on my wits

Can we all just, for once, agree
That we have enough problems without you fighting me?

That if we stop fighting, just maybe,
We can change the world we see

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

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

This is for the cell phone renegades
Those who use post its like grenades

This is for the average mavericks
Those who live in defiance of cruel cliques

This is for the subway gladiators
Those who live love over hate even in an elevator

This is for the commuter warriors
Those who ignore the bigots and barriers

To all of you out there , wherever you are
Let's create a better world, both near and far

"don't grow up too fast
you still have time
to be a child"
you say to me

The difference between us
is that you wish to be a child
whereas I
never want to be one again

your childhood
was playing foursquare
and lava monster
and avoiding the cheese-touch
with your three best friends

my childhood
was being kept out of foursquare
ignored by the lava monster
and being the untouchable object
in my class's game of "Beth-touch"

your childhood
was a playful push and poke
with your classmates

my childhood
was getting my front tooth chipped
and being pushed off of the monkey bars

your childhood
was seeing your parents argue
then make up

my childhood
was hearing shouting upstairs
and seeing my parents sitting apart silently for hours afterward

your childhood
was hoping your mother's flu got better

my childhood
was my mom falling and twisting her arm
on the way to a meeting with the principal
hard enough that her hand still isn't the same size

your childhood
was learning weird new things
through rumors, friends, and what you could find

my childhood
was being left in the dark
on all but the basics

your childhood
was fun elementary school trends
like lunchables, messenger bags, and chocolate calculators

my childhood
was having a different style
and having no common interests with the other kids

your childhood
was a playful time of learning
that you wish to return to

my childhood
was the role of the playground's pariah
and I'm never going back

Making your own choice
With something you're scared to do
Is learning to fly

Looking over a ledge
You're nervous, then you're scared once
You start to fall down

Then once you take off
Your breath catches, and you start
To soar in your mind

And for all your fear
Knowing that you've made your choice
Flies over anxiety

I walk along this street again
Chatting up a lone fireman
I tell the psychiatrist I'm just fine
As I taste rainwater like wine
And somehow it's a crime to go walking
Somehow we're strange for talking
I wish people would take me seriously
Instead of reducing me to an unbalanced teen
And maybe if they questioned just for a second
They'd see why Poe and Dickens beckon
So what if I hate school, screens, and parks?
I have my thoughts, books, and walks in the dark

At this school, our jokes
Are often more messed up than
Purely humorous

I may not be writing this story
I don't know what you're intending
But please, dear author, please
At least tell me if there is an ending

Many have wondered
How the first heirarchy came
Into social life

I'm no expert, but
With my life, I'd say it was
Due to coconuts

When was the last time I felt like this
This curious euphoria, this eagerly learning bliss?

Thinking about it, I've felt it before
The first time being when I was four

When I had tried my own little tests
An encyclopedia convinced me that science was the best

And then again when I was six
I saw a table in a PTA mist

And I became a Brownie Girl Scout
Because I liked badges and camps and helping others out

And when I reached the age of seven
I picked up a violin and found heaven

And in middle school in a Floridian vale
I felt that same rush when I learned how to sail

And in grade eight in the city of Detroit
I found my passion with my activist's voice

As an underclassman, my heart reached new highs
Hiking up to touch the Shenandoah skies

There's been so many choices that I've made
That exhilarated me and made me who I became

And feeling this now as I first try to code
I know I've found a new passion for my mind to download

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

It's quite hard to flirt
When your parents and sister
Are between you two

Books should never be
Put in a washing machine
Just trust me on this

Maps are very good
But should that map fail, just ask
For some directions

Campuses are huge
But you soon will find that you
Can walk quite quickly

If weather says shorts
But your family says pants
Trust the weatherman

It's quite hard to flirt
When your parents and sister
Are between you two

Books should never be
Put in a washing machine
Just trust me on this

Maps are very good
But should that map fail, just ask
For some directions

Campuses are huge
But you soon will find that you
Can walk quite quickly

If weather says shorts
But your family says pants
Trust the weatherman

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

Black swans and roses
And debonair dark hose
What the conductor says
Is how the music goes

Night's magic abounds
Students horse around
Then the music plays
And it's silent on the grounds

Spotlights make auras
Players dance through the stanzas
The night's nearly out
At the end of the codas

The kids run off the stage
Never losing a page
With the March air about
The swans act of their age

If you've ever woken up in the dead of night
Feeling like you had to scream and howl
And you frantically start to gasp and write
Knowing you need to get everything out
Only to try and show it to the world the next day
And run when someone looks near you
Well, then you know just how my day
Looks if seen from my view

If you've ever written lyrics for all
To see, posting work anonymously
Feeling like you could swim over falls
And live your life courageously
And then you awake in the late evening
Because it's either the world's end or a branch on a pane
I don't have to explain exactly what I'm meaning
Because you and I feel the same

If you've ever known you're going mad
Even though you try to deny it
And then you wonder if it's actually bad
Later, you actually know it
But you don't dare to say anything
Because it will destroy your path and dreams
Then, I think you'll understand
Just what the hell I mean

It's time for a tale of my school's counseling system
And how it effects the students within
So to all of the counselors who ask "why don't they come to us?":
Here are the stories we take to the bus

First of all, it happens that you're never in
And without you there, how will they talking begin?
We get that you're also the hall monitors
But the way things are, you won't even let us be heard

And honestly, don't even get me started
On the stories students had once they departed

I had a friend, C, who's a bisexual girl
And, of course, that yields problems in this world
In middle school she dated another girl
In the "oh my gosh, we're holding hands" sense of the word
And one day, when it became all too much
C told her counselor about the dating and such
A day later, C and her bae were called in
And, I should note here, bae's parents saw the rainbow as sin
Turns out the counselor had told both their parents
That their girls were dating, despite the problems apparent
After that C never saw bae again
And that is how counselors treated my friend

My bestie, S, had many problems at home
She would avoid being stabbed by running outside into the snow
So one day she went to talk mental health
But her counselor gave her something else
When S, a philosophical joker, mused the meaning of life
The counselor told her it wasn't worth the strife
The woman told her that she had not place on this earth
And general statements that were all rather dearth
And S thought as she walked out an away
"What if somebody suicidal walked in today?
At least that's not any kind of issue for me."
And that's how our counselors treated my bestie

The final anecdote is a bit personal:
I'm the girl who did this, after all
Things had been getting more tense at my house
My mom's shouting outbursts made me want to vanish like a mouse
Even on a vacation to Virginia Beach
These problems always happened to be within reach
And afterward my mom would try to make things smooth
But her words only made me more and more confused
So I went to Mr. R after months of stressing
Hoping I could find solutions to a problem that was pressing
He told me I should be honest with my mother:
That I should tell her I saw as terrifying what she saw as a bother
So I did just that in the late afternoon
Wishing it to work, but not raising my hopes so soon
And of course my words fell on deaf ears
My mom told me I was irrational for my fears
And later still, in future nights and future fights
My mom had a new verbal weapon: yelling at me for my fright
Saying "don't you cry, I'm not hitting you"
It took me the rest of the year to figure out what I could do

But there is one thing that I hold dear
Given to me by my counsellors here
For if my counselor hadn't said that to me
You wouldn't be reading the poems you see
My way of dealing with my problems was verse
At first in note margins, than this site on the virtual universe

So to all you counselors who asked why students never come to you:
We've found other places to do what we need to

Coming through arches and glass
Out with your bags, inspected fast
Under a tree in a garden's sun
Read out the rules to everyone
Tell us how to drive safe as kids
Homilize on the things people did
Over and done, we get our cards
Useful for work or for fun
Seems like only yesterday
Everyone had to ask 'rents for a way

Imagine that it's 2008
And a third grader
Walks to catch a bus

She's small (only three feet tall)
But walks quickly and quietly
As her sister says "wait for us!"

Imagine that, as she nears
The top of the hill
On a drizzly, chilly morning

She looks ahead
And sees a coyote
And remembers the grown-ups warnings

Everyone else
Is too far behind
To see what she can

The coyote and I
Looked at each other
And after a few seconds, he ran

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

Lately I've been wondering
If the truth is really worth it
If my curiosity really paid off

Was it better to be innocent
Or to be informed?

But I've realized something:

No matter what I find out
Wether knowing was really worth it in the end
I still try to find out

Even knowing
That my curiosity has revealed
Things I didn't always like
I still find myself
Snooping and digging around
Again and again
Success or failure
Answer or only uncertainty
I keep finding myself trying again

Because my curiosity
Is instinctual
And for better or worse
I can only be
A curious little cat

Brethren, now's the time of truth:
Good luck on finals

Let's walk down the cobbled road in the rain
We'll come back with pastries and some new books
Let's visit that old castle once again
The boxer boy graffiti's still there, look
The DART dashes on to the city streets
As we bring groceries back to the rise
In a misty garden, there's birds to meet
We set the table under still bright skies
After a plane trip over the east sea
We're finally in Éire with dad's fam'ly

I love the way that
Library bookshelves quiet
The sound of the world

So that I can search
For my mind's satisfaction
Without the chaos

So that just maybe
My mind can quiet down, too
From its raging roar

Slowly rises the pink dragon of dawn
Shooting flames from her maw in a waking yawn
Churning up whisps of fog from her nostrils, she sighs
Raising a rainbow belly to greet the too early skies

Thank you, A, for showing me
I wasn't the monster they made me out to be
For showing me that, in the end
Even freaks can have some friends

When you first approached me, I thought you were mad
For wanting to befriend someone so unspeakably bad
For a full hour, I thought you were a prank
That you were just there to give my chains a yank

In a way, you were my first friend
Hell, you were the second who didn't leave or betray me in the end
And the first I liked, but didn't see enough
I guess, for me, it was more puppy love

But in seventh grade, in a darkened gym
I sat at an empty table within
With so many seats, I couldn't believe
That you'd voluntarily sit and talk to me

And though we don't talk much anymore
Since I moved away and got more chores
Your memory always shines in my mind
As the first true friend I ever did find

Debate isn't about scoring a win
Or coercing an enemy into giving in
But getting fellow humans to find what we hold in common

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

I'm okay at cooking
But I'm no Julia Child
So hopefully dinner tonight
Won't end up getting too wild

"That was like tripping
On acid." "I loved that when
I was ten" I said

"Well, that would explain
Quite a lot about you, then"
My friend mumbled back

Who knew that you could
On two hours of sleep, and
Walk miles all day

Sitting out of dance
We realized that we were
"***** emo" teens

EPCOT, in the end
Is half Thinking Day
Made professional

Also, my dreams are
Apparently far too weird
To have been healthy

Mom, why do you say
"You were such a happy girl
What's with you today?"

There were happy parts
But childhood was also where
All of this stuff starts

I didn't hide from you
The fact that I was bullied
And teased by the school

I couldn't hide it
When I slammed down a desk, and
When my tooth was chipped

Maybe I didn't say
That going to sixth grade made
Me dread every day

I didn't talk of
All my plans for taking off
Like a trav'ling dove

I guess you only
Saw my backyard play and trips
That's when you saw me

But much of the time I
Looked at the birds in the sky
And wished I could fly

You don't know how much
I wanted to run away
From my school and such

But you do know
About the times I got hit
By classmates long ago

They told you about
All the times the other kids
Made me scream and shout

So you can argue
Whatever you want, but your
Favorite point isn't true