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

Don't tell me of eternity
I doubt I could ever know
For the girl you see before thee
Was raised on touch-and-go

I only know a nomadic way
Of moving from city to city
My four years here will be my longest stay
In my entire life's story

I know that people will go as well
Friendships fade in but two months
Even family grows old, as I can tell
That the same people change under the sun

So don't tell me of forever
In a gated Hollywood paradise
An eternal feast and fanfare
Under great paternal eyes

Don't tell me of eternal voids
A perpetual nonexistence
A world with no light or noise
An eternal nonsensation

Don't tell me of eternal hell
A forever unchanging war
A torment I can not tell
To others whom I care for

Because, Mi amore, I don't need
A stagnant, unchanging world
I just need change, like sand into pearls
Or a woman growing from a girl

Don't Tell me I'm too young
That I'm just a hormonal teen
Who will look back on this moment
And admit I was being ridiculous
Maybe, twenty years from now
I will look back and laugh

But right now
Regardless of my lack of adult memories
Or the biological chemicals pumping through my veins
What I feel now
Is very real to me

When you say I'm too young
You treat me like a pet
Incapable of understanding human things
Maybe I do think very differently
Than an adult
But regardless
I'm still a person
Just like you

Please try and remember
How you felt
When you were my age
Without filtering your memories

You were once my age
And, in turn
Someday I will be your age
The teenagers of today
Are the actors
Scientists
musicians
Singers
Authors
Presidents
Farmers
Bankers
­Teachers
And parents
Of the future
The future that you fantasize about
And say will be amazing and advanced
With bizzare, yet wonderful, futuristic languages, fashions, and ideas

Yet when you see the people
Who will, in the next few years,
Being about the sci-fi era
You call our fashions ridiculous
You call our slang sloppy
And when we try to share our new ideas
You call us crazy
You tell us we're too young to know enough
To have valid ideas

But maybe, this world needs a generation
With a fresh mind and view
people who have
Less preconceived notions
To overcome

So please,
Spare me the talk
That reveals only how little you know about us

Don't tell me I'm too young
To know who I am
And what I want
Just try and remember
That your generation
The one who currently runs the world
That you were once my age, too

I wonder if Doctor Doolittle
Started off like this

Dear Diary,

Do you remember
The little ten year old girl
Who wrote in that book

The girl who couldn't
Spell business without spellcheck
To save someone's life

The one who told you
About how she loved airports
So much she would fly

Who believed she could
Be a pilot, reporter,
and a researcher

The one who went on
For pages about mangroves
And the local reef

Who loved the world so
With all of its things to do
In such finite time

Who stood mesmerized
Over Miami's night lights
In a hotel room

The little girl who
Made an essay's outline in
Her polkadot book

The one who said she
Hated when her sister took
The hotel bed's sheets

The girl who dreamt of
Her eleventh birthday, so
She could be a witch

The one who knew that
She wasn't entirely
Regular or sane

Who wrote of her mom
Who threatened to burn you if
She kept on writing

Who wrote of her dad
And mom arguing in both
Private and public

Who was afraid of
"Inappropriate" things, since
Her parents said so

The one who told you
That she had no other friends
On her school's blacktop

The one who panicked
When she got less than eighty
For any test score

The one who knew she
Could never tell the grown-ups
Just how bad she felt

The one who vowed that
If MPs and psych wards came
She would kick and scream

Well I'm starting to
Because she was right here for
My entire life

Quiero voy a
Un país con dragones
Pero ningún dice
Donde está es

There's a little voice inside my head
Telling me all the places I could be instead
And every day, the more I grow
I yearn and ache to get up and go
I keep on smiling, like I'm having fun
But you have no idea how much I want to run

What would you say
If your poems came alive
And the dream you had
Became real life
What would you do
When someone asks
About a small mark
You were trying to mask

Corsets and skirts and straw hats and
Dream girl
Take me aside with you in the cinema
Dream girl
Ruffles and maroon to your black hair and blue
Hands on front from behind like you want to
Dream girl, won't my parents see from ten yards away
The room is flooding, I'm almost drowning
Dream girl, I can't stay
But panic dies down in a moment, the theater dissapears
And then in that sea all I want is for you to hold me dear
Swimming and kissing and gasping
Dancing and laughing and caressing
Embracing and loving and floating
My eyes misting your raven hair shining
We finally get to disrobing
And then my alarm is ringing
And into my pillow I'm swearing
You know I'd rather be sleeping

In my dream
I was doing just fine
But it would seem
My subconscious crossed a line
People kept asking
About the bruises on my neck
And upon waking
I went to the mirror to check

I had another dream
(Which is rare for me at night)
I had a bruised arm
Like I'd gotten in a fight
And when people asked about it
I didn't know what to say
Wether to tell others I made them
Or if I should brush questions away

It's not very often
That I find myself dreaming
And it's even rarer
For me to wake up screaming
But in a hotel room
In the middle of the night
I had a nightmare
Almost exactly like my life

I imagine this
feels somewhat like flying away
over a dark plane

I want to breathe in so deeply
My lungs inflate
Break their cage
And let my heart
Along with my feelings, thoughts, fear, and numbness
Fly out
So I hold my breath
And I almost get there

It's a mild early spring
Makes you wonder of changes it will bring
Could this be the planet's warning
That it can't handle all the warming
Or is mother nature smiling down
Seeing how the last three winters made us frown
Early spring, early spring
What are the changes of which you sing?

I support
Both plain and mountain
To many men
My presence is certain

I produce
Feeding grass and trees
Giving nutrients to
Men, beasts, and bees

I challenge
Mountains, canyons and deserts
Serve to separate
Great explorers and the lesser

I enclose
My ranges and ravines
Separate lands
preventing wars that might've been

Little blue marble
Hurtling through outer space
With lone yellow star

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

There's one way to warm hearts
On the day of an election:
Stickers with sarcastic remarks
Paired with cute confections

Do you think I could make it?

No one's watching me right now...
I'm outside and there aren't any guards

I don't even have to show up for another thirty minutes
No one would even think to look for me until then

I could just run off through the trees
And never come back

I could go on the road north
(Probably by hitchhiking)
And be in the international city
Where no one would find me

Why should I stay here?
My peers taunt me
And treat me like a contagion
Those in charge of us
Find me to be a troublemaker
And exclude me from groups for it
And I'm always bored with our work
I finish hours before the day is out

I could just leave this island
And never come back

....I could do it...

....they'd catch me
I can't get off of the base
Without climbing over razor-wire topped fences
Or swimming over open water fully clothed
And if I tried the gate
The gaurd would easily stop me

I could hide inside the complex
But when they've realized I've escaped
The military police will be called
And they will comb the base
Cornering me until I'm surrounded

I'm going to be released in one year, anyways.
I can make it one more year, can't I?

Can I?

I don't have another choice,
Unless someone were to help me
Sneak a sailboat into my escape route

Hold on, girl
It's only one more year

Wait, am I late for class?
I've got to get back
Before they notice that I'm gone

From ashes to ashes, and so from stardust to stardust
Despite the harsh stasis, a mind of wanderlust
From black holes to aliens to a history of time
We bid farewell to a man of great mind

I've never had many
Problems with history class
most of it's pretty interesting
And I find it easy to pass
But the one thing I don't get
The one thing I cannot see
Is why an American high school
Has this curriculum of eurocentricity
We spent three full months
On ancient Greece and Rome
And less than a week
On the Ottomans' home
We spent one month
On Europe's rebirth
And exactly zero days
On Muslim scholars who changed the earth
We spent two full days
On the palace of Versailles
And not a single class
On Mali or Songhai
One month passed
With European exploration
But not a word was uttered
Of Timbuktu's nation
And don't get me started
On Aborigines or Micronesia
In Asia, China and India aside,
You'd think the teacher had amnesia
What I'd really like to know
Is why our curriculum
Spends most of the year
On all things European
In this melting ***
That we call America
It seems that our lesson plans
Need to be a bit fairer

dear evolution
normally I really like your work
*but today I hate you.

Who ever knew that
Wikipedia links could
Only be Plato's

I sit here alone
Is it daytime, is it night?
It doesn't matter

My claws mark the walls
I must look like a demon
As I scratch my arms

My unruly mane
reaches down my back, touching
My nine wild foxtails

I howl at the wall
My songs, cries, stories, and poems
Are all I have left

I hear with six ears
If I were free, I could fly
With my four giant wings

I recall that night
When my friends fought so bravely
Are they still alive?

But I'm trapped and chained
Even if I use my flames
To try melting Iron

Sometimes father comes
With the acid cups and chains
And sometimes his hands

He called me his child
But even back then, he lied
I'm just his project

I count slaps and thrusts
Staring up at the ceiling
Refusing to speak

What month is it, now?
I have lost my sense of time
In this grey stone cell

I peel my ears up
Some bread comes through my door's slot
It's down in one bite

When I chose my friends
They showed me what feelings were
And showed me the truth

I wish I could sleep
This windowless torture cell
Worsens my nightmares

I wake up shrieking
Waking, sleeping, I don't care
The nightmare goes on

I'll never tell him
Whatever's on or inside me
I won't betray friends

The cell's not all grey
I hear music and voices
That no one else can

Sometimes I dance along
My chain and claws scratching tiles
Laughing on a shreik

There's also Inverse
My photograph negative
The ghost haunting me

Inverse keeps teasing
He points out my every flaw
I hate that he's right

I shreik at Inverse
I'm trapped, half dead, in this cell
Waiting for "father"

I bite at my chain
The door of my cell opens
"Father" comes inside

I accidentally
Befriended the third mayor
Of a Chilean town

Fake malware warnings
Are the most annoying thing
(To me) on the web

Fall is (finally) in the air
With a cold front and apples everywhere
With long sleeves in vogue and school back in swing
Costumes in windows and pumpkin everything

Something is brighter and crisper today
(Maybe it's 'cause the humidity went away)
So as fall kicks in with a little breeze
I look forward to a season 'neath fiery trees

Its finally less than eighty degrees
As little grey clouds roll in the breeze
Fall's sweet scent is finally here
With a few red leaves and air crystals clear

My feelings are these weird little creatures
That can make me want to hide
I sure as hell can't show them to others
So I keep them hidden inside
Except for around a precious few:
My two besties and the poems at my bedside
They are the ones whom I'm comfortable with
And whom I don't feel the need to abide

People say fight club couldn't exist
That fighting like that wouldn't go missed
But I have contrary evidence, for those who seek
The second week of school has been nicknamed fight week

I wonder what the dinosaurs thought
When the asteroid fell and wrought
Destruction and chaos
For fate may befall us
In a century, we too could be caught

I burn
Sending light to the sky
Warming and burning
Those who pass by

I blaze
Devouring my fuel
Both a force of nature
And man's tool

I simmer
My coals leave a path
Those who don't think
Will suffer my wrath

I flicker
Sending out rays of light
Cooking and torches
Remind men of my might

Fire burns in passion untold
Ice reflects and refracts in the cold
And it must be said:
Please watch your head
Their burns can scar you 'till you're old

There once we're two princess
Fire and Ice
And in one another
They found their vice
And they decided
As goes the lore
To see which side
Would win a two-person war
So they met in the city
Right on the bay
And with a bow, crouch, and lunge
They started the day
They began in the capital
A grand skyscraper
By the end of the fight
There was only a crater
The ground quakes and split
So Fire jumped in
With her use of the magma
She was sure she would win
Then Ice jumped back
And in her dismay
Slipped into the waters
Of the capitol bay
She had an idea
Right then, very quick
She cooled down the bay
Into ice thirteen feet thick
And as the magma-ice storm
Raged on on that beach
The city and earth
Started to breach
By the end of the fight
Neither princess prevailed
No victory was won
No winner was hailed
The city was destroyed
And the bay, too
The fire, ice, and rubble
Left only a gravelly slough
The princesses both died
Of exaustion that night
For they thought the other's end
Proved their might
But when white meets black
It mixes in grey
Much like the fire and ice
And the water that day
For when two equal forces
Opposing collide
No one prevails
There are left no sides
Yin-yang turns to grey
When the world collides

firefly
glow bright, glow bright
chase out the shadows
of the night
during the day
you hide away
to another
place to stay
firefly glow bright
tonight
for fear of the dark
cast out your light
but lest the sparrow
find you by day
by sunrise you
must run away
firefly
glow bright, glow bright
chase out the shadows
of the night
during the day
you hide away
in another
place you'll stay
firefly, just sparkle
and shine
you'll find others
of your kind
for at night only
they come out, too
hidden by dark
plainly in view
alone by day
they run away
lest the sparrow
come their way
in the night
they come together
and shine bright
now and forever
firefly
glow bright, glow bright
chase out the shadows
of the night
during the day
you hide away
but hold on for better
to come your 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

"Ok, honey, you look
Like a racoon
You've got to study for chemistry
You're only getting a B+
And how many times
Do I have to tell you
To wash the dishes?
Bring in the trash cans
Am I the only one
With a brain in this house?"
"Bu-"       "ah, that's one."
"But mom-"       "ah, that's two
Don't argue with me
I don't want to hear it
If course you're right
And I'm wrong
Whatever. Go to hell"

                                 Ok, first things first
                                I like how this looks
                               I've studied so much
                      My brain doesn't register
                     The information anymore
                And yeah, I'm a science geek
              But a B+ and the rest A's in an
                                    All honors lineup
      Is still pretty good for a sophmore
      And I was just going to wash them
If you'd given me five **** minutes
            And hey, we're both honor roll
                         Honors classes students
               So isn't that something to our intelligence?
                And hey, give me fourty-give seconds to explain, you don't even have to listen
          You could zone out for all I care
                   But if you don't want to be. interrupted
                               Then don't interrupt
                   If you don't want to hear it
                         Fine, listen to the HGTV
And honestly you seem to be the one
             Who never wants to be wrong
   So fine. At least the devil gives you a chance to speak.
      And you wonder why I talk to dad more.

I walk along
A rainy nova street
Beneath a lilac umbrella

And through the trees
I see shimmers of cool grey
Through the mist

And I have
A familiar feeling

And suddenly
I'm not in nova
The land of traffic jams and crazy schools and swampy heat

I am walking down a street in Howth
A castle behind me
In the cobbles to the street

And in that moment
I am thirteen
And running along
With my sister and grandma and grandad
Hoping we get to the DART station on time

In that moment
I hear birds chirping
Cars running
And the soft, lovable patter
Of rain on leaves

The magic of a flashback

It's
A pity
That I can
Stare down a drop
Of beaded water
Pace these same halls for hours
Chef Ramsey vids end to end
But that I can't focus
Any such efforts
So that I can
Do the things
I really
Want

I hear something on tv
About some locality unconnected to me
Thirty seconds later, I forget
I cram last minute for a test
Hoping my score is the best
Two months later, I forget
We wage war in foreign lands
And later recoil at what was done by our hands
Ten years later, we forget
A man dies in an accident
With no idea what life meant
A generation later, the world forgets

Oh, my ******* puppy
Your tail moves faster than a guppy
And you put up with things we do
Like when we try to bathe you
We got you quite some years ago
And wow, you really did grow
And I love you, you hyper furball
Shedding, barking, annoyance and all

Does everyone do this, or is it just me
That sometimes I love a celebrity
Because whenever they show up on T.V.
I'm reminded of someone I used to see

As soon as I get out of bed
My hair makes a mess of my head
I brush it flat and sleek
And, for an hour, its neat
But then it gets frizzy instead