he was thin and white
a habit I couldn't break
leaning against the crumbling walls
mind adrift and shoes making
light scuff marks against the cracked tar
he wore a jean jacket every day and at first
I likened him to a *** but once you
see a person so many times
what they wear becomes who they are
and who they are is what you love
I loved the way he shoved his sleeves
up to his elbows and then he'd
push his messy hair out of his face
with these battered hands that were
subtly caked with paint
sometimes you sense a story about the person
and I wondered for a while if
it would be appropriate for me
to insert myself in his chapters
but you know love
and you know interest
and you know you can't help it
so I broke the barrier and shuffled up beside him
he didn't look at me
just stuck his thumb in his pocket and
rested his right shoe back against the wall
he wouldn't speak so I took his photo
stood directly in front of him and
snapped what would go on to be
the first and last time I saw this drifter
he melted away into the mortar
he curled into the sun
my photo held his existence steady and still
until that evening; I lit it ablaze
you may ask why I didn't catch his name
but it is a known fact that smoke can never
and will never
be one to be captured

Upon waking
I hacked impurities from my rusty lungs
And you traveled out of my esophagus
Down into the fluffy folds of no return
A thing to be wasted, to be thrown out
And even though the label warned me
That side effects may happen
I was crossing my bony fingers
In the hopes that I would sleep forever
But it looks like this medication
Is powerful in all the wrong ways

a Time for hushed wind
Unseen forces pushing white clouds
in Ever-present blue skies
they Say no drinking before noon, but
I quietly Declare a glass of wine
can be A quite sophisticated gesture
if You take the time to celebrate
the most fantastic of Tuesdays.

every letter I bring into being
gets erased and sent back to sleep
finding lost words is no easy feat
when you've been muffled
most of your life
they told me to be free and find my passion
but stunted me from having feelings

I feel like a trapped wild animal
backed into a corner by empowered oppressors
under the guise of maturity, authority
I've been led into a pit of suffocating quiet
although this pen serves as compass to my quest
it cannot yet heal the verbal cues I have always dreamed of placing
atop their demonic heads

Let's weave our lips shut with weeds and explore the hushed secrets of the world with nothing but cold fingertips.

his life lies at the bottom of the bottle
a glass body entrapping his soul
one by one, his giggling, gaudy girls
grow up into graceful adults
clinking glasses full of candid celebration
toasting their tranquility into theater walls
as he stands up to take a shaky step
toward the door, toward his girls,
the glass bottle drags him back under

take my photos and frame them
I have lit the fire pit and am simply waiting
for you to toss me to the embers
each wooden corner of my person will get swallowed
whole
a boa constrictor of kindling opening its quivering jaws to inhale me
and when the smoke quiets and the sparks stop kissing the dead grass
I'll smile emptily and be reduced to dust

hello, I am busy
looking for the cracks in your porcelain halo
to be happy is to be in the practice of
letting your sorrows unfold into the atmosphere
they are still there; they swirl and drift lazily into bird wings and against the sides of tall mountains
but to breathe and let them be is to be happy
lately I have sat still thinking of my pulse
of our pulses when we connect our wrists together to feel that extra oomph
and I have deduced that I cannot breathe as easily as it was to recognize happiness
not yet
we are cracked porcelain

let's you and I mingle with the tantalizing Sirens

their Song, so seductive, will distract you while I

lead Odysseus to our spacious secret cave  

which-- I have newly prepared with Calypso's blessing

[I dare say she seems to have a crush on my Odysseus!]

I have turned grey from the amount of energy
that has left my body to be ****** up by others
I feel hollow and used and walked on
and yet I still feel this ultimate duty
to do better, to be better, to be the bigger person
and for a long time
I have held a vice grip on my tongue
I've counted to ten and calculated my words  
summing them up to something worthwhile and nice
I smile in the face of those who oppress me
always doing what is right
so that nothing can come back on me
but I am in dire need of learning
how to do what's right for me

Perhaps I lie awake for all of those eternally sleeping.

I hope you don't mind--
I softened the ends of your ribcage
so that it won't wound us so bad
when I touch you

muses hide in plain sight
they are butterflies
sidewalks
criminals
strawberries
couples
death
romance
I have been considering
the simple possibility
that I may be my own muse

for most things
that I can quantifiably say exist
because of my five senses
are all defined
by me
anyway, once I am gone
they will be my muses no longer

I've always been told I can't run from my problems
but why can't I drive down the coast,
boardwalking and hanging ten
smiling at hippies dressed in henna
why can't I ascend the mountains
reaching into infinity with palms wide open  
I could hop into Seattle,
feel new rain on my face
kissing strangers reflected in the ***** puddles
or maybe flow with rivers til I found a bear's den
they tell me I can't run
so I won't
I'll spring
leap
slide
crawl
I'll tiptoe over the line

Lost,
as we are, with no rhyme or reason
Lost is a cliche thing that we all experience
but I feel it especially when I wake up

Sad,
as we are, with no rhyme or reason
Sad is a cliche thing that we all experience
but I feel it especially when I wake up

I silently sit in malls and on benches provided
by who?
I claim they are mine either way
my benches allow me to partake in the human experience
I feel it especially when I'm sleepy
I lose myself in a world of separate lives and minds and thoughts
I realize, too late, that I am staring at someone who is staring back at me
I feel it especially when I'm weeping

apologies are nothing
but lifeless letters until you breathe meaning
into the spaces between each and every word

He's locked his deepest secrets in his treasure chest and guided them to the bottom of the sea.

Gave me half of a rotten map, a pat on the back, and a telescope to find the key.

Your chest is made up of solid marble.

I am spent,
Five years I've chipped away, slinging picks and sawing dust off of your breastplate
I hear wings flapping against your ribs but I cannot free your bird's heart
It is too small and it is growing weaker
I took your temperature with my palms and nicknamed you Arctic
You were my Alaska and I made thawing you my meaning
Five years I've wondered why we work so hard at what we can't have
You're cold as stone and I'm losing my patience
So I set aflame your collarbone and poured gasoline over your sternum
Sat back and watched the fireworks pinging off of your chest hairs
They glow blue in the evening
You're blue and I'm freezing
I'm moving on

I drove your mind into a river
Parked your dreams on the sand
You clutched at my body but I threw you out of gear
Rolled down your eyelids and your heart played static
Over the line I heard the radio chatter
"He's gone," they voiced
Exhaust fumes suffocated your family
As they choked out their goodbyes
Your console had filled with water
Muffled your drowning cries
And in those last moments your clock said
6:43
Funny, it almost looks like
B, Y E

Acorns keep coming loose from the tree outside and
I imagine they are being pelted at all the metal chairs on purpose
Like tiny bullets ricocheting off of bunkers, startling me awake
Oh yes, my friends
The squirrels are busy staging a happy little revolution

My prayer every evening is that I will become excellent at something
Because my outlet can, at times, stutter and fail
I like to write, and I like to think
And sometimes I despise doing both
Because it's impossible to quit thinking
I refuse to turn to drugs to drown out my mind
I will not own more crutches than I already have
My biggest fear is losing control,
So why would I give some other source the option?
Ah, and so I end up writing
It is terribly cathartic and atrociously raw
I pour out my insides and then have this erratic fear
That I have shared too much, too soon
It's like once you post something,
That mental thing becomes true and concrete
I am petrified of the concrete.
But.. I guess I'm also thankful to be alive
Concrete evidence would show I'm still here
-Something- is still here
Strange, but every once in a while I need that reminder
So I keep writing.
I'm still here.

It is one thing to be haunted by past loves and loss
But it is another to be haunted by the person you have made me

I am forced to live with the girl who is terrified of being.
We all have our demons. We always will.
Mine are no bigger than yours, yet the fact remains
That we are all equally as frightened of dealing with them.
Many days I spend in complete and utter solitude,
Trying my best to be proud of myself or give any
Credit to my name for any good or purposeful thing I have done.
I'm terrible with compliments. Not in the cute, girly way
Where you smile and giggle and say "thanks" and blush
Nah, I literally feel like crying.
I'm messed up.
I lived with someone who accidentally showed me
What it means to be inherently selfish
What it means to be downright nasty and steely cold towards
People that they were supposed to care for.
And it has wrecked me. I lost my sense of identity.
I was so busy walking on eggshells and quieting
My own rights, feelings, and thoughts,
That I started not to have any.
I was kind of brutal. Pushed every single friend away.
Pushed family away. Bombed school.
The human psyche is such an expansive tool.
If we spend our time treating others wrongly,
It messes up the one chance we have at living.
I forgot how to live.
I wasn't taught how to live.
I lost myself.
I always used to imagine this white electric string
Like some new-agey stuff
It was connected to all people for before time and after.
If you're gonna be born next year, the rope has a place for you
Picked out, shiny, bright, ready to showcase you to the world
And if you are miscarried, the rope keeps swinging
On to the next person.
The next birth.
I imagined all of our consciousness' were tied to that string.
That is how we can think the same thoughts and speak languages
How we have souls, maybe the string is the soul
If it always existed then it can always exist
This was my logic
And I got so lost and away from myself
That I imagined I was cut off from the rope
It was the only time I went through with trying
To take my own life.
I thought it was a cruel joke that I could still think about it while
Being so disconnected from it.
I felt abandoned and shunned.
I felt like I could never return.
My panic attacks became violent and life threatening.
Nobody knows, I never told anyone.
When I tried to ask for help for my panic
From my mother
She dismissed me.
Irony would have it that she was also the one
To disconnect me from myself.
So over the years I have fought to rejoin the string
I am back with you people
I am alive again and I expect to stay.
When my time on the rope expires,
It will not be of my own hand.
Because my mother gave me one gift
Accidentally, of course
My mother taught me never to let
Someone else dictate my place
On the String of Consciousness.

20,000 years
that is all I want with you
time is ours to steal

I study her withering hands every time I'm around her
they are becoming so thin... all her veins stick out like snakes
her fingers are all crooked--
broken tree branches fighting against the wind
eighty years of working her flower beds and scrubbing floors and
baking the best meals and desserts that only a grandmother can prepare
and my grandpa, I have never loved a person as deep and as securely as I love him  
saying you have a hero borders on icon-worshipping but in this case he's solid
he is the absolute best and absolute most loyal man I have ever had the pleasure
of knowing
he married my grandma at eighteen, and
eighty eight years of wars and he never took one sick day off of work
he sleds down his long, winding driveway to pick up his mail in the snow
he used to pour water in my hands and tell me that if I could catch it,
I could catch the entire universe right there in my palms
I tried for years

I study their hands because I want to remember their greatest parts
arguably, that could be every inch, but their hands have shown
such strength, boldness, fight, hard work, dedication, love, and tenderness
maybe this is wrong but every day I practice saying goodbye in my mind
so that when they pass, I am not so crushed that I cannot move on
they have been my saving grace too many times for me to thank them for
so I just say I love you, you're my reason for existing, and then I
carefully etch their hands in my mind so that never for a second
will I forget the great work they have done here

old friend, what a surprise
past the devil's hour with open eyes
now my mind is surging with all the
thoughts and self I blocked out after sunrise

patterns reflect patterns reflect history repeating itself
I see problems in humanity because humanity corrupts
seriously, we can't have a movement for "better" without making it worse
listen, slavery, right?
whites hated blacks
deemed them lesser
deemed them nobodies, nonexistent
that's putting it generic
so what do we have now?
an era of white-haters!
so many "minorities" standing up and saying
"I hate the whites"
we have done a 360 and it kills me
it was supposed to be about blacks being seen as equals
being seen as people instead of blacks
and now, yeah, I'm going there
gays
I love gays, man
but y'all are killing me too
this is what I see
gays oppressed, dismissed, told they're sinners
unholy, bad, gross, wrong, backwards, ugh
they were beaten, bloodied, bruised, murdered, silenced
so the gays stand up
what do I hear?
"I hate Christians"
"I hate straights"
"I hate everyone who is not gay"
people hating on macklemore because
he tried to stand up
for THE PEOPLE!
they say
"a straight white man cannot represent the gay community"
I'm sorry

WHAT????

we act like no one has gone through HARDSHIP
we act like if you're white, straight, and a male, you're golden
free
happy
perfect
wake up.
what no  one discusses
is that the issue is right vs wrong
right vs wrong
right vs wrong
I'm not a straight white male but I know right vs wrong
I'm not an Irish Jew but I know right vs wrong
I'm not a Haitian Creole Indian goddess but I know right vs wrong
you don't have to BE the oppression to SPEAK on the oppression
you have to know right vs wrong
I say macklemore knows
I know
you know
let's speak up
what is wrong is discrimination
what is right is taking a stand to end it
so please
blacks,
gays,
minorities,
whites,
humans,
majorities,
stop obliterating good
or else you'll be confined to the chains of oppression and silence until the day you die and so on amen

I'm a human being
tell me what I cannot speak on

I dream that you'll carve yourself into my skin again
Rooting your essence into my flesh like a hot branding iron
The way you used to sway me with your mind
Left me breathless and out of touch
I dream that you'll sit by my side again
The pair of us stronger than any other, stronger than me
I need you to meld your bones with mine
It's urgent; I'm fading
Brittle calcium pockets exploding
I cannot stand on my own
I dream of you turning into me
The only me that can exist
The me who is not Me without You

conversations with pat turn into
an all-out battle rap
people would think we're insane, crap
I swear nick isn't a pope, what a faux cat
pat's always talking about **** and it's bat-
crap crazy but who am I to judge
sometimes life throws you in the dung-
eon and you gotta discuss it over fudge,
son listen up, be better, do better
let her borrow your sweater and then
go get her
use all your might or she'll take flight and aw
next thing you know, you're stuck with **** and
an unpopelike cat with three names and
she kept your sweater
I know this
I'm a fortune teller

Fake beef and chicken
No one will really like you
Despite condiments

she's like a ticking time bomb itching to detonate
cut the wrong wire and you're toast
handle her with care and slow her heart rate
or she'll scatter your pieces across the coast

he's like a wilted willow tree trying to stand tall
pull on his limbs and he'll come undone
watch his sad leaves detach and fall
abuse him until he is none

I saw myself tonight...
reflected in the hills
and as I drove home the moon lit up
the low-creeping fog like ghosts
making a spectacle of themselves
for attention from us mortals
and the streetlights turned so slow
testing my patience
it was like they were egging me on
making a mockery of my lack of
tranquility and when I
passed that one house with the pond
it's my favorite house
usually so bright and beautiful
two car garages and a variety of trucks
trampolines and pools and rich
wouldn't you know the house was shut up
even the wealthy won't look at me
and I twisted and turned down the curves
and across bridges and under branches
I thought I knew my way around
could drive this road with my eyes shut
but wouldn't you know the construction
workers were out late  
gnawing on granola and warm water
telling me, "turn around!"
like I was just supposed to know
my way home
from a new perspective
so as I reversed, over weeds and fallen
bramble and beaten, worn paths
I once again found the hills
looked deep into myself and thought,
hey
maybe life just ends up this way

I have been horribly mistaken about loss and mortality
all this time I saw people grieving, but I was immune to it
I saw grief from a distance
and in my heart I thought that grief over death was weakness
because we all die
we are all going to die
so how can we stay so sad after it arrives?
but Jesus as my witness
I was wrong
I was so wrong
and I am so thankful that I discovered this truth when I did
because life is a beautiful thing and I don't mean our experiences
or the flowers and the ocean and the mountains and raindrops
I mean how we connect with people
nothing is comparable
do you hear me?
our unique invisible strings of being get woven together
and they get tangled and messy but oh
I'm in awe! the strings become intricate pieces of artwork
invaluable,
priceless,
WHOLLY intrinsic,
completely indescribable
and we wouldn't trade them for anything
and, God, when we grieve
we may be sad
but there is absolutely nothing
NOTHING
that is more precious and sacred
than the bonds left behind from those we love
we are forever tied together beyond the rules of time
and I now realize
that I would rather grieve a thousand times over
than to never know that type of love again
I'm so sorry

Kiss me:
Once to unearth your secret crush
Twice when it's early and you don't want to leave
Three times to whisper you love me
Four times to send your apologies
Five times before breaking my heart  
And six before I take you back again
One hundred to show how much I mean to you
One hundred and one for that "other" girl
102 before I realize just how much time
I wasted being with you

is it alright if I link us all together? I need to lump us into a category entitled, "poets", so that I can discuss something with you all.
you see, I've read many a works with instructions on How Not to Fall in Love with an Artist. but there's a problem. we are poets, and we are artists, and the people who wrote me beautiful instructions know this as well.
but they forgot to teach me how to stop my heart from going there anyway.
it is a fact that us poets and artists and artist-poets see the world differently.
come on, tell me you walk down the street, see a kid dancing, and you don't want to run home and write about it.
I see poetry in everything I do.
every place I go, every voice I hear, every song I sing, I find a muse.
it's inevitable and lovely but it also makes living life with other people quite difficult.
when I was younger, my mom used to get so mad at me
because I'd sit in the car and question everything
I'd say
"why did we call a tree a tree? imagine if it were called 'blue'. we wouldn't say the sky was blue, because the sky isn't a tree. you see?"
and she'd say
"sweetie, I love ya, but you're going way too deep for me."
and I got so disappointed because to me, that was just the surface
I had an uncountable amount of questions and wonderings
with no one to discuss them with
so, yeah, I turned to the poet artists
I looked for love and all the hush hush and the yes
I sought out whisperers and thinkers and debaters
if they made me mad or confused me,
oh god,
it was love.
and yeah, so maybe none of those relationships stayed
maybe they were all way too broken and I couldn't fix them
they couldn't fix themselves
but I won't give up hope
I refuse to settle for the ones who are so numb to their own feelings that
they refuse to read a book
not because they're "boring" or "uninteresting" or "too hard",
but because books and words and poet artists transport us
directly to places we try to hide from.

my fellow poets understand and embrace this part of themselves
but "the ones" I am referring to, and you know who, because
you're imagining them right now...
they gotta think a little bit
they have to let me think with them
and if that results in misery and tragic writing
well, so be it

Peering through the dense trees,
Sinking low, light footsteps
He stalks his prey.
A newborn pup
Yipping and clumsy
Falling over herself
Just to stand back up
And do it again.
The hunter shifts between the silken grass
And the soft clay earth
Keeping his eye on the promising young blood
Craving her bones and fleshy meat.

The pup licks her paws
Pouncing on small bugs and feathers
She laughs with a bark that sounds like music
Burying her new toys, she wiggles her tail in the air
Then digs in to the earth with zero inhibition
She is vibrant and strong, a natural-born leader.  
Happy, free, and full of promise.

Nose to the ground,
He anticipates the musky smell
Of his close-knit pack
He advances, visceral and quick
His vision turns a violent red as he
Loses his stealthy and cautious movements
His gait lengthens and he slides in the dirt
Snapping his jowls, he is wild with hunger.

The pup yelps and snarls,
Too small to fight back
But trying her mightiest to stand her ground.
Her attacker sinks his teeth in from behind,
Slashing his rustic head back and forth
Listening to her fading cries as he growls with success.
Shaking every ounce of strength from the
Poor girl's lifeless form,
He tastes sweet victory and steps back
Satisfied with his current catch.

He turns his head to call his pack;
A wolf's howl only the moon can hear
But he sees instead the sad, vacant eyes of
The pup's grieving father.

maybe the universe wouldn't mind explaining to me
why we romanticize how we'd react in tragedies
I mean, we watch the news until our eyes glaze over
another school shooting, dozens more killed here, there
and we have the guts to say
"I would have done this differently"
no
I dare you to stare down controversy
chances are
your name and mine would also end up on an
R.I.P scroll at the bottom of the CNN media

Black coffee to ring in Monday morning
Fingertips leaving his imprint on my collarbone
Steam to erase the last traces of my guilty pleasures
Ashes on my skin from her cigarettes
Words left by their sword-like tongues
Sunrises searing holes in my retinas
Tar below our bare feet
Memories branded in my thoughts
Scalding memories, scalding memories

oh, the things you hear at the doctors'
the elderly man with melanoma on his face
trudging out behind his wife
mumbling "****" under his breath
the sweet weathered receptionist
says "nice to see you again!"
to her seventieth geriatric patient
there comes a day
when her patients quit calling
quit showing up
and she has fewer and fewer people
to recognize
ugh

Hey, kid
Your eyes hold things only grown men should see
Don't worry, little one, the sting of mortality only lasts for forever
Hey, kid
The way you lug your weary body around haunts my sleep
Don't worry, little one, the bad certainly cannot last for eternity
Hey, kid
Is that a knife in your hand?
Come on, little one, think things through
Life won't always be unfair to you  
Hey, kid
Why'd you **** her?
That orphanage could have been your saving grace
Now you're indefinitely
A ward of the state
Hey, kid
I found your brothers and sisters
Their gravestones side by side
How lovely they look, adorned with dead flowers
Kid, where's your ma?
Hey, you can't go in there
Come on, buddy, the cops'll find ya
Let's go home
Hey......
Arson won't solve your problems, kid
I'm losing hope
In your lost world
I tried to help ya, kid
But you have to want
To be savable
Hey........
I just got the call
What a shame, what a waste
I'll miss you, kid.

a    p o e m    a    d a y     k e e p s    t h e    d e m o n s    a t    b a y

to touch it could prove fatal.
but on the eve of winter's dawning..
the embers thawing the barrier between us,
we lay and watch the flames licking at our skin.
autumn nights after the football game
dancing circles around the sparks
holding hands and searching for answers..
in the burnt kindling surrounded by rocks.
slices of stationary, perfumed like lilacs
we write our condolences and regrets with feather quills
then, stretching out in the center of the street
we light ablaze our lost words, a sacrifice to Hephaestus.
there is a force so powerful and quiet;
it tiptoes up behind us and leaves us charred,
smoldering,
it leaves ashes...
but it is also the sweetest release
feeding from oxygen and life
blackening everything it comes in contact with
and while creating new what once was broken,
it demands respect.

Pluto, a planet!
I will never forget you
You are important

E.T, phone Houston,
I think we have a problem
I'm still scared of you

Jealous of the guys
Who got to play with The Claw
I love aliens!

Watch "Signs" and you'll see
The weird blue terrestrial
Being way extra

V/H/S Part Two
Its last scene had aliens
I hate aliens!

Maybe life on Mars
Would just force us to rethink
Our life here on Earth

they say there is a time and a place for everything
well, ha, the time is now
the place is here
and my everything is you