It felt so good
I disregarded the taste
It was worth the try
To have it as my first
The disgust was gone
The pleasure took part
Be with me and I'll bear it
To have it forever
Locking with mine

People that I meet and pass
In the city’s broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?

Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places —
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.

— People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?

There was Old Man in a pew,
Whose waistcoat was spotted with blue;
But he tore it in pieces
To give to his nieces,
That cheerful Old Man in a pew.

You twist my hands, and my mouth
kept still. Again and again.
Turning blue and purple, they are dying.
And I thought: Is this the way
holding hands feel?
Suffocating, and miserable,
I don't think this is right.

We stayed statuesque, out of sight
of crazed eyes, and my mouth kept still.
Vibrations stuck between the walls
of my throat. Under my mind, above my chest.
And your hands are still on my hands.
And now they're turning
into the early night.

This is how we die, you say.
Even nothing has been forged
into my memory. Your hands had killed mine.
Over and over, i cling to the possibilities.
And you let go when my hands are gray
walked back into your skin.
You are nothing but a murderer.

And this is how
I cannot go back to you. You are smart
I applaud you. That's the thing
anger is an impasse. As you are.
And now, i wonder
why I didn't think this before
**You were killing the very thing that i could hold you to keep you mine.

This is to the camera, that sees me as nothing but
Delicate bones and pearly whites
My essence captured through awkward captions and
My worth measured by likes and heart bytes
A photograph carefully composed
Of a girl with her true thoughts [boxed up tight]

This is to the boys who see me as nothing but
Geometric shapes
Circles and curves and parabolas
**** and *** and legs and waist
And an irrelevant concave where my brain should be
My “radical ideas” make me a butterface

This is to the academy, that sees me as nothing but
3.97 and a good SAT score
A scholar of great potential
That will donate millions or more
As an honored alumni
Of the greatest institution in the world

This is to society, that sees me as nothing but
A golden gal who always colored inside the lines
Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, no fire in my soles

“She’s never insubordinate, ‘cause she’s never been inclined”
Determined but docile
Go ahead and assume I’m not the rebellious kind

This is to myself, because I see that
My mind is a kaleidoscope of technicolor dreams
Ideas colliding like specks in sunbeams  
And I’ll call myself a feminist or riot grrl if I **** well please
You are not my dictator or an office label machine
It’s 2015; I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be.

The Rose was sick and smiling died;
And, being to be sanctified,
About the bed there sighing stood
The sweet and flowery sisterhood:
Some hung the head, while some did bring,
To wash her, water from the spring;
Some laid her forth, while others wept,
But all a solemn fast there kept:
The holy sisters, some among,
The sacred dirge and trental sung.
But ah! what sweet smelt everywhere,
As Heaven had spent all perfumes there.
At last, when prayers for the dead
And rites were all accomplishèd,
They, weeping, spread a lawny loom,
And closed her up as in a tomb.

silent echo roars
a chasm of rock
valley empty of air
smoke from so many campfires
trapped & hanging
invisible nooses
loop & sway & attached to
nothing
trapped in lungs the planes of plumes
settle as velvet
drift around corners
tickling crevices, shrouding paths
trampled by history on horseback
beast seeks escape
from a misty tableau
sun at dawn & light weak from clouds
exit puzzle, guide lost a compass
veil descends to a river
the glass skin embraces