At birth we are saplings;

absorbing and sponge-like;

anchored by flimsy roots.



Each developing child is a sliver,

a woodchip,

a branch.



We send our saplings to schools

to be stripped of their bark

and pounded into smooth identical geometrical shapes;

shapes incapable of stretches and growth.



These equations and grammaticals add shape,

not depth, so simple

simple enough to identify our souls

with a string of numbers and letters.



I was born a sapling,

born to stretch, twist,

reach for illumination; fueling the roots

from which I sprang.



Why do these axes

clad in their glasses

want to beat me into factory form?



We should be watered and nursed

until our trunks grow rings

incapable of calculation;



Teach me to grow toward the sun,

and not to become a fragrant product.



Teach me to drop fruits of wisdom

and throw flowers;

for apples can only drop

from fruitful trees.

I cannot fathom the scribbling in my brain into poetic queues as of now. I am in excruciating pain but I am liberated. I am dying on the inside but somewhere behind my rib cage is a thump. Less of a thump, more like a knock. The love of my life is tearing me to shreds and the universe is softly tapping its knuckles on the door. Through an addictive relationship I have discovered my origin.
I am a healer. I am an angel and I can do no true harm to a soul; I heal even those who are the radial balance of my suffering and bleeding. I have an expendable heart; it has been squeezed, sliced, punctured, chewed, stepped on, scraped, pulverized, shattered, cracked, drained, dried, bitten, and hungrily ****** on by the mightiest of leeches. I stand before myself scarred but glowing like the chest of a newborn child. Once again my pain has given birth to me. I am new, the world has not made me an *******. I refuse. I will love. I will care. I will heal and I will push through my crucifying pains of being leeched. I will continue to give what cannot be returned to me.

Wading knee-deep through the past
feeling the muddy bottom with my toes,
the hills and holes and oh god what was that?

The water may be shallow,
but it is deep enough to drown myself in
and murky enough to hide what lies at the bottom.

I could rest, languid
listening to the babbling of the past
pouring over itself
playing you and I
on repeat
indefinitely.

I have been
literally
thousands of miles.
I have made the west coast
from San Francisco to San Diego
my *****
for a month and a half.

I have hitch hiked with a gentleman
who shot a cop in the face
at 15.

and every time I looked
at that ******* water,
that tainted, sickening blue-green
the most gorgeous part of the planet
the only thing that makes California
******* California
every time
I saw your eyes.

In the eyes of the earthly
I am still just a bud
I am barely seventeen

But my soul has lived
And through living,
It has died on numerous occasions.

I have scars
That still often
Somehow bleed.

The wrinkles and grey hair
On my heart
Are beyond my years.

Still I cannot figure out
Why a lump fills my throat
On my birthday.

We talk with
The flitting understanding
Of space
Between two feeding birds.

Eyes look away
And return eagerly
Waiting to transmit
More of the feeling.

The feeling
Between us both
That both implodes walls
And builds them.

The feeling
That blushes in our words
And makes our silences
So loud.

The feeling fluctuates
Softly around our eyes
And strokes us both
With intangible caressing.

Stare at me.

Speak with me.

Be silent with me
For no matter what is said
Or unsaid
I am getting
An earful.

Masochism is my favorite way to love; I adore deeply the one that is eager to leave me in the dust for his superficial passions. I cry infinitely as the rain over the Pacific, but it does not storm. It only blinds me with stinging tears that make a shore invisible. I had you wrapped around my finger, and you slipped off like an oversized ring, falling between the spaces of a gutter to travel sewers of risk; rank with the smell of doubt and returning loneliness. I travel these sewers barefoot with your risks up to my ankles, searching for you, my ring, dress hiked up to run as if you hadn't already seen such exposed leg. But only I splash. My lover is elusive. When he trembles in anger, he comes to me; when I tremble, he only flees. He does not understand his debts. I do, only I don't wish that he pay. My kindness is self-mutulation, for I know he will not appreciate my generosity. I think of him while he daydreams of riches and soaks in his wanderlust. I am simply a piece, a fragment, a speck of dust swimming among many in a ray of sunlight. I am not something he truly wishes to strive for. This murders me, and smashes my already broken heart into smaller, sharper pieces that seem harmless, but develop greater capacity to cut flesh.

Empty days with hours to think
and I still haven't decided yet,
because remembering burns from the inside out
but it's impossible to forget.

Body heat cannot un-thaw,
so I am stilled in frosted glass.
I am waiting for you to save me again,
to tell me, softly, "this will pass".

Sores behind my teeth from biting my tongue
because 56 and 3 and 4 never really added up.
You changed the math behind the whole equation
so I could keep my composure without remaining untainted.

I drew a picture of us, all teeth and anger
the hand that fed me, spurned.
You will be a chapter all your own
in the book of things I've learned.