after him, your kisses felt strange,
your lips too chapped and your tongue intruding.
after him, your body felt awkward,
ended too quickly, with no finish line in sight.
after him, your story felt old,
run over too many times.
after him, your love felt alien,
a stranger that could never be friended, a ghost never gone.
after him, you felt like a memory,
a bruise upon the heart,
still there, but fading.

Little pockets of sound that skyrocket around
Words: verbs, adjectives, nouns

Words can get me steaming or lucid dreaming
And it leaves me silently screaming to see people consider words a weapon
Like they mean to cause harm
Well let me remind you I have the right to bear arms

Just because what’s on that page is mine
Doesn’t means it aligns with the ideals in my mind
Writing is expression, not confession
So when I write about a character who is confused and depressed
Buys a used gun and a bulletproof vest
And shoots up his classmates in the middle of a test
Because everyone ignored the signs of his anger
Doesn’t mean there’s a trench coat on my hanger

But nevertheless, they labeled me me a threat
Better yet, they focused on me instead of the 15 year old addicted to cigarettes
and took my words out of context
Because they are con-text
Well I’m pro-text and I protest that they suggest that I’m hopeless
and I know this coldness only hones my focus on my magnum opus

But where would we be without controversy?
The indirect side effect to freedom of speech
A beacon for speakin’ your mind without your rights being breached

It’s all in the name
When you write, you’re right
But when you advocate censorship, then you’re ****
My two cents are worth a million bucks
So who cares if they contain a million *****?
F-words might be wayward but in a way they aren’t F-words, they’re A-words

Because all words are equal on surface
Well, until one strikes a nerve with a conservative
Who, without even meeting me, determined me to be
The next **** Germany

I didn’t write a story about a school shooter
I wrote it about how one impressionable kid became a slave to the page
And lost himself in the rage as an unfortunate consequence

And it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense
That the school would let themselves fall victim to a nonexistent threat
Brought on by a few paragraphs on a pair of half ripped papers stapled and
Paper-clipped to the rest of my script

You can place the blame but you became that same shameful shell
Hell, you can expel me, but you can’t compel me
To stop yelling again with this paper and pen
Or a stage and a mic
Going without words is like an endless hunger strike

Being voiceless ain’t a choice for this
When I protest, I prefer to be heard
A whole lot can happen with a few simple words

Does the wind and tide flow together,
do they ever fight for direction
do they ever struggle for strength
two different powers vying for dominance
two different forces pulling their weight
though they were never in control
they were never choosing the way
do they think they control their fate
do they argue with the compass
when they both gain strength
the dark, fast storm erupts
when one wants east and the other west
when they struggle for their will
the moon's pull is ever in control
the sun's direction the center
the earth's rotation the eternal ruler
why such arguments
why such judgements
they are never each in command
they are never in agreement
the storm will come