1. forever is not a promise, it is a choice.
2. it never stops hurting.
3. his smile may feel like home, but if his eyes look through you; he is not your home.
4. find the goodness in each day.
5. your body is a temple. life is about learning to worship your own self.
6. make a list of kind acts you witness, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. this list could save you.
7. do not let your fear control you.
8. you are not your mistakes or your pain.
9. depression is a mental illness, something you cannot help.
10. emptiness is a mindset.
11. you are loved.
12. you have the right to feel things that are not exactly good.
13. your worth is immeasurable.
14. you are not a burden to the people who truly love you.
15. there is always hope.
16. productivity is a form of happiness.
17. protect your heart, but do not hide it.
18. everyone deserves to be loved, you are one of those people. embrace that.
19. go the extra mile, it builds self-esteem.
20. people think differently than you. not everyone has other people's interests at heart.
21. always do what makes YOU happy.
22. do not give up on something that you want.
23. it pays to be kind, eventually.

I am sitting in a classroom during my freshman year of college
Reading about **** and infidelity
Western literature,
Where Jupiter can **** virgins for sport
Where Hamlet can assault Ophelia
And it's okay because he is pretending to be insane.
I see my assailant's face in Hamlet's
The boy who told me he was sorry six months later
Because he had been dealing with some things in his head
I see my assailant's hands in Zeus's
At seven years old, clearly a ******
But you can use my tongue as a gag
As you cause me to choke on my pleas for peace
You see, throughout the ages
Women have had their tongues used as gags
And as nooses
Like when Maya Angelou writes about taking back her body
We say it is ******
When Maya Angelou writes about ****
We rip her words from school curriculums
When Ovid writes about ****
We say it is literature
When women write **** into the folds of their skin
We call them attention ******
When men pen abuse onto paper
We say it is eloquent
Say it is mythology
Watching a friend get brutally drugged and date ***** is no myth
Burning her ******'s name out of her mouth is no myth
Replaying my own movie of childhood abuse at seven
And assault at sixteen is no myth
We treat women's narratives of violation as stories
Just ask Bill Cosby.
As I am forced to read about my own history for entertainment
As I hear my father say how college girls cry **** to get attention
That they should be more careful
How am I supposed to trust my own memory?
When everything around me tells me
I am lying
How am I supposed to trust my own experience?
My tongue keeps getting stuck inside of itself when I try to tell my story
Because I fear people will not believe me
Maya Angelou writes that she knows why the caged bird sings
But I know what keeps it silent.

As a young boy my bare feet were baptized in the tumbling waters of Tobesofkee Creek .. Along the rock incarcerated , chilled pools of its juvenile deliverance , within the rushing avalanche of cleansing freshwaters , both young hands cupped to receive her cool afternoon blessing .. To walk the living word of Jehovah along granite infused trails , steeped in shoreline tranquility and wonderment .. Cottonwood and Birch ..Tall Pine and Sycamore testaments , shorebirds proclaimed the everlasting tenure of the Almighty , Blue Herons carried the 'Gospel ' downstream to the waiting oppressed as guardian Angels enveloped these Holy waters in the miracle of sunlight and warm , everlasting devotion ...

My city spews poetry like smoke,
In vicious columns of abstracts,
Of unspilled blood, untold hurts,
Unsung love and unrestrained joy.
Neck of an old refill snapped
absent-mindedly,
Sploshes a tiny blob of red ink,
On the table cloth,
And so flows musings and rants.
Smell of twilight rain mingles with
Incense fragrance of evening prayers
Triggering a burst of longing and love.
Electric bulbs and rainbows coexist
And emit more than just light.
My city breeds more poets than
The Lakes ever did.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"