Your hair is just like your feet.
It never knows which direction it's going in.
And the only thing bigger than your brown eyes,
Are your little arms when you hold them out to your sides
Reading "Pick me up!"
You can't talk yet, but I hear you say so many things.
We named you Faith.
Which is ironic because it's something
This family is lacking.
I swear all your brothers hate each other
I'm one ***** on the neck away from moving out
And your parents are one sigh away from saying
"Let's just call it quits."

You're not even one and we've cheated you out your childhood
Like when a man cheats on his wife
We didn't really know how much heartbreaking we were fixin' to do.
It's unfair.
It's unfair how you're the only one who still smiles in these hallways
In the hallway, there's this big gray smudge that covers the wall
From when my baby brother decorated it with Crayola's
And my mom spent a week trying to get it off
But she never could.

In my opinion, that's the best ******* family portrait we are ever going to paint!
It's proof history can never be erased, no matter how much try to get rid of it, or ignore it
It's a ******* to the perfect white walls of a "perfect" white family
The dark smudge on the walls is the writing my parents will never see
The fact that it's still there after three years is proof,
That you can never stifle a child's creativity.
It's the worse excuse for a family portrait
But this house sure as hell isn't perfect in the inside.

I rather come from a broken home than be in one.
I rather remember this house when it was at it's best and leave
Then live a day to day reminder that it's never going to be that way any more.

I swear the last time my brothers and I got along was when I was five
And we pretended they were my puppies and I would feed them scraps form the table
Kids do weird **** sometimes.
Or when we'd walk around in our underwear and bathrobes
Pretending to be jedi knights with toy lightsabers
Walking around the house like it was our planet to protect.
And pretty soon I'm getting on the first rocket off this planet I can find.

The only thing that holds me back is that I feel like
I'm cheating you out one less older brother.
Trading my sister for an education and a paycheck.
A reality check.
That I can't be a kid forever.

But promise me you will try.
Promise me that whenever I come home you always will
Still have your arms outstretched wide open
Promise me you'll make mistakes and draw on walls
And explore your own planets
And that you'll be okay exploring them without me.
Promise me that when you're old enough to understand this poem
You'll write me back.
Promise me you'll be patient with mom and dad
Even though they seem like they aren't
Trust me. They're trying.
Trust me.
We named you Faith for a reason.

I wonder what everyone else was feeling
                         when you were rushed to the hospital.

Again.

Eyes rolled,
mouths scoffed,
                      unsurprised.

Like the only place it made sense for you to be was
locked up
                                                  or six feet under.

I managed to stitch together the fragmented sentences
I had heard
and fill the spaces in between
with what I could infer.
Two sole letters
reverberated off the cave walls of my mind:

OD,
                                OD,
               OD.

An anthem I fell asleep to where I dreamed of a bedroom

for remission to make love to your addictions.

Those two letters became five before I could grasp the finality.

D
                          E
             A

                 T


H.

I was shattered.
The pieces of myself,
I’ve retrieved off the floor
and put them together in the puzzle of my life
where I have no place for drugs to fit.

I think about you more often than anyone is willing to believe.
When you took your first sip of alcohol,
                        a mixed drink of
     one part peer pressure
                          and another part curiosity,

        did you know you’d end up drinking your life away?

Driving and drinking don’t go together-
but maybe no one ever told you that.

But soon, it wasn’t enough.

You felt the need to get high to get through the day,
but did you hear your life start to break and our hearts along with it?

You always had a ‘go big or go home’ mentality,
I just wish you hadn’t applied it to drugs.


“Drugs don’t ****” has become the war cry.

I know.

They do so much more than that.
       They rip families apart
       steal honor from fathers,
        children from mothers,
        and life from anyone.

You huff and you puff and soon you become
       the big bad wolf who brings
              the house d
                               o
                               w
                               n

I still hold you in the highest respect
and I can’t make that point clear enough.

You never stopped fighting.


That monkey on your back didn’t live an easy life.

When a woman opens her door
and refrigerator to strangers
strictly because
of a familiar last name
the last thing you do
is question the rust
resting on her eyelids.

The first time I met Flatbush
she was a thick brick-***** woman
with stone-seasoned hair
sculpted above her head
and a *** of greens
anchored at her waist.
She was a winter day
warmed by a sea of arms
pouring from the jaws
of a crooked screen door.

She wanted nothing more
than to 5 o'clock traffic
drown me in comfort
and comfort food
so I let her.

She smelled like an old Denny's restaurant
Her breath was a battle of the stench of
Cigarettes reeking from her
Smoker's Only Section from the 80's
Against the stench of her addiction to caffeine
While I was trying to tell her that
My peers, my role models, and even
My voice in the back of my head
All tell me to become a teacher
Even though that is not my plan,
She said through licking a thin piece of paper
Over stuffed with nicotine that she just poured
Out like how I pour out questions on life
Through my lips

"Kid, stop thinking what others think for you.
For your age, the best plan is not having plan.
So you wanna go outside with me while I smoke this?"

On occasion, when the night decides to shine
And the day decides to deepen and darken,
You'll find yourself in the no-man's land of dreams.

Everything around will stretch and breath, alien
in disguise, it seems.
But all you can do is wait to be consumed.

The air will punch you deep in the chest,
The Color of a cut kiwi will shoot you in the eye,
Make you squint and cough.
But you've never felt so alive.

Your clothes will do nothing but constrict, your room
Will strangle until you can't take it.

And this will be the most important moment:
You will leave what you know.

No-Man's Land will become Your Land
If only for a moment.

You will walk along the line between
The end of the world and the beginning
And feel exhilarated when you place one foot
On either side.
You are new, you are life, you are existence.

And when you take all the softest and most beautiful things
And wind them together, creating one perfect thing,
You will name it Butch.
Because you have a sense of humor.

But you and Butch will live forever,
Making, fulfilling, and dashing the dreams
Of those who couldn't leave their own rooms
That constrict and limit;
Who couldn't recognize that the punch
In their chests was the Universe
Saying, "There's more to breathing."

But you know.
And you sit on Mt. Olympus next to Zeus,
Beat the Flash in a foot race,
Convince Mars to go to therapy,
Play with Thor's hammer, and
Crack jokes with Jesus.
You have looked into the eyes of creation
You have understood and
Ascended into Valhalla.

And you are not just sleeping.

Because you--
You are still a little boy,
And it's unnecessary to hold on to dreams
Because you're living one, with no suspicion
That you should be grasping for anything.
In time, your clothes will seem to soften, but
They will still constrict, kid.
Even more than before.
Don't return. Don't just breathe.
Don't call that punching Asthma and
Layer in with medicine and smoke and teenage angst.
Age is the monster you must ultimately fight.
Or do you not believe in monsters already?

1 a.m.
I decide it’s about time to go to bed.
My shivering body eagerly slips under the white down comforter,
the closest feeling to home, second to
your arms wrapped around me.
                                                             ­                                  i miss you.
Per usual, I am improperly dressed
my bare skin is cold to the touch,
I forget that 20 degree weather is actually cold
without you to curl up with.

2:04 a.m.
My decision to sleep was futile.

3 a.m.
I search for the moon in the clouds outside my window
but even the moon is sleeping, in love with the stars
who will hold it close for billions of years
until they’re dust like the rest of us.
                                                             ­                            i miss you.

3:37 a.m.
I may be restless and I may be a growing insomniac
but I have come to realize
that nighttime holds the world I have always wanted to live in:
the falseness is gone, there are no careers or school,
families have all fallen asleep
and the only ones I wish to talk to understand why
sleeping right now would be a waste of time.
The world changes after bedtime, only laughter and freedom can matter
nobody will tell me to put my clothes on,
and staying up with you
is like having my own storybook.
The traffic lights are empty, the forest is open to roam,
the sky is dark and the streetlights only light up what is necessary,
in this little town you can still see the stars,
and there’s not much to do
but when all the people lock their houses and fall asleep
and we get bored of driving around,
the little diner will still be open, empty at this hour
minus the waitress and the cook,
who I don’t think mind anyway.

4 a.m.
I imagine your mouth millimeters from my neck,
whispering things that melt the thin varnish of frost that my sparse clothes could not protect me from.

4:18 a.m.**
At this time I am positively sleepless, you’re still not in my bed but the hope never goes away.
I’m unwilling to waste the last hour
before alarms ring, starbucks opens, and the average people begin to
roam around me and I must put up with reality until it goes to bed again.

Sometimes I just don’t know…
What to say when she asks
Sometimes I just don’t know
She needs to quit giving me these tasks
Quit making my mind spin, trying to think of an answer
I wonder... if we switched places, would she be able to answer the same question she’d asked me if I had asked her?
So
The truth is
Sometimes I just don’t know
Why we are where we are
Why over-night I seemed to be distant… far
Why I don’t seem to see her like the moon, like a star
Anymore
I still haven’t come up with an answer thus far
I’m not trying to be heartless, but there are too many things to ‘take care of’
To be distracted by infatuation… or lack thereof
I might have gone overboard right there
Yes, that was an over-****
But whenever she asks me if it is over… I’m thinking…
‘I just don’t know, I really don’t… but our friendship isn't over...
Chill.’

If I’m being honest,
whenever we speak and you let truth
breeze through your pursed lips

you
move
me.

Move me like an earthquake rumbles the earth
when it dares show off its beauty.

Speaking with you is like reading a book backwards
there is no need for exposition—
i hear my smile in your rustic voice,
and if I ever traced my pale fingers
along the maps of your mind
it’d feel like
home.

I’ll be your resolution.

I want to write love letters
d
o
w
n
your arms
so you’ll finally learn the truth about yourself.
Paint your future on the inside of your eyelids
so when you close your eyes, searching your soul
for something worth living for
you’ll be reminded
not to hate yourself so much.

Every sigh your battered spirit releases
I promise, I will swallow it whole.
Let it dissolve in the pits of my stomach
and call my soul now to stand.
I want to keep you close.
                                        Come closer.

You
You’re an internal conflict
just waiting to erupt.
Fire and water
drop in your gut
like Armageddon.
You are too big
for your own skin.
u
  n
   w
    r
  a
v
e
l

it is beautiful to overcome
in a world where
struggle is just a synonym for
weakness.
Be solemn in a world that
has forgotten how to value silence.

You hide behind abstraction
but i see you come alive
on stage.
you just want someone
to stick around long enough.

I aim to bring you from behind
the walls you cower,
tell you that
you are the most beautiful
combination of DNA
if only I could arrange the
twenty six characters of the alphabet
to do you justice.

You just want someone to figure you out.
Don’t give up hope.

I’m desperately trying to.

i was born under
a pennsylvania moon                
in the middle of jericho.

where all the walls
had decided
they were done
being womb                              
and crumbled to the blow
of winter winds.

i was whisked out of
from my cocoon
too soon                                  
and spent weeks
piped to feed and breath
for me.

the moment
they let me out                          
i moved back forth.

i have been hopscotching
from city to city
since 06
and thus have forgotten
how to play dominoes.
or cards or do puzzles
or anything done sitting still
because the rhythm                                
of my life
doesn't allow me
to squat for too much
longer than the linger
of my scent cross these sheets
so i've learned
to sink in deep while i can

place my print in
these pillow tops
before the moon drops              
and its moving day again.

i find it hard
to be me sometimes.
too busy trying                          
be a resident.

sometimes i pretend
im a committed writer
but come on,
****** spend more time
trying to pair their                      
tops and shoes
then i do
scraping these wounds
over screens
letting ink bleed.

i'm just not
consistent enough                  
to hold a title.

i'm only a student
til the summer
so don't try and teach
me in july.
there are summer sins                
that i wont even
begin to learn from
til autumn starts to
reek of jansports
and gym clothes.

i'm only the baby
on holidays.
only hear from all
3 sisters when courtesy            
twists our wrists
and force fingers
to remember phone numbers
filed under family.

so i cant believe
when ****** still
text me good mornings.
there's been so many
since we've last talked            
and the last time
we walked the same grounds
i switched my route
and pretended
i didn't see you.

ashamed i let you
think there was
room in my inconsistency.
should've warned you
not to bring your pillow          
cause there's little
chance ill still
like you in the morning.

those sunrises can be            
so haunting.

when the sun
is so low
its shape is tombstone          
how could i not
bring up those bones
in my closet?

i cant answer your call
today because                      
we were never meant
to last past 24 hours.

that's like two fireflies
trying to keep                        
their glow past dawn.
don't you find it pointless?

i have learned
to harvest as much as i can
before the season ends        
and the infatuation                          
turns to wrinkles
and withers.

alysia once said
poets love love
because love is life
and we're
afraid of death
so we create                      
between where we
are and were
and where we were going
but i am here.

standing in a shower
trying to scrape
these postage stamps
off my corners                  
cause cargo holds
haven't been
all that good to me.

i've been packaged
and stamped and
boxed and shipped me    
more times than i'll admit
because honesty
doesn't drip off your lips
as easily as blood
when you hit maturity
and are taught
to bite your tongue.

the only roots i have
were sowed                  
in my convictions      
so i'm destined to roam
everywhere except
in my faith.

my sister knows
of my wishes
to never have to wilt        
beneath mahogany.
i want to be cremated
when i die.
i want to be fire fly.
bathed in the bright
of a thousand fireflies
in a daytime thunderstorm
to make up for lost time.

but don't
scatter my remains.
sit me in a vase
on the end
of your mantle            
with a candle
and ill pray
for you're stability
for all the days
i spent in transit.

after living all those years
in solidarity                    
with the wind
i'd at least like to
spend my sleep
in one spot.

the coffee shop smell on this chill
autumn day reminds me of times outside
these worries and cares free like the
bird that spears through the sky
where are my wings?
i lost them in a deal with the devil
to live for my life
now hope burns in my lungs and
rises twisting turning on this
northern breeze smoke flows from
my lips like a gentle last kiss
my love set sail to the wind and
fly with your mind
for you will always find me in this
unforgiving sky
with a glance from the side
and a whisper of love
i will find my way my wings
and your love