they asked me
what did YOU do today to make the world a better place?
i looked down at my feet
embarassed
"i woke up"
i said
"i got out of bed"
they looked at me, puzzled
"i didn't let depression win"
a small smile crept across my face
no, my dear, the world the world
what did you do to make  the world  a better place
i took a deep breath
"i told the girl in the bathroom mirror she was beautiful"
"i told the boys to stop bullying the girl in the hallways though i wonder if they heard me"
"i told the empty hallways i'd be okay"
i told depression i'd bury it
i woke up
i got up
i stood up
and i hit "play"

I always forget
Just how heavy
Water really is

my ribs are bruised
from my heart pounding so hard
inside my chest
when I think about you

I lift syllables to plant
They will ripen in your mind
Like wheat of the ancient fields

Where our ancestors ate language
And leisure, like we have never known
We who labour like machines
As slaves might, while our lives
Is as a poem where the trees incandescent

Must watch themselves wither
As sheets of paper gone to waste
I lift houses of sound

To your legendary fracture of silence
These vacant lots of night-time
Where a pale puddle of your
Grip upon reality suddenly blazes
With figures of your once dreams

The summer has oxidized mornings, sunsets
A weightless winter awaits, as scattered
Pages are left to turn, each one

Words in the shape of a cloud of dust
As white as snow, as lingering
As the cold, and the murmur of a million
Leaves that once were, but are now only
The idea of color, the texture of earth.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

I hate eating I honestly do.
It makes me fat, it's all the food.
It's my only friend, or enemy?
I eat it because it listens to me.
Is it that, or the fact that I eat my feelings out?
And now, I'm gaining weight. Pound by pound.
I disgust myself, and even my dad.
I'm such a failure, look I'm so fat.
My family repeating those words
"Are you eating again?"
Then I look at the food, and realize .
This is just the beginning.

I wonder how it's like.
To be skinny.
To fit into clothes.
To look pretty.
To wear anything at all,
And yet look nice.
To eat all the junk food you want.
Even my favorite, beans and rice.
Munch out everyday, and be thin.
Go shopping at stores, and also be fit.
I wonder how it's like.
Just for once.
To be skinny, and pretty.
Just for once.

I sometimes think it is unfortunate
That nothing escapes my pen but tales of an unrequited love.
I wish I could write about
Why I have not stepped foot in a church
Since the day I found catharsis in the word "alone",
The first time I truly felt safeguarded
Or the first time the word "divorce" shattered me.
I wish I could describe
The smell of a chilly fall night with crisp air and rain-dampened pavement and how it inaugurates autumn
Or the remorse felt toward a child who let go of his balloon to be left to the mercy of capricious winds on the Fourth of July.
But instead I am stuck incapable of writing anything but run-on sentences about Loss,
Why the burn of whiskey tastes better than that misconception of 'home'
And turning cracked pavement into metaphors about heartbreak.

I believe
That writers are
So brave
Because each time
They start writing
Blotting ink onto
Their paper
Frustratingly typing on
Their laptop
They rip their heart out
Of their chest
And show the world
What it's made of.

I can't begin to fathom how to describe how this feels.
It feels good like a cup of coffee in the morning,
But it also feels like an afternoon crash.
It feels like a high so good
But also a withdrawal most painful.
It feels like everything
Yet nothing at the same time.

You think that intelligence
is measured by words
by sentences
by essays
but no combination of letters you put together will be enough
to erase your ignorance.