All I want is to sail to those far-off lands
Where ships are freedom, where sailors catch the winds
With canvas nets in their coarse and salty hands,
Adventure around corners, and nothing binds
Us to those old worlds that we have left behind.
I want to see the sun rise, brand new each day,
And open new pathways like maps in my mind,
While the deck and the sea beneath me do sway.

The ocean's a goddess, a temptress of men
Who never could keep their feet on solid ground
But rather sought to wander, and now and then
Chase after a daydream, and soon they had found
Their hearts and their eyes filled with love of the sea.
Thus a thousand such souls were stolen by thee.

they all wanted me to start playing.
i've seen so many peoples' fingers dance with such fire
across the keys. it's inspiring.
and my teacher said
i have good form for it, and good posture.
learning to read sheet music was easy,
and notes and rests and tone was somewhat harder
but still, just kids' stuff.

i couldn't make my fingers dance, though.
they tapped out rhythms and melodies,
but never flowed together as one,
never made into an art.
they still can't. and after years and years
of lessons and practice, i just gave up.

maybe it was strength on my part
to recognize when i wasn't getting anywhere
or maybe it was weakness to dismiss it
when it began to get difficult.
either way my mum always said,
"when you're older
you're going to wish you'd learned to play better."
seriously?
if i'm ever eighty-eight, sitting in a chair somewhere,
thinking, ****, i really wish i'd learned to play that piano better,
i will have completely lost my mind
to honestly wish my younger self
bound to something so utterly passionless.

no one could ever understand
why i loved clocks so much
i would hold them to my ears
and listen endlessly to their tickings
i would imagine strange mechanical worlds inside of them
and rub my fingers over their gears and hands,
and if they had eyes i would have seized those too

i only loved them in the daytime, though
their rhythm was too much at night,
it would intrude on my nonsense world
and demand order, which wasn't ever any fun for my dreams
i know others, whose nighttime clocks reminded them
of the horror of the Telltale Heart
which is strange, because i know someone,
someone very dear, and very sick,
whose heart ticks and does not beat
whose hands and eyes and everything
are dying, dying, but her heart
died long ago, so now it ticks,
ticks on and on, ceaselessly, reliant as a clock

i love clocks because they tick
because they beat, and make me think of hearts
that do not fail, even when all else does, or is going to,
and manage to be right at least twice a day
even when they're already broken.

I stumbled through the world at midnight
And every door I came to, I knocked
Who are you, what are you doing here?
Questions from sleep-slanted voices,
Their light casting shadows over me.
I told them I was studying.
What are you studying? they always asked
Life, I said. I'm studying life.
You can't be here, they would say
You have to go, study life somewhere else,
I'm trying to sleep. And slam the doors.
Meanwhile I was really just looking for the door
Whose inhabitants would ask me to stay a while
But so far, no one has said come in, you look cold,
Study life somewhere warm.
And so finally I have resolved
That if ever someone comes knocking on my door
Not looking for anything- for food, answers, or a place to stay,
I'll let them in.
Even if it is midnight and they spew some ******* about studying life.

imagine a world split four different ways-
a boat that wants to sail north, south, east and west
all of them, all at the same time.
you already know things are going to change
but for now you sit in the boat, the four winds
sipping tea and spinning tales of the north, south, east and west.
it doesn't matter if the seas are stormy
and the waves high, or if everything is flat
and the sails lay limp against their lines,
it matters that for now, you're in that boat
and you gotta keep a clear head and do what you can.
for now.

someday those four winds will escape, heading north, south, east and west,
and you cannot pretend, you could never pretend
that it wasn't going to be that way from the start.
so in the end, no matter how much you want that world to be one,
if north were to saunter south or east slip west,
if south were to cruise north or west sneak east,
it would all unravel and fall to pieces in your lap.
the world isn't perfect like you want it to be
but you can find your own balance, and keep it
from getting worse.

one of my friends is adored by everyone he knows
the kind of kid who smiles all the time
who can always make anyone laugh
always has something motivational and upbeat to say or sing

once we were sitting in English class
talking about change
and it was quiet between us for a minute
so I said
watching people die is hard
and he said
yeah, it is

and I didn't tell him about my grandfather
who had cancer and died in my house a week later
or my grandmother
who lost her mind eight years ago and slowly deteriorates each day
or my aunt
who had her first open-heart surgery when she was fifteen
and is now a bloated skeleton who lingers in wheelchairs
and doesn't sleep and hallucinates
or my second cousin
who only knows all the "wrong" sorts of people
or my friend
who is breaking slowly, who I cannot fix

I didn't tell him because I'd never heard three simple words like that
overflowing with so much empathy

My aunt slept for six months,
All of fall and most of winter.
Sometimes she'd talk, but it was nonsense.
Sometimes her glassy blue eyes
Would click open and roll about,
Stretching the sunken yellow paper of her face.
Her skull was bare and the neat square
Of black stitches made my stomach writhe.
And everything that proved she was human was gone-
Consciousness absent, eyes closed, skin warped;
Just that faltering mechanical tick-tick in her chest where her beating heart should've been.

A little girl with thick arms and waist and everything
And stringy blonde hair and startled blue eyes
Stood by her bed and silently the tears dripped down
Again and again, the first time was the hardest.
Her father stood next to her, wearing thin, clutching both their hands.
She stirred, the withering woman in the bed,
And hope painted their faces before dying in their eyes;
Smiles still plastered to their teeth.

I remember her best on a perfect January day, years and years ago,
When things were alright, before I knew she was sick,
Her feet buried in the sand, palm trees swaying in the background
Explaining the complex lives of sea turtles to me
In a blue and green bikini, greying hair, thick sunglasses
And that straight scar drawn down her chest,
A thick ridge, a wound opened and reopened too many times;
Making her heart tick-tick instead of beat-beat.

If she dies I will never forgive her doctors.
Too much medication kills you fast as any poison,
But they trust too much in the dose,
And focus on the numbers on the screen
Rather than the fear in our eyes,
Rather than the fading tick-tick of her heart,
Refusing to listen even when they began to make severe mistakes,
And that's where these cataclysmic months started.
The ICU is fatal. It breeds hopelessness
And plants the first temptations of suicide.