It was summer in California and life was perfect.

        “I’m starting to understand what it means to really live,” he said, breaking the noon silence.

She stirred against the rough wood of the dock.

“I mean…” he cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I feel alive right now like I haven’t in ages.”

Her clear blue eyes stared up at his tanned face.

He hugged his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his scarred knees. “I love this place so much.”

Sighing, she pulled herself up to stare out across the water with him.

“Look at all that ocean,” he said. “You could just sail forever across all that ocean.”

She looked away and rolled her eyes.

“I want to someday, you know,” he continued. “Take a boat out there and just sail…” his voice trailed off, heavy with longing.

She sighed again. The sun was too warm on her skin. The sea was too much salt and water for her. He was too much of a dreamer. But all of the west coast was like that. Too many dreams, not enough reality. After summer break was over she’d go back east and finish school and get a real job as a lawyer and win her cases.

“I don’t even know if I’d ever come back.”

Picking up her shoes, she stood and started walking towards the car.

        He turned slightly when he heard the engine rev and pull up the street, away from the dock.

“No,” he said, after some time. “I wouldn’t come back.”

He stood. Then he began to run. In his t shirt and board shorts, he plunged head first into the sunlit sea. The wet cotton clung to him as he swam. He kept going until he couldn’t go anymore, far away from the shores of Coronado and its people.

The sun was high, and finally he realized that he could not go back if he wanted to. He hadn’t been paying attention and didn’t really know which way the beach was. He drifted with the Pacific tide, treading water gently. He realized it could never have been any other way but this - there was nothing left for him back on shore. His parents were both dead, his sister moved far away long ago. Everyone he knew wouldn't really miss him. And living on the beach for the rest of his life, no one wanted that. Even taking a boat out there like he had said was impossible, as he had no money and was too lazy to pursue any of his dreams. No. This was the way it had to be.
        
        Eventually he passed out with the simple exhaustion of staying alive and the water closed over his head.

It was summer in California and life was perfect.

Henry says you can’t write poems about whales.
It’s too obscure a metaphor, the biology of behemoths
Is too exact. Too much science going on.

I like whales. The smooth dorsal curves of their fat bodies
Arching and twisting towards the depths,
The salt spray of their powerful breath,
And their positively massive hearts;
They understand that they are great
Yet there is something still more awesome than they.
There’s more mystery and poetry to biology than people would like.
Especially realists. Life isn’t straightforward and they hate it.
We have some very basic, very general patterns that we follow,
But they’re far too broad to say ‘always’ ever.
Every rule, every law, has been or will be broken.
And the world will keep on turning (until the day it doesn’t),
And the whales will keep on swimming (until the day they don’t).

Henry says you can’t write poetry about whales.
I don’t like Henry very much. I think he’s wrong.

You hate that this world is so fake
Hate all the people who make it this way
Hate that it's the poor that give and the rich that take
Hate it cause you know you'll have to pay
For the things you've done and the hearts you break
Still you say you only care about today

Well in the end I guess it's all the same
Whether you live or die, you get to choose
You understand that life is really just a game
And in the end, you don't intend to lose
It's all about the money, the girls, the fame
If it's not your dream you're chasing, then whose?
Soon you're gonna have to spark your own flame
Before the people rise to tighten your noose



Everything's becoming artificial, we light fake fires to keep our children warm
We manufacture our emotions, speak fake words to guide us through the storms

they are men who
looked out into the
edge of space and
saw nothing
and it
drove
them
mad.

you took one look
at infinity
and you never
stopped
running.

i heard all the men
who had been to
outer space
all those great
astronauts
are crazy now.

what do you see out there
in the blackness
in all of time and space
what terrifies you
about it
what about the stars
and the nothingness
is so horrific
that you never
stop
running
that you
go mad

why are we so afraid
of the infinite
is is because we see
reflected in it
again and again
our own mistakes
that one little
tiny
inconsequential
thing
we wish we could
change
is it because
we cannot wrap our
minds around it
are we afraid of ourselves
or are we afraid
of the something else?

Today I am a crumpled can.
I am a satsuma left to shrivel in the sun.
I am a star gone supernova,
I implode, cave into myself
With a kind of sick brilliance.

In my holocaust of thought,
There is no peace.
There is only war.
There are only battles to be won.
I am no longer allowed to lose this race.

Normally my veins are filled with blood,
But today it is octane and oxygen
Chemicals clashing and consuming me in flame.
I am luminescent with disease.
My skin glows bright with fear.

Inside my skull, something is raging.
I keep my head down, cast my eyes to the ground,
Concentrate on forward movement.
I cannot think for all that sadness and fear.
I didn't know my eyes could hold so many tears.

Today, I am a crumpled can, a satsuma left to rot.
I sit on the sidelines and wait for my walls to give in.

If life is enjoyed,
does it have to make sense?
So much of what we do
is done in order to give success
to reap what we sow -
we never plant flowers
just to watch them grow.
But we should.
So much of life we spend
working hard at things
we don't really care about,
so that we can be rich,
because apparently
money buys happiness now.
There is nothing wrong
with working hard,
but ask yourself
what are you working for?
Me, I want to change the world.
Yes, I am young,
yes, there's a thousand things
I haven't yet done.
I'm still in highschool,
I can't legally drink or drive;
I can't vote or even travel,
but I've stared down both life and death,
and hey, humanity in all its misery
makes some kind of weird
depressing sense to me.
I've never even kissed a boy
but I want to change the world.
I'm socially awkward, I think too much
and don't read enough of the classics,
I've got zits and scars and freckles,
I've got skinny limbs and glasses,
I kind of do my makeup weird,
I've got issues and questions,
I make loads of mistakes,
I think I'm failing chemistry-
I don't even think I could pass anymore if I tried-
but I'm confident and unafraid,
(and believe me it doesn't
have anything to do with my age)
and I want to change the world.
In almost-sixteen years I've had every reason
to just give on up.
I'm not all that pretty, I'm really only
kind of smart,
I can't play sports or instruments,
all I can do really is hold a pen.
I can make ink talk on paper,
and I'm not scared to let words spill on out
my somewhat weirdly shaped mouth,
so if I'm gonna change this world,
I've got to do it the only way I know how.

This isn't the world that you once knew
The grass isn't green and the sky ain't blue
No waves come crashin' into the sands
There's blood that stains your pearl-white hands

You're afraid that you're not human, that no one else can see
The things that you have done and the things that you will be
There's fears in your eyes when you look in the mirror
Swimming round thick like they're gonna appear
You had your reasons for the things that you did
But you're scared that they'll discover it, well God forbid
You traded what you'd taken pound for pound
You wish stress'd curl your hair, wish Death'd come round,
But it hasn't and he won't and there's nothing you can do
You take the good with the bad and keep right on through

This isn't the world that you once knew
The grass isn't green and the sky ain't blue
No waves come crashin' into the sands
There would be blood on your pearl-white hands

Well you knew you had it coming and you knew you had to choose
But you didn't want your fingers to tie that noose
You didn't want a blade, you didn't want a gun
But you didn't want to wake to another sun
You had your reasons for the things that you did
But you were scared that they'd discover it, well God forbid
You had hair that lightened and skin that browned
You had a soul weighed heavy and a heart ran aground
You thought that you could end it, now there's nothing you can do
Just take the bad with the good and keep right on through.

This isn't the world that you once knew
The grass isn't green and the sky ain't blue
No waves come crashin' into the sands
There will be blood on your pearl-white hands

I bet you wished for something special to save you
Bet you wanted an angel to pick up his cue
But I was all you had, and you'd take what you could get
And I was there for you, don't you ever forget
You had your reasons for the things that you did
You were scared that I discovered it, well God forbid
I wish I could say something wild, something profound
To make you see again and let your love come round
I thought that I could fix it; there was nothing I could do
Just took the good with the bad and kept right on through

No, this isn't the world that we once knew
The grass isn't green and the sky ain't blue
No waves come crashin' into the sands
'Least no blood stains your pearl-white hands

Now you're somewhere out East, but I don't know where
I hope to see you again but I think you don't care
I hear you every night in the falling rain,
And remember your fear, your sadness, your pain
You had your reasons for the things that you did
Well I hope they don't discover it, yeah, God forbid
I've got hair that's lightened and skin that's browned
I've got a pocket full of stones and a heart full of Sound
I've got a soul full of questions and a stomach full of bread
I've got a heap full of trouble in my old grey head
I don't want summer to be over, but there's nothing I can do
I'll take the good with the bad and keep right on through.