it’s not so hard, right?
you ask the poet to put her thoughts
her feelings, the images in her head
down on paper.
it should be easy! she does this
every day. this is her job.
this is her life, her life’s blood.

so why won’t the words come?
why does my heart feel stopped
in my chest, why won’t my fingers
move in rhythm with my mind?
and i want to scream,
i want to, i want to tear things apart,
but the world is fragile enough
already and the only way i can
hurt without hurting
is with words
and i don’t
have
any.

How old were you
when it turned out
that we only grow to die
and how long did it take
for that to terrify you,
and how long did it take
for growing at all to
make you sick,
how long did you live
before you were ready to die?
Some people never live at all
before they’re swept away and
some people try so hard to escape
and keep on failing.
Living is so awful, so
mind-numbingly painful and yet
- and yet and yet and yet -
somehow its so beautiful too.
Somehow we live only to die
and somehow we survive that short,
confused, horrified, hiccuping existence,
and make it worth it. How does
love work that it takes something
so tortured and impossible
and turns it into something
almost beautiful?
how does that work at all

The first time I say your name, it is a new sound on my tongue.
I take it and roll it around a bit, mispronounce a few syllables.
The marks on paper that define you are an absolute work of art.
It is curious and new and alive, and so are you.

I say your name thousands of times, then; again and again
til it is worn thin with familiarity.
Soon I no longer need your name at all: I have expressed
your entire existence in a single breath.

Your name becomes a formality. Like clothing, it is not
entirely necessary. You do not wear it to bed.
On the streets, it is how people recognize you;
but I do not even remember its fullness any longer.

Something changes. Speaking your name is an insult,
a raised voice, a painful twist of annoyance.
I hurl it at you like a sharpened knife and it sticks
deep in your chest, tearing through the parts of you
I once knew with such certainty and confidence.

Then it is a plea for forgiveness. I use your name
As an item to trade with: I will whine out your existence to you
And in return, will you return?
Please say yes. (You don’t.)

Empty beer bottles line the corners of your name.
Sleepless nights fill in the dark serifs and smooth lines.
Your name makes my heart ache in my chest
where it has broken in two, due to you.

The last time I say your name, it is the name of a stranger,
someone I once knew but no longer care for.
You will always be with me, but your name
has moved on. Someone else wears it now.

Consistency is a lie. Your name is a different moment,
means a different person every time it is spoken.
I do not trust in the undefined words that define you,
instead, you are to me still that single breath of pure existence.

I grew up alone.
There were people around, sure,
but not the kind to talk to.
Not the kind to spill anything
that was really in my heart to.

I grew up alone,
in a world of stories.
My friends were all heroes
and never talked back to me.
In some ways, they existed
more than I did.

My childhood was an eternity:
the endless nights,
the endless loneliness;
so separate from my brothers,
so different from everyone I knew.
I wasn’t sad. Just alone.

I grew up alone
and I’ll never forget that feeling
of being a stranger
in a strange world
with nothing but books
to keep the darkness at bay.

Some days it feels like I’ll never get my life
sorted out.
I want to be a writer,
but I hardly ever write
anymore.
And I want to be a scientist,
but where do I start?
There is so much I want to do
so much I want to see
and I have to start deciding
now?

Everyone wants me to be
successful, or happy,
but neither of these things mean
anything at all to me anymore.
Neither of them are important.
I often feel like
I have a
destiny
like I’m meant for something
great and important and huge
like I’ll rattle the stars someday
but
how do I do that?

I don’t want
to have to run away
with a mad man
in a blue box
to make my simple life
matter.
And some days
I don’t want to matter
at all -
I don’t want anyone
to trust me or rely on me
I don’t want to be
responsible
for anyone or anything.

I have spent
so much of my life
so horribly alone -
watching others’ lives go past,
sitting on the sidelines
as they orchestrate and control
their little worlds.
Did they not ever feel
that miserable soul-ache,
did the fear
that none of it mattered
never press down on them
and threaten
to take it all away?

Did they never
look up at the stars
and scream at nothing
and have no one listen
and have no one care?

I have lived alone
and I have lived together
with others
and we all feel alone sometimes,
some of us more than most.
Happiness for me
is no longer an option
and I don’t care at all
about any standards of success
but if I can make you
feel less alone,
even for one second,
then I have done all I can,
I have rattled the stars
to their very cores,
my life has mattered
so very much.
I have been incredibly,
insanely, unbelievably
important.

I miss VCR players and Saturday morning cartoons
Star Wars marathons every weekend.
I miss being terrified of the mouldy basement dark
And watching Homestar Runner for hours.
I miss blowing things up in the backyard
And building that tree house, and making ****** movies
On a ****** video camera
With my oldest brother, who in many ways
(such as by blood, and parentage, and legally)
isn’t even my brother at all.

I miss the world the way it used to be,
Before things inside me began to go numb
And other things began to burn like live wires.
I miss the innocence I lost. I miss the cents I lost
To the arcade games and the broken vending machines
To the bullies on the playgrounds
Who even I learned to make excuses for.

I miss the days when a Weezer song
Could fix just about anything at all,
Back when I climbed more trees,
Swung on more swings, ate more candy.
I miss my kidhood, when I thought that
Growing up was going to be just fine.
I miss walking to ****’s for greasy hamburgers.
I miss the way the Space Needle used to
Make me crane my neck to follow its yellow elevators
All the way up to the spinning top.

I miss growing up with you, stuck between Freakmont
And Far East Ballard, going to Archie McPhee’s,
Rubber chickens, refrigerator magnets, hamburger hats,
Bacon soap, Jesus tape, pickle bandaids.
I miss your house that smells like cats
And your wonderful parents, and your too-many brothers.
I miss your kitchen and your living room
And your amazing singing and your air guitar solos.

I don’t want to date you or marry you or *******
But since you started dating that awful girl
Five years ago - FIVE WHOLE YEARS! -
I haven’t seen you all that much.
It wasn’t really a choice, I couldn’t be around her:
She makes you into someone that is not-you.
Someone that is quiet and shy and reserved,
Not loud and strange and outrageous.

I miss you, oldest brother.
I always felt like you understood me in a strange
Sort of distant way. I miss you a lot.
I feel less alone when you’re around.
I hope college changes you, I hope it makes you
Into who you are again. I hope you write more ****** movies
And film them and act in them
And I hope you break up with her
And find someone beautiful who makes you happy,
Who doesn’t make you into not-you.
I miss you, but not the not-you you’ve become.

I miss the first you I ever met,
Too tall, with way too much poofy hair,
And long skinny everything, and thick glasses
And a good sense of humor, and a taste in ****** movies,
Videogames, airsoft guns, horrible puns;
A pyromaniac, a secret fatty, a terrible dancer,
A geeky awkward kid from Tennessee
Who somehow changed everything about me forever.

I've caught a wild wanderlust,
Or perhaps she has caught me,
But either way we find ourselves
Entangled, entwined; unable to pull free.

At first I did think she was merely
Restlessness, but o! what a grave mistake,
For restlessness will pass on by,
But deep are the roots wanderlust will make.

And so! my heart she beats unsteady
For o! I cannot think with a roof over my head -
My heart she needs star-light and moon-light;
Home for me is not four walls and a soft bed

My home is out there, in the world!
Where strangers and friends I shall meet
And the whole wide universe above me,
And any path I choose beneath my feet.

The world is my home and my people are humanity
And nothing has been the same, nor will it be,
Since I caught the wild wanderlust
And away she swept me.