If the words really mean something to you, you will try to push them away.
If in the lines of the painter's strokes or the lyrics of the musician;
If in the actor's cry of pain or the writer's printed page;
If in the eyes of another or the pastor's sermon on Sunday
You find yourself looking into a mirror - a mirror into your very soul -
You will scramble backwards. You will look away.
You will try and try to push it out of your mind.
You will resist changing for as long as you can.

But eventually something inside you will truly snap.
Eventually you'll find yourself in tears on someone's bathroom floor,
Hating who you have become, who you have let yourself become.
Eventually, you will become someone else.

You will allow yourself to give in to the inevitable change.
You will think of nothing else for a while but how to be better.
You will seek it out. You will walk towards it open-armed.
You find your reflection shifting and changing to something beautiful.
If in the eyes of another you find yourself again, you will smile.
If in the words of an author or the smile of an actor,
If in the drumbeat you find your heartbeat, in the paint you find your color -
If you pull it closer to you, it will begin to echo you out.

i come back to my room
and there is no one
beautiful
waiting for me.
there
never is.
the singular blanket
amplifies the loneliness
of my
singular
body,
and my
singular
heart
beating one
singular
lonely
beat
at a time
goes on
anyway.

Some nights as I fall asleep,
There is music that plays in my head.
It is soft and melodic and sad,
And it is never the same.
Upon waking, sometimes I find
The music is still there, lingering
On the edge of my conscious memory.
But I can't make my hands write the notes
down.
I'd sing it for you but
I cannot sing for an orchestra and
It would not be the same.

I compose unwritten symphonies
In the back of my tiger mind, conduct
Strange and ethereal orchestras, become maestro,
Master of the music, queen of the opera,
Of the stage of the whole world if I want,
I can become anything, anyone -
I am a pirate on the high seas, I am a dragon
Soaring over Albion, I am a snowflake,
A child, an action hero, an astronaut,
I am beautiful and powerful and strange
I am hideous and weak and sad
I am all, and none, and the music reaches it crescendo,
The seas of my subconscious roil and churn,
My story reaches its fever pitch and
In bursts the dawn.
And all that was created is destroyed,
The music lost to hand that can't write it down,
A throat that can't sing it out.

Some nights there is only the sound of my breath
And the sirens in the distance as I fall asleep.
But some nights, I hear music.

smell of sidewalks after rain as we walked back to the car.
i like to pretend i live here, under the great spreading trees
in an old, beautiful house with someone i love.
i want to grow old in a house like that,
with a big, flowering front yard, a creaky old porch,
a vegetable garden, a jar of buttons, a cat, a climbing-tree.
i want to watch the sun through the leaves,
hear the rain on the roof, fix up its leaks,
paint the walls, frame the pictures,
position little ceramic birds artistically on tables,
fill cases and boxes and shelves and rooms with books
and art and laughter and life and love.
i want to fill a house with my warmth
nest in it, curl up against its walls and breathe it in,
bring fresh flowers to the kitchen,
dance alone in the living room.
my house. my kitchen, my walls, my living room.
i want to fill a whole building with my choices,
with who i choose to be, with who i choose to love.
i don't know what my life will be but
it would be nice to grow old
in a house with a climbing-tree.

i want to think
that i am a Creative
that i have a
Free Spirit

but
everywhere
i am
in chains.

i am a slave
to the silence
at 3 a.m.
and the way
it breathes
calm inspiration

i am a slave
to the moments
in which i feel
alive, in which
i feel the wonder
and delight
of life
flowing
through me

i am a slave
to the books
i stay up all night
reading
and the art i
take a step closer to
to breathe in
and i am a slave
to the words
that i write.

loving you
is like falling asleep at night
sometimes it is easy
and sometimes
impossible
and
sometimes
I wait
breathless
for the morning.

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.

dream your beautiful dreams bread cat friend

and when you wake upon the morrow,
find that all the world has lost its sorrow
take to the day with a spring in every step
and let the long-awaited joys you’ve kept
inside your heart come streaming out
till with sheer wonder you must shout

and may you grow and love and be
in every abstract aspect free
and in the earth plant seeds of hope
that will help you in the future to cope
with all the anger, pain and fear
that will afflict you in the coming years

this i want for you, o breaded cat friend;
let the platonic love we share know no end.

I would my life were a movie,
that on the anniversary of your death
I could ride my bike, straight-backed,
hair blowing in the manufactured wind,
to your grave, with a perfect bouquet of flowers
perched in my basket, or else
zipped perilously into a backpack;
and, arriving at your headstone,
donate their impermanent beauty
to your memory, placing them
artistically
beneath the singular, factual phrases
that hold all remembrance of you
in their cold stone embrace.

But your ashes rest beneath the waves:
your tomb is the sea,
the sky your eternal epitaph;
and my heart has no physical place
to fix my mourning to.
And so I wander - for I must!
I cannot tie myself to the earth
when to the earth you are not tied,
when the wind carries your voice
and the rivers flow
with what once was your laughter.

The whole world is such a very big grave
for someone once so real as you.

I ate a ******* today.
It was the second ******* I've ever had,
and probably the last one
I'll ever have.
These things were supposed to last
for ******* ever.
They were supposed to outlive
the apocalypse
but now they're
pretty much
gone.

If you think this is some metaphor
for the impermanence of
humanity, or for that teenage
lover you wanted to give yourself
over to, forever,
or for lazy Sunday afternoons
when the world just
floats
on
by,
you are
correct.

We live our lives by impermanent things
we tie our life-lines to twigs
that will snap at the first sign
of the wind. I cannot
un-break your heart,
or tell you that these
things are
unimportant.
They are important.
They are as
important as daydreams, as childhood,
as light and air and food
and water.
But they will not last
forever. They are less eternal
than the footprints you leave
in wet concrete:
those will still be there
in the morning.

And if I cannot tie our impermanent
physicality to the fate of
the last ******* on Earth
in a strange metaphor,
then I do not deserve
to have eaten it at all.

it has been a long time
since i was happy
and
where did
those summer hours go

where did
the freedom of
the sunshine go
where did
the freedom
of my innocence go

why does intellect
hold hands
with monsters
and why does maturity
walk
side by side
with corruption

do not expect
some kind of answer
because
i have none

i can feel my heart beat
but
there is no
rhythm
anymore.

I want to bury my heart deep beneath the sea
and never have to feel its ache or break again
I want to cast that pain away deep beneath the waves
and never have to look back and see it

I want it to sink away to melt away to be gone
for good or so I think but then then you're the there
and I want to feel it I want to feel all of it every
heartache every teardrop every bend and break

cause you're worth it, you know that? you're worth
every lifetime of **** every awful lonely night and day
and all the times I pretend to be OK
and you're worth every drop of sweat and blood

every minor pang of guilt and every scream
of brutal agony and alone or together you're what
we're all looking for that person that one thing
that makes life worth living

and deep down we'd all tear apart the world to find you
cause with out you we want to sink away want to
bury our hearts deep beneath the sea and I
will not build my life on these smaller truths
I'll build it around you

you're what makes my heart worth beating
and without you it might as well just
burn or be buried or rot away
melt away sink away drift away
and the tide
pulls my heartbeat
away.

drinking tea and drawing sweaters well past midnight
I am content to sit here and just be sitting here
I'll solve my problems in the morning;
it's way too hard
to try and talk to people after sundown.
so many people shut themselves off
after dark and after darkness
so many people never bother
to open themselves up.

my life is a book that I love too much
to let it end.
I wonder if people who are going to die
know that they are going to die
if they can feel the inevitability
of their own oblivion
in the seconds before it begins.
and were you out at the coffee shop
buying scones as her heartbeat
             slowed   and     stuttered            and                          stopped


my tea's getting cold.

let me fall silent
with your silence.
as you fly down the
dreamscape mountains,
as your skis whisk you
away
from the real world,
away
into the snow-world,
let me fall silent
alongside you
as you fly.

your dreams
wear clandestine wings
and you soar
across the worlds
in your head
in your heart
let me be here
in your dreams,
secret
and silent
and hidden away
safe within you
as you soar.

let me fall silent with you
and lapse into
that dream
and we can drift away
and slip away
and melt away
into snow
into sunshine
into the eternity
that finds its resting place
in your soul.

Met someone today
who doesn't believe in
freedom of speech.
His argument was
that people abuse it
that we say horrible things
and we shouldn't.
He asked me if
someone said that
everyone should die
would I support their right
to say that?
And I said yes.
I would rather
hear what they
thought than have them
kept silent or censored.
He asked me if
****** had the
right to say that
all Jews should die.
I said yes. Not because
I believe in what he's saying,
but because I believe that
I have the right to argue
that point.
He said that we shouldn't
have freedom of speech because
some people could talk for hours
about ridiculous things.
I didn't even want to argue with that.
Of course people say ridiculous things
they're people, they have that right.

Knowing is better than not knowing,
every time.
I would rather have the chance
to say no than simply be told
what to do and not do.

I heard it from the still-winged moth
As he lazed about in candlelight
I heard it from the star-drenched earth
Cradled in the silver night
Your lips in parting whispered it
Your eyes in passing sang
And as the Earth went round the Sun
The galaxies proclaimed
There is no thing that is not alive
No thing that ever was dead
No traveler left forgotten,
No permanent stain of red.

And as the demons at the gate
Shake their blood-soaked hands
And the tortured in the dark do scream
Across the burning lands
There is a still and quiet voice
That comes in the eyes of storms
A voice that's quieter than snow
Yet louder than the cannon booms
And if you listen close, my love,
You'll hear this small still voice
That is carried on the softest wind
And exists by more than choice.

The murderers at the back doors
And the monsters behind the walls
Do beat their war drums louder now
And seek to conquer all
O be not quick to anger, love,
O be not quick to flee
For if you stay and wait a while
And if you listen close to me
There might come a still small voice
Which at once you'll hear
And know the voice of God that says
There is nothing to fear.

The moths by silver candlelight
And stars in their courses exclaim
And the Earth in all its wonder
And o, in all your pain
You know the truth when it is spoken
You know there is no end
For all the stars and universe
For every lover, fighter, friend
There shall be no death that will do us part
There is nothing as can stop my heart.

There are some things you will never see.
But you wish you could. You wish that there were other worlds
Close enough to brush with your fingertips.
You wish that others' dreams, their syntheses of sound,
Would make sense to you. You do not live
In this world of cubicles and blinking lights,
And if you do, you live it a hundred thousand light years away,
On the surface of some other planet.
You're not ever going to grow up. All your life,
You'll keep on imagining worlds beyond the one they swear is real.
You must have your writing because you understand
That life, even this one, is not linear. Life is not
Birth to death, and in between survival.

For now you are surviving.
But you know there is so much more than that.

I think that people are more scared than anything.
They say they're happy or
Pretend everything's alright
And even normal
But I think that when you are alone
You curl up into a ball and try to avoid the universe.
I think that pain scares us
And reality scares us and as a result
We avoid attachment, we avoid things that are real.
The hard things mostly.
I think that the reason we are so distant
And so shallow and distracted
Is that we want to ONLY be happy
All the time - we are terrified of the day when
Someone, anyone - a stranger, a best friend-
Asks if we're alright and we just can't lie
Through our teeth anymore.
And more than that, we are afraid that they
Will hate us or reject us for it - that,
Having recognized us as a broken, bleeding
Human they won't love us or even like us anymore.
We tell lies because we are frightened to death
Of the truth that is ourselves.
We are glued to our lies
With that wicked, freezing fear
That keeps you chained and sweating,
Huddled under blankets
Cursing the monsters in the shadows.
In the end we've created our own monsters,
Built our own prison walls and forged our own chains.
I don't know how to fix you.
I can't even fix myself.
****.

I am pretty sure my heart is breaking.
Things are worse now than ever before.
Everything. Everything is worse.
I think I'm losing my mind.
And people are dying, left and right.
Not just physically, but their minds,
Who they are is being lost, is dying.
And I'm suffering under the pressure
Of the secrets that I keep.

Who would I turn to anyways?
There's no sense in crying into a phone,
And all my friends are away.
My family, their hearts are breaking too.
We're all splintering, leaking.
And you thought you could buy wholeness
But no. The more money you have,
The less of you there is, the more broken you are,
And I am surrounded by the rich.

I am pretty sure my heart is breaking,
And there is no one I can tell.

had a dream a couple nights ago.
was lying in a pool of blood.
and o, god, the pounding in my head!
was bleeding from my head.
could feel the hot sticky blood pouring out.
watched as it pooled about my body.
your body lay twisted across me,
constricting my breathing.
and o, god, the tightness in my chest!
could not shift your remains away.
lay there for a while, dying & unable to die.
moved finally, tried to stand.
standing proved impossible.
freed right hand, touched your face.
noticed hot tears pouring out of closed eyes.
woke up much later, after hours of darkness.
could not forget the dream.

and o, god, the pounding in my head;
o, god, the tightness in my chest.

I wish I could say all the things I think about you
But I can't. There's a social faux pas and besides
How do you put heartache into words
While staring into someone's eyes?
It's easy to say that I love you
From a hundred and two miles away,
But I don't know what I'd do
If I was right there, right now with you
Sitting in your car, screaming along
With bad renditions of 80's love songs
It's all very well to call you on the phone
And tell you that I miss you
That my heart is breaking for you
While alone in my room with the door locked
But if I had to tell it to the world,
I don't know that I could,
I don't think that I would.
I wish I could tell you all the things I think about you
But the problem is I'm not so sure that I mean them.

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.

El mundo es falso, y las sonrisas son falsas.
Todos los días en que vivimos es simplemente pintado,
Nadie lo quiere decir más.
A todos nos causan nuestros propios problemas.
En algún lugar de su inicio, hacia atrás y hacia atrás y hacia atrás-
Una palabra desagradable, un retorcido pensamiento-
Y ahora es el caos.

Si, de alguna manera, yo podría dispersar las sombras del mundo
Y soportar todo el peso para usted, lo haría.
Me harìa llevar todo el sufrimiento del mundo en mis hombros
Para la humanidad. Ahora lo sé eso.
No puedo creer que alguna vez fui tan egoísta
Para derramar una sola lágrima por mí mismo.
Yo podía soportarlo. Yo podría tomar en el mundo
Si eso significa que ninguno de ustedes tenía que sentir que el dolor por más tiempo.

Se amo incondicionalmente.

Most of what I write, no one will ever read.
That's because most of what I write
Is complete and total *******.

I often find myself lost in my own words.
I have to describe everything just right.
The night must be something-
It's gotta be shadowy or lonely or starry,
It can't just be night.

But why not? Why as poets do we let ourselves do this?
We're supposed to be different.
We're supposed to challenge the world we're faced with
From day one. We're supposed to break all the rules.
That's why they made the rules in the first place.

So let go of your descriptions. The night is the night,
Whatever that happens to mean to the reader,
Let it mean just that. My writing is *******
And so is yours. Let the night be the night
And you'll find yourself much better off.
Unless a word is absolutely necessary
And a simpler one will not suffice
Don't use it. Your writing will sour with too much description.

I thought I would have more time than this.
But hey, life is short. Life is short and goes by too fast.
Recently, things have been rough.
The world's been rushing past us and it hasn't been kind.
In the background, memory is playing its bittersweet music.
There are too many times I didn't love you when I could have.
I thought I would have more time than this
To spend with you, to tell you I love you
That's all I ever wanted, you know - to love
And love and love and it didn't matter what anyone thought
Because everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone.
No matter what **** you've been through,
No matter what you've done, you need to be loved.

For everyone out there who's feeling the ache,
Who's spent too many nights alone and awake,
I swear to the stars and I speak the truth
When I say that I will always love you.

My soul is small some days -
A pebble, a seashell, a speck on the horizon -
I don’t know who I am and I don’t know
Where I want to be.

Some days, my soul encloses the universe-
I am the light of a star, a thousand worlds yet unseen,
The eternal sky, the phantasmal deep;
I know who I am, I know where to go.

This uncertainty is bad for me, apparently
I was not designed to doubt, but to have faith
And I do! I have the faith of the mustard seed
That grows into the giant tree.

But for today, my soul remains that mustard seed
Though it has begun to sprout and grow, I am
Still tiny, trembling, afraid that I don’t know
Who I am or where to go.

I believe in a God so great, so indescribable
With love infinitely vaster than my soul
On the days it ‘most could touch the edges of eternity.
I know I will not be here forever, so I’ve got to make it count.
There is no room for fear; there is no time for doubt.

woe to those who live
without passion,
who their whole lives have walked
inside the lines
who live in one, straightforward
black and white world;
who, even in their rejoicing,
wear monotones on their breath;
who have never wandered
and have not found their way;
who have never fought -
they must not have anything worth fighting for.

I climb to the top of the mountain; it takes my breath away.
The pain in my lungs in my throat in my legs, it's all worth it
For that one sunrise or sunset or view or just sky and sky and sky,
Stretching up and up, farther than the eye can see, farther than the soul can reach.
The thorns in my feet from the desert trees are beautiful.
They let me know the sun has not won, there is still something stronger.
A red umbrella on a city street. Architecture, the wonderful kind,
The kind you can smell and taste and touch, endless interlocking triangles,
Windows that reflect and multiply and kaleidoscope the clouds.

Today, however, someone tells me that beauty is something different.
I am supposed to find it in photographs, in one immobile two-dimensional perspective.
Yes, the girl with the ruby lips has perfect proportions and smooth skin.
Yes, the waterfall is tall and the spray makes a thousand rainbows.
Yes, the black lines on the white page contrast perfectly, dramatically.
Beauty is a three-dimensional thing, an experience.
I am supposed to find it in photographs?

I love your laugh because it is imperfect;
Because your skin is freckled, your body less than impressive,
Your face disproportionately skewed when you smile,
Because you exist outside and beyond three dimensions,
You are beautiful.
So many things can be erased in photographs, like context
And subtext and imperfections. To take a photograph and make it perfect
Is to lie. I don't want to lie to you. I don't want you to lie to me.
Stop living life through a camera lens. Take off your rose-colored glasses and just see.

In my house
It smells like burning nachos
Like pico de gallo left to rot
And beans too long on the stove.

I stand in the doorway
Keys in one hand, doorknob in the other.
It's snowing outside, and I'd forgotten
That I'd asked you over that afternoon,
Just to talk.
Maybe watch TV.

For three and a half years now, we've been best friends.
But there was a different time,
When we didn't talk to each other,
When we let teenage angst and hatred seethe
Between us like some dark and twisted monster.

There are different kinds of anger.
I was mad at you because in the summer
Between seventh and eighth grade, you flaked on me
For those other girls, the ones who wore bikinis
And whose dads had speedboats and sports cars,
Whose boyfriends were in high school,
Who wore black eyeliner and gossiped all the time.
I was mad because you changed yourself for them.
I thought that that was why you were avoiding me.

Today you told me
You were mad at me
Because we liked the same boy.
You said you thought I resented you for it.

I laughed.
This is why we have these talks -
So that, looking back on our junior high selves,
We can make fun of what idiots we are.

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.

Lupine, lupine, from where did you come?
Your soft purple springings flow from the paths
And white mountain boulders
To linger in green breezes.

Lupine, lupine, stay a while
Though winter’s on its way I still
Know you can outlast
The inconstant summer sun.

Lupine, lupine, hold me steady
Through the tangled hills I roam
Searching, maybe, for a meaning
Something worthwhile, something to call me home.

Lupine, lupine, don’t forget me!
Let my memory live with you
As under the snowy earth I lie
To await the ending of all time.

OCD and nervous, uptight and follows the rules.
Handwriting like type. Perfectionist on notebook paper.
Needs to loosen up. Needs to learn how to fail. A lot.
Lots of failure. Lots of breaking the rules. That's what she needs.

That's what I thought when I first met you.
So I gave it to you.
I gave you lying to your parents and jay walking.
I gave you the triumph of city streets after dark with no one around.
I gave you the cold kiss of rain as you run, laughing, for shelter.
I gave you slang terms, for drugs and *** and even in Spanish
I gave you a safe little pane of glass to sit behind and observe public school's inner workings.

But still you are so afraid. Afraid to play Beatles songs
For French tourists underneath the Space Needle on your guitar
Waiting for Julian that fine afternoon. You were afraid of
Benny, the homeless man addicted to crack who I've known my whole life,
The one who taught me to balance rocks on pencils stuck in the ground.
You are afraid to sing on stage and afraid of being yourself around people you don't know.

I want to give you those things too.
Somehow I wish I could teach you confidence but I cannot.
I would give you fearlessness and thick, foreign swear words and show you how to throw a punch
But you're not ready yet. Be innocent, while you still can.
College will ******* up enough, once you get there.