wandering
city streets alone
as a child
gets old
as soon as
your popsicle melts
and you drip
on your favorite shirt
and you lose your steps

bare feet rough
on sun-baked
pavement
glittering
with broken glass
and i don't feel it
and i don't bleed
and i want
to go home.

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.

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

My grandmother likes her poems neat
She likes them pink and cozy, without heat
She likes them simple and likes them rhyming,
Cute and kept in time-ing.

My mother, she just likes poetry
Doesn't write it, doesn't recite it
Reads it, sure
But not much else.


but me, my poems are all over the place

up




or down

maybe left                                                             ­                        maybe right

i make em whatever the **** i want
so long as they mean somethin real
somethin true, somethin beautiful
not short or sweet necessarily                maybe if i want to

maybe.

not my fault i was born when i was
not my fault i was raised like i was
the world around me is what i make it
here's what i think, go ahead- take it
i can't help it that i'm young
can't help it if i'm dumb
i look at you and try to understand anyways
but you say it's a matter of time, a matter of days,
say i can't be this or that cause of my age
well **** that, tell it to my rage
tell it to the tears the course down my face;
tell it to my people, the whole human race;
tell it to the butterfly who was born yesterday,
say they can't be beautiful cause they'll waste their life away
you can't look me in the eyes and tell me my life
is a waste of space, just meaningless strife
towards goals i'll never achieve
for people that you don't believe
can change the world
hey, watch me do it anyway.

My father's father was never the best sort of person. Once
He gave me a necklace. It was a pink crystal
On a single black cord. I never liked it much,
And cannot say why I wore it, but I can still see
His thin frame, sick even then, with that white
Surprise of hair shooting out like a cloud from his head,
Aged eyes hidden by dark glasses (the refusal to grow old),
Folding in half to sit next to me on the robin's blue eggshell
Porch, and me rubbing my feet still against the concrete steps
As my brothers dueled with lightsabers across the dead July grass.

I can only grasp at the few other things that I remember about him-
The smell of cigarettes & alcohol clinging to the walls of the guest bedroom;
His sunken face (soul gone for hours yet);
and the oxygen machine into which he breathed his last. His funeral
was a circle of strangers, standing
Somewhere out in the woods around his jar of ashes.
Someone, probably my father, played a song on his guitar,
Bittersweet notes echoing and echoing through the September of the trees.

It's a song we sing at camp, in the summertime,
And by the time its last note is just a whisper,
I excuse myself and slip away to look up at the stars and because
I can still feel my own life force fading into the night, like his ashes-
The last fragments of a shattered life,
Left to the mercy of the northern wind.

i open my brothers door
silver hinges creak against white wood
earlier today a girl broke his heart
or what was left of it

Hey. (i say)
Hi. (he says)
Are you okay? (i ask, stepping forward, breathing in)
Yes. (he does not seem like he is lying)
Are you sad?
Yes.
Do you need a hug?
No. (he is lying now but i let it go this time)
Okay. (i don't hug him)
Okay. (he turns away)
Goodnight. (i love you)
Goodnight. (i love you too)

softly the silver hinges let the white door click
into place in the white doorframe in the white hallway
in the neat white house on the snow covered hill
where a feeling like sin seeps through all the white cracks

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 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.

i wanted so badly
to not be alone
to curl up safe
in anyone's arms
but i never did

did my fears
outweigh my wants?
did i think that
it was wrong
or too selfish
or too childish
somehow?

from now on, when
i don't want
to sleep alone
i will find my way
into anyone's arms
i will seek out safety
i will seek out rest

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

there was a time when I was not
what I am now.
to say that your death warmed me
is an understatement. to say that
the fire which turned you to ash
lit my soul
is a clean metaphor
for the gruesome truth:
I am no phoenix

but people say I look like you.
people who loved you better
who knew you better
say I am becoming like you.
I don't want to be you.

I loved you
like a planet loves her moon,
and now you are more distant
and more close to me
than ever before:
you are both
here and not here,
and if you can hear me
I'm sorry, but

your life is gone already,
and I don't want to carry
its weighty remembrance.
I am not the result
of your ashes.
it has been two years:
I will not stay rooted
in the past, no matter
how much it changed me.

Meditation broken even
In the tide of autumn leaves
Wanting just to be alone
Homeless, empty thoughts seethe
But the silence gathered round me
And the fabric of my dreams
Surges in and takes me over
I have lost all my control
And it's not a good or bad thing
(Though it's not what I would hope)
Oceanic hills and valleys
Stretch the confines of my soul
In this dusky numbered twilight
Fumbles daytime turning night
In these streets there walks a shadow
Of a being without form,
Listless, heavy, and deceiving
Are the stormless clouds that swirl
All around me in this heaving
Chilling tide of falling light.
Where I go and what I dream of
Who I'll be, by what I swear
All is tumbling, crashing downward
Future lost and present bare
To the sea I wander ever
Hoping it will swallow me,
To the sky look on and upward
Maybe one day it will free
Release from us this silent desert
Already I am walking floating
Drifting high above the earth
There is somewhere I am knowing,
There is some place I am going.

Were I a shoe, I would squeak;
For O! to have a tongue
And not be able to speak.

And were I the sea, I would roar;
From dawn to dusk, at everything,
For, being great, I'd want still more.

Were I a swallow, I'd take wing
And make sweet music till I ceased to be -
I would not be a bird who cannot sing.

And were I your heart, I'd show you to love
And teach you the ways of beautiful things,
From us here on Earth to the stars up above.

Were I a flute, were I an axe,
Were I a wish, were I the rain,
Or were I a candle, made of wax;

It matters little, it matters not;
I'd still find a way to say what I thought.

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.

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.

Part I
i wake and turn over in the night
as i do
and i can feel my bones stir, feel
the restlessness just under my skin.
i gotta get out of here, but i am
so afraid of what's coming next

in daylight i walk
the same hallways as always
i love it here, i love my life
i love being alive, i love the people i know
i can't imagine living
any other way.

but i gotta get out. my feet itch
my skin don't fit right over my bones
my mind wanders too far
too quickly, i gotta follow it
even though i don't know what's coming
next, even though saying goodbye
is so **** hard.

Part II
i have finally done it, i have done it
moved out moved away
moved on and
i sleep as i haven't slept
in years.
and it's surreal being here,
like i'm living in a dream
and i don't want to wake up

everything is so much better
than i thought it could be. my bones
are resting for now, i can stretch out
and feel free for the first time
i've ever known.

time runs in slow circles
on this lazy island and i've been here
for weeks but it feels like lifetimes,
and i never, never want to leave,
and if it was my choice,
i wouldn't. but it's not,
and i have to be going again

Part III
culture shock
all over my body, shaking me
awake all night, and i never thought
being home could feel
so strange, like i'm a stranger
like i don't belong.

the faces of my family
are memories, stolen
from photographs. i don't
really know them, i've changed
so much, and they haven't.
i don't know who i am here
and all my friends are ghosts
trying to convince me to stay.

but it won't work. in the morning
i'll be gone again, like rain
always moving on, have to go again
have to get out get out get out
of here, this place is too lethargic,
too much residual fear here, i

loved the time spent here,
but i'm too far gone. i love my
friends here, love my
mother and my brothers,
my father and my teachers,
and all their voices
crying out as one
wouldn't get me to stay.

Part IV
it's not really leaving. it's not really
wandering, as much as i'd like it to be.
but if i left, if i really truly left,
i might never settle down again

if i scratched my bones and picked up
and left every time i felt that itch,
i don't think i'd ever come home
i'd never be anywhere at all

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.

i'm on the verge of the future now,
really truly on the edge. i'm riding out
this high while it lasts, hoping
that i won't wake up anxious,
burdened with all the stuff i've got
to take care of. these short days now
will soon be over: that's what matters,
that the end's in sight. can't wait
to be gone, can't wait to be
moving on. all my life i'll spend

leaving now: jumping one city, one life
to the next, trading friends, families,
swapping beds and patterns and
smiles whenever my bones start
to itch. all the time i'm waiting now,
it's just a matter of days, of hours,
of minutes. everything big will soon
be something much smaller: a rock,
a thought, the time left, the distance
between me and you. it's all almost over
and i'm not scared anymore. i can't wait.

can you tell
when I'm not here
when my head
is worlds away

can you say
where I go
when I don't
want to stay

do you know me
who I am
where I'm going
where I've been

do I know you
who you are
all your goodness
all your sin

I'd like to think
we were tied
together our souls
like binary suns

I'd like to think
we were lovers
stitched together
at the runs

I dream about
a lot of things
of other worlds
and living free

I dream about
a lot of things
I dream of you
do you dream of me

i haven’t seen you in months
and your memory causes
heartbeats to flood my chest.

who you could be,
who you are, causes
symphonies, causes
thunderstorms in the chambers
that lie under my ribs.

i can imagine growing old
with you, old like oak trees,
stretching and wrinkling
till we touch the sky and fall,

but i would be happy knowing
that you are growing old at all.
i am so in love with you
that your life, happy and long,
with or without me,
is all that i want.

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.

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.

I don't know how to fight you.
I don't want to hurt you. I don't want
To argue, or even to be angry.

How do you do it? How do you
Take all my scars, all of them,
And rip them open like that?

But the worst part is, you bring me
To the verge of all my secrets, till
They're on the tip of my tongue
And dying, just dying, to be told.

You're my brother. And you are
So completely evil. Such lies should
Not have to live in one human being,
Not one so young as you.

You could have been like me. We
Were born with equal chances in life
But where it mattered most, you
Chose instead to take the easy way out.

You might think you're a rebel.
Because you drink. Because you smoke ****.
But it's just what everyone expects, all over again.
A broken record.

So why is it that we are so different?
It's because I grew up without a shadow
Cast over me by you, but rather in the light
That you refused to even see.

The difference is you fight against
The sense of justice in your gut,
And I fight for it.

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 don't want for anything.
i don't have a single
deep-seated desire
running about in
my brain,
driving me
crazy.

i have everything that i need.
i don't lie awake at night
i don't wonder
i don't ask what if
i don't
i don't

what will it take to convince you
that i don't need anything?
i don't want anything
i am content
i am content
i am content
i am content
i am content

but what if i

i wake up every morning
more ready than the last
to fall asleep that night
and be that much closer
to the end.

my heartbeat's growing now,
stretching itself out
to fill the long hours
that lie between me
and leaving.

i have no time, for
all the time i am working,
preparing myself,
but in the empty spaces
in the minutes where
i am catching my breath

there is still an eternity: it lies
between me and my fate,
between the dreams of a child
and the reality of age,
between separation
and alignment.

let's drift in those eternities,
let's build monuments to whatever
in our minds, let's exist
in the moments we are resting
and imagine the future
as it's happening,

we are tomorrow and
we are today. we cannot
give up now. we cannot
give up hope. we are tomorrow,
and tomorrow's crashing down.

I'll be your best friend and your first kiss
I'll keep you safe from the filth
On the streets and
I'll keep you warm and
I'll keep you safe and steady.

I'll stand beside you when you're weak
I'll stay up all night with you when you're scared
I'll make chicken soup for you when you're sick*, you said.

But you're not here now
And for just $20 and a trip to the store
I can have hot Top Ramen and Matt Damon
And the tangy kiss off cough medicine
As it slides in careful milliliters down my throat

I used to bury myself in huge jackets.
I'd mope about and hate my curvy body,
hate the way my lips puffed,
my long hair, the way I was soft all over,
the way I was expected to shave
everything but my face.

I used to hate makeup and dresses,
girly movies and shoes and bobby pins.
I hated boybands. I hated pink things.
It took me a long time to realize that
I didn't actually hate these things.
I hated women.

Femininity was lesser. I was not good enough
because of my two X chromosomes,
because of my *****, because of my period.
I was weaker. I was stupider. I was
statistically less likely to succeed,
less likely to be important,
less likely to be loved.

These things weren't right. They were never true.
But it didn't matter, because nine-year-old me
believed them. My opinion didn't start to change
until I was thirteen and I wore a pretty dress
as a character in a home movie we were making
and I walked down the stairs and my friends
whispered whoa.

I began to understand then the power I had.
As a girl I was never lesser. I was never weaker.
Maybe physically, but that was more my personality,
and all those lies I'd told myself about success
about my importance about love
I began to reconsider.
I thought hey wait hold on
this can't be right, I'm not stupid, I'm not weak,
I'm not ugly and I'm not fat
and I'm not any of these things because
I'm a girl.

When I started to see myself as worthy of
other peoples' love, I realized I should love myself.
I don't hide my femininity away in huge jackets anymore.
I don't walk down the street fearful
of the people walking past who seem stronger.
Because in my lipstick and my cute heels,
I am in total control.

One of the eeriest things in my life right now
is that she died almost three years ago
but her Facebook account is still running.
I get little notifications on her birthday
and those weird "you haven't talked to this person in a while!
Reconnect!" blurbs every so often, still.
I could send her endless messages
but no one would get them. She's just gone
and somewhere there's a tiny part of a server
with all her messages, photos, likes and dislikes
on it, and no one will ever check it again.
She left a tiny cybernetic scar on the skin of the internet,
and what happens to all that stored data is as uncertain
and as unknowable as where she is now, if either
still exist at all. And she's not the only one - there
are so many little things left unattended
in the absence of the dead, minuscule holes
torn in the fabrics of our lives because no one
will ever fill them completely again.
No one will ever laugh like they did
or run their hands through their hair
in the exact same way. And if they do,
there is more missing - the same smile,
but different eyes. The same name,
but a different feeling. Nothing will ever
be the same again. Each moment the whole universe
is made and unmade again, infinite combinations
of personality and circumstance, and you never think
about what you're really going to miss until it's gone,
and then it's all you can think about.
Somewhere in the vastness of this empty planet,
a light on a server is blinking, the graveyard
of abandoned Facebook pages: some intern's hand is reaching
to pull the plug.

o how difficult the years
that weigh on
without you,
the endless nights
with emptiness
my solemn
singular
bedfellow.
what a treachery
is every sunrise
what a regret
is every breath.
and i am sure
you don't feel
this way.
i am sure you
are far away,
in some paradise,
and have found
someone better,
someone new,
someone to
not be alone with.

o how impossible
to explain
the pain of the left
to those who are
leaving.
i would trade
a thousand worlds
that i could
go back in time
and beg you,
don't go.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

it’s been a night for the books
one of those times when i just
hit the ground running and forgot
how to know when to stop

now i’m riding out the edge of my last high,
working on some way to live forever tonight
at peace with where i’ve landed
proud of how i’ve handled it

driving home alone through the arboretum
rain-smell coming in through vents, and him
barely in my head anymore, shadows
of trees waving through the windows

i won’t let myself become a god
to some kid in a grown-up facade
i’m not perfect or powerful
i’m not here to be beautiful

there’s been girls and there’s been boys
and they’ve been real or they’ve been toys
but i’m letting them all go, murmuring
i won’t let myself fall in love with remembering

i want it to stick with me like those dreams
that threaten to burst the sky’s seams
hanging on my shoulders all day,
washing the real world away.

i want them to see the universes i hold in me,
i want them to need what i need,
i want to wade into the water waist-deep
and never come out, just float in the sea

as soon as we’re apart, their voices crescendo
like tidal waves from far away and long ago,
vibrations that I know are real,
but no longer care to feel.

and every time I looked
a stranger in the eyes
and saw the flickering
of what could be cannot
compare to the strange
wonder of no longer being
alone...what I have now
is a chair in a hospital room
and folded blankets
left on couches, the
greatest gifts I ever could
have received.
it is enough, now, that I
have loved you and have
been loved. it is enough
to allow for the rest of
my life, and enough to
convince me to live -
to give up that fear,
that argument, that
passionless sorrow. All
those books I read
that spoke of a love
that triumphed over
all fear, I thought I knew
what those words meant.
I have not scraped even the
beginnings of the atoms
that compose that
great love. What would it
take, to become some
one who truly believed?
It would take heart
ache, and it would take
fear, and it would take
holding your hand
through all of this, and
here I am, and finally,
I believe.

Oh, ******, my little Spanish sorrow,
Me encanta la camino captó la luz en tus ojos
Me encanta la forma tus sueños flotan a través del mundo de dormir
Oh, osito, my little love,
Tú, que hace reír a todo el mundo,
Y tú, que me hace cantar,
Te amo, y no puedo ayudar pero de amar todo de ti.
Oh Catalina, my lost one,
Te extraño, y me da dolor en mi corazón
Te extraño, y me da dolor a amarte así
Oh, mi amor, mi vida, mi sueño, mi esperanza,
¡Lo poco de tu me queda!

i've got a new life coming
tomorrow will dawn bright
and i will awake with breath
in my lungs as i have never
breathed before. future's closer
than ever now, who i could be
is becoming me. but the heart
beats in my chest flood me
with blood too warm, pumps
me full of strange adrenaline
to fight monsters that are
only memories. the phrases
the words you write to me
now are so strange i read them
and glean no meaning, my stomach
leaping into my throat, my
hands maybe shaking, maybe
holding still, i can't even tell.
i don't want to go back, i want
more than anything to move on
and every time i see your photograph
your name, your words, i am
****** back into summer, all my
regret and my mistakes fill me
up with hot blood, make me
want to drown. hell is where
everyone is disappointed and my
tongue is nailed to the floor
when they expect me to speak.
i don't have any words for you now.
i don't have anything to say.
i don't think of you, but involuntarily,
momentarily, heart beats and it's gone.

How would you take the news of my bitter insomnia?
Would you feel conflicted knowing that could I sleep,
I might not still want you? I know that you’re just a heap
Of atoms tied together, cells powered with mitochondria,
And without you I am just succumbing to hypoxia.
You are nothing to the universe, just an ignorant sheep,
And were my head unclouded, no illusions would I keep:
I’d know in lucidity it’s just my acute monophobia.
But you are there still, hiding under my thin skin,
And you’re not going away, and it’s driving me insane.
How could I discount your memory, your incredible smiles,
Your hands rough like heartbeats, your eyes glowing like sin?
You are a heap of molecules, mere bone and membrane:
And your soul is a fire, your ardor drives me for miles.

I wish I could fix you,
Take all those broken pieces in your head
And glue them together again.
Then maybe you’d see yourself as the person you are
Rather than the one you wish you were.

I wish I could fix you,
Take all those little things about yourself
That you hate and let you love them.
Then maybe you’d learn to be the person you are
Rather than act like the one you wish you were.

I wish I could fix you,
Mend you; make you into someone who believes
In life and love again.
But I can’t. I don’t know who you are
And I don’t know who you wish you were;
All I know is there’s a stranger on the bus
With silver tears falling down, down, down
Trying to hide the emptiness in her eyes.

I wish I could fix you.

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.

empty on the insides
like a dish scrubbed clean
full up of nothing
even memories
feel too much like dreams
like all those things
that we did
and we said we would do
are just echoes
you're not anyone,
you're just a reminder
of someone i once knew
i don't know where i'm going
i don't know where i'll land
i get a feeling it's different
from everything i got planned
i'm not afraid of the future
but i'm still shaking somehow
weighing nothing means
i could just float out the window
i'm just a shell of a person
just a shell of a girl
not anyone or anywhere
or anything right now
i exist in this space
and this space exists in me
and the words that i want to say
won't make it past my teeth
i am empty and i'm no one
and i used to be so full
at least there is no darkness
at least now there is no cold
i'm not ready for the future
but i'm no longer afraid
i'm not thinking about anything
but i think that that's okay
for now

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

It only took a couple cuts, a couple hits in the right places,
A few diseases filling the right spaces
To end his life.

It only took a thousand years, a hundred love letters,
An entire movement born
To describe it.

It only took the first glance of beauty, first flash of light,
First footsteps forward
To convince them to tears.

All dressed in black, there they stood,
The formal entourage for the dead,
As in their eyes the rain-beat mud
Wrote with explosions what no human will read.

i go to bed
later and later
every night
memories
of people
with gorgeous
eyes haunt me
and fill my head.
i want to be them
to someone else
i want to
haunt them
the way they
are me, hang
around in
the back corners
of their minds
some beautiful
memory, some
kind of vision
that just won't
leave them alone.
i want to keep them up
later and later
every night
i want them to see me:
to see me as i am,
as i want to be.
i want them to see me
whole
and broken
and loving
and hating myself.
i want them to see me
like a schizophrenic
and their shadows,
like a wild hallucination,
like a beam of sunlight
falling fleetingly
perfectly, sad & lovely,
falling into their eyes,
waking them up
from the daydream,
letting them know
that they are alive.
if i am going
to be brief i want
to be brilliant, if
longevity is my destiny,
i will refuse redundancy.
i want more
than anything to be
unique. i want
to haunt them
in their sleep: i want
to live forever,
i want
to be able to sleep again at night.

every night since Rosencrantz died,
I've had dreams about dead goldfish,
their silver and gold scales gleaming sickly
red roses of blood blooming from beneath them
dead and bulging eyes staring at me.

every day I come home to find
Guildenstern still swimming is a gift
but the goldfish are still dead in my dreams.
They are always there
and I never know why.
Their bodies are piling up.

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.

you hover weightless toes brushing the grass
the Earth stretching toward you and you
stretching to touch the Sun above your
spine elongates your vertebrae loosen and one
by one relax your body is warm heavy
thick like honey and you are cosmically
beautiful:  your moles & freckles are
constellations your scars are pathways
runes telling you you are alive you have
survived your hair is oceans and forests
your wrinkles and folds are full of wisdom
your bones cry life  your arms
lengthen to enfold the Sun and all
around you is warm sky floating you
holding you up and you are
the most alive lovely part of it

you breathe your troubles out into
clouds and your anxiety out into
stardust and they bring rain
and light to people on the other side
of this luminous planet in this
glowing galaxy in which you are
a point of light a glorious speck
shining among the stars you
are brilliant and faceted
complex and tumescent
with so much to give

you let go of the fiery Sun
and fall back in the
grass and the Earth is
holding you and
your weight is
returning the
embrace.