she invaded the space behind my lungs
and slowly, by degrees, pushed me out
of my own life. she took over
my heartbeats, my hair, my voice.
I wanted you and now she does.
I laughed in the sun and now she does.

people ask us if we're sisters
and I can't say yes
and I can't say no.
we are linked, two peas in a pod
she built from dust and desire,
but she is not me. I am not her.

my hands and my eyes are not hers.
my thoughts are not hers.
but I am hers, I belong to her,
without her asking or my giving
she pulls me under and I don't
even beg for mercy: I want to be drowned
in her stupid tidal wave.
perhaps then we will find
the line between us: that I am dying
and she is living; that she is standing
on my heart, pushing the blood
into my throat.

sound pounds through my head
the sharp click of the forks against plates
and the scuff of my boots on the floor
light refracts against my eyes and my retinas cry
there's itches all over i cannot scratch
and each smell is a toxic chemical
forcing their way through slim, crowded canals,
synapses, etc.; into my throbbing head.
and all that's left is this image
and sound and smell and itch
of you making some other girl laugh,
and no matter how hard i try,
no matter how much i want to
take your hands and kiss your face,
i'm not strong enough. i can't do it.
i can't let myself go like that
without knowing
without seeing and breathing and believing
that you want it too.
you see, the problem is, when i look in your eyes,
i can't tell if it's your passion burning
or mine reflected that i see.

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 had a dream once
in which you died
you drowned in the sea,
became one with the tide

i sat on a dock
at the end of the day
staring at the horizon,
my life leaking away

you came to me then
from deep in the blue
you cried and i promised
i won’t forget you

so now i wander the waves
and i wander the kai
praying that i’ll find
where your spirit abides

but if that doesn’t happen,
if i don’t survive
i pray that i drown,
become one with the tide.

I don't want a dream. I do not desire that
which is fleeting, though perfect - which will be gone
once sunrise comes. But when will I arrive at
the place where I will find joy in every dawn?
I don't want a dream. I want something that's real.
I want to want to wake up in the morning.
I don't want to get lost in some far-off ideal
world that won't be there to react to my going.
I need to live in reality, not dreams -
though there are plenty of reasons for sleeping,
though the real world isn't always as it seems,
there are things for which I would go on living.

I don't want to dream any longer, please, I
need to wake up now, please don't just let me die.

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 people
(like me)
don't necessarily expect
an ending. we just
write and write
and figure we
probably won't ever
run out of words.

other people
(like you)
put an algorithm to it
write an equation for it
comment on style
and tone and metaphor

i know what those words mean
and how and when and why to use them.
i just don't give a **** about stuff like that.

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.

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.

I once said I wasn't afraid of you,
of oceans or the deep black dark.
And I guess these things are true:
I'm afraid that they'll leave a mark.

Will the surging waters drown me,
will the heady darkness take its toll?
And worse, will you surround me?
How can i dig myself out of that hole?

For if you set my heart on fire,
will it fill my lungs with smoke?
I know that it's what i desire
But i just don't wanna choke.

If you give to me your heart,
will it leave room for my own?
Will they be able to beat apart,
would i be able to live alone?

I'm not afraid of falling in love,
I'm afraid of the aftermath.
What will it take to be empty of
you, once we've split our path?

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.

when i sleep, i dream. when i dream i

i am lost in the woods little bird lost in the woods alone in the woods
so small so young so green
i grow
as i have grown
as i will grow
my mind melts
mutates
i am someone else
i have lost all meaning
everything has lost
all
i am grown
i have grown
i will grow
as i float i am growing
as i fight i am growing
i remember little bird
lost in the woods alone in the woods
all alone
all
who am i? who was i?
who am i becoming?
have i forgotten?
or did i ever know
and where is the future
where is my future
why so intangible
why so unmanageable
where is the knowing
where is the sense of stability
where is the meaning i was promised?
who promised
who said
who
left me alone, all alone, alone, little bird, alone in the woods,
who am i?
(then in a hundred different voices) who am i?
where am i?
why am i?

when i sleep, i dream. when i dream, i am lost. i try to stay awake
to hold my mind awake
an object in motion will stay in motion
oh let not me rest
maybe if i stay awake
if i work harder
all the time
i wont lose.

Indescribably brilliantly unique, that's you.

Racing through your veins is a something,
A liquid fire,
The spark of newborn infinite life.
Here, you say, here is where I want to live, pointing to a picture in a magazine.
Even though you know it's not
Realistic, you still dare to dream.

Like a song born of the stars, like
Opening my eyes to moonlight, you've given me
Very little and yet
Everything my soul needs.

You and I are not forever, I say. You know. You know
One day we'll die, one day we'll make our homes
Underground.

at 1 am between the last curling step of the escalator
and the corner of the wall
a girl sat sipping tea
feeling perfectly at peace
you could see it in her face
in her knees on the frozen concrete
in her fingers gripping red and swollen
even as the wind wound itself around her body
slipping through the cracks in her stained uniform
you knew that she felt at once
alone and at one with the world

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.

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.

here i am now: here
i am, some kind
of almost-happy,
some kind of
no-longer-sad.
perhaps it will
come back, but
i don't care anymore.
i have beaten out
sadness before. i
have outlived
disbelief, doubt,
anger, fear: i can
fight them back
all over again,
now that i know
i'm not alone.
here i am now:
here is some kind
of restless joy,
here some kind
of peace.

i am holding on too tightly
let me fall. let me let go,
let me feel let me hurt
i want that ache again
love ******, im a slave
to heartbreak, i wanna
seek out those kisses
that leave my lips burning
want that fire reignited
deep in my chest again

there's just a shell now
built up like a cage
protect me from harm,
so i thought, but no
it's not letting anything out
it's not letting anything in
and im done im done
with that i need to feel again
i need to be alive again
my heart needs to beat
again. love ******, slave
to comfort, too afraid
of passion, of losing control

so here i am, heart beats
in a cage, needles in my arms,
anesthetized, clinging
on too tight to what my life was
let me fall into the unknown now
before i push myself off this ledge
it's been no fun at all
let me feel
let me fall

I stared at city lights tonight and I wanted to die.
The distance laughed at my eyesight
Like I didn’t deserve it.
I’m sad, and it’s not beautiful.
It’s messy. It’s tangled wires in my heart.
It’s crossed communications in my brain:
When someone smiles and I want
To cry and scream and rip out their throat.

More and more, people make me shut off.
They flip the switches that have held light
To the dark corners of my heart.
Children make me want to cry:
What are they going to grow up to be?
When I was seven I didn’t think
I’d be this **** sad.
What wars will they fight, with their friends
With their family, with the world, with themselves?

When you are depressed, or anxious, or bipolar,
Or have another one of
That host of mental disorders:
You cannot control it.
Just like you can’t make your blood
Flow back into an open wound,
The feeling doesn’t fade
With positive thoughts.

I wanted to die tonight, like I have
Wanted to die before,
And it was not beautiful, and it was not
Something I wanted to be feeling,
And it wasn’t under my control.
I was just really **** sad.

I am lazy like
A slow clock,
The hours dripping away off me,
And only occasionally paying attention
While I dream away all of the past and pressing minutes
Into something resembling my own form of happiness,
A small slice of heaven meticulously created
Over the years, and only when my headphones are pulled from my ears.
I have all the time in the world.
I don’t have anything at all to say.
To anyone. Until I am
Perfectly distracted, and you
Kick me in the leg and tell me to stop wasting time.

"You're a killer, son. 
I can see it in your eyes. 
I don't know when it'll happen-
Maybe the first day on the front line,
Maybe when the guy next to you
In the trenches gets his head 
Blown to bits, but some day
You'll snap. 
And it'll all become a game to you. 
And it's a game you're good at. 
And it's a game you like."
These are the words the veteran spoke
Over my father. This is who he said
My father would be. And so he ran away. 

My father took up his pen and he wrote
And he took up the mainsheet and pulled it in
Til the sail hugged the wind, and he did it for years,
But it wasn't enough for him. In the end
He studied business and now he's an
Entrepreneur, building homes and food and lives.
Recently he's been talking about starting to
Sail again. He could've been world champion, you know. 
He says he left to start a family. 

There are days when I look in the mirror,
Deep into the eyes I inherited from my father,
And wonder. In them I see his own passion 
For the written word, for the wind caught
In the sail and the water stormy and deep beneath. 
But I know there's something else in there too,
And there are days when I hope to God it's not
That same look his honorably discharged uncle saw
And scarred him with so many years ago. 
But even worse, there are times I pray it is.

say I love you while you can,
and while you mean it,
and in as many ways
as you know how: there is
altogether too much time
when your heart is not beating
in tune with hers,
you may as well admit it when it is

and do not be
ashamed, my friend,
if she proclaims
your eyes are starlight
your lips are moonbeams
and she does not look like any sun
you've ever seen

perhaps just turn away,
let roses rise in your cheeks
and whisper a soft thanks
because you know her heart
beat so loud for you
it poured out through her mouth

and wait for the moment
when you can say the same,
or if you cannot: do not
lie and say she is
your world and stars and sun
when she is none.

our culture preaches self obsession:
to always be looking at ourselves,
to always be editing, editing, editing,
photoshopping away our scars to look pretty
on a computer screen,
to be focused continuously inwardly,
focused on our own flaws.
our culture preaches self obsession
but not self love.

the things we are born into,
the things we grow into,
people tell us they're not good enough
somehow. there is such a narrow
margin for error. there is such a narrow
road to walk if we want to be thought beautiful.

it took me 16 years to understand
that I was not worthless: I hated
myself for all the things other people
told me I was:
fat because my ribcage didn't
shine through my skin
a ***** for my opinions
a ****, and ugly, because of my body,
because of my face.
is it any wonder
I was so uncomfortable in my own skin?

in the past they told you: love your neighbor
as you love yourself,
but we need a new mantra.
think of the most beautiful person you know
and treat yourself that way.
would you let them starve themselves,
would you let them cut away at their own skin,
would you let them wallow
in self pity, in regret, in fear?
think of the most beautiful person you know
and then understand, that person is you
to someone else.
you are so beautiful.
love yourself.
love yourself.

When it's dark outside I'll take
your bandaged hands in mine and we'll
switch on all our own lights,
Write illegal fire across the canvas of
the crysatalised night sky,
Explode with life and love and hope
our star-drenched moon-struck eyes
till white sirens bleed their warning over the city.

Chain-link fences can't hold us back
we know these streets and they know us
all too familiar the scraping of knees
and palms as we skid across the asphalt,
then whisper away into vanishing night,
cursing the cold winter days.

on New Year's Eve my nail polish
chipped and for brief moments I
suffered that familiar fear but
I broke into the new year screaming
at the top of my lungs all my friends
gathered close around me like a blanket
to keep out the restless wind and
it was not in that moment that I chose
to be strong but it was in that moment
I began to leave my fear behind.
maybe not today, and maybe not this year
but I'll get there someday and won't it be better
having been so low, really knowing that I tried
and I made it, I did it on my own
no one's hand to hold
won't it be wonderful
when I no longer feel alone
I know I can make it, and til then I can take it: all
the bitter self-doubt, all the cynicism that should
not accompany my youth, and yet it does
I can stand the lonely nights and anxious days
I can sleep with no one to share my space
knowing someday it won't be true
I've done it all my life.

now I refuse to be afraid
I refuse to believe that I'll always be alone
I have to be somebody to somebody, someday.
and one New Year's Day
I will look back and say:
look at where I am
look at where I've been
isn't the world such a beautiful place?

I feel so detached some days.
I am not who I was. I am not
the girl who walked those high school halls,
red lipstick smudges and sidelong rejections
of boys who didn't know the mess they were after -
I am her and I am not her; at the heart
of things, the real truth of it, yes
we are the same, but I now
would not say those things she said
or do those things she did, or think
even as she thought.

Detached from the past I am now wholly
freed from the fetter of past selves, free
of their guilts, their regrets, their desires;
I am floating, minuscule distances above the dust,
I don't belong in that skin anymore, I can't help
but feel itchy in it, wanting to claw my way
out of my own skin. I don't know
what it was that tied me to her before
and is now gone, I can't see
the ribbons of gravity that held me
to the surface of this luminous planet:
reforging those bonds is a task invisible
and out of reach, something I won't know I'm doing
won't know I've done until it's over -

and on it goes, the floating and the molting,
and I can't quite see the places
where my new feathers are coming in,
but oh God how they itch.

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.

today was long
and full of
wonders:
a sky, a mountain,
technology, a dress,
a photograph.

I breathed
deeply
of the air and sun, and
out there
among the trees,
I felt strong
and real
and alive
for the first time
in months.

it is not
man alone
in nature: the Romantics
had it wrong.
when we walk
into the woods
we do not walk alone
for we are part of it,
part of the earth
breathing in time
with the trees,
hearts beating
along with rivers.
no. we are not
as alone as they would
have you believe:
there is earth
and mud, grass
and dirt and mountains,
and us.

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.

at their least
they were silhouettes building
notes out of the crimson fog
slowly swallowing the stage

but all the rest of the night
the bass taught my heart
a new beat pushing
its throbbing hand deep
into my chest and demanding
life and breath

guitars riddled my skin
piano keys pulsating in my fingertips
and the drums
the drums made me dance
up and down and
with my hands in the air
like some wild crazy lover

have you ever heard
three thousand people singing
their voices all rising
heated in the night
its not our faults
if we forget the laws of physics
they abandoned us first

on a scale of one to
netherlands
how dutch is my sweater?
i'd say it's a solid Amsterdam.

it should bother you
that ive been alone in my room
all afternoon
with my homework and have only done
five problems
it should bother you that
i delete my internet history
day after day after day
but its only because
i dont want anyone to see
that ive been reading the works
of liars and ****** and thieves
it should bother you
that you didnt know this about me
but it doesnt
my inner communism
or socialism
or fascism
or racism
or feminism
or radicalism
should probably be something of your concern
but its not
you dont care that i sit here
and drown in the words of dead poets
or revolutionaries
or just people
no you dont care
you stopped caring when i said
no its my life not yours
and slammed that door in your face
and you took one too many
of those sweet little pills
it should bother you
that youre dead and gone
but it doesnt, it doesnt, it doesnt
and it wont
though you still hang about me
you miserable ghost
just sit there in the air
above my head
and just dont care
no matter what i do
i cant make you go away
cant make you see what i see
cant make you come back to me

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.

in a car
in a parking lot
wrapped in a grey day
I too am wrapped,
curled against seat
under blanket,
as comfortably
as in the cloud that
holds the sky in its palm
outside somewhere
there are voices:
high with laughter
drunk on company
a car thrums past,
musical heartbeat pulsing

I could be plugged
in too; I could be
out there with them
but I am a cloud
in a sunset yellow sky,
a wave
on the rolling sea,
a red star hiding
beneath the skin
of the cosmos
my eyelids blur out
the world and become
the canvas for a new one

here I nap -
and I want to carve it
in stone,
let it tumble mountains,
HERE I AM,
the idiot child of reason
and fate,
drenched
in hazy past
as futures crystallize
before me
my body confined,
my mind transcends

I see all,
know all, be all:
I awake
and find myself
nothing, just
wrapped.

Time hasn't been good to you, has it?
It took you in its rough hands and it threw you up against that wall.
It was slow torture to you, all those questions of how and why,
When no one would even tell you who or when or where.
You didn't even know what life was then-
That first sunburst, first roll of thunder,
Didn't make sense, not any at all. Not to you.

You try to forget but it's not like that this time.
You try to talk about something, anything else-
And yet your life just comes spilling out; a torrent,
A cascade, a parade of all your worst daydreams-
****** in front of his face and clogging his ears and nose and mouth,
Congealing in the winter sun. And suddenly you feel that weight fall off your chest,
And stand, leave him there; dying, drowning, choking on your memories.

If anyone needed the drug it was you-
You needed the weightlessness, the carelessness it lent you.
First the Vicodin and then the morphine, always on the hunt
For something stronger, something that could really ****
All that pain and time and **** piling up inside you. And you found it,
Found your release, that sweet drifting sensation it gives you
And no side effects! Or so they swear, all the ones who went before you,
Walked down that road lined with needles
And turned it into one paved with something stronger,
That one drug you'll never get enough of: **words

Truth of the matter is, I never was one for essays.
I can insert quotes like mad, I can, but the words
Don't sing for me in papers like they do in poetry.
I can't paint you a world cause you're already
Living in it and you already know it well.
The only gift an essay has to give is analysis and
Let me be honest with you, my opinion
Ain't worth as much as my heartbreak.
Essays don't let me talk like I want,
Don't let me layer in the truth behind a lie.
It ain't fair to kids like me that we get graded
On how well we use big words.
I wanna be graded on a scale I can't trust,
I wanna get credit for making you cry my tears.
Maybe it's hard to be an artist so that
No one will half-*** it: only the idiots who
Wasted art class making cartoons,
Failed English for the sake of their poetry,
The idiots who can do nothing else,
Will be the ones to do nothing else.

there are postcards you wrote me that will hang on my wall
and i will keep for centuries, pretty pictures
and smeared handwriting, places where the rain ate away.
you left, and we sat there like nothing was wrong.
go on with life, move on from love,
nothing now to say. you leave and we all sit,
paper-blank faces hiding crying eyes, still bodies
hugging shivering hearts. clouds pass,
the wind rustles through the air, the sun bears down
on the high desert. no one says anything
worth saying. no one does anything
worth doing. dry flowers bloom but no one is looking.
cacti wave and stretch and poke at no one.
those mountains to the north loom and dare
and nobody cares. we all sit there, desert spirits,
paper-blank, hot bodies wrapped
like so much tissue paper around our trembling souls,
say nothing, and pretend
that God has not ripped from us
something as wild and as lovely as the summer rain.

this cinnamon realization
rolls around in my chest:
honeyed sunlight
apple-crisp mornings
laughter and fear in the name of fun
quiet anarchy
gardens, beaches, friends -
I am happy, or close enough.
what more could I ask for?
what more could I dream for?
to be home, to be with you: but
here is becoming home, October
has replaced July with orange glory;
clouds and mountains and salt water
all the same, absent sunsets,
huge-moon nights, hot sunrises,
stars and soul mates and folk music.
O that I could dance
forever in the evenings of October,
skeleton ghost and graveyard
pumpkin spice and falling leaves,
the endings that give us new life
all are here, *****-heavy
fear-free, future hallows blissfully
unknown, pasts blissfully
undreamed-of.

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.

there are
a thousand pockets
of wilderness 
in my city

where 
the thick evergreens
almost
drown out
the sirens

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.

there was fog
outside the window
yesterday that i meant
to photograph. here
in my parents' house, big
and empty and warm,
my mom tells my brothers
to swallow vitamin D
but she doesn't have to tell me.
most days, where i live now
the sun shines. most days
there is no fog, no forests,
no rain. i miss
the wilderness of this city:
the way the weeds
force their way through
the asphalt, the way everything
in spring is a cavalcade of green,
the way the clouds turn
the whole sky white
or shine gold, the way the hidden
mountains show themselves,
shining silver crowns
on the horizons, gifts
of a sunny day. where
i live now the mountains are
huge and stunning
and obvious: like big
dumb desert teeth, cacti bloom
and the trees they claim are tall
are ancient, there is
no height reached that is
not surmounted in my home,
there is no fear that is overcome.
here everyone is lying, i can
see it in their eyes, the sun
makes them feel safe
and invincible and detached.
where i am from the rain
wears you down, beats all
the summer strength out of you.
you must find something
to cling to, something real
to hold on to with all your might
when winter comes because
otherwise down falls the rain
and washes you away. in the desert
there is nothing to cling to.
there is dust. there are palms
that sway in a sun they weren't
born under, there are cities built
over deserts, but the deserts
are still there. where i am from
we know that this land was forest
and river and field: the rain washes
our illusions of civility down
the drain. in desert the dust that
sneaks in is a slower kind of
reclaiming: it will collect, it will
fill our lungs, but it does not
shout like the rain.

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.
****.

She reads the works of other poets as she lies awake in bed,
And she wonders if this is who she is. She thinks
She may have seen a little of the truth once or twice- but
She's not sure. She will know when
It happens, or perhaps doesn't happen,
But either way, she will know.
It's after two in the morning and slowly
She closes her eyes and slips, without forewarning,
Into the future.

For all your versatility, though you change more constantly than I do,
There's a heartbeat, smooth and steady, running through you.
You take my compass and spin it round.
Now South is up and North is down.
Winds from nowhere lead me on. I cannot turn my sails away.
My heart is rooted to your earth, my feet will go no other way.
So forward into you go I, and never to return,
Though always I loved to wander, it is now for you I yearn,
And bear upon my shoulders the heavy yoke of destiny
Which my forefathers did not accept so readily
But turned from love and light and hope
To deep and dark and turn and stroke.
Now in the heavy earth they lie,
Observe and laugh at all that has gone by.
Six feet under does not bury their love for the sea,
Six feet under cannot bury me.

Sixteen is the age everyone always wanted to be.
Sixteen is rebellious, a freshly sparked fire,
A girl and a boy, living forever in the midnight hours.
Sixteen is freedom. Is dancing. Is music. Is life.
Is when you're supposed to be fully you, as best as you can.
Is the year your lips are round and red as apples,
The year your skin and hair is soft and smooth again,
The year your eyes still flash like two great and ancient stars.
At sixteen, I always thought, I'll cup the world in my hands;
At sixteen, finally someone will love me, finally that star will fall,
Finally, finally, I'll be free.

The world's supposed to end couple months after I turn sixteen.
I guess it won't be able to handle me all grown up like that.
But how the hell did the Mayans know?

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.

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 could not find you in my lonely empire
Of winter’s empty skies, covered in clouds
Nor in summer that singed the sky with fire
Not lost in the depths, not wrapped in death’s shrouds
Where is it you went? Oh where did you flee?
I think you may have taken my heart too.
Why did you run so far away from me?
You left me alone; all I knew was you.
Hoping you'll see me without you, friend,
Realize what you did to all my genius,
In absence I'll come to a horrid end,
How could you let these days come between us?

*In the night your voice whispers love anew
And there is nothing, nothing I can do.

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?