A battered photograph
cannot fully capture
the mossy green of your eyes.
Camouflage is your color,
my dear.

His home is an orphanage
in downtown Belize.
Triple-decker bunk beds
topped with ***** stained mattresses
fill each room.
An abandoned 10 year old
lies paralyzed on the floor;
"Don't touch him. Nobody ever touches him."
A small child covered in sores
sleeps in a puddle of his own *****.

I offer a container of pink Play-dough to a boy
who proceeds to sculpt me
changing the pink to brown
with his ***** hands.
"What is your name?"
"I'm Allen"
He tells me about his dreams of leaving Belize
and becoming a U.S. soldier.
He tells me of how his mother,
a **** addict,
dropped him off at the doorstep when he was 8 years old
and how he remembers
the look of fear and disappointment in her eyes
every time she looked at him
and saw his father looking back.
His favorite color is blue.
Together, we make bracelets with colorful beads,
and as I stand to leave
he hands me a pinkish-brown heart
warm and sweaty
from his ***** hands.
And in return
I hand Allen,
and every child like him,
my own heart
red and ******,
dedicated and passionate,
foolishly and hopefully attempting
to change the world.

We love for however little a time
and grieve a million eternities when love leaves
the door open on its way out.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night
with a poem
burning on the roof of my mouth.
Thoughts unknown to me
pouring onto blank pages
from a spring hidden in the deepest part of myself.
The dark room is silent
except for the scribbling of my pen
and the beat of my heart.

"I am. I am. I am."

F&cking;**
is what I did before you came along
15 minute sessions
between classes
in a ***** dorm room--
hands clawing
lips mashing
hips crushing--
they filled me up
and then left me feeling empty
broken

but you came and picked the pieces up
stitching me back together with your kisses
you showed me you loved me
in the most intimate of ways
hands holding
lips searching
hips grinding
heating your home in the dead of winter
with the steam off our own bodies.

you always had a pull on me;
you were my moon,
and I, your tide

many moonless nights have passed since the moment you decided it was over
the waves cease to crash against the shore

stagnant

the vast, black ocean
waits for someone to wade in
swim around
and make her feel whole
again.

The night you came home
I watched you sleep;
so innocent is your sleeping face.
I can hardly believing that this man
that I love so dearly
could take the life of anyone.

I walk to the kitchen
barefoot,
feeling the sand that has followed you home.
It covers everything
in a fine, gritty film,
a nagging memory
of the horrors you have faced.
The vacuum can't make this
go
away.

When you wake up
I look into your green eyes:
what have you seen
that makes your stare
look like that of an old man, much older than twenty?

Graduation was held in a church--
a short and sweet ceremony
was all that stood between me
and the big world
outside of
the town where everyone knew my name.

Two years later,
I find myself wanting to crawl back in,
like a child climbing into his parent's bed after a bad dream.

After all,
      the
              world
    is                                                                      now
             a
nightmare.

I find that this phrase is most often uttered in a condescending, yet full of pity, tone.
After all, teachers don't make much money
and that's how you win this game of life
right?
This question is always asked after I state my major,
There are so many things I want to say
and show
to the ones who think
teaching English is an obsolete profession.

They've never seen a teenager
construct a poem
so full of power and emotion
that she get a high
no drug can recreate.
A pen replacing needles and blunts,
ink spilling out instead of blood.

They've never heard the stories of students
whose lives were saved by poetry and literature,
a book page
bandaging the wounds
that come when the stone cold world
is thrown at you
over and over again.

They don't comprehend the feeling a teacher has
while watching his students walk the stage
or after,
when the **** hugs the nerd
because they bonded in his English class that year.

English classes remove the masks
children wear
to show the rainbow of colors
bursting through their eyes.

An English classroom is a safe place.

An English teacher is a safe place
to fall;
they will always prop you up with good books
and good advice.

So, to answer your question
Yes.
Yes I want to teach
my students to love
and read
and write
and think
and dream
forever leaving
remnants of my heart
in their open hands.

Today I found one of your socks in my ***** laundry...

I sat on top of the washing machine and cried
mirrors into the palms of my hands

in them,
our entire relationship reflected.

Why do you think the ****'s burned books?
Without books,
there is no humanity,
no mental escape from the agony
brought upon
by soulless
killing machines
in suits.