If I could rearrange my body,
I'd move my humorous bone to my brain
because, honestly, I'm the last one to get the joke.
The sole of my feet would house my heart
so every step I take, Mother Nature feels my love.
My ears would be close to my hands
so when I reach out, he'll see that I'm listening.
One eye behind my head, the other facing forward,
one looking for stray daggers, the other focused on the future.
I'd move some bones to form a breastplate
because I'm more afraid of what's to come than what happened.
I just wouldn't want to loosen my humanity.

There’s a third space
That’s not quite here
Yet not quite there.
It’s a dark place
With no clear light
Other than the fireflies
That hover close listening,
To our quiet whispers
To our quick mumbling
And to the declarations.
There’s a slight drizzle,
But I don’t mind,
Because your voice is
      My umbrella
      My blanket
      My everything.
Close my eyes, listening
To the muffled backg­round,
It makes me think
I’m there with you.
But not quite there –
In a third         space,
With you beside me.
I don’t hangup first
Because I want to
Listen for your guard
As it falls         away
Some where in         that

                 Third space.

There's something scarier about graduating
Than going to college,
Moving out,
Starting a life,
Studying,
Independence,
Or freedom,
My biggest fear about leaving this place
*Is leaving you behind

Come my fellow hunters, follow me
as I am not likely to return.
Let us begin the journey to hunt him:
                                                      Beauty
Illusive -- have you ever seen such a beast?
Legends of
        Grace and Glamour
                Magnificence and Mesmerizing
yet no eyes have ever met his.
A shadow in the night, a ray in the morning,
dearest Apollo, is that you? Your songs lulls us,
but fairest Venus holds the leash.
He does not hide, this beast, as he stand tall
upon highway billboards and magazines.
Don’t think he’s gone, he’s just evolved,
photoshop to lure us, and then he
        pulls the trigger
                swallows the pills
                           slices the skin --
Beauty has become something lost in translation,
echoing in a past without
        makeup
                surgery
                           dieting.
Come my fellow hunters, follow me
as I am not likely to return.
We must strike him down with truths and
force his eyes on his ignorance.
When he lies, death cooing his sleep,
Leave me the bones
so that I might hang them for all to see.
A new symbol of freedom from chains
held by companies profiting from our pain.
Hunt with me so that one day we can say
                                The Beast is dead.

I wanted to tell you that
this cut on my leg
wasn't a shaving accident.
That the beads of rubies
weren't from clumsy fingers,
but from strong trembling hands.
I thought I'd tell you that
I enjoyed the way it felt,
the idea that I was alive --
that string of scarlet pearls
was proof that I had a heart,
that it still beat --
no matter how faint.
I wanted to wear the red jewels
around my neck
as some sort of prize.
No,
as some kind of evidence
that I
          was
                 not
                       hollow --
                 I'm
         still
here.
Try to wipe them away,
but they only become
one of Van Gogh's strokes --
beautiful.
meaningful.
I am alive.

My mother told me once
To love yourself before you
Love others, because one
Day you'll be all you've got.
Well, what am I supposed to
Do now that she's left me?
She walked away in a fit of
Disgust and shame. I am as
Hollow as the empty beer
Bottles that litter the side of
The highway. If I can not
Trust myself to simply love
Myself -- if I am not capable
Of keeping her…

how could I possibly love you?