**** it up,* they'll say
and sit up straight.

But don't you see that we cannot simply do as we are told?

Our generation as a whole is the sweaty gym sock lost between lockers
and the confusion between the zebra being black with white stripes or white with black stripes
and the fine print on the advertisements that reads "for entertainment purposes only"


We, as one, are towered over
underpowered
piled upon with high pressure
and the balloon has to someday burst.

You can be whatever you want to be is the number one statement that the Statue of Liberty cannot hold for her hands are too high and the meaning is written in a frequency too low.
We are are the glass bones that will shatter on wood and there is no carpet or cushion below us and we are tumbling down in what we think we love and what we know we hate.

When the scissors cut crooked, think of us.

We are slammed while we slam and try to create a steady beat which goes stray within the car horns and crow caws.

Small and underestimated.

You're back.

But I'm not really here anymore.

Don't ever fall in love with a poet
because they will indeed admire and watch your every move
they will write about how the pen marks on the side of your palm when you write
don't ever because they will trace
every single freckle you have on your face and
write about the color of each and every one of them and
describe how they smile so brightly under the sunlight
they will want you to want to know every little thing about them
even if it's just what hand they write with and want you
to be wondering why they write with that specific hand when in
reality it doesn't even matter

the poet will watch the way you dig
your eyes onto that book and your small quick remarks onto the 26 letters all crumpled together and will know that everyday at 5:28 p.m. you smile

they will look deeply into your eyes
to see if they can at least take a little
peak of your soul and they will write
about you like if you were the only
thing they see good in this world

they will want to know what you think
about when you look at them and
see if you also count each and
every freckle and hope and write  
that you do but they will
love you endlessly and they will
show you that they love you and only you

but don't date a poet if you aren't
capable to watch them and
admire their imperfections
when they sleep late at night
beside you.

j.f

For each string I pick
there is a woman
with her child
sitting on the sidewalk
telling him a story
of a false reality.

For every dollar she spends
there is a gust of wind
carrying something greater
that just leaves
cradling the secrets
swept away from their owners.

For every rock a child tosses
into the fast-moving river
there is someone
or something
separated from another
but we may never learn
that a note is never the same
and money is hardly earned
and rocks don't float

Upon the stale wind, her body flails again
I came walking through the field
to learn about compassion
She was blonde and the last heart in town
The moon bathed her from within
What a loveless dream from that tree
touching God's skin.

Her feet above my head, painted in mud and above the sugarcane
And if I didn't love her so, I'd be able to walk from this pain
But I recall her warm breath the last time we kissed
The air tasted of a broken soul that I failed to fix

Blood under her nails, scratching freedom too slow
If she was yelling for my name, then I'd rather not know
It might as well been me who hung her above the stars
I did not give her enough of me and it will haunt me for years