I open the news
and expect to see a shooting
the fact is I am more shocked when we go a day without one
maybe I am desensitized to the violence surrounding me
It seems normal
to be suspicious every time a boy reaches
into his backpack in my classroom
I have worked out a game plan in case he does
what I’ve always expected him to do
I know all the exits
If he does it at lunch
I know where I’ll hide
There is a seizing fear inside me
when the band plays their drums
unexpectedly
when a car backfires on the street outside
I get dizzy with terror
slamming doors
have this same effect
I am ready to shelter in place
at any provocation
I have chosen
the five people I would save
over and over again in my head
sometimes not even including myself
and yet
my father says guns
are not an issue in this country
maybe if he saw the battleground of this new war
or if he knew
it was where he sent his child
every day to learn
he would feel differently
I look forward to summer
not because of the break from learning
but because I no longer have to worry
“Will today be the day
  My school finally makes the headlines?”

"I knew a girl
who spoke like ink flowed
so my ink flowed through her
and everything I wrote was in her voice.
      Her dress moved as fluidly as her laugh
            like waves in the ocean
                            Her name sounded
          like everything I had ever thought
But what was it
                  what was it?"

Venus
Mars
and all the stars try to define my worth
I am not in alignment with a line
or a planet
no symbol accurately sticks to me
so I create my own
like I created my name
but I do not answer to it
My heart burns and drips
with ink and tar
and I tell myself that I am stuck
with their freedom
to submit or conform
to their standards or else
face the consequences
I am more than just stardust and recycled water
but I know that my blood is not my own
and the tears that I cry once belonged to someone else
I am made up of pieces that aren’t all the same
but they fit
I am a recycled coagulation of dreams and flesh
held together by the limits and bounds of the universe
bursting at the seams with thoughts and possibilities
inaccuracies and hypocrisy
and so still I wonder
what I am

You told me you were suicidal
and I wanted to tell you how much it hurt to be a person
how my skin and bones ached to part of infinity a never ending spiral of never again having to say
“I’m sorry”
after coming out
You told me you were suicidal
and I wanted to tell you I wasn’t qualified to give advice on the matter of life and death
I have seen too many bare mattresses to understand
what home really is
am I just an ever changing notion of how a problem student might look like
some futuristic idea of the changing tides
being pushed and tormented by the moon
no I am not qualified to tell you to keep living
You told me you were suicidal
and I remembered the page in my ninth grade diary saying the same
followed by the words
“I don’t know what my name is,
not the one they gave me,
but the one I’m going to give myself
The one they won’t put on my grave,
but the one I’ll put on my heart,
the one God will call me in heaven
and the one mom will deny I have.
I don’t know our name,
and I think I want to die.”
You told me you were suicidal
and I typed and retyped messages,
playing in my head the ways you had already left
and didn’t want to make this one about me,so  I said
“Call a hotline”.
You told me you were suicidal
and my bones ached remembering the pain of what it is to be a person.

On failures I rejoice
      pockmarks on the skin that is my being
Beautiful reminders of my own mortality
     A slave to the Romans spoke:
         "You are not a god"
Failures to me speak the same
          I am not a god
I am above no one
         To failures I owe humility
To failures I owe will
To failures I owe life
                    Because without them
I might be everlasting

Onto the dark horizon it falls
It enters your ears
        It enters your soul
  It enters your mind
               It    controls     you
It leaves you breathless
                      incapacitated,
overjoyed,
           angry,
     sad,
                  not alone,
not yet,
                  but wait
it will
                   but wait
                            one more
                                         day
                                             week
                                                 month
                                                        year
                                                            lifetime
  and you'll be gone

If I ask you what to write about
            Don’t take it lightly
Don’t laugh and say something clichéd
Don’t say, “I don’t know”
I know you know
         That’s why I asked you
If I write about you
                Don’t take it lightly
I love you enough to let you be a part of my being
    You’re something very interesting
Don’t blush, don’t be embarrassed
         Don’t thank me,
Thank yourself, for being the way you are
Good or bad, you inspired me
      And if I don’t write about you
If a single word never leaves my pen with the thought you behind it
    I’m sorry

My dad has started speaking the tongue of the mentally ill
he is living the life of a man I don’t recognize
I am afraid of my own father
I am afraid he will **** me and my mother when my brother leaves
I miss the man who used to live in his body
but I know he is dead
because my father smells like death
he can’t take care of himself
I am so worried
for all of us
for him
I love my father
now and for what he used to be
but I don’t like him anymore
not for what he’s turned my family into
not for the disease I think he gave me
I don’t think my parents love each other any more
but I am afraid of our our safety if my mom tries to leave
I just want my family to be happy again
but I don’t think we can
not like this.
I miss the way we used to be
and watching my parents be an example for what love should be
I miss wanting my friends to come to my house
I miss feeling safe
I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish with this
I don’t think anyone will really read it
but I don’t have any other way of getting this out
I just want it to be okay again
but I know it won’t ever be
at least not the same okay it used to be
but most of all I am afraid
that I will turn into the man my father became

You are more than numbers
You are so much more than numbers
Numbers are insignificant
And only pertain to algorithms that predict unfortunate things
Like death
And I’m sorry I forgot your birthday
But it’s just numbers and numbers aren't important to me
I remembered your favorite color
Blue
Because it is the color that describes that clichéd, shallow melancholy
Authors often glorify to make petty things seem magical
But blue is something you should never feel because you go so much deeper than that pettty feeling
And I know your favorite flower is the sweet pea
Because I remember that it symbolizes the shyness I’ve never felt around you
And the shyness I’ve never seen you exhibit
And I’m sorry I’m so quiet
It’s only because I want to tell you how beautiful you are
But I know I’ll never be able to find just the right words to tell you
That you’re imperfections perfected
And I love all the things you say you hate about yourself
And I love the way words sound on your lips
And how you throw your head forward when you laugh
And you’re all the poems I've ever written
Even the sad ones
Because you’re all the feelings I've ever felt
And I love the way your hand feels in mine
And I’m sorry I forgot your birthday
But I promise I always will
Because I have more important things to remember about you
Than numbers

Without you I am
Like the trees in the winter
Completely barren

I don't say much
  I don't want to
I never have much to say
     I don't want to ruin the sanctity of words
                   by speaking them out loud
I don't want to lose my words forever in the air
                   I write my words down
   so I can blanket myself in them
                                    when I get cold
so I can be with them
                       when I get lonely
Only spoken when there is meaning behind them,
                                    words are too beautiful to be wasted

When God made you he must have been writing a sonnet
because you are a poem
You are a masterpiece
and sweetheart don't cry
you'll make the paint bleed
your colors will run
and your face is too beautiful to be distorted by sadness
and dear you are a poem I have yet to write
because you are a feeling I've yet to feel
and I'd like to feel your body against mine
And I'd like to feel the way you speak
and I've read four dictionaries and have yet to find a word that describes
the beauty that surrounds you
It's not perfect
I've tried perfect
but your beauty is something that will never be porcelain
it is the beauty that comes from being dragged face first through the mud
it is a beauty that comes with scars
but don't hide them
because I'll count them like the stars
and tell you God made each one
like an eraser mark
trying to take out the parts of you He thought the Devil created
and you are a song
I'd like to sing
because when you swear
it is honey off your lips
but when I swear it is like spitting sand
and I know bad poetry will get me *******
but for the ones that matter you have to bleed onto the pages
so take this ink as my blood
and revere it like communion wine
but never get drunk on my love
because I never want to see you suffer the hangover
and take my words like bread
but eat more than just my thoughts
because I want you to live,
I love you