When you say racism doesn't exist, you are saying one of the most detrimental things you can say in our society. You are saying I know better. You are saying that it is okay. The things that you have experienced and the pain that you have felt is okay. Because I don't think it's real. I don't trust your experiences. I don't believe that you know more about what it is like to be you than I do. I don't care what history has to say. I don't care what you have to say. I don't trust you so your words don't matter to me. I don't trust you so your pictures, videos, interviews don't matter to me. When you say racism doesn't exist... What you're really saying is, "I still can't hear you."

And what then won't a person do to be heard?

must love rainy days
adventure
pumpkin carving
and unexpected kisses

must be tolerant
of jimmy stewart
and bob dylan
the other men in my life

no height
weight
or hair color requirement
but big hearted weirdos
who smile for no reason
are always welcome

no
racist
sexist
homophobic persons
or those who say baby
as a term
of endearment

i like my coffee bitter
and my men sweet
never
the other way around

lopsided grins and kind eyes can get you everywhere

if similar in tempermant style or appearance to
the doctor
david bowie
mickey mouse
or jesus
please contact immediately

must be accepting of
raucous laughter
black and white films
cold feet
and occasional insomnia

i am always late
rarely refined
and have almost no perception
of the volume of my own voice

in junior high i asked a girl to stop picking on another child

she told me to go fly a kite

it was not until much later that i realized she was insulting me
not offering ideas
for an enjoyable way
to spend the afternoon

my hair is an untamable beast
but when fashioned properly
can be wrapped about my face
to create a rather fetching beard

i enjoy being scared
and am not easily so
unless you are a bug

i talk in my sleep
never know what day it is
and cry while reading good books

i just want
to hold your hand
in a crowded theatre
while we wait for the scene
at the end of the credits

and to be able to tell you
i love you

The streets are paved with garbage
and the air is thick with smog.
In a world of repetition,
ring my bell, I'm Pavlov's dog.

The beggars have no hands,
and the soldiers cannot see.
A flag hangs in my prison cell,
in the land of the free.

The children never cry out
and their footsteps never fall.
'Cause we define what's called a life,
and some are just too small.

Politicians map our future
in their picture perfect plan;
a world corrupt by power,
which in turn corrupts the man.

Our morals are immoral,
and our values have no worth.
It's nature versus nurture,
but we've known to lie since birth.

We're taught to love our neighbors,
but in turn neglect our own:
And so our "huddled masses",
huddle desperately alone.

We're serving in the kitchens,
while they're starving in the streets,
somewhere amidst the chaos formed
where sick and striving meets.

Leaders shout, "We have no money!",
from atop their golden hill.
While we, the workers down below,
just spin the workers' wheel.

Our rights are plainly written,
but we don't know how to read;
and so our every breath's abused
by those who choose to lead.

We're warned of other cultures
from our hole deep in the ground,
but if we stood up eye to eye
acceptance might be found.

They said that times were a-changing,
they say that times have CHANGEd.
Yet, still I see the bold outline
of social class arranged.

No hourglass turned sideways.
Time will not reach a halt,
but if we leave this world unchanged
it will be all our fault.

Instead, let's use our actions
like ripples in the sea
to build a world far better than
the one we've seen it be.

Where conflicting strength forms sadness
there I find my inner child,
as the myth gives way to madness
and I find myself reviled.
If the truth is just a mystery
and the lies are bare and plain
then the fiction of our history
slowly drives us all insane.
Now the small hands form hereafter
and the politicians sleep,
there is silence in their laughter
while the rest of us just weep.
Bombs **** strangers and **** brothers
but WAR never brings us peace.
Born as fighters not as lovers,
now the bloodshed will not cease.
I see hunger in their dark eyes.
I know disease fills their veins.
Form a superficial disguise
act like you don't see their pains.
Teachers decide what we all think;
Preachers teach but what they know.
We are chains that can't form a link
and this life is but a show.
Breathing air from under water
drinking clouds of acid rain,
Earth is mother nature's daughter
and humanity its stain.
Here a dollar buys existence
but mankind is still too cheap,
so no one offers their assistance
and of faith there is no leap.
Never trusting, always searching,
wanting more but not enough:
In the darkness evil lurching
but all goodness we rebuff.
Then this life crawls into evening,
we lie in waiting for the morn'
for as daylight comes we're leaving,
but with death new life is born.

I'm a little bit terrified that I'm
A real life
Manic pixie dream girl.

What if I only exist
To help others
Find their place in this world?

What if I'm doomed
To float in and out
Of depressive episodes?

Never having actually
Done much of anything.
A depthless side character

In my own life.

Five years, one month, and five days.

I don't even recognize myself anymore.

What did you do to me!?

And where is the rest of me...?

I'm too young
to be this sick
of my own company.

The first time you said it, it was raining.
I'd just taken my final, and had that sick, certain feeling that I'd failed it.
We were standing by your car and somewhere in the
midst of my rant about unfair grading practices,
and sexist Psych professors...
You. Just.  Said it.

And all I could think was,
I wonder when grades will be posted?

The next time, we were sitting on my couch.
We had just finished dinner and were watching some old movie.
I remember Jimmy Stewart's voice distinctly,
So I know I picked the movie.
You were tickling me, and right in that moment when I lose all control
and give in to the giggles...
You said it again, mostly to yourself, but I heard.

And all I could think was,
I wonder if Jimmy Stewart was ticklish?

The last time, we were eating Italian.
I had gotten marinara sauce on my favorite blue dress,
and as I was trying to get it out, I spilled my water everywhere.
You just laughed that booming laugh of yours,
and then your eyes got dark, serious.
You took my hands in yours and watching my face closely,
you said it again.

And all I could think was,
I wonder if lemon juice will lift this stain?

The only time I said it, was on a Thursday.
Lunch had just ended and we were standing by the swings.
It was really windy so you pushed my hair out of my face.
That's when I almost said it,
but you started to speak.
I just smiled.

My smile must have hurt you,
because you looked away when you told me we wanted different things.
And I didn't say anything.
Instead, I watched you walk back towards the white brick building.
When you were almost there, you paused and started to turn back to me...
then stopped yourself and went inside.

And in that moment, when you were safely out of my reach,
I said it.
Because it was all I could feel since the day that we started.

No one ever heard me,
*but I love you, too.

There was this movie.
It was really popular when I was a kid.
I remember this baby-faced boy, and the old bald guy.
The one from the 90's.
Well he was dead, but the boy saw him anyway.

I'm like that.

I see dead people too.
Ghosts.
Walking around.
Talking.
Talking to me.
There are all these, shadowy figures.
These outlines.
Of people that I knew.

There's one.. he's blonde.. and he's high.
His hair is twisted and wild and he surfs, on snow.
He tells me stories that I remember, but the endings are all different now.
He's different.
Just a shadow.

I loved him.

But now I see right through him.
He shimmers and disappears.
All the while,
so certain,
that he's alive.

This twisting writhing maze
of innocence in confusion
distorted by the hands of time
stripped of all emotion.
The hands that beg for life
hold guns, and knives, and weapons.
This world that's breaking day by day
through the arrogance of actions.
Eternity hangs by a thread
and it's breaking from the ignorance,
while the whole world teeters on a scale
that's tipping in the balance.
Nations are starving.
Wars being fought.
Pestilence.
Famine.
Death.
Hatred building and guiding cultures
with every shallow breath.
People are preaching.
People are judging.
People should hang their heads.
Can't we try loving?
Or try accepting?
How many more will go dead??
Difference of color, or beliefs, or thought..
lead to anger and hatred and war.
Nation's are bombing,
people are dying,
but what are we really fighting for?
Where is the love?
Where is the peace?
Where is care for your fellow man?
The whole world is sitting,
no one is moving,
when will someone please take a stand??

There's that saying,
"Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can never hurt me."

It's true.

Cause words, words don't just wound.
A single word can bring utter devastation or long-awaited salvation.
No. Words never hurt. They transform.
They create, they grow.
We are all, after all, just big fleshy piles of words.
We're defined and redefined and undefined until we can't defy what we are.
We are words, searching for words, living on words,
waiting for words, to bring us to words.
Words can be violently beautiful and poignantly painful, and powerful, and poetic,
and pure.

Sticks and stones are toys.
Words are tools,
and tombs;
They get tied together 'til tongues get twisted and truth is torn,
but they can be pulled apart 'til they perfectly portray a point...
And my point is this,
that life is nothing more than words,
*just words well-worn.

When will we learn that no always and unequivocally means no?
When will we learn that he or she or them or it were never asking for it?
When will we learn that we don't get to decide what others feel?
When will we learn that our experience is not all experience?
When will we learn that hate only begets hate?
When will we learn that violence is never the solution?
When will we learn to open our ears and hear?
When will we learn to accept people as individuals and not preconceived ideas?
When will we learn that love is what this world needs?
When will we learn to stop being so complacent?
When will we learn to make our own decisions?
When will we learn to speak our minds in wisdom, to bring peace?
When will we learn that we are not all knowing?
When will we learn,
What will it take for us to learn,
That we have so much left to learn?

The Circle Spins as the years diminish and I evolve from child, to youth, to adult....
Deep forest that once held the the new seedling of spring... has now lost it's leaves, and seen many a harsh winter..
Waves hit the beach slowly wearing away what is left of the sand castle of childhood... shrinking back into the sea... becoming a part of a new body altogether
memory fades like a sunset on a warm summer evening... disappearing into the horizon... before it's gone altogether...
Love remains... stronger and more forgiving with every rising moon... a gentle kiss a warm embrace... Truth.. Trust.. never dieing only reaching forever towards higher heights
Unfailing faith... in family.. in friendship.. in FOREVER... as a dog panting at his master's feet... a type of never ceasing reverance and adoration...
Eternity that lasts only a moment... and yet has always been and will always be...
I play but a small part in this spinning wheel... perhaps not even time itself shall look back and remember me
but death forever stands in a not so distant corner beckoning to me with it's long inviting hands... welcoming so that i may recieve my fate
A constant... and yet time remains... and what is time... but forever a moment lost...perhaps tomorrow is nothing more than a yesterday of the future
and yet we walk through the deep forest.. we play on gentle beaches... we watch the setting sun... we continue to spin the infinite wheel...we love.. and we live
if for no other reason.. then because... WE CAN...

Something has happened.
I have changed.
This happens to all of us.
But I'm scared.

I'm scared because I think
that at some point
I lost something.
Something of myself.
Something I can never get back.

And what really scares me.

Is that with every passing day.

I remember less and less.

What I lost.

When I met you, you were standing/leaning/being awkwardly there,
in the corner of the room.
Not quite invisible, but you didn't really stand out either.
You just sort of... were.
And I noticed.

I noticed because there was something unmistakable in your, you-ness.
Something that did not fit with your ironic tee-shirt and dark mop of hair.
One thing that stood out from your quiet still frame.
But it wasn't the way you seemed knowingly amused by the goings-on around you.
And it wasn't the way you shifted your weight so subtly but still animated, almost like you weren't real.
It wasn't even that quick smile that split your face in two when your gaze met mine.

No, more then all of that, what caught me off guard was your deceptively blue eyes.

I'm sorry,
because when we first met I was completely and altogether taken with you.
You had this quirky charm that made me feel comfortable,
made me feel safe.
No matter what was going on,
you just seemed not to care and I took your indifference as a kind of
cold confidence.
And I won't lie,
I liked it.

In groups you shifted between being the center of attention
and having literally nothing to say.
Your social bipolarity
sometimes
led to late night blarings
of Katy Perry.
(I'm vaguely ashamed to admit that
I would dance like a loon, through my old house
and lip sync furiously
at the idea of your Hot and Coldness.)

I'm sorry
because of that one night.
That night when you made some joke
about how we were such good friends.
And I broke down crying and told you absolutely everything.
About how I had liked you,
for so long,
and other foolish things I should've kept to myself.

I'm sorry
because it turns out you felt the same way.
Feel the same way.
Feel that way.
And something happened.
And time passed.
And things changed.
Well, for me they changed.

I'm sorry
because I haven't told you.
I don't know how to tell you.

How do I say it is not you I care for in that way,
but the idea I had of you.
How do I say it,
when I only just admitted to myself,
that this time,
my idea was wrong.

I'm sorry
I was wrong.

The years they pass and fade down into notHing
but mEmories still *Linger everywhere
I always knew my liFe was meant for something
and every step i guess has brought me hEre

the mysterY was never in times coming
the misery was never in times gOne
bUt Hope and ache and joy and pAin and loVing
brought faith and failurE and the strength to carry on

cause life is not soMe road that we're all walking
it's dAys and hours and momenTs spenT with you
and whEn the liaRs and deceivers S**** their talking
i can tell what's false from what is true

theY say each day's a gift thOUgh none are perfect
like broken toys reWrapped so carefully
stILl every Loss and victory was worth it
and every Scar's becomE a part of m*E

I never sought the simple.
Instead I chased the wild, winding uncertain path of youth.
Never wanting to reach the point where my well beaten, beatnik path
merged with the absoluteness of adulthood.
I mean where's the poetry in that?
There is something of strife that gives birth to beauty.
And so I lingered in the languish that is fumbling forward
with only the hope that nothing much will happen.
But the clock has conceded that the past has passed,
that the now never lasts and that the future has been forming
with a sort of quiet quickness that has slowly snuck up on me.
Without my conscious consent life has been lived,
and as I failed to flee it a new phase has found me.

There is beauty.
And the world in which we live is obsessed with finding it, framing it, exposing and overexposing it.
We crave it.
Because it is the very essence of what we are.
Broken up, crumbled pieces of beauty.
Not quite sparkling like diamonds,

Because we have lost our light.
Hiding in the dark we fade in and out between what we were made for and all that we are afraid of.
We hide from our own beauty.
Scared to fully expose ourselves.
Scared to shine.
But sometimes the strobe lights hit and for a moment we're covered in sequins.

At some point we decided that we were not beautiful.
In that moment we settled for less than radiant.
And since then we can't quite justify that decision.
So we look for the beauty all around us.
We drink down and drown in the ideas of what we think it is or it might be.

We want to know it and touch it and hold it,
And so we pull at one another, grasping at the beauty we see in others.
Trying to make it our own.
But it isn't.


Never settle for someone else's beauty.
Step into the light and know your own.

None of this
matters as much
as a quiet smile
or a gentle touch.

I was scrolling through Facebook,
At five o'clock in the morning.
Another sleepless night.
But not because of you.
I want to be perfectly clear, my lack of sleep has nothing to do with you.
I don't ever even think of you anymore.
But then there you were.
In a picture.
A friend of a friend, and you.
And everything in me sunk.
You looked happy.
And some small part of me...
That awful little part that reminds me that even when our love was "our" love, it was still selfish and imperfect.
That part of me hated seeing you that way.
Cause even though no part of me wants you anymore.
That small part of me still doesn't want you to be happy,
Without me.

I thought I knew him.
I thought I loved him.
But I was wrong.
And he was wrong for me.

Somedays,
it's like you were
never even here.

I walk, talk, and
live my life
like you were never
a part of it.

Or...
more accurately...
the biggest part.

But
other days
I feel I may be crushed
under the weight
of your absence.

I don't remember the last time someone told me the truth before their lies had already damaged me irreparably.

doesn't mean I should.

I was finally okay.
I had severed every single inch of me that was still tethered across time and space to you. Wherever you are.

I had simply parted ways with those pieces of myself, and I finally felt light and free. And I had become so accustomed to the pain from those still healing wounds that I didn't even notice them anymore.

Then it happened.
It's not exactly that I was looking.
I wasn't.
Not at all.
I guess it found me.
I'd call it fate or serendipity.
But those words are too pretty for how I feel.

You look good.
You look happy.
It shouldn't hurt.
But it does.

If I had known then how I'd feel today,
I would have never met you on the beach under the full moon
to hear you cry and see your heart laid bare.

If I had known then how I'd feel today,
I would have never let you pull me onto that roof
to look at the stars. Just us and God and waves.

If I had known then how I'd feel today,
I would have never spent those days laughing and playing
and whispering about what the future might be.

If I had known then how I'd feel today,
I would have met you and just walked away.
Those moments wouldn't have happened.
Our stories wouldn't have intertwined.
And there would have been a little less love in the world.

So it's a good thing that I didn't know then, how I feel today.

i never grew up in the house on the corner with my mother and her boyfriend, walking to the bus stop in hand-me-downs and old socks. So I don't know what it's like to be stared at in school by blonde girls with tiny waists and high voices, who whisper and giggle when I walk by. The school didn't give me my lunch for free, because my mother didn't work two jobs to barely scrape by. Our car didn't break down every time we drove it, so I have no idea what it's like to hitch hike or walk miles in the pouring rain, with nothing on but a faded hello kitty shirt and jeans that were so big and so wet that they fell down when I walked. I have never seen a birthday or Christmas where I didn't get everything I wanted and more. My father never left my mother right before I was born and then disappear from my life for twenty years. I never worried about where dinner would come from, or my mother's deteriorating health. I didn't get a job when I was still too young, because my family didn't need the money. I never lost a nights sleep from being overworked and over exhausted. I didn't worry about doing well in school, cause my family could pay for college. I never worried about much of anything. My life is perfect. Isn't it?

When it must be said,
but you can't find the words,
know I understand.

its darker than I thought it would be now
that always seems to happen in winter
I forget what it's like
for the days to grow so short
and the nights to grow so cold
it happens every year
but I never remember

there's some kind of grace in that
our ability to forget
just how dark
the world
can be

Perhaps
In life
There are no
Satisfying
endings.
Only
Definitive ones.

I asked you to tell me the truth.

Instead you gave me a beautiful lie.

Now I'm wondering why truth is so important anyway.

Too much time has passed for me to go back to the person that I was.

But not enough to become the person that I will be.

I seem to be stuck somewhere, forever between the two.

When I was with you, you made me feel hollow.
Now, I don't feel anything.

I've fallen in love with so many ideas in my life,
but so far only one person.
I wonder if you were just all of those beautiful ideas
made flesh.

It is entirely possible that I am a cliche.
But then again, I suppose it's entirely possible we all are. WE act like we're fine. Like we understand. We move forward when every part of ourselves wants to stand still and scream. WHO AM I? I thought I'd know by now. I thought I would see her, in a mirror one day and I'd know. But I don't. there are more wrinkles now. The signs of worry and uncertainty mark my skin. But I still don't know anything..

you fell in love
over all those cups of coffee
that you made me pour
but you never drank

I fell in love
when you chose that song
on the jukebox
cause you'd heard me hummin' it

we fell in love
when you stayed till close
knowin' the street lamp was out
so you could walk me to my bus

we stayed in love
when the world got so loud and big
cause even in the dinner rush
I can hear you say more, please