Dreamers, wake up
For your time has come
You have spent countless nights and endless days tossing and turning in your bed of clouds sketching each thought into three dimensional designs, formulating each idea, weaving each detail perfectly together.
Dreamers, let your visions come alive and let them dance for the people who are not even given a pillow
For the people who are silenced
For the people who amendments do not defend
For the people who need you

Though some of you may not know you’ve been sleeping,
I see it

And I don’t see it in your test scores or your gpa or how often you do your homework
Or Facebook or eyeliner
Not in the promises you’ve made or the promises you’ve broken
I don’t see it in what kind of clothing you wear
I don’t see it in the color of your skin or the color of your hair,
I don’t see it in what rests between your thighs or who lies in your bed at night

I see it in the tear ducts of your eyes
And the way they dampen each time a child dies
I see it in your breath
And in your lips whenever you apologize
I see it in your trembling fingers and the goose bumps on your arms and legs

I see it in the way that you tell me you’re not
Because even the greatest of dreamers fought the greatest self-doubt
But fear not, dear dreamers


For each of you are symphonies still unsung,
Epic novels still unwritten
Algebra equations yet to be solved
Scientists are locked up in labs just begging to catch one glimpse at the way your brain pulsates
You are history textbooks in the making

But I’ve studied history through and through
And the one thing I’ve learned that remains to be true
Is that the dreamers are rarely ever spoken to
So speak every time you stand
For the way your voice shakes, the way it whimpers, the way it breaks
Is the one thing that the world can never ever take.
For as long as your lungs breathe,
And as long as your heart aches,
There are whispers to be spoken
And silences to break.

But the rest of us, have no hope, if the dreamers never wake.

So, dreamers wake now or forever hold your peace.
For there are bleeding nations crawling outside your front door step
And they’ve got no use for a snooze button.

Save your words, hold your breath, silence your swears
Thieves are upon us, stealing our prayers
No matter who, what, where, when, why
It's all the same, they don't care
Nothing is safe
No belief, creed, or faith
From liars, bigots, and sexists who use the bible to discriminate
Don't tell me you worship love when all you do is preach hate.
They repress our own nature saying it's "for God's sake"
Restricting each freedom, even just to fornicate
Saying love's only purpose is purely to procreate
But a man's love is only true if that man love's straight
Calling cancer, AIDS, and other heartbreak simply a blessing sent from fate
Man, that's some **** in which I will not partake.
Because we're all sinners deep down to the bone.
Though that's something you won't see written in stone.
The path of acceptance is the only one leading home.
Because we're all a part of the human condition
We all break when push comes to shove
We're all lost, searching for an answer
But I found the answer
and the answer
is to love

Save your words, hold your breath, silence your swears
Thieves are upon us, stealing our prayers
No matter who, what, where, when, why
It's all the same, they don't care
Nothing is safe
No belief, creed, or faith
From liars, bigots, and sexists who use the bible to discriminate
Don't tell me you worship love when all you do is preach hate.
They repress our own nature saying it's "for God's sake"
Restricting each freedom, even just to fornicate
Saying love's only purpose is purely to procreate
But a man's love is only true if that man love's straight
Calling cancer, AIDS, and other heartbreak simply a blessing sent from fate
Man, that's some **** in which I will not partake.
Because we're all sinners deep down to the bone.
Though that's something you won't see written in stone.
The path of acceptance is the only one leading home.
Because we're all a part of the human condition
We all break when push comes to shove
We're all lost, searching for an answer
But I found the answer
and the answer
is to love

I know you want three
words from me. But I've got four:
thank you and sorry.

Yesterday, while waiting for a bus on the corner of Newbury Street
I found God.
She carried a burlap sack over her shoulder a map of the world in her right hand and a bottle of whiskey in her left.
She asks me where I’m headed and I tell her I’m running.
She tells me she is too
She says: “ It all started when I was a kid, I held the solar system in my palm and took the colors from the palette of galaxies and finger painted the Earth.”
I took something that was nothing and made it everything.
And every day since, this world has thinned me.
Asking too much out of something too little.
I fear the darkness that was created from the light I produced.
Some days, all my body can do is act like the Earth and tremble.
And in the deepest hour, my heart grew heavier than the sky that watches us all so I let it go.
I let the pain rain down like morning dew getting caught on people’s cheekbones.

I want to purify the air and our oxygen of all that is unjust in every atom.  
When I look into your eyes I see bigots,
I see sexists,
And killers
And I want to want to rid our days of the night but I can’t.
So instead, I hit children.
May they stay forever full of laughter and light
Of pigtails and play-doh and gummy worms and popsicle sticks.
white dresses and untied shoelaces.
In a world where guns double for dignity
Where love is a receipt
Where self-worth is measured by grade point average.
Dare not the dark fault their fair eyes.
Dare their souls not fall victim to the tainted being that is our sleepless nights and alleviated anguish.
When I look into your eyes, I see hate. But when I look through them, a see a child.
And so I lose myself on the bench of a bus stop on the corner of Newbury street.
Watching the world tumble down like a toddler learning to climb a staircase.
In my absence, the polluted cloud that makes its bed on our sky dissipates among the rain storms.
Should you run, you steal light from this fading life.

And I say to her
Show me how to be the bravery I ever so seldom see in the world.
I wanna lift bridges with poems
And I wanna lift poems out of my warm breath.

And she tells me

What rocky roads you have in front of you.
What hands you have yet to hold.
But I’ll tell you one thing
You’re already something
And something’s better than nothing
And that is everything.

My father tucked me in
               and kissed me every night
My father stood up to my closet
               to banish any fright
My father’s voice boomed with pride
               As he sang me lullabies
My father made my coin disappear
              Right before my eyes
My father told me I was perfect
              And beautiful in every way
My father taught me how to throw a ball
              And read to me every day
My father kissed me that night he left
             And said to keep my smile large
My father tilted his helmet back
             And left dressed in camouflage
My father told me he’d be back
             To kiss me again in time
My father is an honest man
            But that will always be a lie
For the night that ended his
          Was the night that changed my life
All of the grief and misery
           Could not erase the fact I know
It might be unfair to think
But my father’s killer
            Is another daughter’s hero