The willow branches limply tossed about
Dangle like a hang man’s noose
The frost tipped grass threatens you
Just so they can hear a crunch
The dark infinity of the sky
Seemed endless with broken,
Stained letters lying beside me
Noisily trying to escape gravity’s prison

I hate how every must be
By the book,
Between A and B,
Real,
As a kid I used to
Read that book
Walk on that faint line
Believe in reality

I loved it
It trickled into my body like water
Settling into my skin
I soon learned that nobody
Reads the book
Or connects the dots
Or really believes
At least not forever

So I let those letters
Free
To be dragged away
Into an endless sky

Anywhere.

Up,

unknowingly melting in with the blue,
filling baskets full of clouds.
Gather stars with my dream catcher,
drift with the passing feathers in the zephyr.

Down,
into my own little piece of Earth,
perhaps muffling the sound of
the city I long for,
hating with every passing second.
Feeling crushed in the safest way imaginable.

Away,
I feel smothered,
everyone cramming things
down my throat,
when I come back for more
you tell me no.

All I can see is wanderlust.

If you look a little closer

On the sandy beach covered with shells
A group of teens are bashing gays
One kid goes as far as to say that
He’d **** the first queer he meets
After a while a tall blond, muscular guy asks
“Do you think I’m strong?”
The others are sheep nodding in approval
“Do you think I can get girls?”
Again they agree
“Am I a good friend to all of you?”
He seems to like all of the admiration
Suddenly in the midst of their praise
He states,
“I’m gay.”

If you look a little closer

Out on the peacock blue water
Rests a tiny motorboat
A boy and a girl sit far out on the lake
The boy is yelling at the girl
Leaning over her at the edge of the boat
Between them is a pink cell phone
With a text reading,
“ok, I love you,” from Corey
The boy is calling her a slur of horrible names
She doesn’t get a chance to say it’s her brother
He slaps her across the mouth
The girl isn’t going to stand another minute of it
She pushes back,
Sending him plunging into the peacock blue water

If you look a little closer

There’s a ******* the beach
She’s a little fat
You can see straight pink scars
On her thighs and stomach
She’s with a cute boy
Lying in the sand together
A group of girls park themselves
Within ear shot of the pair
They start commenting on the whale at the beach
When they spot the lines on her body
They talk about attention ******
How insecure they must be
The boy walks by the posse to get a drink
The girls stop him on his way back to ask
Why he’s with “that thing”
The girl holds her breath and covers her stomach with a towel
“Because I love her.”
“Well,” says the lead *****
“You must love everything that’s fat and ugly.”
The boy pauses
“I don’t love any of you.”
He walks back to the girl and kisses her right there.

If you look a little closer*

You might see

The courage to stand up for what’s right
Strength within
That love conquers all.

I dream of flying high,

My wings are so small.

Rain flashes like a glass bottle

Smashing to pieces.

Clouds are so close,

Just out of reach.

My fingers stretch down to

The waters' clouds instead.


Finished fighting,

I'm bolted to the ground.

Everything has to be by the book. I hate that book.

One
By
One
We are a unit
We are given
The freedom
To speak of something better
To live by different mottos
To believe in stories of the past

Often, we must  
Live by this book of rules
A helpful,
Organized book
I despise it
In this book
We are only given
The illusion
That we own ourselves.

As I air out sheets on a summer day,
flowery linens play chase in the breeze.
The weather picks up like a roar from a lion taking stage,
it echoes in the heads of my audience and attempts to pry them from my clothes pin fingers.
All my reds,
yellows, and
browns are blown and battered by fierce winds. 
Inside, a flower is unfurling.
It is deafening.
It is that calm.
I want to be wrapped in a cocoon of fleece blankets.
But the wind is relentless and smells of cold,
of lying in the snow,
of watching flakes drift slowly to the ground,
it smells of winter.

I remember the day I met her
Near the breaths of the ocean
Before she chose mind-altering pleasures
Over everybody’s well-being
Only the tips of the clouds were bathed in light
The sounds of a typical barbeque
Echoed across the water
She smiled, I remember how that was, a gentle smile,
The kind you get when you lie in giraffe high grass
Within the meadow flowers
As the sun’s rays gently caress your face

The last time I saw her smile
It had twisted into a horrible grin,
The kind you get before you sing
“I know something you don’t know…”
She was smiling at something I couldn't see
Can never see
The effects of speed, ecstasy, crack, and *******
Her kids were taken away
My parents almost got custody,
But by then, she was “cured”.

Tell me the windows aren’t really sweating.
Under the hostile glare of the sun,
With the soft breaths of the moon
In the castle perched on top of the gnarly oak tree
At the end of the block
Where children play dress-up and make believe
In borrowed old dresses,
The best stolen Sunday clothes and missing wool socks

Tell me the hunters in helicopters aren’t really chasing jokes across the flats.
What am I falling into?
A darker, dreamier state of mind?
No matter how hard you try to mask it or explain it
With books filled with fairy tales or complicated equations

Tell me what your saying isn’t really true.
I’m not going to believe you anyway