You know, if I had a penny for every poem I have read with the theme of
"You don't know what you have until it's gone"
I would be a rich man
It's a shame that it took me seventeen years and a handful of special people
To realize that sometimes clichés are correct

I am not sure if you are aware
But each time you inhale
It is called an inspiration
And each time you exhale
It is called an expiration
So here I sit
Echoing a process that has been perfected throughout the millennia
Except I guess perfected would be a strong word
Because we don't have it right just yet

You were someone who inspired me
To become someone who I could be proud of
Someone whose own stories set my blood on fire
And filled me with hope that I could take the raw elements
Of myself and forge them into something great
Because that is exactly what you did

Just a milkman's son
Who ended up becoming the smartest man I know
Who taught thousands of students
Both privileged and poor
And couldn't tell the difference between the two
Who inspired two generations of people
To learn
To love
To laugh
Whose little gestures meant the world
To everyone who had the fortune to inhabit yours

Your five sons went on to become
Doctors and lawyers
Businessmen and police officers
Even if one wanted to be a clown
You married a beautiful woman
Who walked with love in her heart
And kindness kneaded into her hands
Your grandchildren, while there are a lot of us
Each owe you for the knowledge and kindness you instilled in us
All this from a milkman's son

This poem isn't goodbye
Because each time I draw inspiration from the atmosphere around me
I am thinking of you and I hold that **** breath for as long as I can
Just waiting for inspiration to hit me
I squeeze my eyes closed and hope against hope that everything is going to be okay
Because I am too  scared to let that inspiration go, I am not ready to expire

So grandpa,
Please
For me
Take that breath.

every poem i was afraid
to write ended with
you.

i heard once on the playground that the human heart
is about the size of it's owner's fist;
that day i spent my whole afternoon
gathering handfuls of earth within the
palms of my hands just to see
how much i could hold, as if that could show me
how much i was capable of loving, but dirt
slipped through my fingers when i loosened my
grip, and i was scared that people were the same
(even at eight, i knew that sometimes the only reason
people stayed was because you held them too tight,
and if midnight provided a last-minute flight
they wouldn't hesitate to catch it because holding on
was harder than running away).
later on, i tried to catch people like fish,
reeling them in and then leaving them on a hook
because when i held them at a distance they were
pretty to look at and i could feel their heat, but when i
clutched them close to my chest, underneath my line of
sight, it was much easier for them to
break and hide.  that all changed when i met
you though; i disabled all my traps and
reached out to you with bare fingers, telling myself
if i could hide you between my hands then
maybe you wouldn't mind hiding in my heart.
i started out timid, grasping handfuls of your
shirt and the way your laugh sounded when it was
me that caused it, and sometimes at night
when i pretended you were there with me, i would
reach out for you, but daylight was different
and i've always had small hands

(i realized it was never about taking your heart when you
reached for my hand and held it like it was your favourite secret
you couldn't keep any longer; it was about letting you have mine)

Reading The Truth About Forever on
the beach today.
I noticed that maybe nobody even
looked my way.

I thought back to the book and about what
it all meant and about the end.
I thought back to the characters mom
and to how she hated her daughters friend.

The book is a lot like my life
I can't have my best friend
and it's because my mom judges before she
reads till the very end.

she used to be okay.
always a smile on her face and
she talked with a sweet voice,
which is something i don't want to under state,
and she never really cared that she was
40 pounds overweight.

but now as she lays on the beach
and no boys and no girls look her way
she feels invisible, even while she dreams of
being able to tell her parents that she
might be gay.

her parents talk about her figure
and how she'll never compare to how her
sister looked when she was her age.
thin, toned legs and a stomach with abs.
after all, who wants to date a girl
with flabs?

she has a blog dedicated to the thin girls
who make her feel so bad,
it makes her feel less,
it makes her feel sad.

if only she counted calories and
if only she could fit in that size two,
maybe she's be the perfect daughter that
her parents wish they knew.

but even as she drinks a sprite and
takes all her bites in spite she knows that
if she was skinny then
everything would be alright.

all she needs a push and a pro ana friend and
maybe she can be the perfect daughter
again. She can't like girls and she
must skip dinner, by the end of the year her
bones and boyfriend will
show that she is a winner.

-r.a.

i can't break fear
when it's being
built into
me