Glide your fingers down the railing
As you make your grand ingression
Meeting the faces you are destined to meet
As they fasten their first impressions

You are one to worry what they think
And wonder how or why
But, know that they have trained themselves
To create facades and alibis

They would be just as scared as you
If they were the ones walking down that stair
So hold your head up high, my dear
As if you did not care

You told me tonight
You were worried about me
Worried that I was depressed
Because you don't think
I'm happy anymore

How would I know?
What is depression?
Even if I knew
I wouldn't admit it
It would make me too sad

If the beauty standard of a thigh gap
Were replaced with the beauty standard
Of a **** gap
Then many more women would feel
Beautiful

I see them pass by
All the exits on the highway that could lead to you
I'm mentally driving myself to your house
At four in the morning
So I can crawl in your bed
And sleep until the sun peaks over the hills

So I can feel your warmth under the covers
And feel you breathing beside me
That way I can tell you when we wake
How proposing to take a break
Broke me

I was sitting on a bench
Once
And was measuring out my life
Day by day
When a happy, friendly, squirrel
Started to hop along my way

He looked me over once
Then twice for good measure
He chewed his chubby cheeks
Then smiled with pleasure

It's simple presence
Calmed my whole being
I breathed out my troubles
Then began again, with a new way of seeing

How would you describe depression
To someone who doesn't know?

Talking to you
Sometimes
Is like screaming
To the wind
Touching mist
In one ear
Past a space
Out the other

I try to speak
Nothing sticks
I am mute
So it seems
Why is this?

I have found
Little things
Poems I wrote
Years ago
Where I found
The same thing

I cry out
To you dear
What response
Do I hear?

My love for you lives at I-95
Right past the exit for Towson
Where we stopped at Lito's for pizza
After we kissed for the first time
I passed I-95 today and didn't remember
Those soft kisses in back seats
Until I saw that pizza shop sign
I could see myself, 13 and blossoming
Holding tightly to your hand
It was like I was standing outside of your dad's car
Looking in at the events that just unfolded
That thirteen year old that won the bet with her friend for having her first kiss
It wasn't why that thirteen year old wanted it though
She just mustered up the courage to move her face close enough
So that the tiniest amount of contact could be made
It was intended to be soft and meaningful, the first of many
But it turned out off-centered and askew
But it was lovely
You, thirteen and dream like, were shocked
Yet intrigued, so you kissed me next time
Then it went back and forth
Alternating kisses, testing the feelings of new connections
Tingling fingers, tapping toes

You were always a grand mystery to me
Just like that ten thousand piece puzzle I had always attempted
Scrambling on the floor
Trying to fit a million jigsaws together
That were from different puzzles

There was one in the corner of the room from a puzzle
Of a few cats sitting in a wheelbarrow
And ones from a dolphin in mid air
Trying to flip through a hoop
As mesmerizing as it was to finger through the pieces
It sure was hell trying to shove them together

But that's just it
We can never shove the pieces of life together
Especially someone else's
It never works out
So perhaps if you let that person be
They'll figure out their own jigsaw
Complete the cats in the wheelbarrow picture
And finally see that dolphin jump through the hoop

Why is it so hard to say the truth?

We say thousand of words a day
But the ones that mean the most tend to be left unsaid
For the fear of hurting others' feelings
I know I am guilty, I am that one

I would hold it in, for years
Before saying what I truly felt
Or meant to say, as to not
Hurt the ones I care about

I want to say it to you
Somehow let what I feel
Just slip out, be acknowledged
Because I don't know how much longer it can be unsaid

The truth is not overrated
Especially when it burdens you
And weighs you down
All because you care too much

But why? Why do I care so much
Probably because I do not wish to disappoint
I simply want to evoke smiles, not frowns
But is a frown worth the truth?

For the truth will set you free

For once, I'm at a loss for words
I can't write eloquence into our anniversary yesterday
Because it was magical in and of itself
You planned me a quiet picnic in the woods, just you and me
Cooking hot dogs on a charcoal grill we didn't know how to use
And eating chicken salad
Going kayaking was a dream, paddling along
On a quiet tributary to a bigger lake, we went back into the woods
We sat in our little floating craft and talked about first kisses and magic
We wondered at how simple acts could have led us apart and how happy we are together
I noticed the calmness of the water and the intricacies of the ripples when I indulged my paddle into the stream
We were out for an hour, just paddling along
Talking, living, laughing, loving together.
Just being together
We eventually made our way back in, an hour car ride away from home
Talking some more, laughing together, enjoying the company
We went back to my place and ate dinner with my family
Shrimp Scampi with salad and bread
Then roasted marshmallows and laughed when they became torches
Nothing is better than marshmallows with the people you love
After that we set up my hammock and just swung there and watched the sun slip below the horizon
Taking in the scenery, we didn't need to talk, because there was nothing more that could have been said
It was magical until my little brother came over to us and asked why we weren't talking and called us boring
But he doesn't understand, not quite yet
Not until he is sitting on a hammock with a girl, and knows there isn't anything to say
It was a beautiful day, wonderful by itself

A little pinch of guilt
A sprinkle of passion
A touch of desire
And a heaping spoonful of desperation
*For good measure

Those who are conceited are like the foamy starch  in a *** of pasta
That rises and billows so proud in its manner, falling over the sides of the pan
But little do they know that they are nothing special later on
They just end up being some disgusting crusty mass that no one wants to find in their gnocchi

Kissing*
Without sensation
Or emotion
Is merely
Skin
touching
*Skin

The days where you just feel okay in yourself are my favorite
Where others don't abraise you like an itchy wool sweater
Where trouble doesn't sit in your stomach like bad pasta
Where you can float along, just being you
Feeling confident that your face is fashioned in just the right way
That your tights are pulled up
That your shirt is pulled down
Those days where you just embrace the fact that others talk
But it doesn't have to define you
I know I have trouble with this
I think we all do
Others talking is a great part of the things that make me unhappy
I think "Well, if only that person wouldn't be talking about me, I would be happier"
But when the truth is, I can choose whether or not to listen
I can choose whether or not to sit with them
Or whether or not I believe something someone else is saying about my life
Because we all know that other people are the experts on all our problems
Fastening their opinions of us based off the exterior of our faces
Well, if there is someone who knows more about me than I know myself
Come, please have me meet them, because I would sure like the answer key to life's book of problems
Because perhaps they play God, too.

When peace sets over
There is no feeling that compares

The tree house, the swings, the memories
You built it, and you need to tear it down
To make way for a new pool deck
But by you tearing it down
You're just reassuring me of the fact
That my childhood has almost past
I remember so many times being up there
Sleeping up there
Doing homework
Swinging
Rolling around in sleeping bags
Laughing and enjoying life
I would rather it not go
I love its presence, always reminding me
That however old I get, there is always magic
There is some place to go and hide
Even if there are bees, I could still go up there and escape
I could sit, all bundled up in my Eskimo snow suit in winter
And witness the stillness of the new fallen snow
I whittled names into its support wood
So it would always remember
I guess I'm being selfish not wanting to share my own piece of childhood
But we all have that thing that we don't want to give up
Even if we outgrow it in a sense
But I will be happy in the sense that another child may climb up on the steps
Look out from the top and imagine they are the top of the world
For all the time that they can

If you be the flower
I am the bee
Drawn to your delightful mystery

Pigeons.*

I

LOVE

Pigeons.

A representation of our love
*Beautiful, soft, pure, and real

I've reheated the same
Cup of coffee five times
This evening

Trying to write something
For myself that accurately
Describes how I experience

Often I am flooded in the ordinary
By the emotion and the density
Of life itself, in all its majesty

And sometimes I am left
Devoid of sentiment
In moments deemed worthy

I get lost in thinking of
The way the future will
Tangle with the present

I find myself stopped in
A memory as well,
A reminder, a fragment of past

The present is a fleeting concept
A paradox, I think
A circle of thought

At what point
Does the future become the present?
And the present become the past?

On opposite sides of a telephone line
Signals from satellites bounce between
The waves of silence that are plopped uneasily
Within our absent minded conversation

I breathe, hoping it is not too loud
A sigh, a release from this purgatory
But any microscopic sound or respiratory
Inspires him to question me

"What are you doing?" he asked halfheartedly
While I lay and watch my wall paint crack
As minutes tick by, sigh after sigh
Of not knowing which words to utter

So I break the silence finally
With a insincere and restless goodnight
Because this is how you end a fight
But I still hung on to silence until the line died

November
Crisp weather
Together
Again

Our sweaters
Blue and maroon
Were you nervious?
I was too.

Fingers inched
Memoried pinched
Heart strings tugged
Surely cinched

There we were
Together again
More than just
Two old friends

Tree limbs bare
Crunching brush
New old growth
Made me blush

From Chicago to Atlanta on the 5:45
I contemplate the fragility of being alive
I sit on the wing with a view of great breadth
While I dream about life and wonder of death

The sun has just set, the moon kisses the sky
And the atmosphere echoes its exhaling sigh
As darkness sets in, the graduation emerges
So I, in the sky, view its majesty in surges

The window is a frame of the moon as a crescent
And I spot a town way down, like a queen to her peasant
There is life, there is motion, there is somewhere to be
There is conflict, there are problems, and then there is me

I snap out of passivity like a casual thought
To locate the flight attendant complementary cart
Since her mobile vending machine is a couple rows down
I return to pensivity and stare at the ground

The tail lights of cars pulse when my true focus starts
As if they were red blood cells exiting the heart
There is a conversation I over hear from 27 E
The girl has dreams of studying alone in Italy

The man has a daughter and he rocks in his seat
They talk like old friends even though they just meet
There are young men in the Navy, and business folks
There is an air of community, peanuts, and hope

As my ears pop constantly and we climb higher
I think of my future and to what I aspire
And I wonder if there's anyone I'll see here again
Close and far away strangers, a view from a plane

In that moment, I wish I had super powers
To be invisible
To fly far away
To run as fast as I could
To shape-shift into something, anything else
To avoid being seen
Because the super power
I need the most
Is the strength to face you

In the silence between what I believed to be real and reality is where you sit
Nestled between hope and illusion, you are there.
Waiting patiently, hoping diligently, you are my own mirage
Sampling the fragrances of fancied flowers and waiting
Always waiting
Your toes dip in pools of uncertainty and you wonder why you are here
Purgatory and respiratory, I can't breathe in this space
This half way between heaven and hell
So right it can't be wrong
But am I really crazy to believe it is all a sham
This illusion of a closing is really an opening
If you stare at it long enough
And think at it hard enough
It might just open
And I used to try to squeeze myself through
Just before it was closed
Because I believed it wouldn't be opened again
Now all my bridges have been burned and there is no going back
Never going back
I feel like some action star, like Arnold Schwarzenegger
Walking away from the scene of an explosion
*No looking back

Today, like many days
My special friend in study hall
Asks me why I am not dating you

He tells me that when we broke up
It broke his heart
Because he loved us being together

So he recently told me
That while he knows
We are with other people

He has been secretly
Or not so secretly
Trying to get us back together

By telling each other
When we are near
In hopes that we will talk

Now, this is extremely embarrassing
Considering I am very awkward around you
And you don't want to see me anyway

But I put up with it
Because I love him
And I know you do too

He told me that he wants us to be together
Because he said he loves me
And he loves you too
Even though you are a "womanizer" who drives a gas guzzler

And he wants the two people
He loves
To love each other

But every time He says this
I have to remind him
That not everything is perfect

Like how he says sometimes Tesla cars catch on fire
Despite their fuel efficiency
And stylish appearance

And even though University of Kentucky
Has an amazing basketball team
They still have 92% coal emissions

My best friend in third grade
Knew I liked this one boy
So we imagined ourselves in twelfth grade
At graduation night, throwing our caps in the air

She dared me to kiss him on the lips at that moment
In the very distant future
To declare my "like" for him after all that time
When we were about to say goodbye forever
Because to a third grader, graduation doesn't seem so final

But thinking about it now
The boy I liked in third grade
Is not the boy I love in twelfth
He wasn't even the boy I liked in fourth

Even several years ago
I imagined that if we never were together
I would find you on that night
Diploma in hand, blushing uncontrollably under my tassel
And kiss you
Tell you that I have loved you for as long as I can remember
And that I will love you until I forget myself entirely
But times changed again like they did in third grade
I am different than I was, but yet love the same

Graduation seemed to always be that time
Now or never, now or never, now or never
That if I were going to do something
Confess something to
Someone I never had the courage to love
It would be on that date
Because the next day
*We would both leave

There's something scarier about graduating
Than going to college,
Moving out,
Starting a life,
Studying,
Independence,
Or freedom,
My biggest fear about leaving this place
*Is leaving you behind

I only see your shoes at first
Then I look up to witness all of you
You overpower me with your presence
Just standing there, waiting

You waited for me at my place
On a bridge on the Susquehanna
That flimsy little bridge
That rocked us to and fro

The bridge started to sway
In the tumultuous winds
I said I was scared
But you did not ever go

You shocked me on that bridge
Our moment on the Susquehanna
Because you held me in that moment
Like you'd never let me go

You looked at me and said
"I just want you to always know..."
On our bridge on the Susquehanna
That rocked us to and fro

But after, you left
Without me knowing what I should know
And now I'm here on the Susquehanna
Trying hard to let you go

It took a picture of you in a fedora
To make me realize
That I don't have any love for you anymore

I was just walking around
Somewhere and saw saw it unintentionally
And you just looked unattractive to me

After struggling with feeling so many things
Disinterest is so freeing
To feel like you looked ugly

To feel something other than
Wanting you
Or being hurt by you
Or feeling inferior
Not good enough to be in your world

Your expression
Your frown
Everything about it

Made me realize
That the unhappiness you really feel
Is reflected outward in your pictures
And that is what made you unattractive

Constricted bronchioles and anxiety had a baby
Within my father's chest
They named her asthma
And it is him she does possess

Coughing fits and nervous breaks
Are not easy scenes to bear
Stomach injections, lung inspections
Soiled clothes and messy hair

Then the coctails come, one by one,
Morphine, Pulmocort, Seroquil
An IV is the quickest fix
But it doesn't always fit the bill

Long inhilations, short exhilations
It increases rapidly
It's full blown now, she has attacked
Asthma, you're a mystery

Why do you posses such a man
That cares for others more?
I guess everyone has their weakness
But other have it worse, I am assured

Just,             
                    Do
        Because      what
You             in               you  
        live         the               want
             with        end
                    your
                          own
                                    **Decisions

Here I stand
Toes tap-tapping on the floor

Waiting for you to emerge
All dressed up, from your bedroom door

At the first glance I get, I catch my breath
You are more handsome than I remember

With your button up, black slacks, and fancy red tie
My heart starts to beat, racing and fevered

When you see me, you smile
And I return the feeling

You grab my hand, pulling me closer
And the sensation leaves me reeling

Thank you so much, my Valentine
For making this day great

Even though we have been together for a while
It felt like our first date

I used to have a family
You know?
Back when I wasn't taken hostage
On your cold, ceramic tile counter top

And I used to eat real food
Did you notice I'm not a dog?
So feeding me mangled up, crushed bits of Purina
Doesn't make my coat shiny

I can remember a time when I felt alive
Instead of sleeping all day
Pretending to be dead
I used to be free

Then one day I was captured and sold into slavery
And you found me at that air-brushed T-shirt stand
In Ocean City
There you decided your life was incomplete without me

It's interesting how once we return to home
We forget about those summer nights
Wearing pucca shell necklaces
When you purchased me because of my superman shell

What is a superman anyway?
He mustn't be so super
If he can't get me far away
Far, far away from here

I'm dating depression
He knocks on my door
Although he smiles for miles
I knows he hides more

Depression just loves me
He's been other places
He takes other forms
Same guy, but new faces

He sneaks up on me
With surprise in his eyes
Claiming he changed who he was
But I know he lies

People change too
Like the leaves in the fall
And as the foliage fades
My lover does call

"Love me like only you do"
"Need me because I need you"
"Protect me from what I can't help"
**"Save me, but from myself"

Did I ever disclose
The exact moment I really found myself
Thinking about you seriously
In the way that the guarded part
Of my heart wouldn't allow me to?

I sat in a crowded room in a new hotel
Quick glances at social media before
The conference started, before the hush
When I scrolled past your face on the screen
Well, more specifically, the top of your head
Looking down, focused intently
On fixing a multi thousand dollar projector
Eager to take on new tasks, very handy, ready to help
And forgetting to sensor my own thoughts
I envisioned you fixing a broken hot water heater
In a starter home for us two
Laughing as you mended trivial things that I broke
Due to my knack for unintentionally destroying
Whatever comes in contact with my hands
But I saw you there with me, in the not-so-distant future
I saw us together, happy, very much in love,
And I thought "Wow, I could marry that man,  I want to"

Then I caught myself
My guarded heart kicked my wandering mind
In the seat of its pants as I teared up and reminded myself
Not to get too attached, not to be too trusting
Not to dream of it, for it won't happen anyway
The part of me that has learned that it is better
To be closed and prudent
Rather than to open my heart up
With the possibility of it shattering

But as I've spent more time with you
Seen your exposed heart and held your hand
Shared mine, showed mine, let you hold mine
I've realized that if I don't open up to the chance
Of having you hurt me
I would never get to experience the sweetness
Of truly loving you with my whole heart

*Perhaps you have been fixing the thing
That needed fixed most of all

And now she's your whole life?
And now she's your whole world?
I just can't believe the way you suddenly feel about her

Perhaps you should have been willing to change
Before she left
Maybe she would have felt more loved
If you would have shut off your play station
Put down your phone
(That was filled with other girls' pictures)
And sat down next to her
Looked in her blue eyes, that run in our family
And say "I love you, and I will do anything to make you happy"

But, of course, unromantic love
Is part of your red neck charm, isn't it?
Well, the closest thing you are to a charmer
Is a king cobra that will strangle you to death
If you don't play the flute right

You plan to live in your mom's house
Until she leaves for an old folk's home
You are such a loving son
And they always say
A man treats his woman how he treats his mom
And that couldn't be further from the truth

You are like a leech that ***** her emotional stamina
And her self esteem
Perhaps that's why she is self-conscious
And covers up her smile
Because you were the one that dimmed her sparkle
By saying "You spent all that time getting ready and you look like that?

And what am I supposed to do?
Comfort her and console her
And reassure her that not all men out there are like you

Oh, yes, you'll look back someday
At this moment that you are in
You'll wish you looked at her and said
"I should have loved you then"

Tengo ganas de estar
Cerca de ti
Para sentirte en el cuerpo
Para que toques con el pelo
Y siento su ligera presión de dedo
Para expresar algo profundo como antes
Antes de este momento

Estoy enamorada con una fantasía
Con un hombre que ahora no existe
No le he visto por mucho tiempo
Y es como un nube en el cielo
La forma en que puede tranformarle
A causa del tiempo y el viento
Es impresionante como cambia tan rápido
Justo en frente de los ojos abiertos

Es duro para sentir completa
Sin otra media

It can break apart families,
Condemn you to hell,
Ruin your relationship
If you don't do it well

It can be seen as an evil
Or seen as a blessing
Depending on the situation at hand
The time could be pressing

It's a contact so strong
I have been told
It mends two minds
It bonds two souls

People obsess over it
Spend days, hours, minutes, thinking
They fantasize about it
The sheets a mess and the headboard clinking

But I don't see why I need it
When I don't need the result
This over sexualization is a movement
And I don't want to join the cult

It's not something I want
Not now, but maybe some day
Some time when I'm ready
For what could relay

Have you ever stopped to think
That you aren't just hurting yourself?
The clatter, the clink
Of the knife across your scalp.
Don't you understand, my dear?
You were never alone.
I have been standing right here,
Trying to be your foster home.
So don't cry, broken child,
Out of anger, fear, or spite.
I always loved your smile,
Please, lay down for the night.
Rest your head, close your eyes
For a long, dreamy slumber.
Expel a great sigh
I have tried to quiet the thunder.
But only you can quiet those thoughts
That ****** record player in your mind.
It must be forgotten
You are smart, intelligent, and kind.
And you are loved
By me and by more.
And that figure above
Loves you more than before.
So, please, quiet this battle
Silence the fight.
And with me, please cuddle
And rest for the night.