you are love personified.

my longing (for the crude, cheap replacements of human emotion scattered across this minefield known as the internet)
has entirely disappeared

i am filled

are you?

do your eyes dart to the lightning bolt in the right hand corner
always longing, never satisfied
(it's been years since you talked with God
perhaps you dont even believe in Him
say He'd need to strike your head from heaven)

do you miss the stale crusts of lovers past,
crave money,
get hunger pains of longing at the thought of being beautiful or famous
when really you are starving for something missing from your soul?

God,

He is the answer.
If you want it
If you let it

His Spirit can change you
fill you
transform you
(and you will be happy)

i am a windsock
that you found atop an abandoned heart valve, trying to catch its breath
an open-mouthed fish with air passing through the gills
drowning in solitude

you took me down
washed me up,
and i felt useful again

you never asked me to love you
never stapled me to the wall or made me into your sock puppet with googly eyes
but i would find myself nestled beside you, anyway
in the moments i wanted to feel a little more human

you listened, mostly
you would hold me up and watch me fill with air and when things got too emotional i would wriggle free and tumble off the mountain peak in a scatter-brained attempt to prove i didn't need you
you never raised your voice or shouted after me, and i never raised my hand to say, "i need you, too"

3 years went by

you never begged me to love you
but you whispered that feelings had sprouted from your heart so long ago on the mountain
and i could see the lettuce leaves protruding from your chest
and i became afraid
i had never kept something like this alive

(a list of things that i'd let die:
a cactus
friendships
hermit *****
fish
and tiny flowers)

so i let the wind take me again
i dont know why
i crawled back to the crusty heart valve
and tried to let my soul dry out
(a raisin in the sun)

but after a month of drowning in my own solitude
i heard that a frost was coming

i thought of the tiny leaves protruding from the ridges of your chest

(could i let something so innocent die again?)

and on September 27th, while you slept
i, the wind sock, slipped into the sheets
i covered our tender love with all i had

and we weathered the frost together.

it is an honor
to love
and be loved
by you (only you)

i wanted a hippie van
and you wanted to make me happy
so you took off your Vans and grabbed a marker

we wrote "don't worry, be hippie" on the fabric until our fingers cramped

you told the entire
class that your spirit anim-
al is Charizard

i love you
to reese's pieces.

if i were in Paris
i would march for you
hold up a banner made from scraps of your favorite shirts

if i were in Greece
i would carve your face into a column of the parthenon with "God" written legibly across your lips
(for He is love, and i love kissing you)

if i were in China
i would cover myself in paper mache
disguise myself as a Terrecotta soldier,
move up to commanding officer and lead the whole army to guard your resting place
(because
you
are my emperor)

if i were in Israel
i would build a bomb shelter
and safe from the heat of those who hate us,
our bodies would discover fire

if i were in Argentina
i would lay claim on you
the way the country claims LAS ISLAS MALVINAS and vows to never forget

if i were in the United States
i would miss you the way that Obama misses his intelligence briefings
we would sit on our smartphones and text haikus back and forth as we sat back to back with each other

darling?
i love you to the comet Europe landed on
and back.

i cry during Bambi
you cried in your car after your high school girlfriend tried to come on to you

you and i--
we wouldn't, but--
tonight
or tomorrow
or the next day
we could give ourselves away

we could shoot white deer together in the mountains without a license
the blood from their heads would make cherry snow cones in the powder
and we would have fun savoring the flavor
watching something innocent die

but how would we feel the moment it was over?

i don't love you enough to cup you in my hands and sip you up like a little japanese soup in a sushi restaurant

what do you want, love?
my shoestrings
why, i have no use for them
what is love without sacrifice

i don't love you enough to hold on to you
i am no better than that child who lets go of her balloon and watches it float up, up, up
until it is swallowed like a cherry cough drop
i don't love you enough to give away every inch of my hair to keep you down-to-earth with me
i don't love you enough to strain against the wind and brave the spit of Al Gore
even if it would mean being with you

i don't love you enough to enjoy you while you are here
i don't love you enough to be more careful than the child who drops his ice cream on the ground and then cries when he can't have another one

(i love you more than that)

i am a Spidey red Pontiac
the ceiling is falling in and the doors are broken
(that you pry open anyway
but only because i want you to)

you ask me with your eyelashes
why i don't put thumbtacks into the parts of me that droop and sag along the interior

and the heater whines softly,
smoke spilling in from a mangled motor
because i ask myself the same question

we are cramped, you and i
the stuffing seeping out of the back seat,
the mangled box spring hearts dangling from our chests like metal slinkies that can't find the floor
because we've swallowed one too many books
and seen each other barefoot once too few
but we are happy, you and i
we find amusement in red sweaters and pull Pokemon from Abe's old hat

i wouldn't pass the safety inspection for your soul
(but you drive me anyway)

i will open a lovers insurance company

15 minutes could save you 15% more of your heart

ten dollars a month to make you unafraid
for the assurance that if you ever collide with an oncoming **** at 75 miles an hour,

we will cover the cosmetic damage
remove the dents
paint a smile back onto your license plate
and send you away

i will open a lovers insurance company

put a lock on your heart
and a security system through your veins
so if anyone goes prying and poking into your bloodstream, we will know
like white blood cells, we will race to your aid
stop you from getting too lovesick
all at the small price of ten dollars a month

and if your heart is ever totaled
we will remove it
fill the gaps with money and ice cream and Netflix
(we cant replace hearts, but we can fix them)

i am the moon
the rise and fall of your chest is the tide
your breath in my ear is the ocean
the waves spill across my lobe

i see the salt, taste it on your skin
you finger the stars strung through my hair
(this all fades ((usually)) in the morning)

we will blow on the sun like a dandelion
so it never rises
we will never be blinded again

i will love you
until my heart pumps so hard that my veins burst through my skin and attach themselves to the mattress, spreading across the walls and feeling for your body in the darkness

i will love you
until gravity becomes old fashioned
we'll wear it as vintage
falling into each other
all over again
for old time's sake

i will love you
until we explode in mini supernovas under the scrutiny of God's microscope
and our dust fragments tumble,
then settle snugly,
spooning on His bookshelf.

to encrust the covers and begin another story

i miss you
the way Obama misses his intelligence briefings

i finally cleaned out my bedroom
threw out
all the legos i always accidentally stepped on
all of the crusty pieces of Argentine food i wasn't ready to let go of

you are a jedi
or perhaps just my best friend

some people hurt your eyes like neon when you see them

but you don't

you are nutella
and i am a butterknife

i dangle my feet over the edge of hell.
i'll never do it,
but i wonder if i will ever be able to braid my hair by myself
tie my shoes
smile like a two year-old who thinks cookies are the purpose of having teeth and a tongue

if i search in darkness, i will surely find despair
and there is a cellphone light glowing in my face
as i write this
so i should pursue this happiness
this temporary thrill i get from internet existence

depression is a box
where the crickets and toads and **** are dropped
devoid of human feeling, understanding
i don't want to be dropped into a box of numbers, don't want my legs wrapped around statistics;
my name is Kate Lyn
and my fingerprints and DNA are seperate
from every body else's

i will crawl into the cradle made in "g" and sleep until somebody finds me here.
in cyberspace.

sometimes you want to take a sledgehammer to someone's face
so they know how hard you've hit your head on the ice at the skating rink (we are the crazies)

my world is water
and reality is oil, i avoid it
because the food pyramid says it should be the smallest fraction of our existence,
and because water and oil can be shaken up for hours (mulled over and over again in my head) and in the end they'll always settle in and go their seperate ways

i ask myself if other people see the world like i do
from the ocean
from the swimming pool
from the puddles made from leaky ceilings or dripping faucets in the tub
from the dunking booth
from the slip 'n' slide
from the goldfish pond in grandpa's yard or the half-empty cup by the park bench

did ice cubes melt across the kitchen floor
or are snowflakes falling onto your flushed, embarrassed cheeks

is it a waterfall spilling into a reservoir
or are you peeing in the shower again
did your mac n cheese boil over
or did the bathtub overflow this morning

well, which is it--

if water can take so many different forms
can't also each person's world?

am i going to make it?
-- well, that depends on where you want to go.--
i don't know where i'd like to go. are you happy where you are?
-- yes.--
then i'd like to go there, wherever that is.
am i going to make it?
-- if you want to.--
i don't particularly enjoy it down here. everything seems like an empty dream. and i am just going through the motions. do you feel? i just want to be human. i want to have emotions and be a real person again.
-- i feel. why don't you want to feel?--
because it hurts. it hurts to give yourself up and accept that other people might not give themselves up back.
-- well, i gave myself up.--
you did?
-- yes.--
and did it make you happy?
-- yes.--
even though not everyone gives themselves up back?
-- that is the thing about love. it must be unconditional in order for it to bring happiness. one must come to understand that happiness is found when one looks outside of their self and stops focusing on what he or she is taking.
give, and one will find that they have an infinite amount to give.--
that seems like so much to ask.
-- but it is the only pathway to happiness.--

how many times do i have to run myself into the ground
(and if i do, will anything grow?)
i am hickory, ivory, take me and sculpt me or carve me
tell me what i'm needed to be
i want to know someone will play an f sharp
or use a wooden spoon for their soup for the homeless
i don't want to cut myself down, spread myself out into a self-help book
i'm not selfish
i don't get satisfaction from that
i take my temperature like Neal A Maxwell described
and i find that i'm still not happy
i pull myself up to see my roots
i know where i've been, but not where i'm going
and for someone who is directionally challenged,
that's pretty concerning.
i am a goldfish clumsily dropped into the ocean
i've never been in open sea
i am a broken-in horse outside the fence
will someone please tell me what's beyond the next horizon
or do i have to get there to find out?

i would look like a million dollars every morning
get up at 5 am just to lie down again onto an ironing board to get the wrinkles out from under my eyes
paint my lips with Avon and plaster shadows above my lashes

i would pay very close attention to the things that come out of my mouth
i would make a special effort not to stutter and i would look each person in the face when i walk around with messy hair and ugly sweaters

i would surround myself with those who'd walk 7 continents just to fault-find
(with no means to protect the victims from the emotional earthquakes caused from the comments)
and i would be strong enough to handle their abuse
strong enough to pick them up off the sidewalk when they planted weeds in the cracks instead of flowers
and i would cradle them in my arms and hold them while they cried
[everybody needs a friend; but especially those who hurt enough to hurt others]

i would let my darling drop the dusty curtains from my soul to let the light in

we'd let up the gates
i'd let him trace his fingertips along the floorboards
knowing that he would never chip the paint
the way other prying eyes and anxious lips have done,
all other lovers left property damage

but he wouldn't
i know

i would let him install a microwave for heating his favorite foods
and if he liked art, i would let him take a crayon to the refrigerator

he can hang from the ceiling fan
tear up the carpet
rip out the doorknobs and knock down the doors

leave everything out in the open

because i am not afraid anymore
(love is the most empowering emotion)

i am force-feeding myself
in order to prevent significant poetry loss

i am letting my brains spill into my throat
so i can spit the words out when the moment comes

people are much too beautiful, sometimes
others chisel away at our reputations
and i dont mind much except that it makes me self-conscious
i put my hand up to my forehead to see if there's a temperature
(and for the number of times i've embarrassed myself, i should have a fever by now)

there is something so raw (foods diet) about true love
not cooked by the heat of lust and desire
just made of the natural roots growing out of my hair and the palm leaves of your hands that cup my chin like a coconut when i let you take a sip at my lips
and our tongues (little minnows) run together like streams

i like that.

i am clay
i don't want to lie out in the sun too long
because im still figuring out what i want to be
im not ready
to
dry
out
yet

i feel like a bird that flew right into a window
that you pointed at and laughed

i feel like the shaven-head celebrities
the crack addicts
the high, homeless hippies on the street

i feel like a person of Wal Mart
the awkward couple that shows way too much PDA in public
the punchline of a fat joke

(i see all the fingers pointed at me as--)

i struggle to bend my wings into shape again
but i've taken to writing poetry and cutting up pieces of newspaper
to fit between the ruffled feathers

i shouldn't still have brain damage from the collision i had with your pride (sixteen miles high)

but maybe i do

i tap on the glass just to make sure that i really am a fool
and to see if you'll look back
to see me redeem myself
to see me fly
a
  w
     a
       y.

(but you don't)

instead of the thrumming of crickets
cockroaches
and the constant lull of the frogs by the lake

instead of late-night parties on the other side of the wall (didn't they know we were always in bed by 10:30?)
the drunken laughter of strangers
the foreign tongue that made its way into the dialogue of my dreams

instead of keeping myself up at night from the terror of
wondering what poverty-stricken, starved man might break through our poorly-fitted door to violate two helpless girls

my lullaby is the hum of a dishwasher
the creaks in the finely-polished floorboards
the purr of the computer
the cracking of ice as it slides from the dispenser in the fridge
a symphony of first-world luxury and comfort

i am up at 1:45 in the morning

and i couldn't be happier

Maybe if my therapist was a Tyrannosaurus Rex
I would feel more comfortable speaking out loud,
Knowing that he wouldn't understand a word I'm saying, anyway

"I wish someone had given me an instruction manual for myself... When I was 5 my mom was concerned because I had no friends and it didn't bother me at all...
It would have been nice to know about my self-destruct button...
One day, when I was 16, I forgot to put on my bullet-proof vest and a beautiful boy (who had my heart on a keychain) shot me straight through the skull. No mercy... Is there a mirror around so I can see if there's still a hole there?
(I'd point to a picture) ... He hit me once.
... When I was 12, two girls who were supposed to be my friends held my head underwater in the swimming pool. And the adults just sat there and watched from the sidewalk as I struggled for air...
You know, it would have been nice if someone could've explained the functions I was designed to perform...
Because at this point
It's all guesswork-- am I mentally unstable?"

And the T-Rex would look up from his book, glasses shoved against his nose
And he would say,
"You've just spent the last 45 minutes talking to a dinosaur."

i am a tumbleweed
i gather dustbunny thoughts and entertain them with a tea party in my living room

i am a scarecrow that doesn't want to be looked at
but the ravens all come
they stare and oggle anyway
making me blush

i am a girl with a huge heart who doesn't want to be loved
because things that are cherished and wanted hurt people more when they break

i prefer being a sock without a match

sometimes it creeps into the bones in my knees and it gives me artist's arthritis
i massage myself with the dull point of a pencil,
listening to the soothing sound of my thoughts coming to life

and sometimes an idea will crawl into my ear and lay its eggs there
if my passion is warm enough, they are incubated on the inside of my skull and crack open without warning

and to clear my head of the leftover eggshells, i have to play minesweeper for days on end

wond'ring when my days will end
and if my poetry will still be breathing

take me to a swimming pool that has not been peed in
with no grass or dead wasps floating around my bare skin
one newly installed that hasn't corroded yet

take me to fresh snow that has never been walked in
let me feel the crunch beneath my feet as i step into fresh turf and smile
knowing that they are all my footprints
knowing that i am the only one who has ever touched this ****** powder

take me to a coffin that has never been opened
a faceless, nameless beauty
one that nobody else knows about

and i will treasure it
like it is my own
because i am an old nobody, too

if i drowned myself
somebody would ****** their hand into my bowl of fruit loops and pull my face up

if i jumped off a building
somebody would put pillows on the carpet to soften the fall

if i put a (glue)gun to my temple
somebody would snap a picture with the caption "idiot pastes her hand to her forehead"

if i ate poison
somebody would rush to my side and ban me from eating fast food ever again

if i committed a fashion faux pas
my best friend would tell me to change my outfit

but if i pulled a trigger on an entire country
the world would go silent
just to watch

the world crushes you to pieces
i wanted to be an altoid
because who doesn't love fresh breath
but everyone mistakes my dust for anthrax
and i thought we were way over that phase
but apparently short-term memory loss doesn't work with traumatic experiences
and everyone remembers
the chill in their throats, the cool air in their nostrils
when they saw
mad shoe and mailbox bombers
images on a news screen
hardly even real

i was real
and i was chewed to pieces

i want to throw up all over my auto-biography
want to set a timer for 3 seconds just to be able to say that i started at zero

my heart is just that

but it doesn't measure up to its intended purpose

if my heart is on a swingset, the metal chains are too hot or all of the children lost their shoes and are forbidden by their mothers to walk on wood chips
if my heart is a sock, the match got lost in the dryer
if my heart was soft
i wouldn't feel like a hollow tree
withered branches shooting through my veins
i've lost all will
to love

Satan
handed each child a blindfold

"Take it"
he whispered.
(it is a prison)

"But what is it?"
they asked.

"It is anything you want it to be,"
he answered.
"It creates darkness,
and darkness
is the absence of light.
it is the absence of truth.

and you can fill that void with anything you want to see."

(but only in your own mind)

swear a lot
yell with the loudest voice
take control of the media
make very loud and convincing claims that everyone is a racist, bigoted, hatemonger
dodge every question that has a "yes or no" answer

congrats
you just won the votes of the ignorant idiots of America.

closing my eyes will surely block out the sun entirely

do you remember fruit roll-ups?
i do, too
though that is completely irrelevant
(and i think they were called fruit by the foot, now that i think about it)

i guess im avoiding talking about serious problems
because i don't even know how to solve them
i am my own jigsaw puzzle with a jugular
so i cant mess up

do you remember ever choosing your first grade teacher?
or whether or not to learn your timestables?

i never had a choice in that
i was never really informed

but i conformed myself to their insanity, anyway

do you remember choosing what clothes to wear to school?
i did do that, at least

but now i'm staring at a list of choices that adults get to make
and i realize
i never really learned how to think for myself

i never learned to make decisions

I am now
attached at the thumbs
connected through the fingertips
it thinks for me
navigates for me
reads the minds of others to my face
it is a lens
through which I have access to an invisible world that no one can see
unless they have a prosthetic limb like me

say something cliché about love
talk about cutting yourself or having low self-esteem
mention tea or coffee
or rain
or late nights
or anything else that has to do with teenage drama

congratulations
i just introduced you
to a good portion of poems that trend on this website

my personality only comes in one flavor
and I'm not here
to custom-make an order or
wait on the haters
hand and foot

it shouldn't matter if my poetry is bland and tasteless
if my story isn't interesting enough to be told

perhaps I am a lone comic book sitting on a shelf in Green River, Utah

I may be useful to somebody
Someday
(but in the meantime I'll learn to love myself)

I need to go running

to Pluto


I HATE EVERYTHING WITH A ****** PASSION


Just because I used to be a desperate psychopath

Doesn't mean I'm still a desperate psychopath

I AM A PERFECTLY RATIONAL HUMAN BEING

WHY ARE YOU BREATHING LIKE THAT GET OUT OF MY FACE

WAAAAAAAAAAAAit.
Come bAAAAAAAAAck.

I'M nOt The pRoblEm

I've changed

I mean

I thOuGht I did

Until I rEaliZeD that
EvErYOne iS A FREAKING IDioT

there are a hundred and fifty pokemon
but only one of you
you are the legendary love that i could never catch

i remember kissing your Meowth and it was beautiful and fierce

do you remember, darling, the way you Jinxed our stars

You Charmandered me, left my cheeks pink and rosy
Gave me an Electabuzz
The heat rose to my face every time we locked eyes

(i always was a bit Oddish)

I want to Pikachu when you don't think I'm looking, as you stroll through the crowds of your own thoughts

But you Rapidashed out of my life.

Is it Farfetch'd to wonder if you ever think of the Eeveening under the stars
When you said there was no Chansey that we could ever be together

Well
I remember
And I say
Ditto
to that.

i will cram myself into a goldfish bowl
because it's awkward inviting people to look at me if i am perfectly normal
maybe everyone will forget to feed me
and one day you'll find me belly side-up

or perhaps i will dig myself into the cheerios in my bowl
i need a life preserver
and there are several stacked up in there

maybe i will get bitten by a computer virus and morph into code that nobody can decipher

or maybe i will write a poem
and it will preserve a portion of my soul

(so that my ideas may die without such a struggle)

You keep your promises
I like that.

Do you ever want to spit your own tongue out
Apologize to God for using it as a sword to slit your own throat after absent-mindedly digging into the hearts of others with your words

Do you ever want to shove your brain into a suitcase and "accidentally" leave it on a train headed for the bottom of the sea
Because you don't know how to use the thoughts that have grown from your own brain stem

Are you ever allergic to yourself?
Do you sneeze as you sniff your own stupidity?

Do you want to soak in a bathtub full of forgiveness
Wash yourself with the soap of solitude
(re-surface your skull)

Well
I need to remember that nobody is perfect
And that I shouldn't hate myself

But all of me has self-destructed for existing
How do you stuff a pipe cleaner into a soul

How to come back from that

How to clean out the inside of a straw

How to yank open a locked-jaw and leave it gaping
in order to be filled with the endless

love
mercy
acceptance

Offered by the Person who has created me

into more than I could have ever been by my--

self.

matter can't be created or destroyed
and something inside of my head tells me that i matter
or at least
tells me that i cannot destroy myself

i have always existed, in one form or another
it's just that i've only had a body for 21 years
and the rest of the time i was a little less than human

i have two choices
to be
or not to be
but i don't think Shakespeare ever took a science class

we have-- to be
and we can decide what to be
but we cannot decide if we are or are not

we never chose that

our existence
is a beautiful mystery

one that i wish to understand

there are only two choices
to be
or not to be
like God

we are the pilots of our own experience

where will we go
what will we look at
who will we look up to

will we absorb everything the night scene has to offer us
or will we open up in the daylight like the flowers growing from a dunghill

we are stuck on a planet poisoned with
pride
****
pieces of the devil lodged in the crannies of our soul

but who am i?
i have to be--
i have to be--
something
(but my choices haven't defined me all the way yet)

i listen to "pompeii"
as it burns itself to pieces on the radio
and rises like a phoenix (with no beginning) from the ashes when i repeat the lyrics to myself over and over again

"where do we begin
the rubble
or our sins?"

where did i (the phoenix) begin
in the rubble or
my sins?

are we taken from dust and returned to dust ("how am i gonna be an optimist about this?")

or are we taken from the ashes and redeemed

am i the city everybody loved whose "walls kept tumbling down"

if i was "left to my own devices"
would i even begin?
or would i "close my eyes"
"bringing darkness from above"

but
if a "great cloud rolled over the hill"

could my sins be forgiven
could my sins be forgiven
yet?

he opened his window to the darkness
put on his shades and stared at the stars in captivated awe

i never saw anything but light in his smile
never thought that he could tear a delicate,beautiful creature to pieces

but the phone rang at 4:00 this afternoon
and i saw the crestfallen face of my sister that matched the face of the crescent moon

he confronted the darkness
he told her it had place in him

but he broke the open window
he broke through the darkness
he poured star dust into her trembling hands
(he didn't know that he turned gray
didn't know it all would fade)

she is alone now
but doesn't know how to put the contents of broken trust into an urn and leave it on the fireplace

but
he put off the darkness

and he will not go back to sleep in the morning
he will battle himself
until
the daylight
comes

i saw a friend from middle school tonight
he looked different, his pants were so tight and he talked different

i wish that i'd said hi
i wish that i'd hurdled over my pride
but we were both too afraid to say anything

and it was in that moment that i realized
that neither of us have changed since 9th grade year
it was an awkward silence that has followed us since our awkward stage as teenagers
(and now im 21)

i let
my lips
get chapped on purpose
so i wont
be tempted
to kiss you
on our date tonight

i let my hands get dry and cracked
so i will have no problem in keeping them folded on my lap

i took some heavy blows to the knees
so if i dont want to walk very far with you there will be no rational reason to be angry at me

and i would show and tell you all of these things to drive you away

but i know that you dont care
youre the first boy thats ever been in love with my mind
(beautiful, right?)
and im not scared to the point that i would be willing to self-destruct
(i am a little bit more logical than that, i value my thoughts more than that
they're the only thing i have power over, anyway)

youre the first one that has ever encouraged me to do what i love
(and maybe i love you for that)