I'm not saying that I'd
Pick up smoking, kick my grade point
Out the door
I'm not saying that I'm too great
For a university's education
Won't be showing up late
For Spanish 4

Doors won't slam with the gust
Of rebellious teenage luster
My fights will be well-picked
Won't apply my eyeliner too thick
I'm not saying
These paths won't match my
Spirituality

I'm not saying that I wouldn't miss
My friends
I won't pretend my home is not of the peaceful,
Higher end
I won't say I've reached clairvoyance beyond your ration

I'm not saying that I'm above this
That this world revolves to slow
I'm just saying if you asked me to run away
I've a feeling I wouldn't say no.

Sunkissed and messy headed
Blessed be that fashion sense
Her tangled mane is a metaphor, a facet
To her mangled brain
Not in the cute black-and-white, scrawled notecard manner
A carved-out, paper cut of a sheet
Crammed in the bottom of her bottle brained backpack

Worse than the weekly
Chic self-harmed hipbones,
She sits and eats and watches the world from the real world clones
The blanket's just hot enough to cook her down
Reduced to the ruched Jovani gown

She's got lists of friends, you have to
Scroll down a page
It even has to load awhile
Then why's your radius clear of anyone?
Pixelated fixtures of her mind, too close to miss her
Too close to care
So close, all they are's aware

Minds drone, like bone picking
Knowing you're the stick in the mud
Warm blood behind a boil, just kicking for
Another tab to click in

She's been braless awhile now
Profiled with purchases levels lapping her current state
She pinches skin impatiently, chocolate scouring her teeth
It's the bitter taste of something so horribly surface
They erase away the beneath.

I cannot fathom a particle
More beautiful than stardust
It builds from core to sediment
To rocks and slabs of ocean floor
The grass that dies and breathes again
The sand beneath my arches

The rubber soles
The air we breathe
The air we share, the air we need
We care for youth until they're meant
To add more forms of sediment
They'll cry, and their babies
Will cry
Not quite out of frustration, but everybody's inclination
And urge to touch the sky

Because we can't breathe this vicious air
We belong to the world up there
Of imploding super nova sights
The nebulas crossing like interstate highways
The traffic of matter holds orbit over all

You can take pride in the life you live
In the air you breathe
In the joy you give
But as for power? Nothing.
Humbled is what you are
Even behind your material goods
You're just the remnants of a star.

I can't explain who
I can't explain why
I can't even explain what, but
I'll just have to try
Because friends, they're the glue that assembles my mind
They're the day's daily tread
They are the thread of my life

But, I would stand my ground for each one of you
Cradle your head as you cried, told you things that aren't true
So wait,
Are you a friend of the memorable kind?
Am I the seed of this plant
Or the unspoken rind?
I define this, but crumple it and toss it away
Do I define those who go, or judge when they stay?

So call me in distress, when your friends have parted ways
Trade with me the garments that we'll wear every other day
Share with me the word that we've defined all on our own
And let me give you reason to live
When all your others are on loan

It's somewhat of a hobby, a pastime I can grasp
Let's clear away your awful thoughts, or feed them as they pass
Whatever makes you safer, or feel just less alone
I'll hold your hair back
Hold your hand
Or let you use my phone

They say, there's a reciprocal
A counterpart to all
A indebted soul is restless
And it needs somewhere to fall

But I can't take anything from you
Even when you've asked of me
But it circles around, feels so nice to be found
A friend, is what I'd like to be.

Your semester's over
And you'll be back
And everyone will be seeing you
But me

But what else is new?
My life without you.

I've checked into a place
Much like this before
The furniture lined with restriction
Woven worries don the upholstery at the floor
It is a waiting room white as tight knuckle skin
Black diamonds adorn the door
There is a small zen garden
In the corner, on a table
Existing but for use as nothing
It contains no sand or rocks or rake
Delicate plant life around the room
But not a drop of soil at its base
A bowl of peppermints, but only for those with
An acquired taste

Familiarity takes a swig
Burns in the tummy
Of the hearth of the room
Only here does the fire stay cold
And only here is the news always old.

Sick and tired
Of being good at looking fine
Where should my heavy head go when I cry?
Not on a shoulder
You're not showing the signs

How odd that it is that
When you talk about your's
And I talk about mine
We're speaking in differing tongues, and times
Mine is far back down the line

Where is my circle of sobbing friends?
My pats on the back,
Or someone other than my mother
To keep me on track
Someone other than a figure
Glasses, sweater
That can trigger progression
Without stripping my family
Of groceries for the week

Where is the understanding
That I was indeed in love
To the point where I panicked
Flew a line
Blew my sanity
And ran it all the way back to what
I must be and remain
Just an awkward, sophomore
Scatterbrain.

Miss the crying
Miss the lies
Miss the tying binds of lives
Entwined
So forever yours,
And mine

Miss the roughness
Of masculine taste
Of feminine want
Of lust long erased
Of a smoldering fire
That we never replaced

To find something new
Is impossibility
Is there a box where you hold
My discretion, my sanity?
My illusions?
Me?

I will poke at the belly
That you used to hug
I will ponder the body that
You used to love
I will gnaw at the fingers
That you used to kiss
And I will smother the hope
That I am something you'll miss.

I don't know why I did what I did
The words spilled and shattered as they collided with my
Unidivided
Attention

Happiness creeps in, is hungry
Starving
Has to sneak for food
But is chased away
By an endless mood

It scoops out my heart
Leaves a gap for storage
Of all the items I have nowhere to place

My chair feels uncomfortable
As do my clothes
My skin
My teeth
My nose
My organs are closed

My body knows what it needs
But does not know the chore
It will punch holes in me and ask what
I'm waiting for.