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Please stop wasting your prayers on her
quit wishing he was a better version of himself.
His father never taught him it
was okay if every kiss
didn’t taste like cherries.
Don’t blame her because her
mother never told her
every one’s hands weren’t as soft as hers.

I want you to remember
the ending of every fairytale
you heard before going to bed.
Not everyone’s parents
prepared them for the worst.
Instead generations of humans
have been taught to expect everything
to find its place in the end.

Not every boy you meet
will incite fireworks behind your eyes.
Some boys take everything you
have because they weren’t
taught any better.

Not every girl you meet
smells like chrysanthemums.
Some smell like every
pain they’ve accumulated in their life.
A mixture of ash
and tar
washed down with a shot of whiskey.

I’m sorry your father forgot
to tell you that
sometimes kisses feel
like splinters.
He kissed your mother
and forgot
that not everything tasted
as sweet.


I’m sorry your mother didn’t
let you feel more
than the softness of her hands.
It isn’t her fault,
her mother didn’t either.

I want you to remember
the ending to every fairytale you
heard before going to bed.
This world is not a magnet
it doesn’t glue itself back together.
Remember every kiss that tasted like cherries
and how full your heart felt
when holding your mom’s hand.
Remember these things,
it makes everything easier
in the end.
Emotions arise for others
Yet you still wander through my mind
At once, I called it obsession
But now I doubt the word
As I struggle with what I feel
I see you in her at once
Memories flood to the surface
And she confuses me even more

Am I so desperate for you that I do this
Can you project your love on others
Which leads me yet to more struggles
Since the word love sounds foolish

I still dream of you at times
And it still sickens me to a point
That feeling of happiness you bring
Wakes me with my whole body in knots
To think that I missed my chance
Do I use others as restarts
Or is it a natural thing to want you
As maybe, just a piece of her
This is our year.
This is our time to be what the songs drone on about.
The ones that our parents pretend to despise, then secretly reflect on the uplifting lyrics,
transporting their minds to a time less worrisome then their own.
The skinny dipping,  the toxins, the sweet tastes ever- present on our tongues,
our gentle fingertips searching in the dark for more.
We mark the time with countless lyrics,
hold sacred the memories with sporadic pictures.
No one can take this from us.
Our steps will get a little lighter,
until we can no longer feel the hard ground; watching afar from the tops of the branches.
we like hearing the sounds of our own voices
we like reassurance, and
to imagine that unlike what everyone might think,
we are the next best thing.
that's why this is so confusing.
these people are the next best thing
so why aren't they acting like it?
why aren't they acting like the brave,
insightful,
sometimes introspective,
people that i know they are.
Disordered Thoughts, Naturally

the ceiling fan overhead
shakes back and forth,
beginning, a train of
disordered thoughts,
this poem,
the caboose.

reimagined, the fan,
it becomes
a yeshiva boy
fervent praying,
his version of ***** dancing,
shaking rocking swaying fervor,
shuckling.

for what does he pray?

for advance forgiveness
for he is simulcast
requesting getting lucky,
to be knowing
the miracle of being
with a woman or a man,
thus, getting closer to
God,
naturally.

He will be excised
for being human,  
he will be excused  
for by definition,
by succeeding and by failing,
in his desire
to be close to divine,
he best divines the
tragicomic nature of the
human condition:
the joy of sin,
the sin,
of a life without joy,
naturally.


Clean sheets nightly,
turn down service,
chocolates on my pillow,
good night kisses
on each eye,
even spooning,
are not among the
six hundred and thirteen
positive commandments
in the Bible.
why not?

why,
cannot this be
constitutionally amended,

by voice vote
of anyone who cares
to shout out a yay,
or blink approvingly,
or signs by fingers
sugar snapping and
hands, toe tapping?

all methodologies
intended to indicate the satisfaction
that comes from changes
made not in,
but also
from
the human tissue of heartbeats,
naturally

Somewhere
a solitary fish
swims upstream,
against the current,
defying odds...

weird,
the ways things should be,
never thinking,
wondering out loud,
why compulsion impels
so many living things
to do the opposite of logical,
natural in so many ways.

never asking,
why a fish must struggle to spawn,
upwards and onwards
to die so it, and the
the man, the bear,
he will feed,
the progeny released
can live?


for if this is the
natural order,
then is not nature,
too oft logically discordant,
and thus
disorder is the
state of being,
naturally.

Something makes me
awestruck and wondrous silent,
ever time I touch a
young child's skin,
joy instantaneous takes hold,
true shock and awe
succumbs me.

cannot be just miracle mine,
the sensation of life so sweet,
wondrous on my fingertips,
that repeated stroking is
******* addictive,
naturally.

what would be the harm,
if this soft shell of derma-finery
were a permanent condition,
a constant reminder,  
we all share,
born and bred,
a premier clean slate of
natural innocence unblemished,
perma-frosted prima face facile,
naturally.

this was how
we were created,
why perforce,
was it deemed orderly,
'better'
to evolve into something
grizzled, cracked and roughened slowly,
naturally.

Strange thoughts
are my normal fare,
if you only knew
the laugh of it,  
you might recommend,
keeping them closer still,
and me
far away from you!


maybe there is a God above,
but if there is,
he be
responsible for the sleepless nights
where stanzas of
whimsy, pain and joy are soldered,
ironed into a coalescing coalition,
denoted as a
restless and disordered mind,
but of course!
not my fault,
naturally!

next time we meet,
see smiles irregularly sweet,
turning,
reversing to and fro,
for such is the
inchoate state
of what transverses
on my cellular network
these rambunctious dark hours,
naturally.
these disordered thoughts, are nature allied, nat-urally...
Please fight for me.
Please.
I am literally begging for you to walk up to this room and make me stop crying.
This isn't poetry, Mom.
This isn't hard to understand.
This is your daughter begging you to please fight for me.
I don't remember the kisses goodnight or the
gentle hugs when I scraped my knee.
What I do remember is waiting in the closet,
scared and alone,
learning for the first time that the
only person who can really be
there for me, is me.
I waited
I listened for you.
I hoped for you.
Did you get that?
I said,
I hoped for you.
Our first time is suppose to be
perfect
Rose petals,
Dim lights,
Comfy bed,
And the boy we love.
That's what it should be.
So I call a do-over.
Can I just start fresh.
Cuz I'm embarrassed to say
Dark closet,
Liquor on our breath,
Trying to keep quiet,
With a girl who told me it's okay.
And I told her it's okay.
I guess life doesn't always work
The way we want it to.
drunks kisses
released inhibitions
hand in my pants
hearts beating fast
liquor on our breath
this must be what
love feels like
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