I used to write
about women,
looking in the mirror, peering
out from behind the bars of these walls.

I used to see them
in the kitchen,
by the stove, seated:
docile at the table. Their chairs
were always a little
askew--drawn back--
or maybe they just weren't there.

They'd wash--no scrub--
their hands among the dishes
until their manicures bled.
Then they'd stack the porcelain
in a heap out by last night's
******* and tomorrow's
cleaning.

Sometimes they'd smile
to themselves; a chuckle of menial
labor. But other times they'd cry
and groan and moan out the next
generation of household
women. I used to see
them everywhere. I wonder where
they've gone.

Waiting for the next song
to come on or a pin
to drop, whatever it is that comes
naturally.

I can't seem to remember the words
to his face or the melody
of his hands.
But the beat
of his power is
there. That tune I recognize.
That I know and memorize and regurgitate
in rhythm--100 bpm
or something stronger.

My heart pounding
so fast I can't feel
it in my chest,
but rather my lungs, my stomach, my gut
instinct gone numb-- a spreading warmth,
not hot, but intrusive and bursting
--no it couldn't be--
with thirst. A cocktail of passion
and power. Ravenous and subsuming.

I fell in
submission--weary and weak.
The world had exhausted me and he
had reaped the rewards. A phoenix,
he rose
from my ashes.

Leaving me
to smolder, to piece
together my
body.
Mind.
Heart.
Or let them scatter across
ashtrays and Hennessy.

During a walk through the hallway
of the primary school
I find hallways
filled with turkeys and leafs and stiff scrawled characters.
What is Mr. Smith's class thankful for?
Flowers and toys and cars and dresses and pink and purple and soccer and skirts and barbies and family.

How could you sum up all of the things you are thankful for in one word?
At the end of the hallway I am faced with a choice:
What are you thankful for?
-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------------------------------------
What­ am I thankful for?
Happiness, and family and security and nature and
friends.
I am thankful for friends.
I am thankful for laughs and chatts and cries and sobs and games and smiles.

I am thanful for ****** contortions and 80s dance sessions,
for inabilty to speak.
I am thankful for hobos, eating on the side of the road,
and for devious scheymes of intoxicatation.

Hep beni anlayan bir arkadaşım var müteşekkirim
and who listens to my sob stories.
I am thankful for singing in the rain.
And styling hair in the sink
for screeching and howling
and hissing.

I am thankful for obkirchergasses,
for Ströcks and for ice cream plarlours.
I am thankful for mentos,
and walnuts.

I am thankful for bad lip readings and hilarious youtube vidoes.
I am thankful for unknown languages and nymphs
and for eloquence.
I am thankful for good taste in music
and for strong opinions.

I am thankful for dancing indian pirates with demon chicks and fireballs.
I am thankful for two-headed teenagers and barbeques.
I am thankful for God and healthy choice prayers,
and Hawaii get aways.

I am thankful for huge, hanging sweaters and crazy, funky leggings.
I am thankful for deep talks about the world's lack of beauty
and for poetry buddies.

I am thankful for dodgeball playing mice,
and poor old wenches.
I am thankful for pirate and mermaid adventures.

I am thankful for the looks we get:
looks of loud disapproval,
and whispers of quiet exasperation.

I am thankful for golden men and loud singing,
for crazy dances with crazy cousins and cute brothers.
I am thankful for Aunt Jemima.

I am thankful for banging on metal bars with rocks and shouting at the top of our lungs.
I am thankful for climbing over gates in order to not step on cracks.
I am thankful for amazing humanities teachers.
I am thankful for a laugh when the day is over.
-----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------------------
How those kids manage to fit all of their thankfulness into one word  is beyond me.
Even the one-word things we are thankful for, must be described with a million words.

Standing in front of the mirror
pinching, pulling, tugging
twisting, rubbing, covering
Sighing.

Flat, they said
Their sausage fingers pointing
Their sickly mouths snickering
The others laugh; agreeing quickly
Those ugly *******
like they're any better

Are they?
Watching all the pretty girls
and their boyfriends
and their fake smiles
and their push up bras
is that the only way now?
the only way to be liked?
to even be considered?

Baggy eyes
Puffy hair
Pimply face
Scrawny legs
Hairy arms
Who's ever gonna love that?

Someone; someone a thousand times more special than twenty of those ugly ******* combined.

I don’t know where I’m from
but I’d like to
call you home
and run through your halls
with the innocence of new fingers
pressing preserve prints
against your skin
and staining the walls.

The way my mother
warned me
I would.

I’ll let you spill
sun across
my swollen eyes
as I sigh the sleep out
of this house that’s still
settling. I’ve never stuck around
long enough to know
how long
that takes.
But while we wait,
I think I’ll settle
in and sip your
coffee, pressed
fresh from France—another place
we don’t belong to
but the sound of it
is sweet enough
that I don’t need
to call it your sugar
to know where
it came from.

And just before the sun goes someplace
we’ve never been
and the cold air creaks in
through your bones,
we’ll open doors
and see the rooms
we built together
in this place that
we didn’t grow up
in, but learned
to call our
home.

My pens and pencils neatly arranged.
From largest to smallest.
From shortest to tallest.

My markers perfectly aligned.
ROYGBIV.
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet
Rule­ to live by.
In order of the Rainbow.
Aesthetically pleasing.
Perfect.

My erasers meticulously stacked.
widest to thinnest.

My pencil case empty.
The teacher approaches the board.
I grab a number two pencil from the small end.
(get the weak out of the way)
I am ready to go.
Ready for action.
Prepared for anything and everything.

James comes up to my desk, grabs it with two hands and shakes it.
My masterpiece crashes to the ground.
I was not prepared for that.
He laughs.
I cry.
                                                                                                                        Whaddya have to do that for?

I love the way papers flit in the wind,
The way a strong force possesses them and suddenly they live,
The way they dance the jig of simple reality.

And when they fall they are happier
Their violent foray finally finished
And for all but a second the wind mourns them and wishes them once again to take flight

But their time is over
gravity holds them down
as the wind
with a sigh
begins to lead another paper into
Another Dance

I taste your lips like the cotton candy
of a Newark sky, laced
with smog and dysentery. You lift
me up, roll me over and draw
me toward you. The gravitational pull--
'on my hair and tell me you love me'--
of your shoulders
and the intoxication of your
voice. Craning my neck
to hear--'you love me'--the grip
of your hands
on my throat.

The city is loud. Just
loud enough to gasp
through the static
of your car radio, pressing--'up against
me'--all the buttons.
Just change
the station. Where we rock
and undulate smoggy windows and
candied skies.

This last goodbye
tastes different from
my first time, clutching--
'my back and etching out lullabies'--
the shift stick. Put it in
neutral. We can just coast
from here and take it
easy--'she's so'--easy. Easy
falling into and letting fall and keeping--
'next to me forever'--from falling
over and over the bricks
of your building, shaking
the foundation, the exact
same way. You loved me

like a super dome and expanded
the words of your cityscape: a nice
addition, in need
of renovation.  The cycle of
recycled buildings and veiled skies.
The monotonous gossip
of a Newark morning drawn out
past the night.

Grey stone on Grey ground
Here had been a fire
Soot clung to the wet stone bricks
Ashes swirled
moving as one entity, pulsing with the breath of the wind

It gaped at me, this hole in the iced ground
A mouth condemned to a life of nothing but screams

The rough, jagged bricks bared
The thick ivy arched
The wind whisked past

I heard it
a tortured
consistant
screech

And I understood

If there were a hundred words for every feeling,
and a hundred feelings for every word
I wouldn't know
what word to write
nor which feeling to feel.

"You look good together"
I know
"You would be cute together"
I see that
"I think he likes you"*
Doubtful,
I've never even been considered

But apparently
I'm not good enough
I'm an untouchable

Too unique
Too smart
Too independent

Not enough breast
Not enough ***
Not enough popularity

I wish I could say
that it doesn't bother me

but I watch all the fakes with their perfect boyfriends
and I feel sad
and I yearn for that
and I think we wouldn't be fake
we would be real

I wish I could say
"His problem, he's missing out."
but I can't
because,
I'm missing out too

All I want is a plump upper
lip and the stain
of coffee on your breath.

I can taste that paradise and exhale
in rhythm. To the drums somewhere. They could be
pounding. In those bloated silences
when I can taste our heartbeat, offset
by smooth jazz and the bubbling snare. Overflown,
suffocating champagne smiles.

Your teeth are crooked,
but I don't mind.
They all fall
someday.

        What's the matter?
With a toothy grin
reflected off molten
puddles in the sun
of a clouded morning,
flashed
through the dreamscape
of a lover's quarrel and echoed off
the lips of a lie.  

I could be sipping
tea and watching the clouds
fall into the haven of your words.
But I might pour
myself a glass
of wine.

I never heard
myself cry out
loud. It was always
silent. As if you
never heard me.
As if you weren’t
even bothered.

“Stop.” She pulled back.  
“It hurts.”She contorted
“No." She pushed and in her
head she heard a voice—soft and
sinister. Not powerful enough
to be her own.
Relax,
baby girl,
relax.
It couldn’t have been
aloud. It was gentle and
intrusive and she hadn’t known
it was there. It stroked her
cerebellum, tickling
her larynx and falling
just short of a scream. She fell
just short of the bed and collected
herself among the sheets
and their refuse.

I never heard
her actions nor the motion
of her language.
She was silent always
and always screaming.

To be great.
To be good.
To be average.
To be bad.
To be horrible.
To be me.

A lithely swallow.

A dipping in--  
laying into the flesh.
Finding its
cracks, burrowing
deeper. Pushing
through that velvet sound--
the emptiness
the melancholy
the desperate cling
of the sweat.

Dangling just off
the tip of the fingers: a cliff.
Before the ragged
sealine stretches
its tendrils
all-engulfing.

I hold the gaze of an ice-chilling glacier,
Twinkling and oozing falsehood.
They glitter and sparkle,
Hiding hatred from the world.

Answer my question please,
I've paid such good attention.
Answer my question please,
I've participated exquisitely.
Answer my question please,
Or just stare me down with your cold,  gripping eyes and wait for the bell to save your soul
and condemn mine

I think of you when I make eggs
scrambled, the way that you like them.
I think how you’d tease
And tap the top of the garlic powder
1,2,3,4,5
times. I always thought
It was too much
But you would’ve laughed
If I told you,
because of the stereotype.

So now I make my eggs
scrambled, the way that you liked them.
tapping
1,2,3,4,5
As if your hand were still
telling me when to stop.

I pull apart
pieces of ham,
that I never really liked
in my eggs.
And American kraft cheese,
that sticks
to my fingers
and sticks
To the bottom of the pan
When I’m scrubbing it out
In the sink. Tapping
1,2,3,4,5
filling the kitchen
with the memory of spice
tapped on to fingers
that are not
mine or yours
but an approximation
of ours.

And you’re eating
the eggs that I made.
The way that you like them
And I’m sitting
down next to you. Tapping
1,2,3,4,5
onto your back

and onto the top
of a table
that you’ve never seen,
or smelled or spilled
scrambled eggs on.

And I’m sitting alone,
eating the eggs
that I scrambled,
the way that you like them,
tapping
1,2,3,4,5
on the top
of a table-turning
too clean with time.

There where times when we
laughed: your mouth parted
small oceans across its landscape,
etching caves into your molars,
if I'd seen them through that rocky grin.

I'd long to hear the crashing of your waves
again. Against a rocky bay.
To taste the dried-up seaweed of near morning
and low tide.
To be matted hair against
a rough wind, shallow
under fading storms.

I'll send smoke
signals and await contact-departing
lost words from frothy beaches

and still I'll cling to remember
the sinking tide,
the swelling dawn
and the indented shoreline,

like a scar across
charred lips or the smile
of a stranger.

I think
about him
too much. I know
he doesn't think
about me.

And how simple
it was
for me
to fall. And how easy
it was
for him
to get up and get on.

I think,
when I see him,
I think more than I've ever thought
about him, or them,
or anyone.

I think
two people
alone
is better than one-- that two
scars can bleed as much as one-- that
words run hot from the sink to drown out the sun--I think.

How easy it is to say one
thousand words and, still, never quite
enough.

The withering corpse slips away
to where? I am not sure but it is gone
It is better that way
She tells me.

How can she know what is better?
How can I know?
How can anyone know?
How?

I suppose one must believe what they hear most.
The more you hear it, the more true it must be
But what if the world is lying

Where does that leave me?
Where does that leave him?
Where does that leave us all?

I guess we are just the summer's day laughs fading into the soft tides
awaiting the dark maiden with her eyes glazed and heart afire.

But what does she bring?
or
What does she take?
What does she cause?
And who does she break?

The questions swirl as the fog thickens and eventually her hand reaches out and pulls us into
the Soft Tides.

Stretching thin
A yarn
Streches across the world.
Another thread, as thin as ice, spreads across continants.
A string, pulled taught, carries across oceans.

A web keenly woven by some sinister spider
Streching me thinner and thinner
waiting for one to snap.
and suddenly its all gone.

She plays guitar with my strings, making the most frightening tune
she hums and grimaces
A bug in her web
slowly dying
it twitches
and twitches
and wrestles with the bonds holding it down
and fights and pulls and
falls
into
the
arms
of
some
sinister
spider.
It's
no
longer
fate.
It's
choice
Was it ever?

There's something about glass
so finite
so certain.

Crystals, polished and proud,
cut with malice.
      Heavenly gleaming
      Heavily streaming
It feels so good to me.

She traces the subtle lines and strong
edges, steadying
her finger on the medicine cabinet.

She hesitates and
feels the oceans
recede.

A small dog on its haunches, waiting
to pounce. She  can taste
the cotton blood seeping
from her wounds in small,
sustained trickles.

Her eyes fall
and she pierces something
big with something
small.

Sometimes
I see a picture.
A picture of a woman
in a kitchen.

Her hair is tied back. But sometimes
it’s not.

Sometimes she winks at me.
A knowing
smile and twitch
of an eyelid.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she’s angry.
Drenched
in the sweat of steamed
broccoli and cauliflower.
Sometimes.


Sometimes she’s cleaning.
Scrubbing her kitchen
spotless. Red tomato
sauce and broken
glasses.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she wilts.
Beside the petunias.
Black
and purple.
Blue
and pink.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she’s spilling.
Water flooding
over the counter
top and stuck
to the clotted drain.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she sees me. Usually
not.  Sometimes she smiles. Usually
not. Sometimes I help her. Usually
not: sometimes.

Clumps of red lacquered strings
twisting and wriggling

They just won't unstick
They cling together with stubborn love

Basil leaves hopelessly floating through the eternity of red sauce and garlic
Chopped up and sprinkled thoughtlessly throughout the disarray

Yet, somehow, little strands of spaghetti manage to stay together
and
I find myself
envying them

Punctuation.
has no place in a; poem

I. believe"
We should? write
and NOt' worry...
about,where (we put) these trivial markings/

Who) cares about the corrections' when its" really about the words!!!
why. cant. we. make. our. sentences.like.this.short.and.snappy.
or why cant we let them live and grow and take on a life of their own and live and spread and continue for hours and hours and send the world into haywire and chaos erupts everwhere and change topics and confuse people and boggle minds and* make you think-

I}{have a secret? i Would like to ShArE
Nothing matters
~'!()_-}{|":?9[;'.],/...!!!?!?!?!?!{({})&"'|)}?/,."}~~~'!

Success is measured
in years, in wisdom, in happiness.

In the amount of people who pause
as you walk,

the number of strangers
who stare at your screen and are moved
to pressing a button.

Success is measured in clicks,
in slow, thoughtful clicks: hammers
pounding through keys with accidental madness.
"I like it," they scream.
I like it.

Success is measured
by happiness. By
snaking smiles stretching far,
too far.

In my peripheral vision, I see it.
A knight battling
a monkey.
A butterfly fighting
a queen.
An old man sitting on the park bench
and laughing at the woes
of the children.

"I like it," he thinks.
I like it

Here I am;
the asphalt covering what is left of my withered self expression.
Here I am;
with nothing but a package of what small personality I did salvage.
Here I am;
awaiting the exile to the inner circle.
Here I am;
wishfully knowing what is next to come.

Here I will be;
a foreigner to  self controlled emotions.
Here I will be;
sent into the burning throat that we call trend.
Here I will be;
a roller-coaster supervisor, but never a rider.
Here I will be;
shamelessly placid.

There I was;
entrenched in my own beliefs.
There I was;
guiltily independent.
There I was;
unique to the tiniest hair on my body.
There I was;
never questioning who I was.





then came the fire





the sweet flames clawed
ripped to shreds
they traveled deep with in the vault I called my spirit
they licked at each crumbling memory of me that would set me apart
their tongues ablaze and thirsting angrily for each asset that made me different
they drooled lullabies
they sweated sanctuary
they left
as if it was nothing but a dream




the fire was gone.






Now





Here I Am.

I am my
self and your
self and her
self and his
off-rhyme of a frayed encyclopedia—
the crippling arch of a fingertip and the kink of its self-
awareness.  

I’d like to keep me trapped
in the amber of this moment
but I find myself,
in chemical waste—
and fumigation of my miscommunication—
tasting the smoke,
ripe and ripping up
soil and self .

I am my
self if the self you are
is you and her self,
is her and his self is
the afterthought of a decomposed anthology—
made mechanically—
the wrapping of roots.
The dipping of leaves
into steamed puddles on
cement streets, evaporating,
*******—
mechanically.

I’d like to be
a rock,
excellently.
The telos of my terrain trembles
beneath the benign boredom of being
myself,
excellently.

Of course as I have an entire life left to live I am wondering what you ate for breakfast.
You ate a chicken quesadilla.
For breakfast???
...wierdo...
but at least I know now
the suspense was killing me.

Now I can't help but wonder what you did today...
Any photos???
You went the bathroom???
GET OUT!!!!

And of course, I want to hear your 'inspirational' (recycled) quote of the day.
"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
(classically overused)
MAN THAT GOT ME SO INSPIRED
I WAS SO SAD BUT READING THAT MADE ME FEEL 100 TIMES BETTER!!
20 likes
WOW YOU ARE A GODDESS!

YOU CHANGED YOUR PROFILE PICTURE????
SCOOOOOOREEEE!!!!
Woah, you look so pretty, you did such a good job with the editing (there is a lot of it).
You look nothing like that in person.....
I like your bra...by the way...
10 likes in 3 minutes!!
DUDE
THIS IS LIVING!!!!

Well enjoy your life with the constant need for approval...
Lets see where that takes you...

Her fingers were coated in rain
drops and candied whispers,
lacing the side
of her face, like a gas
mask or a prayer
shawl.

Woven into her cheeks were the clasped hands
she knew all
but too well, dripping honey and sea
salt across her brow- swollen and
heavy. She felt
its pressure, always,
like a sieve or a boiling point. The cool
90 degrees of a summer smoke.
Orbiting her fingertips.

She flicked the ashes
into a puddle and spat. Her gum
had lost it's flavor.
It was always a bit too sweet.

Our hands and mouths are like boats, they flip about in the turmoil of the sea's final storm.
so indecisive
knowledge is key; key is bankruptcy.
only if you have the key...
can you antelope, I can elephant,  in the tetris island.
YOU FOOL. of course not. try again.
The beeper is left cold.
Only because you have to answer. you could change this you know. there are other possibilities.
like what? ranger ice?? I don't think so.
haha
no I laugh at your incapability of answering this question which is ,oh, so simple.
I'll give you one more chance
Glen.
One more chance.

“English is a beautiful language,
a remarkably precise language
with a million words to choose from to deliver
your exact shade of meaning.”
- Laura Fraser


How clear, varied
and accurate.
How appropriate:
the choice of register,
style and terminology.
(Register: the use of elements such as
vocabulary, tone, sentence structure and terminology
appropriate
to the commentary.)

Language is clear, effective,
carefully chosen and precise,
with a high degree
of accuracy
in grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction;
register and style are effective and
appropriate
to the commentary.

Nice to meet you Dr. Smart.
My type of crazy is an art.

Tell you what I think of first?
May I take but a moment to rehearse?

You say dog and I say fat
You say eat and I say cat
You say smile and I say crown
You say king and I say frown

You look at me with your brow all furrowed do you not see the connection?
You pain my with your stupidity and lost expression.

You ask me the shape of a square block.
You do not know? it is hard not to mock.

These exercises were made for a child,
Though the look in your eyes is positively wild.
A mixture of concern and regret,
Oh dear Dr. Smart  you shouldn't fret.

You may try to analyze but our smarts do not compete.
I have you dancing circles round me while I stay put on my feet.

A tree, standing barren, naked, lost.
A branch, weighed down by nothing but itself.
A leaf, drifting into the neck-breaking frost.

A group of people gathers with a hushed tone.
A black clad group, silently vexed,
Around a weeping rock, a crying stone.

A young voice breaks through,
"Mommy, will He ever take you?"

She turns away and so falls a tear

into a rising pile of lamentable fear.

I feel him hurting
me. Already.

With cinched waists and jarred backs--
a trickle down my eye, carving out
my lips. My tongue. My spine. Your hands--
the rough carpenter of longing.
I crave to find your center--
the point of equilibrium where
two words meet and
love, and writhe and conquer.

All of me is
vulnerable and molten
and yours.

Yours is something different,
different from mine,
from his. His is more.
His is power. Is Glory.
Is light and strength
and Yours.

And what's more?
Is mine. Is our
breath. Our metronome
and the syncopated
rocking of your arms and the bed frame.
Just left
of center. Just right
on target.

I decided to let things wash over
like glitter, which doesn't
wash, but scrubs
into paradox
between the ends
of *******
not touching

I'd like to tender again.

I punctuate the days
with water and fill my stomach
with seeds, inchoate
and young.
I don't have to be today
what I desire tomorrow.
Still, I indulge,
beneath its question,
in the period,
before its deluge,
in the holm. Root
into malleability: an island
passing through time.

I'd like to be again.

I'll walk with a dove on my shoulder:
wary of the wings;
weary of the fall;
the beating
that comes before
the flight.

I'd like to be tender again.

Lights flash.
Glowsticks twirl.
rip   snap   glow
rip snap glow
ripssnapglow
ripsnapglow
rispnapskgoa
thelkaljth
the words blend
the sounds smear
the colors undulate
and suddenly
i heave
i hurl
i ****
i puke
my stomach caves
my body shivers
my brow sweats
my knees quiver
i lurch to the ground
splashing in my warm milky surprise.
and expectedly
i puke
i ****
i hurl
i heave
the world twists
the technicolor dream-coat of Donny Osmond happiness swells.
it rips
it pulls
it tears
it *****
and I'm a hostage to its psychedelic screams.
Faces twist into positions they aren't meant to hold.
gasps wheeze into my pores, burrowing like soft, comforting mole rats into my being.
I'm dissected.

Biting into the crust of an evening reminiscent of you.*

Your crown was  
immaculate, your kingdom over-
grown with red ferns and dandelions up
the side of the fence in the back
yard where I'll meet you behind
the shed, under
the shadow of daybreak

with red ferns and
dandelions. A cloak sewn
from innocence, pushing against the weeds
breaking up--through
the side of the fence in the back yard
Where I meet you.

Your voice slurred in deep tongues,
licking up the side of the fence in the back yard.
Where I met you.

Smothered in red ferns
and dandelions.
We watched them grow
up and over the side of the fence in the back yard
Where I'd met you.  
From time

to time.

I'd watch
as the sunset colored you red,
painted me yellow
until we both
blurred into the night.
Before we even had a chance to crumble into
the crisp embrace of an evening.

My pen was a Palace
and it reigned
over princess and peasant
alike.

The court jester fell
at its feet. The Palace
caco-
phonied with laughter.

The K-
night brought delicious
terrors, to which the princess
fell.

The scribe recorded it all. Exactly
as it happened.

It felt sinful to cry
in front of you: my agony.
the woman I had
wronged. So many times,
in so many ways,
with so many words. They were false
truths I hadn’t meant to mean. Yet
somehow, along the way,

I had picked
them up and whisked them away
in my bag, your baggage and everything

else that had marred me.
A scratch
across the glass of my
actions: your face. I hope you can see
past the fog of my deviance. I’ll draw
a smile in the condensation, blurring the
cadence of an attitude—the pure
and their righteous, the demented
and their sin—to make a clearer picture
from this polaroid dangling, overexposed,
from the edges
of our friendship—the soft curve of a lie.

It tastes so smooth, rolling
up through my tongue. It sounds so bitter
wafting out from your throat.

I look around
and it seems that everyone is happy,
that they are doing something right.
I look around
and it appears that I'm sad,
that I'm doing something wrong.
Well it ever unwrong itself?

Each letter thrown unnaturally on to their haphazard paper is worshiped, studied, praised
by all.
I've been doing this longer...
Shouldn't I be better?
I watch as all others rise on their platforms of aimless potential.
Raw potential.
What about skill?
I sand alone on a once even; now sunken chasm of lost heart.

The award goes to...
It's gonna be me
It's gonna be me
Everyone knows it.
It's GOTTA be me.
It's not me.



See that tiny dot?
That black speck of irrelevance??
Do you know what it is???
That's me.

And do you see that sea of shining smiles????
The golden accomplishments gleaming?????
Do you know what that that is?
That's them.

Once upon a time, I was up there,
gleaming along with the rest of them.
Maybe even a podium step higher.
Then suddenly, as if powered by light speed elevators, they shot away.
Their glimmering faces glowering down at me and snickering.

I don't understand.
How is what they did any better than what I did?
Who is keeping score?
Betcha my bottom dollar their prejudice.
Whoever they are they caged me in black walls of shunned solitude.
And proclaimed a law against me.
What against me?
I'm not sure.
But the dark walls are closing in, the glistening sea is shrinking
and that tiny little dot...
That's me.