I blinded myself looking on the bright side
of this. Now I cant look at anything the same.
You see pretending for the sake of pride
isn't bliss, it's ignorance to avoid a shift of blame.  

Aren't you the one who said:
" Take a minute. Take two. Anymore and it's on you"

Well I've sat on my tongue for two days
trying to think of different ways to say this.
And it's now aimless
Cause you're not there at all.

It's not that I believe it doesn't end.
Its just the angle- I cant see for the bend.
I've been walking this plastic corridor since
I pushed through the blackened door unwittingly.
And it's not that I'm longing to walk it with a friend.
I just hope that I make it out the other side fittingly.

Because what If I've grown
Much to large for my humanly confines?
And what if all I own
Is the rags on my back and a collection of fines?

Will I pass through the doors without interrogation?  
Or be doomed to walking this squinted corridor
with nothing but a tireless and ever wasting patience?

When I was a newborn, less than 4 days old, you bought as many stuffed toys as your car could fit and surrounded them around my crib, ignoring my grandmother who kept telling mom that newborns don't know how to look at objects.
I moved my eyes and looked at them.

When I was a toddler, you encouraged me to watch Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin and didn't want me to watch Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty because you "wanted your daughter to learn a lesson, not just waste time".

When I was 7 you took me everywhere with you and didn't mind me listening to your friends' political arguments. On our way home though you always told me "Don't grow up to be like them.  Don't let people lead you."
And I didn't. I pushed a girl because she wanted to be the group leader in our science project.

When I was 11 you started discussing books by Stephen Covey and made me listen to Zig Ziglar cassettes. "Don't blindly follow the crowd," you said. "Always raise your neck and look around. If you don't like where they're going, take another road."
And I did. Girls my age were giggling about boys and bras while my eyes were wide open and excited about all the facts I read from my science textbook.

When I got to middle school and got my eating disorder, I refused to eat the apple in algebra class so that I could take my quiz, and didn't mind my teacher calling you to pick me up for my "resistance".
I got in the car waiting for you to pat my back and tell me I did well for refusing to give in to her ultimatum. I waited for you to tell me that I didn't need help anyways. But the drive back home was silent.

When I was 14 and went to my brother's school to beat up the kid bullying him, you called. I thought you called to give me a pep talk, or give me some tips on how to break his nose. All you said was "stay in the car. Leave the beating for the boys". I came back home confused.

When I was 17 and told you about my goals, you said "When you're young, you have unrealistic dreams. You feel like flying from your positive energy and like you have the whole world in the palm of your hand. But you grow up and realize that you need to be realistic."
I opened my mouth but closed it right after remembering you telling me "Think before you speak. If the outcome of what you'll say is useful, say it. If it'll hurt people, don't." I don't think it would've been useful. What use would it be to scream in your face about how that 'unrealistic dream' was the only goal I had, the only distraction from suicide. What use would it be to tell you that I don't remember the last time I felt like I was about to burst from the positive energy that I had?

You taught me how to be different. You taught me to love math and science. You taught me to be my own person and not let people decide what I should do in my life. But what you forgot to do is teach me how to feel okay. You didn't teach me how to reply to people who tell me that I watch too many American shows and that I let go of our traditions because of my opinion on marriage. You didn't teach me how to not feel lonely as hell when it's 3 am and I'm spewing out everything I binged and wiping my tears away while my throat bleeds and the music is playing to cover up the sound of me choking on the last words I screamed at myself and the gasps of relief when I purge out all my feelings and lay on the floor feeling numb. You didn't teach me how to pretend to blend in when the girls my age would take boys' phone numbers and I'd ask them questions like "but how are you guys together now? You don't know each other's personalities. You only just met." You taught me how to be smart, educated Belle and rebellious, going-by-her-own-rules Jasmine..

Daddy, you taught me how to be my own person in a place where you're supposed to be everyone else's clone, and I am forever grateful.. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish you had taught me how to pretend to be like Aurora or Snow White.

I have not put pen to paper in a good while.
It is probably for the better.
The blinds hide the world.
Listening to movie trailer music,
I write and hope.

What happens when you get older?
I hate it when people say they are "young".
You're 40 years young?
No.
You're an *******.
We are dying from the moment of birth.
Don't forget that.
Pessimistic and proud.

Sometimes I sleep with the T.V. on at night.
A constant reminder that my dreams can give way to
war,
famine,
Perez Hilton.
If this is how the World ends,
life was good.

You see...
This is why I don't write anymore.
Poems that give way to inner thoughts.
How deep and depressing.
I could write more...

I won't.
Maybe.

Poems that end like highway wrecks.
Leaving you wanting
nothing,
but a refund.

Slam.

Broken angel wings, burning in the sky.
Little angel don’t you cry,
though your wings will never fly.
Broken body hits the ground.
Not a whimper, not a sound.
Clouds gather, gray and dull.
Their rain is like a breathless lull.
You’ve fallen now, your grace you’ve lost.
You fell in love, you paid the cost.
For love, you said, I’ll give my grace!
The tears are streaming down your face.
But you will live, safe from harm,
a human life, in the embrace of
loving human arms.

good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
***
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated.
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself-
they stand outside me
like an orange dropped from the table
and rolling away; it's what I've got to
decide:
**** myself or
love myself?
which is the treason?
where's the information
coming from?
books...like broken glass:
I wouldn't wipe my *** with 'em
yet, it's getting
darker, see?
(we drink here and speak to
each other and
seem knowing.)
buy the cow with the biggest
****
buy the cow with the biggest
****.
present arms.
the bartender slides me a beer
it runs down the bar
like an Olympic sprinter
and the pair of pliers that is my hand
stops it, lifts it,
golden **** of dull temptation,
I drink and
stand there
the weather bad for cows
but my brush is ready
to stroke up
the green grass straw eye
sadness takes me all over
and I drink the beer straight down
order a shot
fast
to give me the guts and the love to
go
on.
from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.