I'm at that point after the debate season where
I'm all exhausted and nostalgic because
it's too late to do anything this season
too early to worry about next season and
all my senior friends graduated and
I'll never see them again.

Even scarier is the revelation that this will be me next year.  

What started out as a pleasant diversion
something to do on weekends
has become my social life and my education, and,
to a larger extent than it should be,
my identity.

I will miss playing truth-or-truth
(like truth or dare, only with more difficult decisions).
I will miss making friends because
I can't walk in heels
or mispronounced a word
or I like someone's tie.
I will miss our stupid inside jokes and debating
(and beating)
cute boys, waking up in a new city every weekend.
I will miss long car rides staring at the moonlight
illuminating the patterned clouds,
my headphones in and my best friends sleeping
packed closer-than-comfortable on each other's shoulders.
I know I have another year left, but
a lot of people who made debate what it is
have either graduated or will be graduating this year.

I miss my friends, my mentors, already.
As they leave, the threads that tie me to my city
fray. Already,
a year before it will finally be my turn
to face that door that leads into the unknown of
adult life, the door through which
many of my closest friends have already walked,
I have utterly lost any reluctance
to pass through it.
One friend after another has left
this tiny valley I call home,
and most of my best friends live outside of it.

One more year.

I now understand the way the seniors I looked up to
didn't seem to notice me
or pay me the sort of attention I paid them
when I was busy idealizing and looking up to them --
it's not that I don't care
about the younger kids on my team or my school,
or that I don't appreciate or believe in them,
but they are not a part of my future.
They are not a part of what I will become.  

I face that mysterious door, fighting my way
step by step
through mounds of paperwork and college applications
all for that intangible future
more fresh and beautiful than anything here.
I will go.

And those cute little incoming freshmen will not follow.
If I am to face forward, I must necessarily fix my eyes
on my future, not theirs.
They will do the same in time.

I can't bring myself to obsess over the past
and beat myself up over the relationships
(debationships?)
I should have developed but didn't.
There's no point. I don't mean to sound nihilistic --
in fact, just the opposite.
My future is manifesting itself slowly,
inexorably and inexplicably before me.

Am I making decisions, or is fate
shaping my loves and hates and opportunities?
I don't think it matters.
I choose to gaze at my future as infinite opportunity,
infinite joy spread over infinite possiblities.
As that joy becomes tangible, it also becomes more finite,
but from where I stand I see everything ahead.
I can finally leave everything I have been tied to
and prove to myself I am myself.

To those who are graduating this year:
even if I barely remember you,
if you were a brief conversation
or a random my-friend-dared-me-to-hug-you,
you are awesome.
Our brief, random, enlightening moments
of shared human contact have made me who I am.
I can't explain how much it means to realize
that you're not alone,
that some people care about the same things you do
and care enough to reach out and teach.

To those of you who have time left:
make the most of it.
Talk to the shy kid in the corner;
She's the sweetest.
Talk to the kid who reads Game of Thrones between rounds;
He has the funniest stories.
If you have a cute opponent, ask for their case
and write your number on it.
You only get one shot at this,
and it goes by too fast for you to hold back.
My best memories have come from the most dangerous
and strange decisions --
walking around a dark campus
with a couple of people I barely know,
picking "dare" in truth or dare,
smiling at strangers.

To those of you in the same class as me,
looking forward, bound to your past and present:
thank you.
Thank you
thank you
for existing and being kind to me and regaling me with your stories and emotional problems and memories.
Thank you for not letting me stay depressed
and dragging me outside of myself.
Thank you for making me care, one way or another.
When I stand at my high school graduation
in my school's garish purple and gold,
I will be thinking of a dozen other people
in blue and red and orange and green.
I will be thinking of the people
who made life too precious to spill out on a knife,
too beautiful to be captured in the pages of a book,
too unanticipated to get bored or cynical of.

All the poems I see are sad.
I hit shuffle for the hundredth time,
Hoping not to see the word "gone" or "pain" or "alone."
Once again, I am disappointed.
Yes, I get it.
We turn to poetry when our souls are darkest
To release our insecurities under anonymity
To see the yellow lightning bolt shouting,
"Someone cares!"
Into your darkness.
And this is all right.

But there is also joy in this earth.
There are weird moments when I feel happy
Even though I don't have a boyfriend
And my best friend isn't talking to me
And it's grey and bleak outside.
In these moments of inexplicable happiness,
There is just as much poetry
As there is in the moments
Of inexplicable sorrow.

I am Ink
sweet blood of the
pen.
I **** the flesh of parchment with savvy strokes of timeless musings.
The poet is nothing without my inspiration to spur him forward forcing thought from mind into
visual conceptions of reality.
The written word is law and
I am law
We are one.
The ink ,not the pen, is mightier than the sword.
What is the pen without me?
The ink.
A wasted corpse
space used on a desk
worthless
to be without ink.
I alone am the soul of literature.
I alone raise words from the dead  minds of deceased philosophers.
My word has capsized continents
waged unwinnable wars
I do not discriminate
I have killed men women children.
I have breathed life into centuries.
I am eternity
I am ink.

I haven’t seen you in four months
I haven’t seen you in four months and now it’s starting to hurt
I thought I’d become immune to you
But I just saw a photograph of you again
And I think I’m coming down with something
Something just doesn’t feel right
You’ve not been in my head for a third of the year
But I saw a guy who looked like you today
And it took all of my strength not to run up and kiss him
To hold his hand like I once held yours when we made origami
I don’t think you’re ever really going to leave me
Just like the tattoo on your leg
You showed me the ink just before I left
And I told you it was stunning
But it wasn’t as stunning as you
You are more than skin deep beauty
You are bones and scarred knees
And skeletal structure
And cheekbones to die for
And whenever I felt like dying
You reminded me why I needed to keep waking up
I sugar coat you like ****
But you were always so sweet to me
I keep tasting you in the three spoonfuls of my tea.

I live in a city of salty people.
We are all
at times
mean
crass
goatish
people. Like grains of salt
in a salty sea-
-or a salty lake.
but, we are not ever
boring.
we may be salty
but we are doubtlessly very flavorful.
we have more personality
and *****
and character
per square inch
than most of the cities in the world.
most all the cities I have been to, anyway.

anyway.

I am a salty *******
at times
and I have discovered that I
need
a grain of salt in my life.
cold mornings.
a shot of whiskey.
Something to push back
against.
For fighting fake conflict is just
flailing.
I’m trying to tread this
salty
water and keep oxygen in my lungs
just like all the other mouth-breathing saps in this salty pond
pushing each other down to get a breath of fresh ozone and carbon monoxide
and I guess that means I’m fighting
for something.

I am everything.
I am good
I am evil.
I am love and I am fear.
I am success,
I am failure.
I am spiritual
And I am physical.
I am consciousness yet ignorance.
I am change and I am routine.
I am joy,
I am anger.
I am peace; I am unrest.
Tranquility and uproar.
I am truth
I am deceit.
I am a vessel
I am connection
I am solitude.
I am enlightened and I am
learning.
I am imagination,
I am creation.
I am attachment and relief.
I am imprisonment,
I am freedom.
I am me and I am you.
I am earth,
I am man.
I am the sun and the moon.
I am soul and I am matter.
I am light
I am darkness.
I am.

I stopped looking for monsters when I realized I was one
with my innate ability to slice you, insides cascading with a pool of blood surrounding your body, wide the **** open.
I gave up on my search when the mirror, toothpaste stains, reflected exactly the monster I searched for deep within the eyes of family, friends and strangers alike. **** those deceitful eyes, wide with false innocence. I dine with the devil, cooking him the burning flesh of the hopeless souls defeated by his beautiful lies.
I remember the day I fell,
my heart was a puddle beneath my feet and hope a flower smashed in my hands. I was deserted, left for dead by the people meant to love me the most. And there it was, a life--if you could call it that--free of broken promises used as the building blocks of the foundation that creates the ruthless world we live in.
I stopped looking for monsters when I realized it wasn't my heart that produced the thumping in my chest. A hollow cavity with squishing like mac and cheese, cheesy wet noodles. The thumping, though, is all unique in itself, the symphony of aching memories crashing against each other beneath the surface of this monster that I am--the distance memories of happiness mocking me.

I don't look for monsters anymore. It seems silly.

Leafless trees hover the the sidewalks,
leading to places that I should,
and should not be.
Between you and me,
you see me much easier,
than I seem to see you.

I can play the part,
when I choose to.
But can you not tell,
I would prefer to climb these
tree limbs, rather than walk
beneath.

I reckon you would choose,
to bequeath to me the ability,
to walk tall, when I feel so childish,
and so small.

As fruit flies flood my bedroom,
I flee the scene, hoping not to be
seen.

I am afraid I live in a town,
that I am far too unfamiliar with.
I'm running out of hiding places.

I know this feeling must be temporary,
but is this just a test?
For now, I suppose I am meant to
just digress.

Oh, but how pretty the autumn is,
how exiting it is to see the sky change
from clear to night.
I choose to wait.
Let my fate find me,
because you cannot,
and trust me when I say,
CANNOT,
fight fate,
my dear.

I can run, and I can hide.
Try to find me, you may
get lucky.
Knock on my door,
that is where you will
find me.

And when boredom strikes my mind,
I will look out the window.
Don't think I never saw you there,
you knew exactly where I was.
I'm sure it wasn't hard to spot a
naked gal front & center of a dimly lit
bedroom of a well-known building.

You spied with your little eyes,
and I fled the scene.
Too bad you couldn't wait,
just a moment longer.
You would have seen me,
standing there.

I swear, if time passes
and turns into a year,
what the hell do you want
from me?

In all honesty,
I've made amends to all
the men from my past.
Well, except for one.
My biological father.
but he doesn't matter,
anyway.

But can you not tell?
Can you not see?
My heart is bleeding blue.
True, deep, dark,
blue.
I promise I will
never **** the life
from you.

Hot cross buns,
one a penny,
two a penny,
darling, please.

You can't knock it,
no, not ever!
Not until you try it!
Treat me like a lady,
kiss me on my hand.

For now, I glance out every
secret window
of this spooky
ghost town.
I suppose I will learn
to settle.
But I beg,
find me hiding.
One of these nights, I'll be
somewhere similar to a sanctuary.