There to language and I are leave they out can no a don't
of do diseases beautiful speak

Their focus
dragging is crueler corpse

Pulling love their write
than off for reluctant this the clear each shadows
into poem
which ones crinkling other
is school is we cellophane not and both self-inflict shiny sweet out
Frail a
but silver and bodies eulogy
and I foil
with childish
it's running an still nimble a on obituary

find fingers collision caffeine ­ myself
thirsting and
sliding of and I for a souls nicotine
pain love the single
a boredom them bottle
and cigarette
out necessary indifference
you of train and ­ still the wreck
a panic

You I find pack
and desperate can love the slipping tempest
to tell them beast it survive they because in into the long
I your their deadly for know heart
begging lips
It drone solace
in each to fits of the of be so school
it way them smothered effortlessly can't they is in so be hold a smoke

They easy
they've done their work sneak been alone
regroup coffee
tenderly in out repeating collect fingers progress to the stick wrapped
smoke same together round
the ­ their motion
collide

Their comforting because cigs
between for arguments shape I classes
just years and and know another now
sparking apologies
have smell
and each insolence the kissing is another lighter tragic
their shattered act
The tone cancer in of small of sticks
with a audacity
another flame ancient faint sense
fleck erupts
promising rome
empires hopes ­ of relief rising of because rebellion
The and necromancy
and they're way sweet falling

I rebirth just to taste hear with souls express of them every
searching their nicotine bicker
and puff
***
they for contempt
a trickling argue take a way
down and turns voice to into talk
with objectifying
say the echoes each ­ **** back of other I you
to of prayers
feigning love the their in tenderness them
government throats their when because and
They voices
please really
they I'm the smile see are starting educational

Behind me just to system
and stone please new see
to gargoyle hear bodies
interlaced ­ the smiles
thunder me
please for beyond clockwork eyes validate
an the holding and my hour archetype-- them rock existence

Debating
American or a back
from fists
they Spirit two
There true a hide Malboro is
expansiveness death their Camel
the no
they heavy intricacies emotion ­ secretly hearts
with of here
they're long shrouds the just I for
Because of taste
they kids love i smoke
like taught who've them think
small-featured themselves always because at bride to loved the least faces
behind love

To playing smell a heavy me
the of few veils
Holding every ***** cigarette of their joke Doctor smoke
them precious sounds game

Mothers
use ­ know
that gaspers
between like their reminds it’s 2 a name me still fingers hymn
every as of a
elegantly nervous a afternoons suicide the pair cautionary
tale in
even way of and
they're France if they hands
the the
it’s saw
james brittle kids
our ­ in bond after-math
of parents sitting slow and broken warned on motion
And models promises
chaotic us the every in thoughts about curb cigarette
is glossy tumbling

I of a magazines like know my calming do
dust they've dying coffin it
There in given grandfather's nail
I on ­ are children know perfection
so and too here they they watching young
to

just are want the drink the different
but to passer-by or lost they be stroll purchase
their and are some through
ambrosia the human kind ­ and lonely and of the tabacco
the young
and dazzling pavements treasures
Yes ones perhaps cataclysm

I they who they bright love are wear are flaming them young such like disaster because minors
but solid me
Maybe a everyone they’re masks
They’re they lovely needs already all too
have wreck
they a afraid looking fears
maybe offer place of for they me
and growing some too a they too form awaken drag
but know old of in all that to redemption the I

Their die
but dead can parties young
soon they'll of think
is are they'll settle night
sweating that an get for and rebellion
emergency withered attention
Faith confused

I isn’t exit

They're and on can a a wrinkling
and the see language
I lighthouse they other them know for won't hand now how the be
is drifting to lost
able a in speak
All

After the screams
I was coming undone,
splitting at the seams.
I hauled all my watercolors
out of my brother's office.
I took the paintbrushes
and palettes of a thousand hues
lodged between his camo army vest
and his heavy shoes
and I sprawled out in the
spinach-green living room.
I painted
willow trees and silhouettes
and viridian snakes spilling from ***** lips.

At 2am I got up
headed to the deck
and watched the stars
Because sometimes I forget.
I let my nights
be slaughtered by sobs.

These nights, this view
It’s mine, you can’t have it.
Everyone needs a place
and this is mine,
this tiny nirvana,
2 o'clock constellations
in the dark purple bruise of night
are my home.

A pool of watercolors,
magenta, cyan, indigo, emerald and cerulean,
swells in my chest,
in the empty space between my lungs.
A drowning, a baptism.

Everywhere, in everything,
your unblinking ghost.
It refuses to dissolve.

I'm filled with aches and cavities,
concave heart
hollow lips.
I can't be your salvation
You can't be my elixir.
There is no cure to be found.
We're too young to save each other,
weak hands
intertwined like
predicaments of bittersweet,
frail blue eyes
like cities of crystal
staring quietly, relentlessly.

This is a *******
emotional scavenger
with no way out,
and we both know
this thing will never
have a chance
to stand on it's own
t                              f
w                           ­ e
o                             e
                               t

Love love love
The riddle of the Sphinx
Love poems,
eternal hieroglyphs
and lovers,
desperate archeologists
attempting to decipher
the ruins.

Dead languages
that haven't been spoken
for thousands of years,
the naive attempt to
resuscitate an extinct civilization,
sit pretty on the tongue
because things are sweeter
when they’re lost.

People over romanticize things like
Sylvia Plath's
suicide in the oven
or stars
or love.
Stars are just big
flaming messes
that burn and care
for nothing else.
and so is love.

Despite my buttoned-up blouses
and combed hair and glasses
I'm a feral creature.
Crouched, stunned, frightened
licking her own
wounds
and struggling to survive,
to learn how to defend herself
out in the jungle.

I'm savage
and I tend to burrow
into the deepest, darkest
caves of myself.

I'm running through the forest,
wild, dazed, confused,
with my slamming heart
my violet animal veins throbbing.

Don't try to tame me,
please, just
get me bandages, I’m bleeding
I'm wounded, I don't know
if I can endure
much longer.

I wish I could convert those who
think poetry is silly, or annoying.
I wish I could take them by the hand and lead them
through the words
preach, exhort and say look, listen
watch the pictures the words paint
and hear the music, the endless melodies
please
I wish I could baptize
those who scorn the beauty
and turn the non-believers into the devout







                                                                      Maybe I'll be a teacher

I been strollin down by the riverbed
Searchin for answers
Shifting the rocks, the pebbles and stones
Trying to dig up the secrets and unknowns
But the ripples never speak
The ferns never reply, that's the natural technique
Only silence
As the water slips and shimmies on by

I been walkin on the beach
Searchin for answers
Under the sun I wander and roam
Diggin the sand, kickin the foam
Tryin to unearth
The secrets of the world's worth
But the sand barely whispers, the foam only scorns
Only silence
As the tide shies away and mourns

I been crossin every desert
Searchin for answers
Climbing the dunes and braving the storms
The scorching heat, the flies in swarms
I couldn't understand what they were tryin to preach
And the solace of water remained always out of reach
-Never an oasis
Only a mirage

There is so much you don't know about a person
so much some do not speak of
Some secrets
are best left untold
and some secrets have simply gotten too heavy
to lift

This is not your fault
but you could have done more
You could've made my days a little bit easier
if you'd tried
But now you cannot reverse this
I'm sorry
I cannot come back.
Never.

I am no longer here because I was shattered
I deserve
credit for my courage,
for having endured so long

The only explanation I can give
is that I was a glitch.
That's all I ever felt myself to be.

The insensitive
are best suited to this world
and I am not strong enough
to endure my own presence.

I can only beg of you,
beg you to remember
To love yourselves
love those who surround you
Hold hands and know
that every person carries
a secret, untold struggle
(some are harder to survive than others
-I'm so sorry,
I had to)
Remember me
but most importantly
remember what I've been trying so hard to teach you.
Love
Tonight, today, tomorrow
Love
No matter the price.

I occasionally feel my smallness
to be a virtue
Yes I am invisible
and timid also, so quick to shut my eyes
I fade into the background.
my head,
settled into a thick fog
I do not speak words
which could be used against.
I do not open up
to those who could so easily harm me.

Don't try to to understand
the trickling through
my eyelids drooped.
When one has a secret life,
one's tears cannot be explained

But the problem is
that secrets worth having
tend to leak out
or implode

So I sometimes permit myself
to open at night,
I who vowed to never open again.
Speak to me at 3 o'clock
for I confess feebly in the light
but in darkness,
I am true

Discover me
before you find me in a coffin,
regretting all the questions
you never asked me
and all the things you should've said

"There are no diseases crueler
than the ones we self-inflict"
but I still find myself
thirsting for the bottle
and you still find the beast in your heart
begging to be smothered in smoke

They sneak out to smoke their cigs
between classes
just another insolence, another act of audacity
another fleck of rebellion
a way to express their contempt
a way to say ********
to the government and the educational system
and to the clockwork holding them back
from a death they secretly long for
Because i think at least a few of them know
that it’s still a suicide
even if it’s in slow motion
And every cigarette
is a calming coffin nail

Legally, they are too young
to drink or purchase
their ambrosia and tabacco treasures
Yes they are young, minors
but they’re already afraid of growing too old to die young
soon they'll get withered and wrinkling
and they won't be able to leave a beautiful corpse

Pulling off clear, crinkling cellophane, shiny silver foil
with nimble fingers and
sliding a single cigarette
out of the pack
and slipping it into their lips
It fits so effortlessly, so easy
they've been repeating the same motion for years now
sparking the lighter,
The small flame erupts
promising relief.
The sweet taste of nicotine trickling
down into the back of their throats.
They smile.

Behind stone gargoyle smiles
thunder eyes and rock fists
they hide their heavy hearts
with shrouds of smoke
like small-featured bride faces
behind heavy veils
Holding their precious gaspers
between 2 fingers,
elegantly, the way they saw
james bond and models in glossy magazines do it
There are no children here,
just the lost and the lonely,
the ones who wear such solid masks
They’re all looking for some form of redemption,
but they'll settle for attention
Faith, on the other hand,
is a language they don't speak

Their love for each other
is not sweet and childish
it's a collision of souls,
a necessary train wreck
a desperate tempest
to survive the deadly drone of school
it can't be done alone
regroup, collect, stick together,
collide

Their arguments and apologies
have the tragic tone of ancient rome
empires rising and falling

I hear them bicker
and argue and talk
with echoes of prayers in their voices
please see me, please hear me
please validate my existence

Debating
American Spirit, Malboro, Camel
the intricacies of the taste
they taught themselves to love

To me every joke sounds like a hymn
every nervous pair of hands
the brittle after-math
of broken promises
chaotic thoughts tumbling like dust in the wind

I know they are different
but they are human and young
and perhaps they are like me
Maybe they too
have fears
maybe they too awaken in the dead of night
sweating and confused

I can see them now, drifting in and out of focus
dragging their reluctant shadows
into school and out
Frail bodies running on caffeine and nicotine
pain, boredom, indifference and panic

You can tell they long for solace
in the way they hold their coffee
tenderly, fingers wrapped round
the comforting shape and smell
and kissing their cancer sticks
with faint hopes of necromancy
and rebirth with every puff

***
they take turns objectifying each other,
feigning tenderness when really
they are just new bodies
interlaced for an hour or two
There is no emotion here
they're just kids who've always loved playing
the ***** Doctor game

Mothers
use their name as a cautionary
tale and
they're the kids
our parents warned us about.

I know they've given up on perfection
so they want to be some kind of dazzling cataclysm
a bright, flaming disaster, a lovely wreck
they offer me a drag
but all I can think
is that rebellion isn’t a language
I know how to speak
All I can do is write this poem
which is both a eulogy
and an obituary



                                                     ­           I love them.
I love them because I know each of them is a work in progress,
because I know each is shattered in a sense
because they're just souls searching for a voice.
I love them because I'm starting to see
beyond the archetype-- a true expansiveness.
And I love them because the smell of cigarette smoke
reminds me of afternoons in France,
sitting on the curb of my dying grandfather's home
and watching the passer-by stroll through
the pavements.

I love them because everyone needs a place,
and they know that.

Their parties are an emergency exit.

They're a lighthouse for the lost.

First came the false presumptions of luxury
The gaudy glamour
Bright dresses and dark suits
Awkward glances and ****** food
Eventually though
The evening settled down
And then, after the smoking and drinking
Came 1 o'clock, the worn-out end of a hazy day

Suddenly,
It was a smother of time,
a stifling landscape of clocks
a decaying of darkness
The night gave way to trembling cold delirium
And slow and slow down
A slide from reality
Everything fell

I remember barely a glimmer- a hand, an arm, red sheets somewhere
Eyes that whispered "what's wrong with her? what's her deal?"
Or worse yet, faces that didn't care
To see me, my wrists
Appalling in all their shivering shaken chill dust
In moments like this,
I am nothing but a fearful machine
Broken in its deepest workings,
All function altered.

Clamors and tremors of panic
Withered illusions gathered at my feet like kittens
I tossed the blanket from the makeshift bed
Lay upon my back and waited
Watched, frightened, the night revealing
The hundred ignoble, vile images
Of which my thoughts seems consisted of

They flickered at bit- against the burgundy hammock
And empty Baccardi bottles
2 o'clock shook the memory
A crowd of twisted things,
Torn and stained and coiling about my wrists
I move by the sway of these thoughts that are curled around me
-The notion of some infinitely suffering thing

Oh I only need a lighthouse
To guide my soon-to-be shipwreck home
I only need a compass, a crucifix, a presence
But never
never to be found
the way

I'm afraid of growing up
-I've already grown too much
I want to say, stop
I know too much already, I've seen too many things
Please stop
Before it's too late
Before I get Reality, but a reality that has faded away
Before my judgement is warped but I don't give a ****
Too long on earth, that's it, that's what I fear
Telling, living
A story told too often
Losing myself
With no place to go, no surprise, no wonder
Dirtied with life

I miss you
and memory of you, it’s not as clear
as it used to be
I try to trace your voice in ink,
knowing it's impossible,
I'm still trying to see your phantom blue eyes,
but to no avail
I try to hear you but all I hear is static
coming across the ocean

Your last words to me were jumbled
uttered through a jaw left paralyzed by your stroke
and after your death
I was left to sift through the ruins of what you told me (I'll never know)
Trying in vain to decipher the hieroglyphics
of the way your hand squeezed mine
for the last time

I didn't deem myself strong enough to attend the funeral
I knew I was too shaky
to deal with estranged relatives and a cortege of black
and a symphony of muffled familial sadness
The pews full of faces chiseled from marble,
listening as a stranger gave your eulogy
I was too weak to handle witnessing
the birth of a stately widow
in the midst of an ugly cemetery
          (I always imagine how bitterly it would cost her,
       to prostrate herself in submission at your grave
     kneeling like the defeated queen
    of a fallen empire)
I did not want to see the way that what one fears,
the end
can come so abruptly
and I was selfish
I chose not to say goodbye
because I could not stand the thought of
seeing you in a quiet boneyard
amongst cold, silent stones

But maybe I should've gone
because now I know that
when you mourn
you mourn
alone

There was hardly time to be sorry
with homework and house-keeping responsibilities
now that my mother was gone
I had to do my crying
while cooking dinner or doing math exercices
Any sorrow had to be wedged
between stress and duty
all permission to grieve
was impeded, absorbed by the impassive process

It truly is terrible, the knowledge that
it could all end, it is all capable
of devastation
Every plant can wither
everything can ******* or fade
All, all
can be lost
every memory can fade through time
or will to remember

My family never mourned together,
the family in America I mean
and I believe that this is how
in each of us began
a deep isolation, though we never spoke of this,
of the absence of touch

The worst of death,
the lose of a beloved
is the separation.
I am alive. You are not.
It is terrible to survive
as unmerited consciousness

The memories I have of you
are far too few
and I will forever be left wishing
I had done more, said more, taken more pictures
The remembrance is insatiate

Sometimes I like to read the books you left behind,
and remember your passion for Latin,
the way the citations
unfurled as you gave them new meanings.
But on other days,
I keep them far and untouched
-they seem too much like tombstones
that have surrendered their worth
to your absence

Your death is yet another
ghost posed on my lips and in my thoughts:
Never
In this world, this circular reality
things can happen conclusively, decisively,
and the mind cannot reverse them:
*Never

So many nights I stayed up late with him
smothered by smoke and darkness,
talking about freedom, listing all the reasons
I couldn't wait to leave this place
but it was never the small town I minded so much
as the ever present loneliness.

I remember my art teacher
pointing out that all my ****** artwork
held symbols of evasion
-an open window with views of mountains
shadows fleeing from a slit photograph
an elevator open to reveal an aquarium
Always things opening
to reveal something better

My thoughts are not chiseled in stone
my eyes are not cold marble,
they do not remain still enough
to know permanence—
They only speak escapism

My dreams and fears
are not geometric and carefully calculated.
They are horribly bohemian, fluttering and
echoing the uncertainty
of a bird's   f l  i  g
                                   h    
                                         t

I am always planning evacuation routes,
building gypsy caravans in the basements of my mind
I will always be hightailing
through the hedges and fences
put up by friends and family
I have been working on my vanishing act
for the past 16 years and
none of you will see it coming.

And I do not like to show people
the ways I have been broken, so I hide the evidence
In that sense I am a perfect houdini
-a successful illusionist, a stunt performer
I've learned that many questions like handcuffs can be avoided and evaded
as I have become able to regurgitate small white lies like keys at will

There is one escape
that I have never granted myself
the release of a blade
the empty prevarication of pain
I never cut, never slit, never shed my blood
I guess I've always been smart enough to know
that a razor doesn't have the power
to stop the tempest in my head

I will forever remain a fugitive
and when you look at me and my eyes are glazed
it means I had snuck away to my world
I've packed up and run off
and you cannot follow me
nor bring me back
no matter how hard you try

The city sleeps alone tonight
Alone again, between black sheets
Tomorrow night she will shed her cloak
And become a harlot
Donning the gaudy jewelry
Of neon signs and lit cigarettes

The way I speak
In the car in the morning, or under trees
Is swathed in darkness
My words build walls and facades
And cunning passages, contrived corridors
Deceit, whispered ambitions
I'm dispensing my secrets
But dispensing too soon, or too late
Into weak hands
Or disbelief or indifference
Or until their refusal to look me in the eyes propagates a fear
That no amount of courage on my part could ever dissipate
I'm covered in locks
Inside and out
But no one has the keys
And I am not beautiful enough
For anyone to bother trying

Blanche
Perched high upon a gaudy throne
In her faded dream kingdom
Where everything is soft
And glimmers and glows
Where brutal reality is hidden
By soft colors, the colors of jasmine
And butterfly wings
Her singing
Weary and strained
Like a dying star
Turning the trick
She dons such deliberate disguises
White satin, a paper lantern
Oh Blanche
Purely corrupted
Lighting ****** candles
To hide the stains
And with wide-eyed laughter,
Uttering naivetés
Dropping virginal lies like pearls from a necklace
Clinging to hope
To unheard prayers, unseen supplications
Her restless eyes
Begging for mercy
And wandering aimlessly
Through rainy afternoons in New Orleans
Her lips whisper a battle cry
I don't want realism. I want magic
I tell what ought to be the truth
Truth is sin
Verity and naked bulbs be ******

The last time I see their eyes
The final exhale
Smoke and soft ignorance
Mingling through white teeth
The last dawn, the last noon, the ultimate sunset
All silent, as if awaiting..
And the last drop of water on untainted skin
The last sip, last bite, last puff
Last Cheshire smile
Disintegrating into darkness
Before the final twist of the knife

Days like this
When deception follows sorrow
And grief follows anger
When the face becomes hideous
Beastlike with savage redness
And rough and dry
When the gold necklace
Becomes glued to the chest
With so many tears
And the salt remains on the neck and cheeks-
The speckled aftermath of rage
Days like this
When the cage is closing in
Tighter, tighter, the bars gnawing my skin
When everything is parched, brittle
The throat, the eyes, the thoughts
The night consumes itself
No remembrance of sleep, no memory of peace
Waking up to the same life
Same acerbity of disgust
Waking up to the mirror
Reflecting everything

There is no relief

This is the way
Hope falters
Ebbing like a dying flame

This is the way
Innocence is lost
With whispers
And secrets

This is the way
A girl loses her mind
In silence

This is the way
Pain exists
In the shadows
Of the soul

This is the way
A life can end
An accumulation of sorrow
And the cage closing in

Now
I have had enough
Of living beneath the debris
In the low shadows
I am sick
Of living small and hidden
In the cupboards of life
Sick of going through the hallways
Unseen, unoticed
I no longer want to be invisible
I want to emerge
From behind the veil,
Push the curtains aside
I am claiming the crown
I want sunlight and nightfall
To belong to me
I want the beams to bend at my fingertips
I want the wind to submit to me
I want to be immortal
I want to be the captain
But the problem is,
I am less and less
And nothing
Yet still aching for something
Still reaching for what I can't obtain

I want to be fluid, I want to be smooth
With the ability to soothe
Be like the waters
With seashell daughters
Of streams and brooks and rain
Always tender, always humble, never vain
Yet still ruling with sovereign reign
Nothing should ever be able to stop me
Nothing can stop the ocean or the sea
Not even time
I want to be huge, I want to be sublime
Never hurt, never chagrined
I want to have no fear of the wind
And even less of the heat or the cold
I want to shimmer with gold
When the sun sets
Away from mortal things like hate or regrets
I want to learn to sing like water
Without ever wearying, tiring,
Wheezing or expiring
I want to be the water
When it hums to the night
Chants to the stars bright
Stroking the sand
I want to be water never bland
I want to be the water that glorifies
Which runs, which plays, purifies
Which is sweet and pure, untainted, unattainable
I want to be the water mysterious and unexplainable
I want to be the water when it unfolds
When it holds
The seaweed with maiden hands
I want to be the water when it expands
Dances, sways, flows,
Diverted from the abyss

I’m trying to grip the hands of the nearest shadows
I’m trying to see the lines of the cage that imprisons me
The dim landscapes that surround me
I’m trying to hear the thing in my chest
Burning day and night
I’m trying to smell the smoke
That envelopes me
But it's all out of reach
Undefinable, unplaceable
What are my roots, what are my boundaries
My goals, my aims, my dreams
I cannot quite grasp
Who I am and what I'm in

My eyes burn with the glare
Of too many long nights’ vigils
Watching the winged insomnia fluttering about
From one thought
To the other
Every stream of consciousness
Every chain of thought
Loosened and undone
By Night’s hungry hands

Insomnia, always
The bewitched course of unending nights
Bitter nights swallowed in haste
I only want the comfort
Of the nest of arms to carry me
Through the tides of terror
That rise and ebb in the dark
I only want to be held
So I can endure the dreams of oblivion

My pen is so hungry
Starving, aching
For something, anything
Substance, truth, paper
It wants to nibble existence
My ink longs to gnaw away
At the heart of life
My scribbles thirst
For perfection

If only I could name
My fear, my darkness
That haunting shadow
Measure it, weigh it
With inches, pounds, milligrams
If only I could give it substance
Speak it out, find the words
If I dared break the silence
Woven of silent submission
If I dared shatter the texture
Of this solid web of lies
If I dared bust through this black wall
And come forth to the night
I would still be alone
But would I remain invisible?

I've whispered so many words
Across oceans or cliffs or crowded classrooms
But the questions were never answered
And the echos never returned

I've wandered through so many avenues and dead streets
And tried to see things in the faces or the bricks
But nothing appeared

Yes, I rambled through the city
The old mill, the church, the plaza
I prowled the boulevards and roads
I searched the crowds, the houses, the stores
Thinking that something
Could be hiding there
I thought wrong
I found nothing, I found nobody

I've climbed so many trees and mountains
Only to reach the top and realize
The top was no better than the bottom

I've written so many poems
But they are always inadequate,
Never what I'm looking for
Never quite reaching whatever it is I'm looking for

I am always trying to catch something
Looking for something
Trying to follow some invisible tangent
I can feel it
It has to be there
I know it is
It's out there, out of reach
Unfound,
Waiting, boiling
Right under the surface

I will never give up

I want to be held
The way a dying hand
Holds a crucifix

I want someone to look into my eyes
The way a captain
Looks at a compass

I remember the night
On the dock, bathed by holy water
He placed me amongst angels
Touched my cheek
Resurrected me
Kissed me and whispered
*Consider yourself baptized by the dark
I've been sanctified by you

The other kids are not alone
They are stable and they sit
Encased in Friday afternoon's sweet infinity
Sitting, smoking, talking, bonding
Making connections, weaving friendship
Understanding each other, simply being together
They are creating something
That I am not a part of

I am here alone
Typing
Making connections to shadows
And understanding the language of wind.

I wish humans didn't depend on others
I wish I didn't need them
I wish I didn't yearn for what they have
But I do.

The problem with being invisible
Is that none of you ever see me
You see Friend, Person, Sister, Classmate, Girl
Never Me.
The problem with being invisible
Is that you do not hear me
You hear words, sentences, chatter
Not the inbetween, not what I'm saying
The problem with being invisible
Is that you do not think of me
You do not lie awake
And wonder where
Or who I am.
I come only occasionally,
Casually,
In the slums of your minds

**unedited and full version redirected

My entire life
No matter where I go, who I'm with, what I'm doing, how drunk I am
I have always felt on the outside - out of the picture
From childhood's hour
I have not been like others are
I've always been
Out of the conversation, at a distance
As though I am alone in existence
Everywhere I go, there is an impenetrable barrier
At home I'm a foreigner in my own land
I've always felt like a different breed
Slowing down when others pick up speed
As if I was the only one picking up the sounds or words that others don't hear
Deaf to the words that they do hear
I do not hear what others hear, I do not see what others see
Doing, saying, thinking things that others don't
When I try to explain what my world is like,
I baffle and stutter and can't find the words
And they look at me
From the other side of the barricade
With condescending, puzzled smiles
I've never really been a part of a group, a piece of a whole
Even in my own house, with my own friends, I've always been an intruder
Everything I say, everything I do seems offbeat
I feel like everyone is dancing some sort of elaborate choreography
And I haven't learned the steps
Or they're all playing a game
And no one taught me the rules, or let me roll the dice
I've always felt out of it,
As if I was alone on the opposite side of an enormous, invisible window
Pressing my hands against the glass, tracing worlds in the fog
A stranger looking in
I've always felt it
Struggling to break the sturdy facade
In crowded parties, sleepovers,
Lunch breaks, with my family, with best friends

**other half of poem redirected

Hope

Oh nights like these
When 10 little white pills
Snarl like the teeth of a spoiled child
The sadness and forbidden surrender
To sleep and easy satisfaction
Become overwhelming.
It becomes the books on my bookcase
My big nose and thin wrists,
It becomes my parents ugly, angry whispers seeping through the heating vents
All the envelopes hidden under my bed
It becomes every question I haven't answered, and every word I was too weak to say
Old chapels covered in dark vines
It becomes big, it becomes huge,
It becomes mountains, it becomes oceans
Continents, nations, the sky, the galaxy
It becomes
10
little
white pills

Goodbye New York City
Goodbye carefree easy days.
The airplane chews the gray sky
The kids whisper, taptap on little computers
Or ipods and touch screens.
Nothing here is Love
Nothing here is glorious,
long and true
But there is peace
And there is no cursing, threatening or grievances
(they have been forgotten)
I am comfortable,
There is music
So all is well
Until we land on cold hard earth

I am the leaves
on the streets you walk on
The unexpected shadows
I'm the scrap of paper
upon which you absentmindedly scribble dark things
I'm the bird in the trees
you always hear but never see
I'm a daisy, or a clover
in a garden of huge sunflowers and roses and oak trees
Or the bottles you keep hidden in your room
I am the sunbeam you feel
but you can't turn around to look at because the room is too small
I'm the hole in the curtain
I'm the notebook
you forgot about long ago
I'm the fish in the murky pond
-you can see the ripples and waves but you can't see me
I am bits and pieces
Here and there, now and then
I'm a mustering hum,
picking up, growing
Gathering momentum