Some things exist behind curtains of experience.  

Those whose tongues have
tasted the holy fire know the touch
of something divine.

Those who have laid eyes on
their sleeping bodies, and walked
away to places unknown, can grasp
the idea of an inbetween.

Those who have groped in the darkness
for something to believe in again, who
have longingly looked over the cliff edge,
know that true despair does exist.

As for me,

I know that true fear can
come in the form of footsteps
behind you on the empty street.

The person at the bar who insists on
hollow compliments and free drinks.

Friends who scoff at your anger for
men who yell out their passenger side
windows about the treasures beneath
your clothes.

True fear can come in the middle
of the afternoon, as you face
off against the four floor staircase
to your apartment, when your steps
are echoed by the man in 2b who has
a wife, son, and a taste for resistance.

Don't tell me I'm overreacting,
when the single most terrifying thing
I can do is walk alone under the street lamps.

Don't tell me I'm too uptight just
because I've learned that flattery
can come with a horrifying price tag.

Don't tell me I'm wrong just
because you don't understand.

Look me in the eye when you have
waited until a security guard can walk you
to your car.  When you have held your
breath in a shared elevator.  When you have
lowered your eyes to the men who yell
obscenities at you, because standing up
for yourself could prove deadly.  

Look me in the eye when you have held back
the curtain of experience, and walked in the shoes
of someone who lives every moment knowing
this could be the day someone decides to steal
from me what is only mine to give.

Then look me in the eye when you tell
someone of your wound, and they reprimand
you for daring to walk this world as a woman.

You look at the world through empty orbs,
ignoring the beauty that swells within.
Your lips work like anesthesia,
numbing your words till they have no meaning.
Sometimes I have to wonder, who you really are.
If I’d knock on you, and hear an echo,
sound bouncing off skin walls.

I want to reach down your throat and strike a match.
Ignite a fire in your gray soul. 
Fill you up with fiery flickering hues.
A passion that forces you into motion.
Awakening your mind, realizing your truth.
A yearning for life beyond just living.

I survived high school by a small crack of glass.
I caught myself  by the pad of my finger tips, on the splintered pane,
after falling off the edge of a world of depression, anger, and pain,
and it was from there I pulled myself up, feeling more alive than I had in my entire life.
Because it was through hell that I walked, feet burning, for the diploma I earned on stage.
It was through spider webs I passed, scratching invisible clinging memories off,
to march tall and strong, toward the future I thought was nonexistent a month before.  
I survived high school by the non-working baby hairs on the back of my neck.
The ones that are supposed to stand up like frightened Halloween cats whenever dangers approaches,
and yet when my danger came calling, laid calm like the summer sun on your concrete drive way
and it's because of this I stand here today, looking into the eyes of your fresh faces, fearing that you too may be walking on coals.
It's because of this I want to pour the knowledge of my journeys into the openings of your skin,
let you soak up my mistakes so that maybe, just maybe, you won't have to make as many of your own.
For there are some mistakes that will never heal.
So when you reach for that bottle, hands hungrily searching for something impossible to find in Absolute *****,
remember that the only thing at the bottom of that bottle is blurred memories.
When your skin gets the itch only a blade can scratch,
stop, drop the blade, and coming running as fast as you can back into my words.
Hear me when I tell you that beneath your skin lies not an escape from this life, but only more of your alive, beating, self.
And as much as your eyes might need proof that you're alive, your chest is always right there below your head,
ready to let you feel the heart inside that makes you such a precious addition to this world.
Feel  it.
Let it's pounding remind you that dropping calories and skipping meals won't solve your problems.
That being skinny, as much of a temptation as it can be, isn't a goal worth losing the breath from your lungs.
Trust me, I know. And I know that heartbreak and loss and hurt are more than enough to make you want to tear apart the fabric of your life and create something new from the threads.
But please know that in end you'll only wind up tangled in the mess,
calling out for people that you've pushed so far away they can no longer hear you.
So instead of ripping through the darkness, know that you don't have to start from scratch,
but merely dye yourself, your life, a different color.
Know that everything you've been through and everything you've seen is building who you are, who you will be, and that slowly but surely you are becoming a work of art so unspeakably beautiful that nothing like you has ever been made or seen before and hold on to that.
Hold on to the idea that this world, and these people, they need you.  
They want nothing more than to see what you turn out to be. I know that's how I feel.
I look at every single one of you and choke up at the thought of how you will stand out as the purist work of art ever imaginable one day.
The kind of art that comes only from a lifetime of living and moving on and starting over.  Hold on to that.
When the world comes to your window with wind and rain, when it tries to drown you in your own tears, and break your spirit with your own emotions, know that you aren't facing the hurricane alone.
I am here, and I know.
I know that no matter what happens, there is enough fire left in you to keep going.
You just have to dig deep enough to smell the smoke.

We are born unto a crown of thorns.
Our tender skin rendered vulnerable
to self-made deities, rambling idols.
Our minds are roped and tied, binding
our thoughts with punishments.
Punishments disguised as pathways of love.

What love is brought into this world, when love is
taught by the bloodshed of others. What people
are created with love made from threats
of searing flesh? When did love become less
about acceptance and more about separating
those deemed worth and unworthy?

Gods of fear curse our world with tainted
versions of love. We are forced to our knees
before the power of an almighty being unknown
to mankind. In searching for purpose, we have forsaken
our freedom. We fall victim to the fears that numb our
brains liked "Grade A"  pharmaceuticals.

If your god is almighty, all loving, and all seeing,
why does he rule without mercy? Why does he
require full and complete submission as the only
pathway to him?

We go to war under the guise of bringing freedom.
Our politicians preach out from mountains our right
to freedom and free will. But when the votes are cast,
and the campaigns are run, we scuttle home to spread the
single most imprisoning ideological mindset to others.

Why fight for freedom,
when we give it away so willing
to a man behind smoke and mirrors?

What blaze of fury has brought such decay?
Translucent hearts are all the color this picture
of hate. Can you see the broken ones? Can you
smell the hopelessness they wear like some
expensive perfume? Watch them cower and scamper
through bushes. Hiding their scorched skin like it's
something obscene. Watch as they scatter like marbles
from a child's circle. Building fire from scraps of oh-so
precious wood. Their smoke clouds the almost
non-existent breeze. What would their ancestors say?
Would they blush at the ***** rawness of this world?
Would they gasp at the events that brought us here?
Does it even matter? In the end the grass
is gone. The trees have died and the flowers have
fallen. Tell me what is sacred about this.

Where is the god you prayed to?

Let’s take everything we have,
and build a bridge up to the moon.
From parked cars to table tops,
apple cores and spoons.
The broken toys under our beds
can be the very base.
Our weathered dreams from child hood,
will hold it all in place.

We’ll race for broken window panes,
and empty trash can bins.
For boxes once used as forts,
and endless bobby pins.
Shampoo bottles tossed aside
will make such lovely rungs.
Bubbles dripping out their sides
smell of summer and bubblegum.

We must hurry before they all catch on,
and yell for us to stop.
They’re fearing broken bones,
that we won’t survive the drop.
But still we climb like furry ones,
monkeys in disguise.
Jumping up from bar to bar,
higher in the sky.

Quick! Reach for the balloons
we let go of much too soon.
Tie them to sides of our new
pathway to the moon.
Make it look like a carnival!
Make everyone come and see!
Our dreams have gone far past their reach.
We’re actually doing this, you and me.

And in this day we’ll accomplish more than they ever have.
Because today we took our dreams, and ran with them hand in hand.

I fell in love with a boy at a coffee shop
who always ordered vanilla chai.
I knew it was love because I could
never get up the courage to speak to him.

I fell in love with a bony fingered,
anorexic boy in my math class.
I think it was the way he did the problems in his head,
so he could use the paper for listing
everything he wanted to eat that day, but wouldn’t.

I fell in love with a girl who had dreadlocks
and burn marks on her neck.
I always fantasized about touching them,
asking if they still warmed up her skin.

I fell in love with the older man at the tutoring center.
I failed Spanish so that I could spend the next semester
eye ******* him from across the study table.
I've always had a thing for married men.

I fell in love with girl who pushed up her
*****, and pouted for football players.
It may have been unrequited,
but at least I didn’t catch anything.

I fell in love with the person
who left death threats in my locker.
I’d never known someone who felt
the same way about me as I did.

Looking back, we never saw this coming.

Our roller blades had a relationship
with the warm summer ground on Friday
nights when our parents would gather
over margaritas and wine; an escape hatch from
the 9 to 5 work week. We killed fireflies the
way we chew on hearts of the ones we love,
rubbing their luminescent bulbs on
the toes of our shoes so that our steps
might light up the night for just a little
bit longer and maybe, just maybe,
we could hold off on growing up.

Looking back, we all  wish we could have stayed.

But bare foot soccer on concrete turned into
binge drinking, and alcohol poisoning
and neighborhood gatherings stopped being
kind.  We swapped Air Heads and Pokemon
cards for flavored condoms and a drivers
license, only to find that everything
we threw away was worth so much more
than the high school bullies, and boys with roofies,
and the girls with tears running down into
their tissue stuffed chests.  We gave
up our golden years, and to make up for it
we stuff Prozac down our throats with a
desperate belief that childhood happiness
can be found in an orange pharmacy bottle.
Hoping, I think, that someone will come along
and tell us we've done everything right,
and would we, for our reward, like our innocence returned.

Looking back, I guess we just couldn't comprehend.

We never knew that every day the pages turned
and we were slowly losing our love of fun dip
and cheap private-school valentines.  We were
starting to forget the pride that came with
the title of King in foursquare,  or the way
it felt to let go and jump from the highest point
of the swing.   Instead we staked out cafeteria
seats and tried to figure out why having
blonde highlights, or contacts instead of glasses
suddenly made you better than everyone else.

Looking back, it all seems so sweet.
Then again, they say hindsight is 20/20.

If I could, I'd buy us enough acid to last everyday
for the rest of our natural born lives. Just hoping
that the trip would take us back to the night when
you painted rainbows on the insides of my eyelids.

If it was possible, I'd brand your fear of needles
onto the surface of all my organs.  So that I would
always remember the time you let me see the
scared sick little boy still hiding inside your skin.
So that maybe, he could hide inside my skin too.

If magic were real, I'd use a spell to make a
quilt with our story on it, the way it should have
ended. And every time I felt alone, every time
the panic threatened to close my throat, I would
pull the quilt over my head, and be able to live
in what could have been.

If I could,  I would crawl inside one of the
pink and yellow capsules the doctors gave you
and after you swallowed me down I would
climb up through your blood vessels to the brain.
Stopping only to see the heart I love so dearly.
I would build bridges over your broken synaptic cleft
and bribe your brain chemicals to walk the
straight and narrow. I'd tell them how their careless
vagrancy has left your eyes empty and your aura dark.

It never stops hurting.
That hole he left.
Everyone says it takes time..
..that I’ll feel better eventually.
But I won’t.

It never stops hurting.
That ache in my chest.
There’s a feeling like so much was left unsaid.
But in reality, it still would have happened.
He stopped loving me.

How do you move on?
From the person you can’t, or don’t want to, live without.
How do you move on?
When all you want to do is go back in time.

It never stops hurting.
Don’t believe the well-meant lies.
There won’t be another special someone.
Not when all you see in others,
Are reflections of him

It never stops hurting.
And he’s in everything you see.
He’s in every thought, every memory, every song.
You want to feel whole,
but you never will.

How do you move on?
When all you want is his kiss again.
How do you move on?
When you can still imagine his ring on your finger.

It never stops hurting.
When you lose your other half.
And eventually you decide to just wait.
Hope he comes back.
Because you’re that pathetic.

It never stops hurting.
No matter how many pills you pop.
No matter how many calories you drop.
No matter how many scars you carve.
It never stops hurting.

So why bother trying to get better,
when it never stops?

Raise a glass,

Let’s make a toast.

To the years of our lives,

We’ll remember the most.

These times should be flashy,

Filled with drama and chance.

There’s nothing like summer,

For some risky romance.

We are young and inspired.

We are beautiful and strong.

It’s in these golden years,

That we can do no wrong.

So we’ll run from the cops,

And swim naked in pools.

Drink till we drop,

And smoke to feel cool.

The world is our pearl,

That’s how it will seem.

This is the time of our lives,

For you and for me.

My creative writing teacher from last semester just emailed me.

I am the 2013 recipient of the James Haba Award for Excellence in Poetry.
And 6 of my poems are going to be published in the Mid Rivers Review!

I am so excited!! Thank you all so much for your support and your constructive criticism.

It's quiet in my house,
except for m o  v   i   n   g air.
Soft snoring from    distant rooms,
and bedspring creaking under
s i t n  weight.
  h f i g

My mouth is bruised and swollen,
from teeth ripped from gums.
But pain meds drift me far away,
from everything I know.

Though sleep does e-v-a-d-e me,
I am bothered not with that.
For some of the best WoNdErInGs
happen when you're ******.

You act as if everything is okay.  You let him stroke your hair and hold you in his arms because you're lonely, and he loves you. He never stopped loving you. You think that you have it all under control because when he leans in to kiss you, something makes you stop him, and at that moment you have given yourself the chance to do the right thing. To tell him to leave, and never ask him to come back. But as soon as he's gone you're empty again. Empty like the day your first boyfriend went to see his ex-girlfriend for a talk, even though he told you he hated her guts. Empty like the first time he called you a ***** and made you cry.  Empty like the day you had to call him and tell him that your baby is gone, the baby he didn't know about. Empty like the night you took one or three or five too many Ambien after he hung up on you when you needed him the most. You hate this emptiness. It stands for everything that's every gone wrong in your life, and so the next time you see him, you kiss him like he doesn't remind you of your first boyfriend, even though he does.  You watch him smile, you see the hope in his eyes, and feel part of yourself dying on the inside, because you know that it won't end well. That this time, you'll be the heart breaker, not the heart broken.

Months later you remind yourself that he was there when you thought you were pregnant, again.  With your ex-boyfriend who you still loved's baby no less. You remind yourself how he was ready to step up, and how you never could feel the same way about him. So you try to make yourself believe that you deserve what he's doing.  You let him tell you that you broke his heart, let him spread vicious lies about you, and then tell him not to apologize on the rare occasions that he tries too.  You tell him that he's right, that it is your fault. That you just want him to be happy.  When you find someone new you fall in love, and think everything is going to be okay. Think that you've finally stopped chasing after lost puppy dogs and found a boy who doesn't need fixing. Yet for some reason you still cry at night. You still want to hold on to the people you've lost and the people who hurt you.  You still feel the sting of pain when July passes and you should be in the hospital with your newborn, but you're not.  So you write poems and try to use words to make sense out of life, but nothing ever seems to be enough, and when you hold your youth minister's four month old, so tiny and helpless, you can't help but burst into tears. All you can hear is the baby's mother saying over and over again how big the baby looks in your arms. All you can feel is the maternal instinct to clutch the child closer to you and feel it's heart beat. You try to tread water, but it feels like your drowning, and the emptiness you've been running from comes flying back. Whispering in your ear that it never left in the first place.

Today I remembered the weekend we made cupcakes. Batter dotted our skin, and we kissed it off each others faces.

I remember falling asleep on your basement couch, curled against your beating chest. We watched movies the way a nicotine addict smoked cigarettes. Our relationship a reflection of blue-light on our faces.

I wish we'd been as innocent as the cartoons we watched in my bedroom. Instead we crumbled like corporations in Fight Club. The irony is a bitter taste in the back of my throat.

All for nothing I fell asleep in my hospital bed. Clinging to thoughts of you to send me to dreamland, until the day I found, that I'm much more prone to nightmares.

It was then I realized our love story was a tragedy. That maybe all love stories were.

You came to me tonight with questions of loyalty
in your eyes, but all you found was my breathless
and naked body on the soft carpet of my bedroom.
My vanity mirror was cracked in all the places
you had called me beautiful, and you saw my lipstick
drawings of skeleton girls scattered across my bed.
Curse words clogged up your throat. Your teeth chattered
out a Morse Code version of " how could you?",
and when your hands stopped punching the walls,
all ****** and broken, you used them to crack open my rib cage.
Searching, I think, for some swallowed suicide note.

You knew the only thing I could stand to eat,
were the words I wish I'd never spoken.

We live in Glass Boxes.
Made up of love, joy, and
happiness, anger, pain,
and hate. We knock on windex'd
walls, shouting for
someone to break our
boundaries.

No one's box is made
the same. Everyone's glass
cracks different ways. The
sun sends patterns across our
skin, staining us with
experiences that build who
we will become.

I press my nose to the glass,
fogging my walls with
the haze of heavy breathing.
My eyes squint for you,
searching desperately for your
Glass home...but no matter
how hard I try, you're
always just out of sight.

I hear on the wind that your
glass is changing. Chipping
away to the pressures of
******. It's all I can do not
to claw my walls. I know these
bleeding nails would be
my only triumph.

So I sit in my Glass Box, bitter
at the rays of color that
turn my home into a rainbow
prism. The paradox of it all
enough to make my head pound.
Is it even fair to be happy?
When you're off, all alone,
drowning in you're own pain?

Our reality is always
changing.
Turning, wobbling.
Falling apart,
and back together again.

I expect nothing from life.

The problem with
beliefs.
The problem with
expectations.

They lead to disappointment.

To live without ideas
of how life comes and goes,
is to be wise.

Ride with life.
All its steep hills
and double loops.
Embrace whatever happens.
Bury it in your arms
and realize that this...
this is the part of
life that terrifies people.

Because beliefs...they're ignorant.
Expectations...they're irrelevant.
Let go of all the weights holding
you. Free yourself to a life of
traveling. Experience your emotions,
your pain, your happiness.
Let yourself be taken into the
chaotic, peaceful, violent, loving, lying, helping, wonderfully ironic,
state we call being alive.

I am Lauren Pearson,
and I am not a believer.
I have opened my eyes,
and I am enlightened.

It never ceases to amaze me, how every day, children die.

And here, we don't seem to mind.

It always irks me, when people look in the mirror and complain about their extra pounds, while babies starve before their first birthday.

Yet everyday, we throw away pounds and pounds of food.

Tell me a story that ends happy. Spin me a tale where everyone shares. Because no matter how naive it makes me, I believe we should live in a world where everyone has enough to live by. I believe that every night, a little boy or girl, should had something more than dirt to eat.

I guess I'm a dreamer, but why not be? Why not dream up the world as a place where people live in harmony. Everyone says that with enough effort, your dreams can come true.

So what surprises you? That there is child hunger in the world? Or that more people aren't trying to stop it?

From birth children are told that love is bowing before an almighty god.
Bowing before their parents, priests, and teachers. Instilled with fear
of going to a fiery hell unless they believe what is laid out before them.

Is it a wonder how our world has turned out?

Tell me a truth I cannot challenge. Can you do it?
Well, with me, no. I will question and challenge everything.
It is with my curiosity that I take in the beauty of life, it is with this
curiosity that my perception changes from a fearful child to
an empowered, hopeful, and critical thinking adult.

I have not turned to science, but is more solace found there?

Scientists are not looked upon with fear the way gods are.
Scientists tell us of the enormity of the universe, how we connect
to it and are already a part of it. Instead of handing us impending
apocalypses, it hands us a galaxy that can support life for 30 billion more years.

So why not turn to science?
Because, once science told us the earth was flat.

Challenge your world.
Never stop asking questions.
Take not religion as your decider.
Take not science as your crutch.
Sit in silence and use what you find
within yourself to judge and perceive
this life. Here you will find freedom.
Here you will find personal truth.

My lips feel heavy,
as I watch you fill yourself
with toxic waste.

Disgust bubbles hotly,
but no judgement
will I ever speak.

After all,
I wouldn't want you
to judge me for my
cup of ice against your
plate of pasta. My dark
circles against your
rosy cheeks.

Shaking tremors
make me tap at the
table in between us.

What do you see
when you look at me?
Beauty? Or bones?

When I look at
you, all I ever see
is a life I will
never have the luxury
of living. Mouthfuls of
treasure I'll never
be able to think
of consuming.

When I play pretend,
I always pretend
to be you.

And it's always
better than I
ever think it will be.

Even when the
consequences of
being you fill
my mouth with bile
over a pure white
basin, the memories
are still worth it.

Still enough,
to get me through
another week.

Silence lingers in crisp autumn air
as my feet rebound off concrete.
The uphill journey is traveled alone,
except for fellow early birds
and rare squirrels skittering across my path.
Questioning, I think, if I am threat enough
to keep them from their hunt for breakfast.

Sunlight fights its way through leaves
to flicker across my sleepy eyes.
As if the morning itself is trying to
jump start my system.
Wake me up for the long day ahead.

Finding my favorite perch
at the top of the hill,
I sit to watch campus slowly come to life.
Starting with a squirrel
and his newly found peach treasure,
and ending with the faces
of my unknown classmates.

This is Western, at 8 a.m.

For as long as I can remember,
I've been practicing safety drills.
school, home, the work place, even planes.

Everyone wants to be prepared
for those so-called natural disasters.
It's stunning how they never think to
prepare you for heart break.
It's so much more common.

You are the earthquake that has me
braced for an aftershock. I am hiding
under doorways, diving for the protection
of restaurant tables. My survival kit
is fresh out of healing, and my wounds are
growing agitated. Why wasn't I prepared for this?

Algebra and Grammar won't help me
get out of bed tomorrow morning.
Testing door handles to see if they are hot
will only keep me away from flesh wounds.
Zoology taught my to dissect a frog,
but your vital organs are so much harder to locate.

Is there even a heart inside your chest?

If I fall asleep tonight,
never to wake up.
I'll dream of the brightest light,
and you're unending love.
My ears will ring with laughter,
the air filled with white.
Our families merged together,
and your hand grasped in mine.

If I were to close my eyes,
and take my final breath.
My thoughts would be of blue skies,
and the heart beat in your chest.
Of a growing stomach to rest my hand,
with gleeful kicking feet.
And your courage there to help me stand,
when I fear I am too weak.

If you were to ask me,
what my fondest memory would be.
I'd have to tell you simply,
it was one I'd yet to see.
So if I died today,
I'd miss an awful lot.
Like our wedding, and our baby.
Like the house we'll fill with love.

Dedicated to Sean Rogers.

The day I buried
your memories,
you sent me a postcard
with your love written
in blood. And despite
the pain you've brought to me,
my hands couldn't fathom
how to drop this last piece of you
into the grave.

You left no return address.
No way for me to slap
you with the stinging
knowledge of how thoughtless
I considered you to be.
So instead I filled the
back of a Polaroid
with everything I never said,
and placed it in the postman's hand.

I told him that if
he ever saw the person
from the picture, and
placed the Polaroid in
his hand, that I would
pay him in stories about
a broken life.

Or if he preferred,
fifty one dollar bills.

Sometimes I can fancy my mind,
as a glistening cage. Filled with beautifully
painted birds, fluttering about from bar
to bar. Feeding on the debris blown through
the thin golden bars. I find these birds to
be incredibly different, each of their
songs uniquely tuned.

The navy bird with blackened eyes, can bring
the cage itself to tears. While the pure white dove
fills the air with hope, and the rose-winged mocking
jay swells the heart.

In the corner rests the speckled bird,
a creature of random, jumbled notes. His eyes
stare blindly at the other birds. His voice screeching
over theirs without warning. Above and to the side
of him, sits a elderly gray-feathered gent. His
songs hint at paths already taken, happier
times now gone and past.

Finally, there is a creature, red as blood-bathed
rubies. Its eyes are ever watching, its wing always
pinned for flight. From her beak drips poison, a deadly
song slowly spun. Her temper suffocates the surrounding
air. Choking out the other birds if they should wander near.

All these birds sing their songs, fluff their wings and play their parts.
When needed most of all, they join in a chorus. Their voices
blending in disorganized harmony. I try to pick about the noise.
Piece together the notes and figure out the message. Yet, the only
lyrics that are ever clear, come tainted with the spit of my red
pet. Why must my thoughts be jumbled so?

When will my birds learn to live as one?

Yesterday I sat on your porch,
and drew pink chalk hearts around
your doormat.  You asked me if I
wanted sweet tea and I said yes,
though all I really wanted was your
lips against my ear.  Whispering how
much you missed the smell of
my perfume on your pillow.

And sometimes I take snapshot of my
face when I cry. I mail them to you
in a grey envelope and on the back of every
one I write down confessions about
what animals I'd run over in the
road that day, and how they all made
the same loud thump under my wheels,
no matter how hard I pushed on the gas
pedal, or how much I turned up the stereo.

Occasionally you bring the pictures
back to me, telling me everything you
know about radio waves, road ****, and how
they relate to the tread on my tires.  You tell
me things I won't ever need to know, but
will never be able to forget no matter
how many times I try to burn the memories
of you from my frontal lobe.

I guess that's another reason why I love you.
Because no one's ever told me how
they make the colors in my favorite
fourth of July fireworks.

Strong and sturdy,
like a well-believed lie.
Your arms stretch out
grasping for some kind
of truth. What has
your face seen? So
weathered and creased.
I wish I could fall
into you. Put my feet in
the earth. Grow as strong
in my convictions as you
do to withstand time.

Is it crazy to want your
strength? Can I put
my hands on your
roughness and myself
become rough? I want
my limbs to bear the
weight that yours do.
I want them to stay
strong through never
ending change.

Is it crazy to
want your strength?
A strength so rawly
beautiful and intense that
nothing short of
death could diminish
it?

I want to learn
your unspoken
lessons. I want to sit
and listen to the wind
whisper your secrets.
I want to hold a lifetime
of experience under one
stern mask. I want to
be strong and sturdy.
Like a well-believed
lie.

I've always dreamed
of standing atop tall buildings.
I guess the romance with height
stems from my small stature.
There is nothing more seductive
than peering over, toes on
the edge, and knowing the
one and only outcome of a
misstep.

You can run the risk
of saying the wrong thing
to the right person, but
when leaping from a skyscraper,
one will always find
you fall.

Dear boy with the STL tattoo,

I still see your face in the people I meet.
I hear your voice in comedians on tv.
My heart breaks at Eminem.
And let me say, you're much much better than him.


Dear boy with the broken heart,

I never meant to make you cry.
I never saw this coming.
It was just a meeting of chance and time.
I still love you with my whole heart,
I wish you'd understand. Just because
we're not in love, doesn't mean you're
not my best friend.


Dear boy who is my best friend,

Even though we may not be near,
or talking, or laughing, or sharing our tears.
Even though you scratch at me,
I'll always be here for your tired eyes.
Even though I make mistakes,
I beg that you will do the same.


Dear boy with the world in his hands,

Don't you see what you can be?
There is so much locked inside of you
that I don't even see how you can
manage to breathe.


Dear boy who I know I'm losing,

Please remember to be safe.
Remember when the world gets dark,
that a match can like your way.
Please try to quit smoking, and be careful
with the drugs. I only worry because
I care. I'm sorry that's not enough.

Dear Uganda, listen.

For we have heard your cry.

Our voices have been building,

the end is now in sight.


We know that he has taken,

those born from your own womb.

His sick mind is making kids

grow up much too son.


They're stolen from their beds,

a silent crime at night.

Invisible children marching,

now soliders made to fight.


With over 30 thousand taken,

how can we stay blind?

The place where you are born,

shouldn't decide if you live or die.


Our soliders there on foot,

it's time to spread his name.

Kony thinks he's winning

but we're about to change the game.


Africa please have hope,

for in this you're not alone.

Joseph Kony will.be.stopped.

You're children will be made known.

The summer air, I fear, brings a sort of mania.
Starting with the breath of mother nature's warm breeze
through my car window, and ending with my face pressed into the ground.
A sort of emotional and drug induced black out. In between is a madness.
Flowers bursting from their shy buds inside the bones of my arms.
Fireworks up the filaments and out the anthers.  
Sparking the tribal chants and patterns trying to live inside
my white blood cells. Forcing them to expand
and break, releasing a fever for sun and soil.
A sort of combustible stage production inside my veins.
Yes.  The summer air, I fear, brings an awful mania.

I could write you a thousand poems
and send you every single one.
But it doesn't mean a thing
if you give them over to your flaming heart.

From ashes my words mean nothing.

That's the problem with words.
They are leaky jars you can't plug up.
I fill them with warmth, and regret, and love.
But by the time you unscrew the lid
only drops of what was meant to be remain.

Or maybe you just won't listen.
Maybe we're just talked to death.
Maybe our words have been used too many times.
Maybe we just can't be friends.

But until the day my words take flight
I'll keep writing poems to you.
Filling them up and up again
until they start to finally break through.

Every time I visit,
my hallway is the same.
The tiles breathe cold air
through my jeans, and the
bench, now occupied,
gives me a longing look.
I know I am it's favorite.

People hustle by,
busy little critters trying
make it on time for
their next class. Giving
not a second thought,
to the girl with a frozen ****
and bright red hair.

Today my hall is musical.
Filled with the symphony of
fingertips colliding with a key board.
A piece that races on with a sense
of urgency. The player, a girl
with worn black converse.

The door to my favorite class lives here,
in this hallway, with 12 or so other neighbors.
Who's noisy occupants leak
through spaces in the door frames,
and whisper their conversations in my ear.

I'm not sure where
the comfort comes from,
in this hallway where I sit.
Maybe its the assurance that
the tiles, no matter how cold,
will always have a place for me.

Maybe it's that the people shuffling
back and forth, slowly become familiar.
Or maybe it's just because I need
something here to help me feel at home.
Maybe this is just the place I picked to be my safe haven.
A spot of comfort in a campus of confinement.

When the girl with sunken eyes
and white lips mutters to herself on
the subway, remind her that there are
plenty of things to worry about, but for her,
losing weight isn't one of them.

When she gets off at your stop,
invite her for coffee. Even if her
eyes are throwing daggers at you,
and even if every instinct in a normal person
would be yelling that her track marks are just that,
track marks, and for all you know
she might just shove a letter opener into
your stomach for the contents of your pockets.
A few bucks for another spoonful of hell.

Lace your fingers in hers after she reluctantly
agrees, and without missing a beat,
talk about how no girl should pass up free coffee
or free alcohol. After all, there is the
economy to think about.

Gossip to her about people you
pass on the street, and when she settles
into her signature silence, tell her about
how you love to make up life stories
for the people you see outside your
apartment window, and how you've never
admitted that to anyone else.

When she leaves, after a warm vanilla latte
and two cinnamon bagels, tell her that
you should do this again sometime,
and make plans to meet her again next week.

When next week rolls around, don't be
surprised to see your alley rat friend
missing.  Instead, smile and think about
all the important reasons she couldn't make it.
Like staying in to finish a term paper for law school,
or picking up an extra shift at the local volunteer hospital.

Then turn to the little boy next to you,
scared, *****, and without parents,
and offer to walk him to the local church center.
Because these days, no one should have to feel alone.

It's like when you have the stomach flu,
and the first thing you toss up is your favorite,
homemade, blueberry muffins. How after that,
even though you've eaten them for 19 years,
just the thought of violet-speckled, baked goods
makes you want to hunch over the nearest toilet.

I don't remember when I stopped being able
to stomach irony.

All I know is I spend every morning gargling
minty antiseptics, trying to rid my mouth from
the aftertaste of dreams, but still its ghost lingers
in the back of my throat. I try to wash it down with the
taste of his ****, and the smell of his cologne. Thinking,
I guess, that one day I'll be able to love him like he deserves.

As opposed to wondering what happened between us.

Your catchphrase was," There's nothing to say."
It wasn't until now that I understood.  I wanted so
badly to find the right words. Wanted so bad to mend
what was  irreparably broken.  But you knew that every
time you opened your mouth, you were in danger
of coughing out your heart. Of spewing out a ******
mess of feelings that I didn't yet understand.

Now, as you come to me with olive branches, all I can
do is choke on my own aorta. So understand when I sound
like your broken record, that I'm just trying to hold it together.

The first time I skipped a meal, I spent the night with a gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach.
The first time I cut myself, I threw up at the sight of my own blood.
The first time I made myself sick, I cried.

The first time is always the hardest, but it only gets easier after that.

Years down the road now,
I can see the beauty in what I've done.
The breath-taking wonder found in decay.

Tonight I sit on the pavement
outside my apartment.
My fingers curl around the
rusted chain-link fence.
Sharp edges of broken wire
left cuts not nearly deep enough
on my arms when I squeezed
through the hole next to me.

I don't live anymore than the metal at my back.
Just like the fence I am merely existing.

Months from now,
my kidneys will run
the risk of failing.

Already my teeth are
stained and eroded from
stomach acid.

My bones knock against
one another from shivering,
and the pavement underneatth
me chews at my tailbone.

When someone asks for a picture of me,
I give them the grainy photograph of the hole in the fence.
Just like it I am rusting. Breaking down piece by piece.

There is beauty in dying. In the natural course of slow decay.

When doctors ask me
why I did this to myself,
I will show them the scars
on my stomach.
I'll show them my
barren womb and
protruding rib bones.

I'll tell them that in trying to be perfect, I found what we're all really looking for.

I discovered that we're
born to die, and that
the beauty of life is
our slow descent into
the darkness of death.

I wish I could stare down every girl,
and tell her that she is beautiful.
Tell her how she matters,
simply because she is here and she is alive.

I wish I could take away all her insecurity.
Because I've been there, through the darkness.
I've seen the pain, and hunger, and shame.
I would tell her that no matter how hard she tries,
no matter how much she starves herself,
the demons, they won't go away.

Because demons, they have a funny way of hiding.
Right there, inside that darkness.
No amount of purging will set them free.
No amount of blood shed will leak them out.
Demons hide in the darkness because there,
there they have power.

I wish I could shine a light,
for every girl who's ever struggled.
Because I know how hard it is to shine that light for yourself.
I would tell her that her demons, no matter how big,
are only shadows.
And shadows are always conquered by light.

I wish I could make girls see their beauty.
The beauty the world claims they don't have.
The beauty that demons,
brought on by magazine and commercial ads,
try to bury and hide.

I would tell them, every single girl,
that they are here, and they matter,
not because they are beautiful.
But that they are beautiful,
because they are here, and they matter.