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.

She was, I guess, contagious.

      An epidemic to people's hearts.
      It seemed her face was everywhere,
      just as scattered as her thoughts.

She was addicted to the thrill of it.
Watching people fall.

      She would fill her syringe with their longing
      and send the needle between her toes.

It was clear she was a ******
and she knew her veins would surely burst.

      How much can you take from someone else,
      before you realize you lost your self worth?

Life doesn't stop,
even if you don't know
how to keep going.

Everyday I still have to
wake up without you.

Faint and shaking,
yawns turned to retching.
Ready to lie,
but nobody asks.

My stomach is screaming,
but my mouth barely breathes.
I say that I'm trying,
we all know I'm not.

I'd rather be sick.
****** up.
Dying.

I'd rather wilt,
and that's the saddest part.

Mint green nails, trailing across your faded black tattoos.

The ability of bandanas to cover up out grown roots that I'm
too broke to touch up.

Long showers when no one is home to yell at me for wasting water.

The way your lips feel against mine, so safe and familiar,
and how your mouth tastes like a bad habit.

The white of battle scars against my summer tan.

Hearing your name ripples
mountain ranges down my arms.

I can't help but grimace
in complete lack of surprise.

I no longer find my interest
in you to be amusing, and
I'm reminded once again
that every mistake has a shelf life.

I wonder when
I'll stop finding myself here.

Backed into a corner
by my own misguided taste.

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?

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.

Your lips are a permanent marker.
Inscribing your love for me over every inch of my body.
They have written your name on my collar bones.
Covered my hands in your fantasies.
Left adjectives of affection on my stomach and thighs,
and turned my back into a portrait of your lungs.
Promising to spend every breath you have left with me.
You laid out our someday's, and sealed them with a kiss.

I used to think a ring,
meant I could have you forever.
That I'd always be there,
in the front of your mind.

I used to think a ring,
came attached with a heart.
Just the way your's
came attached with mine.

But a ring doesn't mean very much.
You've made that unbearably clear.
I wish you'd give my heart back to me.
Since I've given your's back to you.

The light fell through the window shades,
one sliver right between those amber eyes,
and it struck me how little I know of you.

How little I know of anyone.

Every day it feels like there is a new way to hide
from the world.  What are we all so scared of?
Intimate touches are minimized by the fear of
being left alone, and with no one taking leaps of faith
we've ended up with our feet weighted to the ground.
Cemented by our inability to push past indecision,
solidified by our lack of communication.

Your eyes may be bottomless, but that shouldn't
stop me from diving in. If I should drown in your
subconscious, I would revel in my lungs collapsing.

I want to see how your mind works and weaves.
You cry out for my happiness
but it's worth nothing more to you than
stained carpet.

My skin crawls when your presence wraps around me.
It suffocates my skin like
thick black tar dripping down my body. Burning hot,
but making me numb.

We're not supposed to be like this; stuck in such a mess.
But then again, when have we ever been
any different? Happy memories are so foggy I have to
squint to see them.

Soon can not be soon enough for leaving, but somehow
I feel bad about leaving you behind.
My heart, a boiling cauldron of bitterness, still breaks
seeing you cry.

Maybe the stork dropped me down the wrong chimmney.
Perhaps I wasn't supposed to call
you Mom. Then again, I don't call you that anymore
anyway.

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.

I never got to hold you,
and I never saw your face.
I didn't even know you were
inside me, until it was much
too late. But darling never fear,
for I once heard it said, that
a love like what I have
for you, is never truly dead.

Sleep soundly my dear child,
wherever you may be. If there
is a heaven high above us, or
a nonexistent sea. I live my life quite
differently, ever since you left. I
like to think I'd make you proud my
love, if you followed in my steps.
For you see I'm training, so that
someday I'll be strong. Strong, and ready,
and proud, to hold someone, much
like you, in my arms.

I've been so focused on trying to survive without you,
that I forgot the years I lived before I heard your name.

I tried for so long to make peace with who I thought you were,
that I didn't realize who you were actually becoming.

I've spent so many hours wondering why I wasn't enough,
that I failed to see how much I truly deserve.

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.

It is often in the most mundane moments that I am caught by sense of perspective altering awareness.  Awareness of the ache in my toes from straining to see through the window of what might one day be.  Awareness of the truly humbling way that life can take everything away, leave you sweating against the rock floor, only to show you the beauty in having enough strength to pull yourself back into the light. Awareness of the gratitude that pulses in my veins for the people I have landed amongst.  It is here, in these moments, with pressure reminiscent of hope, disbelief, and wary elation expanding against my rib cage, declarations of affection catching in my throat, that the floors drop.  Endless free fall is the only capacity within which I understand what it means to adore another.  With feet firmly on the ground, I'm guaranteed to lose my way.

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.

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?

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.

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?

I can't seem to get out of this dry spell. What do you all do when you have writer's block??

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 want to take 2am walks through towns so small,
that cops are sleeping instead of keeping watch,
and street lights glow only dimly because  no
respectable person would need their guidance at this hour.

I want to tell teachers that their textbooks make me tired,
challenge them to teach me every subject with the trunk of a stately oak tree.
One that has seen more than we could ever craft into notes or test questions,
and breathes out a life source healthier for us than the toxic tangents
lingering in this academic air space.

I want to take my romantic notions of life
and press them into the pages of a non-fiction book,
so that when you tell me I'm naive,
I can present you with the research
that keeps your cubicle heart pumping.

I want to cleanse your body of its lead paint logic,
and use my lips to tattoo all the natural beauty
you've missed behind classroom doors.

I want to show you the beauty of broken glass in small town alley ways.

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.

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.

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.

Hurt.
It hurts that you could leave me.
Over and over, again and again.
The same old scratched record,
being wound to play in a
room long forgotten

Pain.
I imagine that when my
heart broke for the first time,
fragile and innocent and young,
it dropped pieces into my hollow body.
So that every time it skipped a beat,
every time it ached in pain,
every time it swelled to burst,
I would feel it in between my toes,
wedged behind my knee caps,
stuck against my groin,
and resting in my fingertips.

Love.
It's supposed to be the glue.
Meant to stitch us together,
different patches of the same quilt.
But when left for us to define,
love has become acid.
Burning holes through our skin,
leaving us marked, marred, and scared to trust.
It is the venom coursing through the veins
of those bitter and dead to the world.
The air that fills the lungs of people
too afflicted by life's tragedies to carry on.

Thought.
You tried to hide behind it. You tried
to build walls out of your impressive vocabulary.
You fed yourself textbooks
and decided to learn the meaning of life.
Inside you pushed away your pain
and you replaced it with logic, but instead of feeling full,
you simply found yourself a new kind of emptiness.

Alone.
So tonight we lay in separate beds,
staring up at the stars and wondering
how they could possibly stay the same,
when everything else in our worlds
has become so very different.

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.

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.

Every minute without a word from you, was a reminder that you were thinking of someone else.

And every hour was another reason why I understood.

And every day caused another piece of me to go numb without your touch.

And every week reopened the wounds I had stitched up with your smiles.

And as the months have broken me down, I realize soon there will be nothing left to break.

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?

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.

Slapped hard by
hands of anger.
Your so-called care
sent me spiraling.

Vision blurry from
shock. Arms bruised
from impacting walls.
You shake your head
at me with disgust.

Is this my fault?
Do I truly deserve this?
Am I the tease you say,
or am I the victim?

Yelled obscenities by
steep stairs, I grab for
anything steady. Fear of true
injury courses through my body.
My heart whispers depserately
he wouldn't. My brain screams
he would.

Clothes hide the evidence
of his wrath. Shame seals my
lips like super glue. Brain now
quieted, my heart whispers
sweet nothings to me. Repeating
every time he's forgiven my
supposed faults.

Is this my fault?
Am I so deserving
of pain, that you must
inflict it?

Judge me,
strip me raw.
Let's see if I
survive the fall.

Push to the limit,
bend me till I break.
Cut till you reach
bone. I need to know
what I can take.

Tell me what you
really think. Tell
me what you see.
Let's piece together
the person you consider
me to be.

Judge me.

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.