I'm gonna be
Ebola for Halloween,
Watch out *******.
Burning my popcorn is
The reason I have trust issues.
Being dressed in theme
Quadruples your chance of getting laid.
Nothing makes me feel manlier.
I feel so unaccomplished in life.
Is anyone else afraid of
Ending up alone?
Every other night
I question my choice of major,
If I will be able to get a job.
I have to be successful because
I love expensive ****.
When life gives you lemons
You paint that **** gold.
If you're trying to find
A ******* Tinder...
Tinder is pointless.
Virginity drinking game.
Boys in a tent who are waiting,
Can I come in?
Having fun isn't hard when
You've got a library card.
To whoever left a flower on my bike last night,
Reveal yourself so I can
Give you the biggest hug.
That made my day.

Here we go, here we go,
Round and round again,
Same mile markers, same land mines,
Running like a mobius strip.
Have we not learned to jump ship?
Have we not seen the signs?
I always thought we'd never be here,
On the opposing sides of a think line,
When was it that I kept moving forward --
And left you behind.
I can feel your gaze on my neck,
It's boring down my spine.
Won't you see through my viewfinder,
See this upside down landscape
All the homes falling, falling, falling,
From your face rivers running
Fast and furious, ferocious forget-me-nots
Finding failing facets of faith --
Can I ever believe in us again?
I wish my mind would whip me into shape,
Searing lines of us into my truth,
Make a believer out of me,
Ever following your holy footsteps,
All the way across county line
Tracing into California, promised land.

But I am no herded sheep
Bah bah humbug, my little one
I will not flee from wolves with snarled teeth,
I will not be cuddled into a cage.
I am a moth in love with your flame,
Drawing me to my fiery grave.
Well, I'd love to crash and burn with you darling,
But I have dreams of kissing the sky,
And with my fragile wings I'll fly away
Oh glory, I'll fly away.
Do not reach for your butterfly net of guilty conscious,
You will not catch me this day.

But baby, baby, in my bones I'm breaking,
A bitterness -- I was born to love you.
But you so love your chains,
You prophesied they would choke your love,
You wrote the writing on the wall,
You foretold the end of everything,
But I saw it long ago,
Hidden in hazy half-truths,
And I tripped on the seed of doubt that was planted.
And oh, I've watched us fall apart in
Ten thousand different ways,
Each piece more jagged than the last,
Drawing pictures in my blood,
Sidewalk art for hopscotch and lost hope,
Held in the ground.
I'll build a shrine to this lost love of mine,
Candles, pictures, a vile of tears,
Surrounding our hearts buried below.
Dead flowers strewn across the floor,
I'm picking their petals with poisoned precision.
He loves me, he loves me not...

He loves me, and I love him,
But at this hour, in this place,
It didn't pass the test,
Our love must rest.
Let its grave be a wellspring of new growth,
Let us water it with compassion and understanding,
That it might rise a fresh garden,
Someday, somewhere, somehow.
I will diligently tend.
I will not lose sight of those soft, soulful eyes,
That first drew me closer, closer...

May you always feel my hand pressing into yours,
May you always feel my love surrounding you,
And may we meet as new spirits soon.

There is a calm center within me;
It flows from deep rivers of breath,
Spiraling up and out in every direction.

There is a calm center within me;
Grounding me with sturdy roots,
Soaking up the sweet soul beneath
My rocky hard surface
Through twisting tunnels, tumble torrents.

There is a calm center within me;
Laying soft and still under rushing currents,
Reflecting patience, serenity, consistency
To my mistaken misplaced preconceived perceptions,
Oh they appear to be everchanging,
While the truth is they're stuck going round and round and round
Over the same cyclical trap, making me dizzy.

There is a calm center within me;
It is my mountaintop of mercy,
Where my mind meditates and marvels
At the we of conscious connection,
Spreading from me, reaching out to other frequencies
Emanating from peaks which surround me,
Where the dichotomous
You-Me, ******, Us-They;
Melt into a spectrum of WE --
And oh, I am just beginning to see.

There is a calm center within me;
There is a calm center;
There is calm.....

There is a calm center within me,
Let it flow out.

Morning chatter about the state of my life interrupted by a collision
Body on glass, a bounce that chilled me to the bones as my eyes opened a little wider in disbelief
A sojourn halted

Your mouth gaped as it took in feeble breaths,
stained red with the evidence of a cranium beyond repair
And I thought to myself how cruel my house must be.
Big, glass doors that allow light to enter my life but also offer malicious reflections
of safety.

And the hardest part is the quivering as I picked you up,
the brief glimpses of hope that perhaps this is just a hiccup in your victorious journey over land and sea.
We’re all told that these happen.
You’re bound to fail, it’s part of life.
Necessary for continuing on.
I suppose sometimes these tragedies are too great to overcome.

Everything about you is perfect, glorious, radiant.
Feathers tinged with olive and **** you sure look good with your fiery cap
and your neck delicately spotted with black.

Your eyes were shut at first but upon my gaze opened to full capacity,
making me squeamish and uncomfortable because I could not change a fate already in the works.
I blink and suddenly your manner has changed.
No more frantic heartbeat dances across your breast and your mouth has stopped moving,
no more words to utter.

You are no longer destined
to feel the warm tropical air that you must be craving
on these cool August mornings that have left me confused yet excited for things to come.

But perhaps your life was extraordinary,
And perhaps you have changed the course of mine.
And maybe we shall meet again, as your soul dances in the wind.

My mind in the clouds

shouts to the body

below, commands it



to start walking

far into a world

of water, trees, birds.



True freedom lies in appreciation

of what you can access

but cannot quite understand.



Pay attention.

The understanding may come

sooner than you think.

stare at nothing in particular,
but they imagine hands that once
embraced their own.

And that nothing in particular
materializes into
everything those eyes want to see -

another moment to hold those hands
and look into eyes that do not grieve at all.

I fell asleep against
the stained glass that painted
the ground with colors that
children only see through
the lenses of kaleidoscopes;
vividness that blind men
only see when holding the
warm hands of their lovers.

I woke up to the bells
singing tunes of the eschaton
and the priest muttering
damnation upon the half-empty
bottle of Jim Beam resting in my lap.

"Want a swig?" I asked with a stagger.
"No," he replied.  "Whiskey is the devil's elixir

and besides,
there are plenty a bottle of Christ's blood behind the altar from which to choose."

Bubbles boiling over my
Hot-hot-hot tea ***,
Rising up like the tingling
Corners of my mouth.
Toes tap-tap tapping
Along to your soul-swinging
Tune tearing straight through me.
Oh my feet could fly away
With your endless running riffs,
My head reeling with fantasy
Fabricated figments of mystery.
Can't hide it! Can't hide it!
Wearing it on my hands, arms, chest,
Screaming it in soft whispers.
Oh racing round and round
On the edge of my seat
To jump into your lap.
My legs won't stop bouncing
Gotta shake it out before I burst!
Teeth been showing since
My eyes glimpsed your shadow,
Head falling back with laughter
To watch the stars that are twirling
Above my crown
Shooting blinding light into my sight.
Oh baby, won't ya dance with me?
Quick! Before I drown
In this sea filling faster, faster,
Teeming with unknown possibility.

I've been forecasting a wild fire,
It's bursting forth from my furnace,
Ferocious and consuming.
Be careful baby, you're fanning my flame.

We live in a country without the taut and slitting threads of a niqab
So we whisper, Thank God
Instead, we bind ourselves in barely-there strings
Lashing tan-bedded skin.
The pink-and-glitter headlines call GET BEACH READY
And we listen.
We've got to glow in just the right way
To catch the eye of the ever-expectant gaze,
Concealing zits, freckles, and military-green welts,

We brush over the truth about a lot of things.

The taste of rejection is rusty and red
I chewed the inside of my cheek when he said
*I'm just not interested.