Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

What’s worse than loving you
but knowing I can’t have you?
Not the silence,
not the waiting,
not the ache that stretches across nights.

Even the stars fall quiet—
they know
there’s no sorrow deeper
than holding a love
that was never mine to keep.

My thoughts aren’t really mine,
they were planted inside my mind.

Just like my feelings aren’t mine,
they just follow what’s called right.

Neither is my face mine,
a mixture of all ancestors.

My body also isn’t mine,
it will die and decompose.

Nothing I own belongs to me,
I will lose it all when I die.

And if none of these things is my own,
then,
who am I?

I loved you
and
I still do

there are so many of you
that i would love to sit down with;
maybe over a milkshake and a plate of fries;
and just talk.
i want to ask you about the boy that hurt you,
about the anger you feel deep inside
over a father who said he’d come back...
and then didn’t.
i want to run with you through pages of words and say
“oh that’s right, what a lovely metaphor.”
i want to see all your smiling faces and
thank each and every one of you for showing me kindness,
for saving my life.
i want to collaborate on novels of poetry
and laugh with you through the tears of our pasts.
so until we sip those milkshakes and eat those fries...
thank you, to
some of the most beautiful people i have never met.

Loud, too loud
your voice rings in my ears
long after I have left
screaming, stop screaming
I can't hear myself thinking
about all the ways I can escape
quiet, too quiet
at least when you're screaming loud
I can feel something other than sad
you're just too loud

i'm just
*******
exhausted.