I said your name and you barely turned around
When you saw me, you looked away
and put on a little frown
What is it? Can you tell I'm (gay?)
Or are you just ******, or down?
I love you far too much to see you this way
But maybe it's not you, it's me
The beautiful dances we used to execute
Were not what they will be
I'm not sure what's going on with you
You avert your eyes and don't reach or conclude,
Tarry a bit too short, dislike spending time,
I won't pretend I'm anyone else's but mine.
The light in your eyes, what's made them see and lose?
Is it me you hate?
Is there nothing I can do?

Music is the hidden voice inside us
not just what we're thinking, but how we're thinking it, too
and it's a secret look into the depth of someone's psyche
an intensely personal glance
into what you have in common
with other humans-
what it is that makes their heart beat faster,
like yours does,
when you see that girl, or that boy.
It's this deep soul-connection you have
with the person dancing beside you, because they
have different stories but the same feelings
and that's the closest we can get to love.
By the very nature of the act,
there's nothing impure, nothing untruthful, nothing wrong.
"What is it that makes you feel alive?"
"...I'll play you a song."

I told her a while ago, "If you knew what I knew about me,
you'd hate me."
Well, maybe not hate. You wouldn't approve
because most people talk about ****** things
with lust in their eyes
or if they had a negative experience, they were *****
but for me, it's different, because
what I did
was built on a sandy platform of lies.
"I love you,"
"You're the only one I ever want to be with,"
She must have seen through it. She must have known.
She seemed so broken that night.
It was like everything she had hoped for
was there, and yet it wasn't really,
because it wasn't like she expected.
And months later, when I finally couldn't hold back my
mis-directed guilt, I glided past so-and-so's number
and called her up
and left her fourteen voicemails in a row, to apologize.
I cried on the phone and I'm glad she didn't pick up.
If I became Mother Theresa,
and saved the lives of millions of children,
or gave my life serving,
or made a billion peoples' day every day,
I couldn't repay for the pain I caused her.
I have dedicated my life to Christ,
because of that one girl that I broke, offered her a chance
at her first crush and it was a false chance,
so I will pay every day and be a sun, see if
I can change things around for you, and you, and you
and make sure I never do any more harm.
I will strive and serve and become someone who could not,
("no, not her, she couldn't have!")
have hurt someone like I hurt her that night.
Last year at camp, the pained looks she gave me when I told
that fireside story, or when I sang to the guitar, or when I hung out
with my friends, couldn't possibly have hurt more.
And I can't even grasp how seeing me there hurt her.
No matter what I do,
It will never be enough.

I am not a little flower- not Theresé of Liseux
But I'll use the metaphor here.
A beautiful flower, pretty and quiet
does not lie and say, "I am wilted,"
but rather, thanks and gives glory to God for her beauty;
a mountain does not deny the thing that makes him mountainous,
and stands tall, pointing towards the heavens;
a butterfly does not live inside with the idea of being 'humble'
But, because of her delicate beauty, will not be satisfied
until her beauty is shared.
Likewise, I, gifted with glorious angels' wings
will not furl them and submit to a yoke of slavery
but rather, fly.

I never looked at things like maybe your mom does
Like, 'I've been in love with this man for twenty years
and he doesn't want me any more'
until a few days ago. And then I realized
maybe that's why your sister has such a fixation on gender
because what a man should be
is different from what he's been
so she wants him to go back to what he should have been,
and maybe, that's why you aren't touchy-feely
or comfortable with affection, because
you haven't seen it, because the past ten years
your parents haven't been expressing love
and maybe that's why you feel uncomfortable with overt displays
or even unvert displays
and maybe that's why you don't know how to love.

Honey, if you let me, I'll show you.

The family of Edgar Allan Poe must feel conflicted
"My grandfather was a great man," they'd say.
"Didn't his family disown him?" the others contradicted.
Leave him in the dust? Spit on his ashes?
The life of this poor ignorant wastrel,
Alcoholic, joining the ranks of *****,
No one to help him or care for
the name who became great, under the shadow of his glasses
the invisible-giant, not recognized, "his wife was a *****,"
No, no, no, Edgar. Not today.
Your confused sexuality is really gay,
The cousins jeer and aunts-uncles jibe
Great poets, queens alike do cry
At the works of this man, at the end of the day,
(we don't really care if he lived or died,)
"It was the other side of the family that did it.
Not I."

Is this real
or am I deluding myself
calling you 'love' when you feel nothing for me
I can't play with the hand I've been dealt
feeding my ego with faraway fantasies
do you really love me or is this just dreams?
maybe the reason I haven't told you yet is because
as long as I haven't told you, there's a small
fraction of hope, though failure's tall,
when I tell her that everything she does
is magic, then she'll have to make the call
and I'm not ready to hear it- I'm too far
gone with the wind, whispering these
hopeless aspirations to shoot for the stars
and the stars weren't there to begin with.

calm. calm.
I can't let on, I can't display
the way your touch makes my heart race
the way you've been hinting at something more
underneath the surface,
I'm swimming to shore- I'm drowning in you
the light on your face as you're asleep
the silence of your heart that you keep
and let slip
because we're getting closer and closer
at an astonishing clip
and I can't help but tell you
I love you.
But how to say it?

If you ever asked me,
"How do you feel about her?"
I wouldn't have a clear answer,
I'd probably tell you something simple like,
"Oh, I love her"
or "I want to **** her and she's
super duper hot"
but at the same time, "my church says that's a sin to want that
and I'm not sure what God wants from me
and to the best of my knowledge, He needs me for some great purpose
beyond loving one person
and I can't squander my future on her"
and "also I hurt everything I love"
so "I'm scared to love her because I'm scared
she'll think I'm creepy or crazy"
and "she's not even into relationships and doesn't think that's important
so I don't even know if a relationship would work"
and "my parents would be fine with it"
but "her family wouldn't be okay with it"
and "we live in such a hard time for acceptance that
if I went outside and held her hand, someone could **** us,
literally"
or maybe I'd tell you that "I'm fighting my feelings every day
and it's a cross I must bear"
and "I'm better off being a nun than falling for people I can't have"
and maybe I'd tell you that "all these complicated feelings,
dwarf in comparison to the huge, overarching,
powerful amount of love
I have for her,"
how "every day I would wake up next to her
and I would put on my shining armor
take my cross up from beside the dresser
burn my bridges on the way to work
if that's what she wanted."

Yeah. I'd probably tell you that last bit.

You tell us that to be too energetic is to be annoying
Or naive
and you get upset there's no positivity around you
and all that's 'okay' is negativity but to be
anything else is to be 'weird'
but where's the sunlight behind the rain?
All the boys are ******* with no personality, but
darling, if you're emotional or have any depth, you're
gay
And guys want a girl who can talk about sports
and won't *****
but those girls are
lesbians
and all anyone wants is to laugh
"Stop laughing, it's aggravating,"
And there's nothing I can do right,
I'll be hated if I do
and ****** if I don't.

Then maybe all this irony is because misery wants company,
And we're so busy making each other miserable
that we've become terribly poor company.

Poetry hurts.
It hurts to look at, hurts to read, because
it digs into the muscle fiber of your heart and burns its way
marking a fixed tattoo in your bone marrow
tearing through your brain material and ******* you dry.
It requires you to latch into the throttle of the soul and feel the pain
and joy
of everything you experience.
No, there is no escape-
explore your pain, stay there, fully enjoy the beauty and the frightening
love of this terribly glorious world.
Books don't hurt,
they placate. They are the balm on your poetry-burns,
allow you to view your pain objectively, to quietly observe
from a peaceful, magical
faraway land where pain doesn't matter
and that roller coaster is just a funny backdrop instead of
the vehicle in which you fall in love and lose your innocence
in the same run.
Books are the numbing, the morphine
to allow you to fall into an enchanted sleep.

We all need books and poetry at different times- to each his own-
but for my own part,

I prefer poetry.

Shouting through the desert
and there's no one to hear
because my poems about love aren't
accurate, or good enough, when
words cannot describe what they are meant to describe. I like grass between my toes
and wind in your hair
and how it feels to wake up
and the way you look when you wake up
that smile that you only just started having
I can't write it down because
the spark in your eye has never been visible before, and no one has seen it but me
I like hugs and kisses and late night talks and
breakfast food and blue skies and gray skies
green skies red skies
and shouting through the desert is all I can do.

No, mister, that's not right, the scars of your heart
aren't a beautiful sight, your older one's art-
she's a beautiful singer- stands graceful apart
and you try and dim her. I don't understand you,
we don't get along, you **** up our plans, you
scream your own song. you can't seem to hold back
your uneven temper; I'm not here for you,
I'm in love with your sister.

Living this way is hard, in sorrow
I must always be glancing forward tomorrow
Hiding my face, my wants, my needs
letting the norms on us they feed
It hurts to be shamed into waiting and fearing
I feel like the truth is nearing, is fleeting
No one quite gets me, I walk alone
It's never a friend when I answer the phone
Every waking moment, my breath, my fear
disclose the dark secret, my darling, my dear.
How does it feel to be loved?

Every day I write, I attempt the
herculean task of describing her beauty
For she is far greater than my writing will ever be
And every breath I give is worthless
when the love that you live is hopeless
and I can't even grasp the quantities
Or the qualities of the notions she left in me
My mind is occupied constantly
it takes all of my graded and standard intellect
to even scratch at the surface of
who she is. This brain cannot write of
The sunlight behind her brown- almost black eyes
and capture it fully, and it hurts to not
be able to understand something,
when my whole life, I have understood everything
it's maddening. and she knows it, too
for you do everything in your power to drive me
as absolutely crazy as I can be
before I snap.

It is not a regulated code,
nor a law of Scripture.
No one can tell you how to feel,
or when to feel it,
or if what you're feeling is even genuine.
We don't measure the skip of a heartbeat in
'blips per second'
and when it's broken, there's no exact way to fix it.
That's why it's so hard, I think,
for most people to learn how to love, because
there is no 'this-is-how-to-do-it',
guidebook called 'Love for Dummies'
and who can tell you if you're 'strong' or not
that's not their business because
it's YOUR feelings
and they can't get inside your head or heart
and measure the blips-per-second
to tell you, 'No, that isn't love,'
or 'you're weak,'
because only YOU know if you're strong
only YOU can tell if you're in love.
it's fascinating, actually
like 'is my color red the same as your color red'
or do we just call them the same thing?'
is the way I love the same way that you love?
they talk about those butterflies
but it's more like I'm about to head down a
roller coaster
and butterflies are too gentle.
Strong is relative.
Love is relative.
Define yourself because no one else can.
and be careful, be very careful, my dear,
to make sure you get the definition you deserve.
You only get one.

I sit and I observe the
gazelle leaping wildly
dancing, their beautiful eyes
skating the floor in front of them
the sky is a mirror for the
elephants
who don't know their own size
and have thick skin to ward off
what? what could stand up to a
lion
who epitomizes what you want to be
and growls, at his cubs
while his beautiful wife lays by him
purring, only to be replaced by a
hyena
whose only means is to survive is to
take and to destroy
because the lack of an opponent is easier
than the presence of a
vulture
who feeds off the kills of the hyena
and tags along in a great mob to take down the
greatest of all: the
mouse
who scuttles and runs along the hooves,
offering quiet encouragements to
the elegant-fast-high gazelle,
who points and shows the mirror of the sky
to the rest of us.

Sudden quick glances, a giggle in fall
the break in December, late-night kitchen ball
The secret eye-sharing, our souls deep entwined
The ever-eternal fruit of the vine
"Are you calling me short?" "It's not my fault I'm tall!"
No blood of our fathers could break us at all
Our story is longer than you could ever imagine.
No mind invented this beautiful pageant.
The mark of the skin, the secrets we keep,
there is no real doubt
you know not what you speak.

I'm sorry you can't see the beauty in things
because while adults can't have fun anymore
some of them can still see the significance
and observe with a distant haze
but you have cut yourself off completely
to forget all of it
"don't glorify!"
what do you mean, don't glorify?
the whole world is glorious! it is all worth
glorifying!
It is better than you think it is
and it hurts me to see you like this
but I can't help you out if you
think that everything I live for is broken
and the very premise of love is false.
But you don't understand what I'm saying, even
you think I am a prideful naive young fool
and I think you're a selfish old ******* who wants
to crush my angels' wings
and please yourself because the 'self' is above all
when I know that your 'self'
is rotting and yet-
still worth loving.
God loves you.
I love you.
And if you refuse to understand what that means-
that is your own fault.

This my cross by which I shall be crucified
and slain by it, my eyes fixed upon my Lord
She'll never know why I died
I wield the penitential sword
To cut off all advances
to shield her from my fault
these shady, pained romances
should never have happened at all.
This my cross which I shall bear all my life
till death do us in heaven unite
for God will be my spouse,
my lawful wedded wife.
I learned grace, first and foremost
from loving someone in every breath
and holding myself back for their sake,
I must now seek my death.
This my cross which God has shown me,
This my cross that I shall bear.
This my cross for the noble battle
that I must fight, and not despair.

I write so many ******* love poems
and I still can't say it to your face.
no song can quite explain
how desperately I want
to pin you down and kiss you.
and how is it fair, God,
that I must endure such endless torture
just to learn how to love without
expecting anything in return

If we all smoked ****
and wrote poems
and freed ourselves of things we are meant to be free of
and let go of our petty misconceptions
and danced a little longer-

If we all forgot what we 'should' do,
and went with our instincts
and learned how to love
and stopped drawing those
stupid little lines in the sand-

If we all stopped listening to the nagging voices
of our mothers
and learned to think for ourselves
and painted art worthy of life
and forgave instead of forgetting-

In this magical place, love reigns supreme
the heart is not culled
the mind is unchained.
Your soul reaches new heights,
all mothers let them be-

In a faraway, mystical land, where everything is free,
then maybe,
just maybe,
you'd fall in love with me.

It's always not-quite-enough
or, can't-quite-touch
this imaginary cinema screen
hurts us so much.
You and me, we see the sky like
it's meant to be seen,
but we observe people from a distance.

it looks so easy on the TV, for
people who are just starting.
their bodies entwine and
it's beautiful.
Everything flows from it
in it,
and of it,
and their souls seem to clasp together
in an unbreakable embrace.
Colors seem brighter
sparks fly
butterflies dance
true-love-at-first-sight.
They go on a date, two dates- it happens then.
A few months and they are living together
two years-and-they're-married.
it happens so fast
and too slow
somehow, they learn to live with each other
two people with complicated souls
who are not alike at all,
somehow,
magically,
kiss.
it's hard for me to grasp-
and I'm not sure I'd be able to,
if I had the chance.

"I think she has a crush on somebody from the boys
basketball team."
No. of course not the boys team.
Maybe it's me?
if her mom thinks she likes someone
related to basketball
it's gotta be me.

...please be me.

It hurts me when you have to leave.
I never want you to leave again-
I want to spend all of forever with you.
wake up next to you, go
on road trips with you, make
breakfast with you, dance
around with you, have
fights with you.
I don't want your mom to tell us what to do
or your sister to yell at us
or our friends to third-wheel
I want to spend all my time with you
so our restless hearts can finally escape,
together.
Every day. No one else.
You and me.
Forever.

The reason I don't want her here
is because I am large, and ungainly,
and playing in the snow is for small people.
The reason I don't want her here
is because I'd rather have you
in my arms.
The reason I don't want her here
is that her zest and spark for life is different
from mine and I can no longer keep up.
The reason I don't want her here
is because she reminds me of the person I used to
be- the person I can't get back.

Am I destined for loneliness?
Even my cats won't let me pet them.
I am ******, forever, won't get a kiss
My calling by God will love condemn.
I see you and know that no matter what
I do, I can't make you love me,
a strange painful curse, my soul will be cut
and I might be bound, but I am free.

I believe in love.
I believe that God is an unimaginable force
that truly exists
and is more than the sum of His parts
and is greater than we can picture
I believe that we must all find the way to
salvation,
and my way is simple and pure and must not
be clouded
and to be happy, I must behave in a way
worthy of the manner to which I have been
called,
in order to set an example for others to follow
the beautiful path.
I believe that your happiness is your happiness,
but it will be a PURE happiness
if you find it through the way most suited
to you.
and God knows that way.
So if you pray and open your heart, then
He will show you where you can find
your most pure happiness.
it's not the same for everyone.
There is no code, no rules, no standard,
because we all lead different lives,
but God loves you individually,
and will show you how to be the
best individual
you can be, regardless
of society, or rules; He does not seek to make you
conform,
or restrain yourself: you do not have to follow His
path.
But the all-knowing knows what will make you
happy.
Let him lead you to the path.
Until you let Him show you, you might find it,
but chances are,
you will get lost,
and I am sorry.

A lot of my poems are about love.
the kind of love that works to give and not take
it's hard to describe that love
and I couldn't, for a while, but I think
I can do it now.
Love.
it binds us together
you give all you can
and when you can't give any more, you keep
giving.
and when they fail to give,
you FORgive. you give FOR them.
and you put others first and
you swear their heart is pure
when it's not
because that's what love does
because it shows them that you believe their
heart is pure. and that's worth more than
anything. and you trust in their heart
and you hold it gently in yours
and when they fail you, you hold their heart
even more tenderly
so that they may heal.
This kind of love is selfless, and exists solely
for the benefit of others,
and it is eternal,
ever-flowing,
Christ-given,
all-knowing.
This kind of love is hard,
and the path to find it is long,
but if you give,
and don't expect anything in return,
you will be happy.
and everyone around you will be happy.

You are coming so close
to knowing
about my poems

You gave me a giving tree
ironic, a little.
I gave you a poem.
ironic, a lot. there's so many about you that
you have never read.
You seemed to know exactly what I needed
In order to stay in love with you, I
needed to know why,
and that's why.
He said it's impossible to love without understanding;
we are lonely creatures who cannot
dream each others' dreams.
How can we love?
we give.
we give until it hurts and then some
until we gave it all away without even understanding
WHY we are in love, or
WHY we even started giving.
Is that love? is it love if we don't
understand
what we're even getting into?
How could someone like you fall for a
girl(?)
who dedicates her life to figuring out why she's
beautifully in love with you
all she knows is to live, she has to give
and she doesn't even know if that's true.

I want to ask someone for relationship advice
but the only person who's been there for everything between us (aside from me) is you.
and I can't ask YOU for relationship advice
about OUR relationship.
why, that would be ridiculous!
and there's no one I really trust to ask
so I guess I'll talk to myself about you.
just like I always do.

I like the way your cheeks turn red when you're embarrassed,
or sometimes for no reason at all.
I like the way you say 'God Maddie'
I like when we are REALLY talking about
something else entirely.
I like your hair.
and I like when you let me play with it,
and I like how tenderheaded you are,
because I have to be extra careful I'm not laying on it.
I like when you get really excited about something
and I can't understand what you're saying.

and when people ask me to describe you, I say
you're short, quiet,
and that's not good enough, when I could describe
the way your eyes light up
or the way you say things,
or your mind,
or all the millions of conversations we've had,
or your laugh,
or your walk, as if you're the only one walking alone on a slackline over a mattress and you're there for the thrill.

You aren't a GPA or a collection of friends or a green-orange-gold-blue who is friends with a
blue-orange-green-gold.
You aren't even an aspiring pilot.
You're every experience you've had and every time someones' said your name.
and every kiss someone wished they had with you,
but didn't have the ***** to pull it off.
and every phase you've been through,
and every embarrassing quote from freshman year.
I wasn't there for all that.
But I can be there for the rest of it.

and I could write line after line and never come close. adjective on top of adjective with maybe a few verbs, couldn't capture you. or me, really.
there's a certain fire inside you
everyone who meets you can see it.
it's more than there is on the outside
and makes me want to burrow and dig for it
so I can be warmed by the gentle (or blazing) heat.
if I get too close, I might get burnt.
but maybe it'll be worth it.

I don't want to capture you.
capturing and owning and containing will slowly
**** your flame.
I don't want to change you.
I don't want to hold you down.
I want to see you fly.
I want to watch as your soul alights on the wings
of heaven, and the fire inside you finally finishes eating away at the outer shell and it
emerges in full glory,
and I've seen it for a long time and
now everyone can see it just like me.

You're looking for someone who sees things like you do.
I don't. I see differently. But at least I can try to understand the way and the why you see things like you do.
We're so ridiculously different.
but can anyone ever be similar?
Who you are is expansive and never-ending and unimaginable and no words could ever capture it. Who I am is completely in the other direction but the same in scope.
I hope that you understand-
who we ARE
is not nearly as beautiful and powerful as
who we can be
or who we will be.

you can only be in one room at once.
a forest glade might look like the whole world from afar, but inside it is not
all those journeys you speak of must take place in a car. with other people.
and you'll be cold and wet and tired
and smelly, probably. and your experience
won't be the sweeping hills with background music
or dances or tambourines or crazy nights.
and flashing movie scenes aren't the reality of things.
it'll just be you and me.
and we can only be in one room at once.

Two steps forward
one step back.
Always a' pacing,
a ratta-tat-tat
on the beat of my heart
or the beat of the drums.
Why won't you acknowledge
the people we've become?

I'm measuring the gap.
last month, it was four:
you swear if it gets closer, it's weird
the month before that was five:
this time we'd crack up and avoid eye contact
I don't think we even touched each
other in September.
But this month it's three.
and maybe, just maybe: your lips
will close the gap, and
touch


mine.

I believe in selfishness.
But not really- I believe in doing what makes you happy-

and that's easy for me

normally, what makes me happy is what
'they' say I should do.
Easy for me to say, right?

At least what makes me happy isn't like,
killing,
Or something.

It's easy for me to pursue
happiness
And chase it, when
my happiness is caused by something
that it's 'supposed' to be.

At least, most of it.
sometimes I want to sin.

Is that because I'm human?
Should I aspire to be more?

I've been fourteen for a year now.
Accomplished a bit. Gained some virtue,
smoked some ***, (only once! I swear!)
Kissed a boy, got drunk (thrice),
moved on from being in love with, wait for it,
three
different
people.

Maybe that's not what 'they' say I'm supposed to be doing.
But I'm happy.
And fulfilled.
I'm not sad like 'they' say I'm supposed to be
I'm not lost
I'm not searching for the answer.
Well, I might be.

But the primary point is that I'm okay,
and I'm happy,
and I think 'they' are lying to a certain point,
and I think I am the one who knows what makes me happy.
I don't believe in selfishness to the point of
DISREGARDING them

I believe in selfishness to the point of
REGARDING yourself.

What is that? The soul?
Something inner? Something burning?
Is it whole?
Are we same? Are we different?
Is it ever-changing, never distant?
The path we walk must surely diverge.
But deep inside us,
always (or never?) converge.
all your poems sound like mine.
But what are poems?
What is time?

There's nothing wrong with you.
Never has been, never will.
You might look for something to be fixed
and I know you won't feel fulfilled.

It's okay.
You're okay.
Promise me this:
to spend one night
in unfaithful bliss.

Forget all your dreams
your pain, your sorrow
please put it off
and wait til' tomorrow.

Maybe not even then.

Promise me you'll be okay.
It's actually easy to swear-
you already are. There is no 'when?'
There is no 'where?'