I don't exactly know what to say,
so let me touch you and tell you
my tongue doesn't have to form words
to let you know how I feel. my hands don't
have to draw beautiful people to make you
burn inside- art is from person to subject to person, complex
*** is intimate because it doesn't cross any bridges
it blends into you without an intermediary
Humans make art, God made ***
and one of them is the perfection of the other-
a spinning whirling love that creates
tying people together, the greatest act of humankind,
and I'm playing with you like a puppet on strings
plucking and making music like some deep wooden
long-forgotten instrument, we dance
like pens or swords, each to each, love and war,
and together we're a masterpiece.

love is everything
our only hope
love does not begrudge small things
it does not judge or hate
it is not impatient
it does not jump to conclusions
it does not hold people to standards
it sees everything as joyous
accepts all
blesses all
seeks to understand without stereotyping
forgives every wrong
gives everything
does not hold back
love is what our hearts were meant for
it is everything
never hold back your love,
never say someone isn't worthy of it,
never condemn,
if God can love them, you can too
you are made in the image and likeness of God
your heart calls to him every moment
and he is love
so we were made
our very souls formed
in order to love and forgive and understand perfectly
so please, please
love with all your mind, heart, and strength.
that is the greatest commandment.
that is the only commandment.
love is everything.

don't look around 'cause love is blind
and darling right now, I can't see you.
I'm feeling proud, so without a doubt, I can feel you
'cause we are who we are when no one's watching
and right from the start, you know I got you.

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.

n/a

"and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."

things aren't just awkward between us
they are painfully, unbearably awkward
as we step through the eggshells on
our path to make sure it's safe to be around each other again-
I'm not sure I miss you.
You're kind of an *******.
but I miss at least the easy chemistry
and not this stumbling hesitancy
as we each seek to appease the imagined hatred of the other.

"I may or may not die soon."  "What's wrong with you?" "I'm human."

They know you walk like you're a god, they can't believe I made you weak.

“Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.”

true love meets in the sea, and, drifting, stays afloat.

My mind is playing tricks on me, my dear
I almost feel as though I'm home again
Passion Pit playing in the background and
Of Monsters and Men playing in my head
Cards on the floor slipping through the only cold floorboards
We're all shirtless again
It's one hundred thousand and ten degrees outside
the walls haven't quite crumbled down
over the cabins that we love
the clouds can't penetrate these green hills, much less roll over them
only we can roll on these hills in our hot sleeping bags
and almost fall into the green lily pond and the sky's green
but I'm not scared anymore
Because I've jumped off the high dive and
introduced myself to older girls
What else could there be to love other than the smell of cookouts
bad singing, and BO?
I painted my face for the first time to give a blanket
to a girl who'd never have a better night.
I got my eyebrows plucked in the same room and night
She plucked my guilt out like the hairband she was trying to undo,
her fingers said, "you're forgiven,"
my eyes said, "thank you,"
as I leapt through the fields to hug my friend because she was crying
even though I was naked
I braided so much hair during that time-
Held more hands than you'd wanna
Jesse McCartney didn't even know what a beautiful soul was-
My summer was set to the playlist of
the only twenty year old in the room who is trying to guide our ships
as we sail through the changing ocean tides
and summer is the easiest to handle of the seasons of my life-
There, I built my own wheel, learned how to take it myself,
and then I gave it to Jesus
and he's piloting fine.

Is love so fragile and the heart so hollow?
Shatter with words, impossible to follow
You're saying I'm fragile, I try not to be
I search only for something I can't see.

I have my own life.
And I am stronger than you know.

You're not ******* winning. No one wins.

no more last straws
I deserve better,
and there are no parentheses this time.

and everyone expects us to be the world, it's supposed to be our oyster
what they do not understand is that
we are only human- we are merely children
and we are slowly letting them down
maybe one day, they will understand
that they must love us because we are people
not because we're everything they wish they had been.

"I'm depressed," she said, laughing a bit.
You gave her this glare, like "look you lil ****,"
"You know not what you speak, you don't even get
what that means," we live in a world when as long as you
have an excuse, you aren't responsible
and "I'm ADHD" is enough to be able to do
whatever you want, and you aren't held accountable
At what point do feelings become genuine enough
to justify your actions? When is it okay to hurt
others and plead insanity, your morals aren't tough
You're confining yourself, staying in the dirt,
"I can't get higher, the world's stacked the odds,"
is enough to believe you're 'fine just as you are'
When you use, 'I'm okay as a sociopath, why don't you love me'
instead of, 'I can be better, I can get very far,'
Everyone will be held responsible for their actions,
Boys will NOT just be boys, and girls are not all *******
We don't have to break into meaningless factions
Hurting each other, you gave my heart stitches,
you don't have to do that. You can be nice to me.
because in reality, you ARE fine, you ARE free
These limiting conceptions are what's holding you back
It's impossible to believe you can get back on track
You're stuck in this rut and it hurts, it tingles
The rays of this roof is breaking through the shingles
I want you to be happy, I want you to see light
The will of your body is the will of your mind
You can conquer these words, these diagnosis confines,
You can do it. I know. Believe me. You're fine.

"When was the last time someone ran their fingers through the knots in your soul?"

when I give to you everything in my sky and on my ground
I give to you my rain, my thunder, my sun, my clouds
you take all fog away from the drought in my eyes
my bare soul is left and there's no need to deny
who I am anymore, you've shown me I'm worth it
you've shown me my skin and my heart, they deserve it
you've writtin in stone the peace that you gave
because in the end, Lord, you rose from the grave
to show me you love me. And not just my sin
but my soul and my essence, what's left in the end
that I forgot how to recognize when we fell from your plan
Now you've given me back. So, thank you. Love wins.

my legs are unshaven
somewhere between rabbit and goat
my thighs are muscled
more so now than ever
my face is freckled proportionally
with just the right amount of jawline
my feet are bony, like my hands,
long and strong
my torso melts into my legs and shoulders
my whole body is masculine
everything I am is built and molded
my heart is a knight, sun, yang
I dream of rocketing my person over obstacles
like someone who is not bound by estrogen
and having my abs ripple as I tear my
shirt off
grabbing it from the top of the back rather than
the awkward twisting thing
I am a man masquerading in a woman's body
admittedly, a tall, masculine-looking woman
but it still feels like it doesn't fit
like a temporary home
that was painted without you knowing
and everything shifted over to the left
three inches
and you know something is not right,
and I'm looking around, asking,
where are my wings?
where is my golden curly hair?
where is the fire in my eyes?
where is the easy athletic ability?
where is my old body?
why am I here?

the riptide drags me under
but I have a life boat, and not only that-
I can swim, and the man who holds my arms
as I cut away from pulls that I am not meant for
sick tides that bounce and roll, his name is-
well, His name is God.

someone asked me what my type of guy was
and I pictured, first, nerdy guys, with big glasses and messed up hair who are tall and gangly
then I pictured pixie-cut girls who are small and cute and elfin
then I saw girls in flowy skirts whose shoulders look narrow enough to fold in on themselves
then I saw hippie men with long curly hair and a love that is languid and enveloping in nature
I saw surfers, writers, musicians, not artists, no preppy boys
I saw people in black and white and I saw the change of color in your eyes
I saw people playing guitar and yelling at the top of their lungs
I saw us in a sunny beat-up car with the windows down
I saw people who'd hold my hand and then grab my ***
I saw people whose minds arched to the heavens and then somehow back to me
I saw someone on my level, an equal match, the completion of the circle
a radio signal that had a bit of static before it was united
eyes that focus and hearts that ignite
just emotional enough to deal with me
and not emotional enough to let me stay stagnant
I saw someone who would push me, break me, teach me
and I'd be pushing, breaking, and teaching right back
and we'd always be with other people
and moving constantly, improving ourselves
because we'd have independent lives and wouldn't need constant affirmation
however
we really wouldn't be complete
or completely satisfied
without each other
and our souls
would have a bungee cord
elastic
stretched between us.

I used to say, "burn me to a crisp"
and now there's nothing left to burn
I want nothing to do with love- *******,
I want you
to mean nothing to me,
I'm so sorry but driving me crazy is not
a romantic idea anymore, I'm tired
of wanting to smash my head through a window around you
I'd like a ******* good night's sleep, if that's alright
so kindly **** out of my head,
**** out of my heart,
**** out my life already if you're not going to stay.

I am broken
bent, forgotten, lost,
trying to build myself and I have good self esteem
so why do I feel so confused and tired
I love this life, I am constantly in joy
why is the sky so gray and burdened
why does the ground seem to spin
why do I want to lay in my bed all day and forget what it is
that threw me off a cliff
I want to be nothing, I want to cease, I want to stop fighting and
listen to music and close my eyes and sleep
and sleep
and sleep
and sleep
and sleep
and sleep
til oblivion takes me-
and arise, new;
in this life I can never be enough
I cannot give you enough, I do not care enough, I am lost,
I am not the person you want or need, I am a facade of broken dreams,
I can never be the poet you love and I can never write down all you are
for all I want now is to live and I do not want to live in artsy coffee shops
I do not want to live in bookstores and cliches and carefully worded lines
I merely want to survive on my own terms and rest, I would like to rest
and stop thinking, I am too absorbed in myself
and what I need to fix to fix you
I cannot help you or anyone when I can hardly even get up out of bed,
how can I get back on my feet when I don't want to? How can I
be someone for someone else
when I can't even be me for me?

and I don't want to be a troublemaker but I'm a human
ain't I, and ain't I allowed to feel something and occasionally
shake the world from its roots- say, we are made in the image
of the guy that created hurricanes and volcanoes, right?
ain't I allowed to blow around and explode? ain't I allowed
to quake, and create, and sacrifice myself? And if we all
made in his image like they tell us, ain't those dramatists
and scholars and kings have the same spirit in them
as I got in me? ain't I allowed to feel the fire of martyrs
and talk like an orator and give myself like Christ?
ain't I allowed to start a little trouble?
Everybody else did.

Why, even surrounded by all these people,
do I feel such a crushing loneliness?

My body is a fluid thing, supple,
unwilling-to-be-controlled
not exactly lanky, because I'm not that skinny,
but well-proportioned
and not too muscular
but just muscular enough around the leg area.
My body is a fluid thing,
it matches my mind-
tall, not-cumbersome,
it flops and fits into any kind of space
flexibly curls into various positions
is comfortable changing but uncomfortable in the wrong clothes
My body is a fluid thing
I feel as though my joints are constantly shifting around
in their soft sockets
to be molded and to collapse
in a different place every time
and to relax, and form to its container
like liquid into a glass.
If my mind is fire, my body is the water
that surrounds and protects it
and seems to be perfectly matched and complimentary
to the flames that lay buried deep within my chest.

**** him. He's nothing more than a loser
trying to push down the kid he's most afraid of.
Why is he scared of you? Because he knows who you are.
He knows what you can do. He knows you're better than him.
He's scared to death of his own failure and he can't
look you in the eye and see your bright future
because his whiny *** doesn't think that's fair
and he's gonna try and beat you down and convince you
you don't deserve it and you can't have it and you never will
but he's ******* wrong. He's wrong. I dare you to prove him wrong.

am I whole? could
we make each other whole
without effort to fix each other
without any forced input or 'save me'
or holding hands as we traverse a cliff
overly romantic atmospheres or difficult discussions
maybe just laughter, maybe just simple togetherness
adventure, laziness; friendship
with nothing but fluidity
and basic, easy love.

"Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t. But that isn’t it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned. The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you, thank you, God."

"What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?" -Ralph Ellison

Everybody wants to roll with the cool times and say
yes when everybody wants yes and
no when everybody wants no but
when it comes down to it, none of that ever made
a real person, none of that ever taught somebody
how to love somebody else. And I think you'll find
in the end, when you don't know who wants yes or no
and when asked what those mean, you don't know
I'll still be here. Saying yes. Saying no. Telling the truth.
In the end, I know how to love. And I love you.

and it rains- through my nose
out my mouth, trickling down my mind
leaving my knees weak, on my toes
it rains over my hips, crumpling my thighs
it leeches the strength of my shoulders, it leaks
between my fingers- it rains from my eyes
and it rains into my ears, it rains all over here
it rains over my face and under my chin,
and it rains in heaven and in sin, it rains
on good and bad and warm and cold
it rains leaving both the young and the old
it rains through happy and lost and pain
it rains on you and on me just the same.

I could feel your heart beating
but not exactly from the location
where a heart usually beats
and you grabbed my head in your hands
and I kept thinking about kissing you
but it's not about you
it's never about you
it's just that I'm lonely and want to touch anybody
it's like a desperate hunger or thirst now
I'm suffocating without the feeling
of lips on lips
It's been too long since my last kiss
and I'm a little tired and broken
forever spiritually moving
never physically or even in my relationships
all my intelligence and insight
can't get me a **** make-out session
For all the violin and basketball and singing and poetry and character in the world
I haven't been able to win anyone's heart
please, let me win someone's heart
and preferably their body along with it.

any problem that can be solved with a movement down
can be solved with a movement up
and you've got to unlock the secret
don't get yourself lost and get small numbers
in uncomfortable positions
keep it all organized
and watch your moves so you don't make a mistake
so always move up

High rise, veins of the avenue
Bright eyes and subtle variations of blue
Everywhere is balanced there like a rainbow above you
Street lights glisten on the boulevard
And cold nights make staying alert so hard
For heaven's sake, keep me awake so I won't be caught off guard
Clearly I am a passerby but I'll find a place to stay
Dear pacific day, won't you take me away?
Small town hearts of the New Year
Brought down by gravity, crystal clear
City fog and brave dialogue converge on the frontier
Make haste, I feel your heartbeat
With new taste for speed, out on the street
Find a road to a humble abode where both of our routes meet
The silver sound is all around and the colors fall like snow
The feeling of letting go, I guess we'll never know

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I'll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins
'Cause your heart has a lack of colour and we should've known
That we'd grow up sooner or later 'Cause we wasted all our free time alone

Your nerves gather with the altitude
Exhale the stress so you don't come unglued
Somewhere there is a happy affair, a ghost of a good mood
Wide eyed, panic on the getaway
The high tide could take me so far away
VCR's and motorcars unite on the Seventh Day
A popular gauge will measure the rage of the new Post-Modern Age
'Cause somewhere along the line all the decades align.

We were the crashing whitecaps
On the ocean
And what lovely sea-side holiday, away
A palm tree in Christmas lights
My emotion
Struck a sparkling tone like a xylophone
As we spent the day alone

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I'll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins
'Cause your heart has a lack of color and we should've known
That we'd grow up sooner or later 'cause we wasted all our free time alone.

I'm the shining distraction that makes you fly
and maybe you're falling for it
my fools' gold
maybe my love's not real
but that's not the way it feels
and you've let me use you from the day we first met
but you're not done yet
falling for my
fools' gold.

I must be clear.
My mind, heart, soul, must align
with that of truth, and that of God
and it must come out my mouth
perceptible, so that all may know of what I speak,
and I must go there, and speak to you, because
it is my calling, and
today I opened my Bible to a random page
and, a highlight, left there from a long time ago
like I am prefiguring my own future,
"Here I am, Lord."
And I think, I've known the whole time.
Ever since that day,
when I saw those trees and the mountains and started crying
And the second day, when I felt the ground beneath me and the stars above
and I was whole, and humble, a full servant of the universe
And the third day, today, when the class was silent and I said,
'Prophet.'
And that's why I'm tall and my voice carries,
because there is something I must do.
I have walked in that path and I'm ready, because
having been aligned with the universe's purpose for me,
I have created and allowed for the bigger purpose to begin:
to perpetuate that egoless love,
and spread the word,
because agape, and only that, is how we can live in harmony.
You can feel it within you, can't you?
It's the human compassion that drives us and creates a straight line
from my heart to yours- if you are tugged, I will follow,
The strings of the loom are woven, not tangled;
how can we make each other happy?
That's the question.
Humans exist with one goal in mind: happiness.
The Buddhists believe something, as do the Hindus
and the Christians teach about it too.
They all seem to say something about love,
and something about suffering,
but there is one truth-
throughout all religions,
one message.
Give fully.
Give wholly.
Forget yourself.
Value your brother as much as that which you are-
We are one.
It's time we started acting like it.

There are some people who weigh heavy on the workings of the world
shifting powers and stirring, pumping the flow of truth up and down and around
some people can't participate without altering, a mere footprint on the snow
causes an avalanche. Some people tread lightly, knowing any mark
they leave is a scar, but some people's souls carve scars into the world
with every breath and living motion. Some people leave gouges,
throwing their weight around and unknowingly setting
hearts on fire and sending minds into the cold, unknowingly
the center of a whirlwind, breathing hurricanes into existence.
I'm sorry I've changed so much. I'm sorry. I can't help it.

everybody loves somebody
especially me
everybody loves somebody
in a glorious, stupid tragedy.

yes, He loves you absolutely, but because He loves you
He hates the parts of you that drive you away trom Him
even if you **** up, yeah, He still loves you
but you love Him less for it. a relationship
isn't when you catch yourself saying "I love you"
to an empty room at three in the morning- a relationship
is when you look into someone's eyes and neither of you have
to say it, but you do anyway, in broad daylight
God loves a murderer but the murderer does not love God
God loves you no matter what you do, but what you do
shows God and the whole world how much you love Him.

I don't unwrite words from my pen, my skin, or my heart
nor will I ever unsay something I once said
sometimes I think maybe I should, but I don't
partly because I can't and partly because
I am who I was and who I am now, together
and I will not unwrite poems that breathed
"I love you" out of my soul, I will also not unsay
all the "*******'s" that flew out of my lips
driving alone in my car. I will not take back
those words. They are mine as much as any words.
If anything, more. I have been thinking a lot about
privacy: when something is too special to write about
when a moment should be kept to myself. And I've
worked on keeping more things to myself. It doesn't
mean they don't exist. It doesn't mean they aren't real.
If anything, it means that now, I am more real.
I have more of me to myself now. Less of me has been
pirated, parodied, and talked about- I belong to God
who sees all and knows all, and to myself, who bears witness
to words I've spoken in folly and words I've concealed in folly.
I can't guarantee I'll be perfect or always happy
or never **** up again. I can't hardly promise anything.
All I know is that I'm growing up, and Friday night
means books and songs and baths and studying, and I feel
sadder, yes, and also happier, in deeper ways,
I don't quite know who I am and I feel rather lost but
as one grows lost, one finds themselves, and I hope that
it happens for me. After all, I'm turning seventeen soon.

heartbeat racing, face flushing, core frozen,
fingers tracing, thoughts binding and lost,
eyes meddling, feet tapping, leg shaking,
knee bending, muscles stretching, brain working,
emotions zooming, horizon closing,
frantically thinking, decidedly acting to
sitting back and lazing, forgetting, unwinding
numbing and breaking, glancing and gliding.

I, for one, will not apologize for living my own ******* life
to its fullest and its best extent.

You walked by while I was in biology
in the middle of a sentence, I stopped
my mouth agape,
my eyes alit, following your path
I'd never seen someone so beautiful
like an angel cried a single tear on your mother's womb
because finally there was a person on earth
who is as awe-inspiring as a creature in heaven
and I can't focus on anything but you
look how her hair falls over her shoulder
look how untouchable, how ****** up I am,
it will never be the same,
I can never have her,
be satisfied with friendship,
those lips,
be okay with how she is,
I want her, I've never wanted anyone this much
I want to wake up next to that face,
I can't, I can't
but look how beautiful she is,
my friends said, 'hey, maddie'
turned around,
and didn't see anything- for you were gone.

I am fascinated by your existence
and want to take care of you
but in my caring
I must fulfill your needs
not what I want your needs to be
and my love cannot be what I want
it must be what you want-
that's what love is.
I am fascinated by your eyebrow bones
and your hips
and the way you roll your eyes
I am fascinated by how you sleep
and how you wake up
I am fascinated by your love for cartoons
and your small fingers entwined with mine
I am fascinated by all of you,
and I will write you a million poems
or swim across the ocean
or dance naked for you,
and every hair on your head is a line in my poetry
and the way your ear curves is greater than whitman,
a mind more elegant than cummings,
hands more deft than hughes;
I will write you a hundred thousand billion poems,
but that doesn't mean I can have you,
because that's not what you want-
my desires are always second to your desires,
and that's what love is.

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves *****."

I told you my heart was my most valuable possession
so you stole it, broke it,
and now I'm pretty sure it's worthless.