and I thought I was going to die that night
but I would never have been happier to die
alongside those people, in that place
I could smell the dirt and the leaves
so happy hearted and warm
and we stood steady as the stars in the woods
as the old pine fell we sang
and we cried, it was just a blessed morning.

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.

I never understood people who look back on
their childhood, back to the best most innocent times of their lives
because my years weren't like that
five years was reading, alone in her room
six years was the beginning of cynicism, telling everyone that those blow up animals were not people and never were
seven years was the beginning of understanding social constructs, feeling lonely in kindergarten but not sure why. I watched a girl from across the playground and fell in love and proposed to her in front of the class but the teacher hushed me and hurried everyone away
eight years was my first best friend but the realization I had no female friends and when they told me I was weird I didn't know what to do so I just shut down
nine years was when my friends declared war on me in the school yard and the first time someone expected me to like a boy
ten years was the beginning of anxiety and the first obsession: owls
eleven years was depression, grades dropping, awkward cargo shorts, when I first knew about *** and that year I loved wolves
twelve years was my first love (second if you count the girl in kindergarten) I waited for him outside his mom's classroom and I thought he was the most beautiful of all humanity. he was my newest obsession. I dated that boy with the silly name but we never talked in person and I started feeling something like a crush for my friend sofia. I found someone else to love at my new school and I was forced to admit my sexuality to myself
thirteen years was when I told Pam and everyone at school that I liked girls and I had my first sleepover, my first taste of 'popularity', I kissed my first girl, thirteen was when the anxiety faded away, the world appeared bright and clear. I found God that year. I hurtled through a roller coaster and my parents cursed me out the first time and I loved it, I loved every second
fourteen years was when I recognized my own soul and when others did too, it was when I stopped reading because the real world was good enough, I kissed someone that I didn't love but his lips were warm and the sun was bright that day and he called me 'his girl' and I loved that, if not him.
fifteen years was when I shouldered the responsibility of my impact and I understood what the world needed from me and I was ready to do it, I learned what love looked like that year and I found my favorite genre of
music and I can finally speak in front of people, I have friends that love me and I will never lose myself away from this world because it is finally beautiful, there is no magic of my childhood to return to because the magic is now, I am ready and willing to grow old and throw myself raw into this world with cares and worries because that is what makes life great and at sixteen I hope to lose myself to passion and go crazy with love, I hope to learn how to treat people and hold them close, I hope to become selfless, toss my soul in the fire, I hope there are many dark starry nights and many lonely rainy mornings and many sunny car rides and my birthday is in the winter so my world has always revolved around getting warmer, I was born when it was dark but it got brighter, it keeps getting brighter and bigger and warmer and sixteen will take me further than I ever thought I could go.

"What could be more important than love?"
"Friendship."

One day, I will write down all the words you ever said to me
and make a poem, the type of poem that causes saints and kings
to look down from heaven and wish they were here to witness
the kind of love we had- one day.
You'll read what I have to say and you will bite back your tongue.
You had no idea how hard I worked to win your heart. You won.
(and how often the glint in your eyes seemed gold
and how close we were, and how far.) One day,
when we're both old, you'll remember the spring in my step
because you were watching me and I knew.
One day, the whole world will know.
One day, you will too.
One day, when the skies have closed and opened
and God has decreed something different
then the words will flow from my pen
and I will see you again.

I feel it in my bones and I carry it in my heart
one day my skin will touch it again

and somehow you kicked all my walls in
I am foolishly completely falling
I know how it goes for day and night
never together, for they see things in a different light
there's always room for common ground
riding on a wind and I can't give up
I think I'm gonna win this time
it's taking it's taking all I've got
I'm like a boat on the water
you're the raise on the waves that calms my mind
and I can't see two feet in front of me
only half a blue sky, kind of there but not quite
I'm walking round with just one shoe
I'm half a heart without you
half a man at best- with half an arrow in my chest
tell me with your mind, body, and spirit
but do you really wanna be alone?

I'm tired of being heavy and wordy and preachy
and getting into debates
just wanting to discuss things
yeah, that's fine sometimes, but too much Plato
and not enough e e cummings
can cause a circuit short in the heart
When you're pumping too much in and out
and Talking Like Everything is Capitalized
and waving your hands
we're looking for some complex meaning to existence
a formula for happiness and our answer is a radical-
what exactly does it mean?
but we forgot in our endless quests for the light at the end of the tunnel
that if we put our ******* shining armor down for just a second
there's a field by our house that calling our name
and the flowers long to dance before your eyes
and the wind asks only this of us
and the grass has made one request:
we need not be too heavy
we need only be light.

Black and white are easy to wash in paint
over the whole world- white shows through
and won't let you hide some ruddy lights
of blood. Black, however, covers the whole room
conceals the color underneath it.
Black and white are both fine and good,
as pieces of their individual art,
but to to kidnap life under a smooth hood
silencing its true heart,
is to commit violence against the colors of the rainbow
and you may not know who you are
but to make it even clearer which path we should
take: optimism and pessimism are both pointless fakes.
The world's not all bad and it's certainly not all ******* good
we can't wash over our guilt and say "My God is not a God of hate"
when love and hate are not opposites- the truth is this
My God is not a God of indifference, but as a preface
hate and love have a bit more in common than we'd think they'd
have- my God loves me and because of that He hates my sin
He hates everything that's kept my soul locked in
He hates my lies and He hates my indifference for Him
my God is a God of love, and because of that He most certainly hates
love is not acceptance. The sky painted white is not a happy sky
it is a white sky, a sky as it is not. It's not my fight
to say the sky should be blue. We should know that.
The sky should be blue and love should be right
and true, but not blind- love should see all colors and hate not what
is not white, but hate what conceals the true light
the light that shines on all colors and does not accept them
for what they are, but only brings them to face the truth
in the face of all my many, many sins, I know guilt,
and because of my shame I know what is good.
I know that close to the beginning of time and many days since this,
"Abashed, the devil stood
and felt how awful goodness is."
Because goodness can be awful. Goodness can cause pain.
Love isn't pretty flowery fields of chocolate and honey
or comforting, awe-inspiring refrains.
Love is a bloodied man on a bloodied cross,
and maybe we should take some time to figure out
the implications of what that means for us.
The Sacred Heart of Christ did not die for us to forget
that His blood ran red from from it.

everybody tells you that you shouldn't ever be guilty
and that there's nothing wrong with us all along
but then they say to themselves, "what's wrong with me" and
"why do I feel inadequate" and I think the problem
is that we all know, we all know there's something
deeply, deeply wrong with us- no matter how much
we try and tell ourselves that it's not there or it's alright
or that it's good because God made it that way.
It's still wrong, and we still know it, in our essence.
I don't think I'm at fault for looking at myself and saying
"there are my flaws" and "I am indeed broken"
because even though it looks and sounds the same
as "what's wrong with me" and "why do I feel inadequate"
the difference is that I have exposed the wounds on my own soul
rather than covering and letting them fester; the Christian Church
tells me "Here is where you are cut" and "Here is the burn-mark"
thank God, honestly, because where healing is concerned, without
knowing my own wounds, I wouldn't have a place to start.

"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there."

God writes "new" on my heart and reminds me
that very few even know the half of me. I am free.

you can have all the good intentions in the world
but if you did it, then you did it.

once more, with feeling
he calls as the bow skitters across the strings, my fingers
artfully pouncing down and around in a small space,
an elaborate tap dance and I feel my body reeling back as my soul
takes over, into autopilot and if I think, I'll make a mistake
I can feel the beat of the percussion moving through the section as I
am united to my standpartner and we to the rest of the world,
with feeling as the cellos strike their solo,
with feeling as the flutes take the melody,
again and we support the violas
I'm plucking now,
I shall never forget this,
the music swells and we are one, we are all
tenuously supporting each other with a connection that is so fragile
if it breaks now, it is lost, the world shall begin again but a little less
magical without it, the crescendo ripples and our hearts thrum,
too special even to write about accurately,
we know each other, we are all that matter now,
I have never felt more or less of a stranger,
it is just for the moment,
it cannot break, with feeling this time.

in calculus, we describe how infinitely close
we can approach a goal,
the fractions growing smaller and smaller.
The spirals decrease in size but we cannot leave
orbit,
we shall divide endlessly,
and perhaps because of that,
we will never find the end-
the limits of our physical world confine us to
imperfect numbers and imperfect love,
impossible to live in a seamless harmony, but:
if we are anything together, we ignite each other.
My heart sets on fire and my world shifts a little
when I look at you.
We've gotten as close as we possibly could,
always a step away, the centrifugal force
balancing the gravity that draws us into each other,
our magnetism impossible to avoid
but we cannot connect.
The divine irony enjoys this type of subtle humor,
the paradoxes arising from impossibilities and passion.
We're just lost in the night sky,
two stars coming inextricably close:
doing a heavenly dance, but the Lord of the light
knows the steps too well to allow us to collide.
I will forever admire you from the distance,
painfully caught betwixt many gravities
and I cannot escape-
til the day I die,
I shall salute you to whom I am tied;
we are spun around on the finger of God as He
sits bored waiting for something more important to do.
I watch your star spin wildly,
just too far for me to grasp- and I wait forever.
You're beautiful,
today just like every other day-
but our zero is out of reach,
and I'll never be with you.

if we're pretending from the start,
like this, with a tight grip,

can I taste the sky?

maybe once we were the same
and maybe I'm the one to blame.

parenthood is the scariest thing, to me
the ability to love something to the point
that you know it better than it knows itself
seems nearly impossible and very easy to ruin
its chances for fulfilling its dreams
and guiding it through storms while it constantly pulls away
is the bravest of the loves, I think.

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 thought I was an answer but
I was not ready to be heard
and the question was not ready to be asked.

why do we censor love more strongly
than we censor violence?

camp is my place of joy
but the beach is my place of peace
and my family is my home
I needed this.

And I found out a long time ago
what a woman can do to your soul
oh, but she can't take you anywhere
you don't already know how to go.
And I got a peaceful, easy feeling
and I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing on the ground.

I am not in love with people who have fantasies
they trivialize the beauty of the world right in front of us
I am in love with real people
I love seeing people whose skin is off, whose soul is
burnt raw
the ice cold bitter air cuts them and they feel it
I love tender hearts who seem themselves for their own
beauty and brokenness
and beyond that, their own mediocrity
because we are all not clichès
but we are so **** beauitful because of it.

people are so soft and so tender
we are all souls, do you ever think about that? walking
through a hall, a road, and realizing there are so many
exactly like you. and so different.

and it's dangerous, for people like me,
because they truly will do anything for silence
but I am not like the others, I am not like the others
or am I?

a coffee shop, not the kind they usually write about-
not the dark furtiveness of hope and cigarettes
no one in here is broken- at least- no one except for me
at least- we all think that, already- about ourselves-
but this is no places for dickinsons, all I can see in front of me
is two girls who look like they could be in love
in some other way, in some other universe
and all I see to my right is two girls older and wiser than those ahead
who're a little more broken, and a little more untrusting
and in the booth, there, girls who have marked their computers
their bodies, too, with their identities, splattered across
the outside world because they don't have it in their heart
who is that? staring out the window, not even on her phone
is she waiting for someone? who is it? is she thinking about ***?
Is she thinking about love? I am. Is she sad? she has her hand over
her face, I still don't know why I love you so much-
my music throbs in my ears, this is the holy grail of places
free wifi and people who are exactly like me
I look different than I am, do they, too? who are you?
why don't we tell each other? if we don't, we might as well give up
it's done, game over. we're through.

even if I won't ever be perfect for someone,
one day, someone will be willing to fight for me-
and me for them. and isn't that all that matters?

I might never be the hand you put your heart in
Or the arms that hold you any time you want them
But that don’t mean that we can’t live here in the moment
because I can be the one you love from time to time.

love isn't meeting someone perfect for you in a perfect situation
love is meeting someone who makes you want to be perfect
someone who makes you want to make yourself the best, for them
because you'd die before you let them see the light die in your eyes
and you'd die if the whole world ended, but before then, a thousand times.

not all poems have words.
some, like the way I feel right now
are written in the stricken pulse of one
who loves when she ought not to love
and hates when hate is not called for.
There are no choice words for this,
though I will try, and fail, I can't write it
because maybe there are words
but I'm not allowed to write them.
(why do I feel like I need permission to feel?)

treading on dark and dangerous waters
one false step, one moment of lost faith
and your shaken footing sends you down into the boiling deep.

she told me at lunch that maybe her phone had
decreased her attention span,
because everything now seemed boring
and I want her to destroy that phone,
because I live when she is alive,
and these screens have taken us away,
made us focus up close to a false image
and we'll look up pictures of beautiful landscapes
forgetting that there's a landscape around us,
a person next to us.
We've become so focused on the blue light on
our phones that you haven't looked up to the
blue light of my eyes in the past thirty minutes,
"Helllllooooo?"
Why have we replaced who we are with these
technologies, you weren't born a robot
your blood is becoming electrical currents,
I can see the metal behind your ears-
plastic replacing bones,
our eyes are sensory latest edition LCD displays-
ears expensive hearing aids
and we still can't hear each other say, "I love you,"
these days are passing by and all we can do is
instagram them- we're so busy snapchatting
we forgot that these are our glory years,
we're all chronically lonely and maybe it's because
the person next to you says they care about you
but in the last thirty minutes they've looked at that phone more than you
and you can't help but wonder,
am I the only one that's awake?
we were born human and we should die human,
I am not a screen, my life isn't a profile,
I can't kiss you through a text message,
(no matter how hard eighth grade couples try)
and I refuse to let myself slip out of what it is that
makes me or you alive.

Truth be told, I don't mind
not at all,
I'd rather sink in perfect peace
than count the stories as I fall

I cannot write you down-
I cannot even write myself down
words might fill the silence but your pulse will never be in these pages
because these pages have ink on them, not blood
and a soul refuses to be penned.

poetry is written into my heart
there is no turning back now
this sacred, undefiled art
has taught me how to break all vows

the lake is clear now, it's quite smooth
the sun is shining and shadowed
my car (their car) is set on cruise
and my thoughts appear to be scattered

poetry is written desperately through my heart
on the walls of my soul, divine
guidance in each individual part
taking into account every line

my mom's hair is not a bit soft
this lake is far too smooth
don't look around you, you'll start feeling lost
and you won't even realize it when you lose

poetry is engraved into the veins of my heart
pumping through every time
poetry is entrenched in who I am
I can't escape these entangled vines

my father's phone is older than me
my time here has run over
I look around but I just wanna be free
and get myself a wild-eyed lover

poetry is more than my heart- it's my life,
it's entrapping me, I'm in its power
my arms and its legs are inseperably entwined,
and I've given it permission to have me for a bit more than an hour.

although the night is all we have
we must not destroy the sun
and in our hearts, through our veins
flow the ideas and thoughts that must not reach the surface
our arteries contain the world within a windless moment
I have written your pulse down into these pages
upon pages of lore, I have felt your blood
pump under my hand and through my pen
the dark stains have marked me as guilty
spreading my life around the city,
these streets are moving, moving, motion in the blood
and the cells of words flock in and out, dancing under my eyes
I have never felt so alive
but I have never felt quite so sad and so lonely
is it lonely to be alive? what age did your mother die?
how many pulsations can we fit while we rage
against the dying of the light?

what does dominion mean?

why do pretty people have to exist?
your bone structure is an art,
the way your hair falls is poetry,
you look at me with eyes that flash of God.
Your laugh is my favorite thing to hear
and I could look at you for hours if you'd let me.
I like when you're sitting there and you think
I'm not watching, and you do these weird things
with your lips
on whatever can you're drinking from
and I like the gross faces you make
because somehow, they're not gross.
I like your Dragon Army shirt when you just wake up
and it's stretched and ruffled and you should,
by all rights, look as bad as I do in the morning,
but you don't, you never look bad,
your eyes are stars and your heart is the sun,
why do pretty people have to exist?
and why can't I have one?

those who do not think like me live and feel blindly
they say, 'I am who I am and you can accept it or not'
they throw their own person into the world and let fools
and scavengers prey and ****** and bite but they will not draw
back their hand, they will not change, for they are proud of
the very fact that these wolves gnaw on them, for it is proof
that they are worth eating, that their hand is brave enough to stay
those who think like me adapt and mold their hands based
on the type of wolves that desire them, we shall change and choose
to withdraw when in danger, we know when there are wolves around
and we are not ashamed of our cowardice, for what virtue is there in pain?
We are not knights, nor dark knaves in the night who steal from the rich
and give to the poor; we are not the poor nor the rich, we are
the faces you see when you walk down the street and do not see them
for we do not raise our flags high over our heads, we are the shrouded
figures that do not stand out for being shrouded, for we do not
advertise, we do not seek to excel or fail bluntly,
we only wish to maximize profit, to work the dynamics of the system
regardless of how we are affected in the process, for we are not proud of who
we are completely, we are proud of our own good souls, but we detest
our vices and we shall not hesitate to alter our very essence if it so suits,
for we know that there is no inherent value in stability,
and that stagnation is the ultimate weakness.

if you're pro-life, 'American ******' should disgust you.
all lives, not just American lives.
if you're pro-life, torture should disgust you.
all lives, not just innocent lives.
if you're pro-life, sexism should disgust you.
all lives, not just male lives.
if you're pro-life, income inequality should disgust you.
all lives, not just well-off lives.
if you're pro-life, institutionalized racism should disgust you.
all lives, not just white lives.
if you're pro-life, violence, harassment, bullying, revenge,
should all disgust you-
all lives, not just the lives you like,
the lives that benefit you,
the lives you planned or the lives you agree with,
the lives that hurt you and left you,
the lives that killed your family, even-
all lives.

I am king,
I am mother,
I am unrequited lover,
I am hopeful,
I am vain,
just a child lost in pain,
I am proud, broke, confused
never touched a real life dude,
kissed a couple, broken laws
wiped off my ***** paws
despite your warnings and your threats
I took the knee, did not repress
what you thought I ought to
I am daughter,
I am son,
I am the unforgotten one,
I am weak but never torn
I stayed awake just for the morn'
I've slain dragons
I've breathed fire
I've earned her blessed long desire
I'm the soul
long-forgotten spark
I am the light
I'll lead you from the dark.

I agree that I cannot have you
and you seem to be avoiding me almost
as much as I've been trying to avoid you
but God did a fabulous job making that
eye roll you do when you aren't fascinated
and your smile, how it goes from zero to earth-shaking
in a split second
and how when you run, you pointedly don't look at the sidelines
but I know you can hear me.
In fact, I know you can always hear me-
when I'm giving love advice to anybody and telling them to go for it
and then inform them, "I'm projecting."
when I'm talking about my achievements to someone else because I'm scared you won't care.
when I talk about boys to maybe let you know I don't care and maybe make you jealous.
And I think you don't analyze these things nearly as much as I do-
but to say there is a mundane reason for everything you do is to discredit you.
I'm pulling a Darcy
and I'm scared you're the type of Lizzy
to leave forever and never look back.

if I skip my eyes over the seas of my life
and choose only to dance on the shore
then, at the end, having ignored my strife
I will not have known there was more.

when, in the world, happiness is reward
we forget the true value of sadness
throttled about in a storm, we whirl
half blind and half crazed in our madness.

If I am concerned primarily with gladness
if I try to have hills but not valleys,
at the end I will not show any success
it will all be plains and not mountains.

If I focus only on good moments and their counting
I will lose the good gap that lies between
for even in thunder, in breaking, in shouting
in hot blasts of ignited gasoline-

even in losses, in war and in ravines
the world knows its weight, don't pretend.
Our lives, you see, would not be complete
had they not been destroyed by their end.

We live as though our hopes will extend
through countless ages of life
but the truth is, the dark we must strive to accept
for without it, we could not see the light.

what, and who, am I? (Does God love me or is he disappointed?)
am I good enough how I am? (Am I forgiven? Do I need to be?)
what determines what "good enough" is? (Will I be loved without changing?)
do I need to change? (What parts of me are inadequate?)
does anyone love me? (Am I someone worthy of loving?)

what did He say to you
why did you cry
what did she say to you
why do you love mass
have you ever touched yourself
and why wouldn't you
when was the last time you had to question yourself
what thoughts run through your head when you saw me looking at you
why do you have to wait
why do you want to wait
do you really want me
do you want me at all
what do you think about laying in your bed
have you ever pictured me on top of you
have you ever driven yourself crazy
have you ever smoked a cigarette
have you ever burned, cut, or otherwise hurt yourself
have you drank liquor
who do you wish you were
and what is your deepest dream?

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?

"Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness."