Te/Fi
or
Fe/Ti?
Ne/Si
or
Se/Ni?
maybe I'm just well-developed
or maybe I defy
labels
maybe I'm schizotypal
but I'm probably just
Histrionic
and Narcissistic.
the clever part is,
if I wasn't,
I wouldn't be telling y'all,
would I?

people assume that everyone else thinks and is
exactly like themselves- that's just a fact of life
so if you look at yourself and you see someone
selfish, foolish, broken, and hurt, when you **** up
you blame yourself for it- then when you see someone else
**** up, you assume it's because they're selfish, foolish,
broken, and hurt. But if you learn to forgive yourself,
when you learn to love yourself, and know that your
****-ups and your mistakes aren't the end of the world
then maybe you'll look upon your brother and know
that they're just another human going through the
same pains as you are, the same hard times, and that
it's not their fault, because it wasn't yours, and maybe
we're all worth forgiving. That is the worth of self-love
because it grounds you in your humanity rather
than casting yourself above or below those around you.
Self-love destroys your loneliness because when you hate yourself
you end up hating the people around you- and when you
love yourself, not only do you love the people around you
just for being who they are, but you enjoy being alone with
your own person, because you're worth it and you're beautiful
and you are someone worth loving.

I am not obligated to approve of everything someone else does
I am not obligated to always be nice, especially when I am not treated nicely
I am not obligated to be agree with people constantly
I am not obligated to laugh at someone's jokes
I am not obligated to look at someone
I am not obligated to act kind at the price of acting with love
I am not obligated to apologize for my feelings when someone else upsets me
I am not obligated to blame myself when I am acting according to my conscience
I am not obligated to always be the one who apologizes
I am not obligated to remain in a toxic relationship
I should be loving
I should look people in the eyes
I should not be petty
I should stand up for what is right
I should express truth and justice at every opportunity
I should respect myself enough to let go of people that put no effort into our relationship
I should respect other people enough to still be friendly even after letting them go
I should respect my own feelings enough to be vocal about them
I should respect other people's feelings enough to be vocal to them
I should be discern unhealthy and negative things for myself and make the choice to change them
I should acknowledge that I can be wrong and I am often wrong
I should also acknowledge that I am not always wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly ******* they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings ***** the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

could I be the light I used to be?
I could, I'm sure I could
but I think the candle is being blown out
please, please, please just spark it, ignite it for me
and I can be the light of your life,
we can set each other free.

it's not my fault I had to lie
because no one ever wanted the truth
(even though they told me it would set me free,
it had to stay locked inside, so only I could see.)

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.

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.

I wonder why everyone can't just
flat-out, God-blessed, love each other-
freely, purely, and explosively-
why are some people allowed to hold hands on the street
and others must keep it in the privacy of their homes
some bodies must be hidden and others can be exposed
some kisses must be kept secret from those who love you the most
some heartbeats must happen outside of your own house
some moments cannot exist in the presence of others
and some lovers can only love a certain type of other lovers.
Why is it that I must be fearful in a group of people
that they can see my brainwaves and know what I am feeling
and that it would be dangerous if they knew?
Why must it be this way that I have to be in the vast minority
and that the chances of me finding someone to love is
minuscule and difficult; everyone is at a different stage regarding
my certain type of love, and it carries a baggage straight people don't have
it carries a complication, a heartbreaking rope of knots and pain and confusion
and 'do I even feel this way' because you have been taught that you shouldn't
and 'why isn't there straight pride' and 'just don't shove it down my throat'
these type of misunderstandings create this impossible disharmony
'stop queering the straights' 'oh so you're basically a lesbian'
no. I am not a lesbian- please stop classifying me and while you're at it,
please stop acting differently around me because you're scared I'm into you
chances are, I'm not. Please stop asking me why it's necessary for me to come out and say it,
its because every single other person, me included, is assumed to be straight,
and makes comments about dating boys and just boys and it's this eternal 'no ****'
and my own parents want me to bear children and it's part of me, okay?
It's me and it's my self expression and it isn't shoving it down your throat
I just want to know that I can still be completely me and still be completely loved,
that's all, that's why I have to say it out loud,
because it carries with it a kind of suffocation that builds and builds
because everything around you pushes you down and tears at your foundation
and when you finally say it, there's a pain that's gone that you know will never hurt again
but it will always sting, little daggers when your friends won't get quite
as close as they used to and your mom gives you different looks in public
or I am constantly misunderstood and misperceived and it's scary, it's
a scary world for us, it's a scary world for us, it's a scary world for us
and it will be that way until we speak loud enough that we are heard.

why is it that you always take the wrong exit
and end up in a village wasting your time
on some pretty girl
and write tons of love poems
then die slowly inside as she gets back on the highway
without you
because it's always been real for you-
you never wanted to leave,
but she couldn't wait to get away.

midnight moved across the people's park
and I fled the fire like a spinning spark
up onto a porch in the dark
she was waiting right there for me

people you hurt and who hurt you will stay in your heart forever, you know
whatever you do, wait until you are certain that it's time to let it go.

"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

faith as
the love that moves the sun and other stars
that turns the heavens and keeps the universe in holy alignment
that structures everything,
I had a ring that I bought because it was the only size that fit
and as the galaxies spin, so do we, high upon our golden throne
seated together and watching the world revolve
you took my ring and I told you to keep it
because the love that moves the sun and other stars
came through you, and I found God through
your existence and our experiences
for I serve because of you and I therefore unite my soul
with the heavens, because of you
no one has ever changed me so much
and therefore I give my life either to you or the idea of you
it makes no difference; you wear my ring
and I have taken my cause and my love to be my bride
we are as pagan gods, separated and viewing the world
with an aloof, unaffected air, casting joy and peace as though it were rain
throughout anything and everything we must breathe
for we are together and we grow the forests of the earth
in our tears, we are what they write about and what I write about,
a nobility of purpose beyond what the common man understands,
and yet- while together we are like pagan gods,
with you I am the most human I have ever been,
and the most alive I have ever felt.

sing me sweet,
sing me low,
say you'll never let me go
and we're makin our own way out

I feel sick
sick of you, sick of most everyone
sick of being tired and sick of being sick
I am fine and I am alive but there are corrosive chemicals around me
I am the most beautiful, unique creation, the summit and foundation
of this Earth- as a human person I am limitless but
I feel a poison eating away at me and I know exactly what to do to avoid it
for there are only a few who make me feel whole,
a few people, a few situations-
and I do not want to be fixed, I do not need that, no mortar or
molds to repair, all I need
is to stop being eroded- bit by bit,
and to stop crumbling into the deep-
and from there, I can repair myself-
I am good enough now
stop tearing me down,
I would like to shake off whatever chains have been laid on me
for though my body is restricted,
my soul is deeply, unbelievably free.

diamonds, they fade, flowers, they grow,
I'm telling you, I'm telling you
that diamonds, they fade.

if you want to shine like the sun, first you must burn like it
and if you want to raise to the heavens, first you must plummet
and fall, to the scorched earth, losing whatever Godly crown you held
that was placed upon your head when you knelt down before Him
begging for power and might- you got it, you took it,
you led a whole nation to what you thought was salvation
but the fire inside you burned your heart out- it was too much-
you said, if I cannot reach heaven, then I will raise hell
and raise hell you did, creating hell on earth, pulling the
demonic spirits from leagues below the surface painfully, inch
by inch, you called them to us; if there is a God
He will have to beg for their forgiveness, won't He, because
you claimed the throne of God and sat on it
the starched pants cannot hold atop heavenly gold- and in the end,
not even you, Führer the ******, Führer the gory-
you had power and might but you could never have glory
you took what was not yours and you sliced and you gassed
the sons of our mothers were left gasping as they died under
your thumb, there is no more thunder left to call anyone home
there is nothing, there is nothing, and from this death lesson we learn:
to God tis' glory, and when men aspire
tis' but a spark too much of heavenly fire.

You read these poems, don't you?
Every time I post one, you act differently
is it a coincidence?
If you know I love you, why don't you say anything?
You've got to know, by now.
You're smarter, more aware than this.
Maybe you're still deciding your feelings. I don't know.
You haven't said anything.
Once you figure it out,
at least say, one way or the other.
I'd like to stop vaguely hoping.
"The signs we give- yes, no, or maybe-
should be clear. The darkness around us is deep."

oh, what I would do to silence my mind
you don't know how rare it is to find quiet
how hard it is to come by peace- what I would do
for a little stillness, a cease in motion,
a tiny taste of death- just for one moment,
please, just for one moment, I would like to stop thinking.

let's be alone together
I don't want to force myself to be with anyone
and deal with the awkward silences
get-to know-you questions, smiles and laughter
efforts to agree and manipulate
I just want to be alone
with someone else there
and I want it to be simple

Jesus was a communist
let's be honest
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need”
Acts 2:44-45
"Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.""
Matthew 19:21
"Woe unto you who are rich"
"Woe unto you who are rich"
"Woe unto you who are rich"
luke 6:24
we live in a world of woe
people base their political decisions on their personal greed
and stamp on it a 'christian conservative'
mark that they mass-produced in their factories
and they sit in their houses with their pools while there's children starving
in our capitalist society,
most greedy wins
survival of the worst character
they sit on our backs like the cats they're called but they aren't soft
they spit in our faces and they claw us
"we had to make our own way in our generation"
well in your generation it wasn't so unbalanced and tipped and **** near impossible, was it?
we live in a monetary nation
where virtues are pride, ambition, manipulation
how did this free trade expedition go so horribly wrong
our government shuts down at the mere mention of free health care
God forbid everyone have health care
they call us the entitled generation
because we want some money for education
let me tell you something, it's the 21st century
people's vocations can lead them to supply for the whole **** population
we don't need this dog-eat-dog world
we need a location to start from,
the pacifists will fight,
occupy wall street because the
entitled generation is entitled to rights
like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
and free health care and equal opportunity for minorities
is not so objectionable that we must abandon all civilities
and throw strangers out of our gates
we are a country of immigrants
they deserve a chance too
because people are people
and all humans are endowed with certain unalienable freedoms
they're scared of communism because they think it will take away our choice
but the corporate world has destroyed any choices we make
limiting it to lucky born one percent
or slave to the rat race
with the cheese dangling right in front of our face
that's the cost of capitalism
a loss of choice, say goodbye to fair trade
fair isn't fair when we're suffering
a Godless world is one where we look down on the people next to us
so for God's sake
let's fight
revolutionize
because this is wrong, not just in my eyes, but in your eyes
when they take all we have and call it economy
take it from Jesus
let's live like hippies and commies
together with our brothers and our sisters
united in one body.

What are friends? I'm not exactly the authority on this subject. I haven't owned any for very long. Before 8th grade, actually, there hadn't been anyone that really cared about me outside of my family. Teachers, sure, but teachers don't count as friends. My life had been a series of acquaintances, backstabbers, and cousins. There's been people who I'd talk to, but it was like talking to a brick wall because they, like all the others, didn't give a **** whether I was talking or not. My innermost thoughts and feelings were not of importance. They actually told me to go away a couple of times, and got offended when my feelings were hurt. "Whoa, man, can't you take a joke?" Those words feel like a knife in your heart. Not only are you wrong, but your feelings also aren't valid. I started acting like these people. I became negative, dramatic, in order to fit in. They still treated me like ****. I eventually escaped, and I want you to realize, people who don't care about you don't deserve to be around you. Friendships are relationships, and if you are fine just existing alongside someone and not participating or loving or supporting within the relationship, you are not a good friend, sorry. You have to work at it every day, build it, care for it tenderly because your heart deserves to be held as gently as you would. I want you to spend the only life you'll ever live with people who want to be there alongside you.

You know how that quote goes, everyone does.
"If I was a drizzle, she was a hurricane"
I've got news for you: we're all just our own kinds of rainstorms
Coincidentally running into each other at different times
while we're just trying to drench whatever we can.
People used to tell me they looked up to me
and the same people haven't spoken to me in months
because what they saw was a figurehead instead of
a friend who is on their level,
and they like people who have flaws (not that I don't),
but tell us to strive to be perfect.
There's all these impossible expectations
of moral perfection- if you were the one who did it, it's
completely understandable given the circumstances,
but as soon as I'm late for school,
I'm lazy, a dropout, a slacker, partied too hard the night before.
You can lie your ***** off to me but you know
when someone did something wrong it was completely, morally unacceptable, but you, you're justified.
You can't get inside their head and understand them
because who we are, as humans, is not enough to forgive perfectly-
And I've worked so hard to learn how to love
flawlessly, but the more I love, the more I
bleed, with every breath you don't appreciate
and every love poem you don't read
And they keep beating me and beating me down
expecting this priceless gold mountain of positivity
and crushing me. It's like they're looking for flaws
in the statue I'm hiding within, and they seek to
destroy it because even tarnished gold is too bright
in their losing eyes. Maybe I'm the flaw in the statue,
my pink flesh and pale blood can't stand
these attacks and violent words, creating
holes in my heart where before there were none. They seek,
with every moment, for some trait that's imperfect,
and I'm only human, I can't maintain perfect posture all my life,
I'm on my knees,
because that's what they told me to do,
in the midst of standing up for what I believe in I forgot
how to breathe,
I'm begging because I don't think I can do this anymore.
The blood I live is torn out of me because I've given it out of lonely passion, I've had my suffering and death,
where's my resurrection?
I'm driving my head into the ground trying to
whip up the storm that will make me unique, beautiful, and valuable,
tear through the home where the heart is and skid across the highway of souls,
gather little tornadoes around me,
while they're destroying me from the inside out;
What I need isn't perfection, it's someone to love me perfectly
and I'm caught in a tortured cycle because no one can love like that-
so I'm kneeling for these things that are greater than me, and
watching in vain for an equal partner, since
no one can come too close to this lighting
and 200mph wind is fine to observe from a distance,
but nearby it's too much to take-
It's lonely being a hurricane, too, because
none of the lovely drizzles think they're worth your time.

When you introduce yourself to someone, you should say the most important part of yourself first. Most people say their name. What the **** does that have to do with who you are? When I introduce myself to people, I say, hi, I write poems. That doesn't really mean much either. I'll let you in on a secret: Writing poetry is pointless. Poetry is this vain struggle to scrabble at our last dregs of humanity as they escape out the door. Poetry is a grasp at our fast-fading hearts as they beat their last and we try and grab them and shake them we can't get it back, we can't escape the inevitable cold and the crushing loneliness. Poetry is my dying breath as I write, write, and write, trying to light a candle as the darkness sweeps over the land. Poetry is the loud voice drowned in the waterfall because there's something within me that refuses to be silent, there's a voice that cannot be quenched and I will not sit down, I will not let this escape. I will attempt in vain to survive death and stand before time defiant, flipping time off like the ******* it is, shouting through darkness and tears and writhing limbs to spread light and to climb that ******* mountain because my lamp is going on top of there if it's the last thing I do. We strive every day at a hopeless cause: to immortalize the mortal and to describe the indescribable. To say, 'I write poems' is to check into the insane asylum. "Hello, my name is 'captain of the futile efforts'". I write poems, and I'm crazy because people die all the time and I can't do anything about it and our memories, our memories, are fragile and easily swayed. Life passes us by every single day and the writers, the poets like me try and catch it and not let it slip through our fingers because we're scared, that's who I am, I'm scared I'm gonna die and I can't avoid it so this is a last-ditch effort for you to understand me and me to understand you and maybe this time it will outlast oblivion.

to sleep, you must be whole, I think
to not sleep means pieces of you
are drifting far, in chances you didn't take
and in people you should have told things
and in hearts you left behind- you cannot
bring these pieces together until the business is finished
until the ghost is together with his body
he cannot depart this world- and so it is with sleep.

christmas lights have a smell
as does freedom, hatred, and ugliness of heart
headaches have a smell, clarity has a smell
home smells like new wood and sand,
both growing up and childhood smell like smoke,
fear smells like my sister's old bathroom
sleep smells like my mom's perfume
love is warm and smells like sleep
anxiety smells like Pure Sport Old Spice deodorant,
work smells like a gym,
familiarity smells like the locker room when the trash
hasn't been taken out,
lost love smells like grass on the lakefront,
nostalgia smells like a cappucino,
comfort in isolation smells like the fur of a dog,
purpose smells like a church,
platitudes smell like mildew,
tears smell like rotten wood but joy smells like that too,
jubilation smells like a fire crackling,
discomfort smells like that attic smell
when the Halloween decorations are taken out,
new beginnings as well as things we leave behind
smell like airports and morning dew,
risk smells like a hot tub,
liberty smells like a public pool,
a broken heart smells like the mountains,
but a healed heart smells like them too.

dirt after rain
sunscreen
bug spray
cigarettes
grass
laundry
sweat
mud
algae-filled water
burning wood
marshmallows
the cologne Pa wears
the smell of their house
old New Orleans buildings
airports
hotel rooms
basketballs
woodburning
the lodge at camp
bridge cabin
the rez in the morning

that's it again
the artistry of the curling hell
the mark of what was destroyed
and for some reason used as a metaphor for life
I look in the mirror and I see long, lean, noble
like a greek god, or goddess, someone gender ambiguous
with hair framing my face and jawlines ever reaching up
my body is beautiful and I shouldn't destroy it
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
like whitman,
there is this strange dark attraction to
standing somewhere leaning against the wall
with my hood up as I watch the stars become clouded
and that warm friendly scent fills my clothes where no one wants to go
it's like a forest, a forest of embraces and thistles
something tragic and suave and slenderly beautiful
the workers in the yard light up daily
just like my sister when she's hanging out
always happy
or my grandfather on his patio with the parrot on his shoulder.
he lets her drink coffee sometimes,
and lets me drink in the air of his breath mingled with ash always.
I am the rolled tobacco, just ready to be lit, inhaled, and blown away
flammable, quick to go,
filtered, my body a slim cylinder,
the heat at the end catching the eye of children
I want to be united with that which I personify,
unhealthy, but **** cool looking.
It wouldn't surprise anyone-
where there's smoke, there's fire, they say;
maybe that's why I've always wanted a cigarette.

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.

your sin is not weighed against the sins you prevented
because you cannot achieve a moral end through immoral means

the Lord's peace is this: that there is someone willing to bear your burden for you
someone who can. someone who will.
someone who matters more than anyone else in the whole universe
and that someone loves you more than you can ever love them.
and that at the end of time, the end of your world,
you will go home to that someone and they will hold you in their arms forever.
His name is Jesus.

I hope it broke your heart but I know it didn't
and now I have to look up at my own stars
learn to stop pretending you ever cared
to stop pretending it all ends up fair, my heart
and your heart are not *******, we are
drifting, weightless, the waves broken
cresting over and sinking one but not the other
I'm a kid playing Risk and I'm stuck in Austrailia
and when I lose, I cry out for my mother
and so do you. But you can't win them all.
I miss loving you but I have to move on now
I have to get over it. It's been about a year since
whatever happened began to happen, but since
it ended there have been new and fresh wounds
repeatedly pouring salt into my bleeding heart
and I'm sorry I can't stop bleeding but no amount
of cauterization or pressure can staunch the flow
when I need to keep beating to keep me whole.
I'm sorry I still care and you don't. I'm sorry hearts don't break even.
I'm sorry if you ever read this because I don't want you to.
I just want to be able to keep breathing when I see you.
I'm doing fine, really. It just hurts sometimes.

Sometimes you have to give up and shut up.
Sometimes being free doesn't mean throwing your secrets into the world
if anything, it's more freeing when no one knows anything about you.
Sometimes you have to learn to sit down and stop dealing with it
stop rolling around in a constant whirl of emotion
stop acting like everything is life or death.
Some people just don't get it. Life keeps going on, until it doesn't.
It doesn't have to be a constant war. Sometimes
you don't have to chase love until you run yourself into the ground.
Sometimes you don't have to break your own heart
because someone else didn't care enough to try.
People aren't made from always or never, from completely
or lack thereof- people are made of compromises,
of yes then and no now, of maybe someday and that's enough.
Sometimes you have to give up and learn that letting go
is not the end. It doesn't ****. It's what happens when you grow up.

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

You are altogether beautiful, my darling;
    there is no flaw in you.

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
    you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes,

Who is this that appears like the dawn,
    fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
    majestic as the stars in procession?

my heart is my operating principle
and when it is broken, the rest of me doesn't work either.

It is not too late
I can back away now
I will back away now
I must.
is it too late?

I HAVE TEN THOUSAND VIEWS.

you're so used to being able to abuse whoever you want
that you've started abusing me
like you three are somehow above me
and I'm not a real person with feelings,
I'm just Maddie Foley
and I don't count or
something
and if I get mad when you treat me like ****
then 'whoa man we're just kidding'
and YOU get mad as if i dont have a right
to stand up for myself
and you think that 'that's just our sense of humor' is a good enough reason
to attack and abuse and control
and you don't even see that that's what it is
but if I get upset, I'm 'too emotionally involved'
no, you just don't want to put in the effort to fix yourselves
so you're going to keep abusing each other
and you're never going to address any issues
because you don't care enough
and emotional baggage is a huge no-no
'that's not what friends are for'
have you ever had friends?
oh, right. you've only got one, and your sister.
but I can't say anything because if I do
then there's obviously something wrong with me for not accepting and supporting your 'unique' type of friendship
because you've always wanted to be unique,
probably more than anything else,
and maybe love will fix the issue
but not if you despise the idea of love
and hate talking about it.
and maybe it DOES work for yall, but emotional unfulfillment
sure as hell doesn't work for anyone else
and unless you're willing to develop your character so you can actually
build more relationships than just one,
then you're gonna have a difficult time of it.
if you just search for people who will accept you for 100% who you are now, even at your worst personality,
and don't push you to be better, then you will find a very small percentage of friends.
Relationships need work.
they will never be instantly perfect.
but you don't want work, you just want
to hang out and not talk about issues or problems at all
you don't want to clear the air
you just want to exist, as emotionless and painless as possible
which is exactly what I don't want.
so I tread on and let it continue.

you're right
I am absolutely a hypocrite
I don't know why you hate those so much, honestly
because everyone is a hypocrite, we all say things
and do other things
because we think we're excluded from the rules
but that's not the point, the point is that between you and me,
I can cross the line but once I'm over I panic
and hop back to the safe side of the fence-
I don't know if the grass is greener on the other side
but the real question is if you or anyone can keep me there.

you'd thought it had died forever
and now it seems as though death is an
imaginary word- for some-country-not-ours
they sky had been gray for just a day too long,
your hair had grown darker and your eyes
forgot how green the grass could be;
flowers haven't been seen for months
your limbs locked beside you,
too many movie nights and not enough crazy nights
no one's cold hearts have any warm blood to pump; we're lizards
I don't think mine's beat in a minute
(it's been cold about that long)
the day wasn't friendly-
and now they are-
death, while it lasts, is the longest thing in the world
but just when you think you won't make it out:
the cycle begins again.

and when you lose something, you can never have it again
no matter how perfect and breathtaking it was, no matter
the shocks of electricity in your veins. It's over.

I have never felt such a huge and sudden urge for something
something else than what I have
I want truth and I want reality
wake me up, I'm ******* done with dreaming
wake me up, I'm too **** tired of sleeping
I'm so ******* angry and I don't know why-
I've been robbed. I've been robbed. They're taking from me everything that ever meant anything, they're taking from me everything that makes me who I am. What is happening, why am I letting them? Surely there's more to humanity than to just keep breathing.

I've been telling myself no
I'm trying not to write poems about you
Mostly, they're on other topics.
That's cool.
But buried beneath them, in the fibers of the words,
is something that cannot be destroyed
a stain I can't ******* wash out of my shirt
I tell myself the poems aren't about you
but that's *******.
They are all about you.
Every
single
one of them.

“We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”

Maybe I am a star that is constantly engaged in dances
with others, always to swirl around the cosmos
and use each others' gravity to fling further
maybe, because we are stars, we have to wait til the night
to know where we are- and maybe, because we are stars
it was never our destiny to stay.