looking out the window of a rainy coffee shop in New York
watching the sad people walk by and the happy people walk by
glancing at the other to see if we're really real
the mountains exist, we know they do
so all at once we decide to leave
and we go, and never return.
occasionally we leave again.

it's not three AM anymore, it's all times and all ages
bright lights flash across blank stares, dark faces
everything's spinning except you

silent silver, burning gold
there ain't no peace but on my own

i eat chocolate chips like they're a drug and i'm trying to overdose
i bake brownies like they have more than just flour in them
i read and write like it's a shot directly into my veins
of pure, unadulterated experience, golden and black
i dance like i'm on adderall i stole from my sister
my nostrils smell tea like the leaves are *******
life is my drug, ******, and it's ridiculous to say
and my friends would make fun of me for it,
but i'm tired of calling things ridiculous and having to monitor
if i'm being uncool enough to mention it,
so i'm **** proud that life is my drug,
i get high on memories
and trip on late nights,
laying broken on the floor,
only to be healed again by a hug or a kind word,
life's a drug,
and i'm addicted.

from dust we came and to dust we shall return
dust is no weekend trip or a pleasant outing
it is your make-up, it is your fiber
it's not for the wealthy to take a trip there
you bathe in it every day and roll in it
you forget, though, what you were made for. We all do.

today is the day that
Christ has given us a hope.
everything we do is
foundationed on His love
that was expressed,
triumphantly,
in the greatest of glories
today.
He has beaten the only thing we thought was inevitable
He has conquered the 'one fact of human life'
He has shown us, we are unlimited,
because our patron, our guiding hand,
Our Father,
is someone who is unlimited-
and He has guided us
all for His glory,
that we may believe-
no one but Christ would endure what He endured,
only for me,
and no one but Christ could rise from the grave.

“All great and precious things are lonely.”
It has been a cold, cold river of hope and desperation
the greatest glories do not die, they are as young as the dawn
and yet- the night will come, and your name will be shortened,
for we all view things as outside of ourselves and we view them wrongly
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
and we even think of our own lovers on a pedestal-
we do not allow them to think alone, but if we do,
we ignore them and pretend that they do not- our brothers impregnate
our wives and we love them anyway, both wife and brother,
for neither is any tarnished in our mind- a man exists alone and
can work the machinations of others and play them,
stripping them of their freedom though they still believe themselves
to be free-
“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”
we all believe ourselves to be good, we strive for good,
but who are we? what is good? how can we be good when we are not sure
what that is, who we are, or where we strove from? it can be measured,
certainly, by our glories, that are God-given,
it can be passed through blood and at first we think,
once you have it, you have it,
but that is not true- Cain was not given an order or an ultimatum
he was not given a promise, he was given an opportunity
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
Timshel- Timshel- Timshel-
what it is that is given to the human consciousness that gives it the right
and the ability to soar- we may or we may not, that is all
you are not what you are born as and there is nothing you may hide behind
“There's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.”
you may never escape the truth, the lies are what hold you back
but they are ugly, they are false, they shield you from encountering your own life-
your wife, a monster of a *****, who demands the worst of all
and cannot see the good- but you see only good in her
“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.”
and your life was illuminated once again- for you have been gray
your whole life and have forgotten that the joy of the Irishman is false,
you have lost the name and mind of the Chinaman
but no longer-
“But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.”
and it is not that you 'shall' soar and it is not that you 'must' soar
you can. you can. you can. that is all.
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”

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."

I have been on the edge mentally for a long time
and I think I have finally started breaking
out of my mind- pushing the edge in real life
this is terrifying

I'd rather write poems than do math
I'd rather exercise my soul than my body
I'd rather learn about Plato than the Industrial Revolution
is it too much to ask for an education system that
actually lets me pursue
my own dreams?

there ain't nothing that I need-
I want the whole **** world to come dance with me.

our souls are like an omelette. when gaps are created,
more of us fills it in. the more gaps, the faster it cooks,
and maybe it can't cook properly if you don't push it around a bit.
and the final product, of course, is all the better and completely different
because of the free-flowing into the holes left by someone elses'
meddling. but it still tastes delicious. and it's still an omelette.

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.

All I know at the end of the day is you want what you want
and you say what you say, and you follow your heart
even though it'll break sometimes. All I know at the end of the day
is you love who you love, there ain't no other way.

All I know at the end of the day, is you want what you want
and you say what you say. And you follow your heart,
even though it'll break sometimes.

Go ahead, sit and fire each other up about faceless, nameless enemies
that you don't know but hate anyway. Go ahead, but you fail to realize
that these enemies that you come closer and closer to damning
have faces and names. Mom, they are your students.
Dad, they are your doctors and your friends.
Go ahead. Sit there and learn
why you think that irrational hate is a rational option, why you think
irrational phrases are a rational choice, why you think irrational actions are
rational morality. I don't know why you think that. I don't know why
you think your personal rage will do anyone any good.
In fact, your personal rage is much better directed at
preserving the planet that your own ******* daughter has to live on,
or standing up for people here that are left poor and needy,
but no, you've denied that or said it will fix itself.
You only believe in enemies that you don't have to fight yourself.

I don't know what else to tell you except to *******

do not talk down on me like I am less of a soul
less of a point of the whole universe observing itself
less of an intelligence than you are; I am
equal, I am equal, I am equal, I am equal
and how long have we been trying to prove it?

I've faced that I will never be able to tell you.
You can't handle it.
You don't want to deal with, or particularly care,
how I feel.
We value different things- I value communication,
passion, emotion, life,
And I think you're so worn out that you value home,
comfort, laughter, and simplicity- no figuring-it-out, please
and there's always one who gives too much and it overwhelms
and there's always one who's unwilling or unable to receive
and we aren't compatible,
and no one I've ever loved has been able
to understand or attempt to understand
the depth at which I love them.
When will there be an equal match?

let's fall tragically in love
drink too much
and then fall tragically in lust
because I would like to stop and take a break
from destiny- I would like to pause and stop
who I must be, for just a moment,
let it go, forget it all, make this night
like it never happened, no rewinds
marked from the record,
just kiss me, for now;
I'm tired of being dependable
***** filling expectations and following the path
moral obligations and saying the right thing at the right time
I'm tired of being looked up to
'oh, maddie, with the good morals'
**** being respectable
**** being responsible
**** having a reputation
**** it all- just **** me.

no one cares enough to fix you,
nor can they- except for God!
and those who are strengthened by His spirit of love.

if, when you get older, you start making exceptions
and so many, in fact, that you forget the rules
that used to hold your life in a certain direction
then I am not interesting in growing up.

I know why I externalize and bluster
this is not the last self-discovery but it is close
it is one of the layers closest to my heart
I let my words work their will upon the world
so that they cannot work their will upon me
the private is the dangerous
it must not be let in and it has to go somewhere
so I must let it out
I talk about my feelings and shout them, yes
because if I didn't, then I would have to feel them.

build me up and hold me there
I'll help you too, people were made for each other
and sometimes it doesn't work out but sometimes it does
we weren't meant to handle this alone.

if only there was a logarithm to solve for
how much of someone else is in you
and whether or not it's still you
when there's another there

we learn from each other, we do,
but how much is lessons and how much is
usurption? when does a soul cut into
yours, or does it just build on it?

I remember when I thought I wouldn't be whole
without someone, and I remember when
someone thought they couldn't be whole without me
so I agreed, and I left her as just a piece

who does this make me? what do I say I am
and in the eyes of God and all the angels and saints and people
whose eyes matter? which watcher can tell me?
where does it stop? When does it go?

I still remember the color of your eyes that day
it's still my favorite color
they were the color of gold
but not exactly gold
white
but not exactly white
they were the color of the sun behind the clouds
just as the sun rises
and the color of the sun behind the clouds
right before the sun begins to set
they were the color of the star I stared at
while me and another girl I loved
talked about our dreams
(she longed for the cosmos-
I only longed for her)
they were the color of what I think my soul looks like
the color of what my wings were before I fell
the color of a halo,
of God's throne, of
the love I feel within my chest.
they were the color of what a spark feels like
as it pierces your mind
and electrifies your lungs,
sending you into deadly spasms-
and yet, they are glorious while they last;
you never thought you'd enjoy dying.
they were the color of an angel's blade
and the color of the inside of my eyelids
as my body burned away from looking at the kingliness
not meant for me or any mortal-
they were the color of something I never thought
I'd see again,
the color of a place my soul had almost forgotten,
they forged a connection, a wormhole
to something bigger and more powerful
than I could ever imagine.
Like a long-lost brother
or finding your house in the middle of a strange city-
like seeing your mother for the first time and
instinctively knowing who she is-
like I was being called home, to my true home,
and I could only get there
if I just could reach, a little farther...
Heaven is present in everything, I know,
but it was personified in your eyes.

This life is a raging storm in an ocean, waves tossing and turning
lightning and wind all around us, the water is cold-
we desperately try and swim, but we can't do it on our own,
not for very long. If we try to swim, we will drown.

Faith is strapping your hands and feet to a cross and trusting that
even though you can't steer, or move your limbs, or swim,
and at times the water washes over your face and it's terrifying,
you will survive.

The only way to survive is knowing you can't do it alone,
and surrendering all hope of trying to take hold of your own life.
Faith is giving up all control and trusting that the cross will float
knowing that one day, it will wash up on shore.

And the shore is heaven.

love isn't seeing all of them and loving them anyway
because you can't- you can't see all of them, ever
you'll never know their whole soul
you can't love someone for what you see because they will
constantly, constantly show you new things
changing your impression and taking or giving your love
your idea of them cannot change your love for them because then
it is constantly shifting and changing
and if their soul and person and essence do not change-
why should your love for them?
but- faith, faith is the guarantee that because God loves all
God loves them, perfectly- and God knows them, perfectly-
faith is knowing that even if you doubt,
even if you see parts of them that are gross, that are broken
that get angry at you- even if you see vengeful and mean parts-
God knows their whole soul and loves them anyway
faith is not seeing all but knowing all is worth dying for
faith is seeing a certainity of hope that they are worth loving.

I cried myself to sleep too, you know-
for the past two nights
Christmas shouldn't feel this way
but at least we have each other.

all those people who say 'family is first'
you are wrong-
your life is first. you are first.
before any arbitrary connection through genetics
and where you spent your first years, family should not be first
you should know that the family you choose
comes first, but even before that
comes the right to choose your own family.

wait
and I'm not sure if I should too
but there's nothing I can do
if my God of love needs to show me a different side of Him
than He has been recently- He cannot be the God
of aloof goodness, He must be the God
of sweaty sheep and love and bleating under the sun
He is who I always thought He was
but recently I could not make myself know Him
I missed you, Father
Oh, how I've missed you
they don't know you at all, do they?

this is not normal
I want to be back to normal
fear is just so crippling
how does anyone live like this

not being useful, needed, necessary

My Lord
has knelt me down
has bent my back to the point where it broke
and He healed me and showed me I am nothing
Lord who takes the lives of princes
knew that I had thought I was much
and mighty, and He made me fall, He took
my muscled arms and pulled the muscle out
He said, this is how much you are,
this is how much you are without me
and this is how much I am
and I have never understood why we should
fear a God that is all powerful and all loving
because why fear something that is always on your side?
why must we fear a God such as this,
who always works on our behalf?
I understand now.
we must fear because He is so great
and so wild
and so ever-driving forward and we think
He will make it all turn out well, and He will,
but we don't see that it is well,
we are as ants in a flood who cannot see forward
or back, good or evil, we understand death
and the tide brings it, so we must be afraid
for we are so much smaller and so much more ignorant
than we had believed- the world is not for our
immediate happiness, it is for the perfection of heaven
the world begins and ends around us and His hand
works the masses of nature and we are nothing, we
are nothing, and truth must be faced and to
be brave in the face of that truth is to be foolish,
so it is good to be afraid.

I'm not here on this earth for self advancement, for money, fame, good looks
for friends, even-
those things don't last anyway.
I'm here to love, to console the poor and lowly,
to stand on my own two feet and do what God asked of me
to welcome all with open arms
to expect nothing in return
to seek not to burn bridges and to tie my loyalties to my Father
and through Him, all my neighbors
to look kindly on people and smile often,
to bring joy, to develop my character, to weep where tears are needed
and shout when shouting is called for
to make a change in the hearts of those I encounter
to follow my own heart when it chases God
and abandon it when it leads me astray.
I will not apologize for this. I will not apologize for who the Lord
has called me to be. I will not cater to the whims of people
that expect less of me. I am more than that. I will be more than that.

Sherlock is maybe a sociopath
his every action a means to an end
but-
the difference that is difficult to percieve
is that it is not his end he is serving
it is John's end
and maybe, in that,
it is his end
because Sherlock's biggest fear is pain
and to be without John
is the most torturous pain of all.

I am Taco Bell, the morning after a long night of sleepless driving through the country and you feel cold and warm and full and gross and fresh and your hair is falling around your face and your sight is blurred and you're hugging your pillow and you're there with the best people in the world
I am the moment after the moment before they hold you suspended on the rollercoaster, but more than that, I am the feeling of safety when you finish the loop and you're on a straight track for a while but you're still  rocketing through the sky
I am the feeling of hopelessness when you want to shout into the open air but you realize there are other people there so you just whisper to youself
I am waking up in a grassy field and putting on your shoes that are wet with dew and wondering how your sleeping bag got over here
I am standing under a waterfall and getting up the courage to dunk your head under it and I am the sudden and unstoppable ice cold but it is not ice, it is breathless and there is no one else there, this moment is just for you
I am when you tell a joke and no one laughs, but I am when you do something worthwhile and you know they are proud of you because they cried before you did
I am getting in the car at carline at the start of a long break and shouting back at the school as if it could hear you
I am the moment when you hear words that break your heart just after you feel them and just before you know what to think about them.

peace cannot lead to change
if we do not have peace now (which we don't)
we must build tension until the world changes
peace can only come from change
meet them with opposition, force, and violence of passions
that eventually will turn the Earth.
it can't turn on its own-
and for all the batons and pepper spray in the world,
you can't stop it from spinning once it starts.

everyone is tragically in love with someone else,
dancing and pining, returning
to the addiction, a relapse
of what is it, *******? ******? kind words?
and I
I am busy suffocating in my own spit
I am gagging and revolting at these chains of green poison,
cloaking over my airway,
I cannot speak, this atmosphere is
the same way the sky looks just before it collapses,
strained smiles in a strained nation where
strangers do not speak or associate
police **** innocent men
and thousands more are called guilty for
using their first amendment rights,
it is the frustration at belief that since you are
black
or a woman
that you mean nothing, you are good for nothing,
your only goal is surely malice
and there is nothing you can say to change their minds
so they lay these liquid chains atop you and they fill your lungs
you cannot breathe deep enough to force them out, you can only feel yourself slowly sinking through the moist air and pumping your legs uselessly
the fire inside you only serves to boil the chains and settle the burning poison deeper into your wounds.

I've been fighting whispers all my life
people have been saying
"maddie's gay"
"maddie's a *****"
"maddie's bi"
behind my back
the whole **** time,
I got it, okay? it's not news
that people say that about me-
it's not a surprise,
don't expect me to be offended,
it just hurts when it's people I love
and it's really whatever
it's just I can't seem to avoid it
even when I'll join the religious order
later in my life, it'll be
"maddie's overcompensating"
"maddie's doing it so no one would realize she's gay"
"maddie's religious so she had to do this because if she just stayed single there would be questions"
what do I have to ******* do to prove them wrong
bang a male in front of my whole school?
no, there will still be questions,
"maybe she's bi"
I'd like it if sexuality wasn't such a huge issue
and if my mannerisms didn't cause people
to say my name like a ***** word
and if I could just act like ordinary me
without being put in a box
wouldn't we all?

but for you I'd wait
my fingers dancing over the pen and paper
I feel the fabric under my hands,
calloused lines tracing the pulp and fiction
soft, skating and this is all, this is all I can give you
no more, no less than words on a page, that
I can write late into the night and click clack
that you won't hear, no one will hear
no one is here, not even I, my spoken words have
crossed all lines, have erased boundaries
and have erased the thoughts and feelings so there is nothing left
I can give you nothing, I have not thought
a secret too private to write, I have not written
a thought too secret to remain private,
for you I'd wait- but I cannot get by and it is an endless cycle
of who I am and who I am pretending to be-
for as soon as the words fall out of my mouth,
they lose all meaning, and you will never know me
you will never know who I am, for it is gone,
even this is gone, I am not here,
and I will be waiting forever for you to find me.

I keep thinking about how you used
to giggle like that to me
and now you giggle with that skinny boy
and how I got mad because Karl said men are better than women
because women are weaker
and when I got mad you were like "Oh God, don't start that conversation with her,"
like gender equality is a minor aggravation
and my passion was to be silenced
and you don't even look as you passed by
maybe I did it,
maybe it's my fault
but now you're
fine without me
you're fine
fine without
me fine
without me fine
me fine without
without
fine
me
and I'm dying inside.

I am fire in love with ice
fire to me is exhausting, ice is full of vice
but it is pure, and I chase eternally for something
that could only put me out
I am claimed by desire for the cold, constantly crushing
what is is that I am, it is a sad, forgettable art
when the beat of your veins are drumming
at an erratic pace to someone who looks at you like a science experiment
their highest love is to be set apart
they thrive on the silliness of sentiment
your last will and testament holds evident to your thought
of them when you last close your eyes, you are never quite as elegant
as the coordination of the fractals and the elements
your battle will be consistently fought
while they watch, aloof, shattering and shattering your heart.
and ice is forever lonely
it thinks fire is foolish, devout
to a Lord that knows nothing but only
the sins of his people, whose minds sell out
as a conductor of bad decisions
illogicalities and blurred precisions
and whose souls have nothing but room for doubt.
I am fire in love with ice,
for other fire tires, and I seek to change something,
to make a mark on the world, and tell
my story over the glaciers, a glorious pulsating hell
but the ice is no place for a fire
for the ice does not want to melt.

find another one 'cause she belongs to me-
one day, I'll be married, laying in bed
next to someone who loves me
and together we'll rule the world
I was made for better things, I realized that
it'll all be okay, one day it will work out
one day the sun will melt a field frozen over
and I won't have to shovel any more snow
I think I'm gonna win this time.

I think I'm gonna win this time
riding on the wind and I won't give up.

Flame burn bright when we are bornèd
every laugh and tear we shed
Flame burn bright when brother wakens
under broken tire tread
Flame burn bright when kissed the first time
soft warm eyelash on the nose
Flame burn bright in late night slumber
wrapped in arms, a sweet repose
Flame burn bright when we grow older
Flame burn bright when young and crazy
Flame burn bright in stars at night
Flame burn bright, soft and hazy
and when the evening comes at last
to the only cold we'll ever know
Flame goes out.
but- while the drunken stupor lasts,
while we're living, wild and fast,
Flame burn bright.

it takes a boy to live, it takes a man to pretend he was there.
it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored.
it takes a man to live, it takes a woman to make him compromise.

focus*, and maybe this time
I won't have to look back on yesterday
with shame

kick all my walls in
break me down
I'll let you