When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.

When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?

When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.

I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.

Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret

Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing

Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty

When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.

When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"

I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,

When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl

When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.

Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.

Funny how we woke up in the morning
and pretended that tomorrow never happened—
strutted naked in mirrors celebrating our youth,
laughing, knowing suns and moons couldn’t do the same.

We borrowed our arms from the fridge
and peddled bicycles with bad breath—
trading war stories ‘cause we knew
if we came back alive
life would still be the death of us.

Ropes and chains
Twine and twigs
Every ounce of burden
Straining, straining
Step again, drag my feet
Too heavy, it's too heavy

Crumple like paper
Knees in the mud
Weight on my shoulders
Sinking, sinking

Shouts and screams
Fall deaf on my ear
All I've ever heard
Now as silence

Spit while I'm down
Useless, I'm useless
Selfish for want of freedom
I owe you this
You insist I owe you this

Slaves do not dream
Do not think on things
Other than the master's approval
This is what you've done
This is why I am

To serve, to serve
Faithful, without question
To validate your own life
That, you say is my purpose

I'm crawling
But you add more weight
Sinking, sinking
You tell me to stay
Trap me with your ropes and chains

I slip, you threaten
To cast me out
To wolves and beasts
And vicious criminals

To cast me out of these walls
You scream
To leave me to fend for myself
In an existence of terror

"No!" I beg, I try harder
"Please, strike again!"
I beg for the pain
The pain is love

The whip is love
The shouting is love
These walls, these chains,
Love and protection,
Protection

Tie me down
To a place of expectations
That are self serving
To a world of rules
Of certainty

I trusted you
I believed in you
Believed I was doing the right thing
Blinded by your ignorance
As you taught it to me

Trapped, trapped
I can't move
You taught me
To not want to

Those wolves,
I can hear them
Laughing behind you
Laughing is wicked
You taught me that

Laughter is delusion
Is cruel
This is real,
This is certain,
This is safe
That is what you said

I look to that laughter
In disgust
What is that garish brightness?
It must be one of their tricks,
One of their deceptions

"It is light,"
Someone calls from
Behind your wall of safety
What is light?
It must be bad

There is none here,
And things not here are not good
It must mean lies
Light must be
Deception

You hit again
For looking
I should not look
It will lead me astray
Please, let me stay I beg

But it haunts me
That curious light
I do not know what it is
You do not know what it is
I want to see

What is that light?
That star behind you
Do stars exist?
In what is that, air?

My eyes sneak past you
Past the door
You yell at me for looking
But you always yell
I don't hear
But I see
For the first time, I see

Is that green stuff on the ground?
Not mud, not unyielding stone
Something soft, something gentle
Do such things exist?

"Grass," the distant voice names
Grass… it is something
Can something so different be?
What does it do?
What is its purpose?
To serve?

"No, not to serve,"
Then what?
Why does it exist, if not to serve?
To serve…

You add more weight,
To remind me
Remind me,
Of my place

There is familiarity,
Familiarity in rock and stone
And pain
I could ask you to strike me

One more time
So I could feel the love
You taught me
That is what pain means

Grass is scary
Flowers are scary
Sun, wind, sea,
These pleasantries that are
Evil in your eyes

But they beckon to me

I shift in the mud
Of this home
Restless
Restlessness is new
Restlessness is dangerous

HALT! You do not want me
Looking that way
Halt, stay,
Obey, obey,
Head down
More weight

I don't think to question
But I look
I look to see
Something different

Something so soft,
Something so sweet
How does it taste?
How does it feel?

Like evil, you say
Like the destruction of certainty
And society
And all that makes us strong

I almost believe
You sound so sure
You taught me never to question
And for so long I knew it was right

But… that light…

I take step forward
You scream and snap your whips
Dishonor, dishonor

They are like hugs
As you have taught
Out of love
I open my mouth to ask
"Disrespect, Disrespect!"

Anger, fury
I am disobeying
I dare question,
This world you have built
Out of rules and ignorance

Another step,
The burden is slipping
Disappointment,
Disappointment

That light ahead
Feels good
Feels warm
Feels right

So strange that
There be happiness
Outside of certainty
Outside of law

"Stop stop!
I will cast you out
I will disown you
And you will never return!"

You shame me
With claims of hate
Of betrayal
I betrayed, I betrayed

Your orders
Are the orders
Of nature, you say
And I disobey them

"Betrayal, Betrayal"
But the 'wolves' say "Courage"
What is courage?
Courage is good? Or bad?

What do those smiles mean?
Can a face truly be that way?
How can this exist, if it is
Against nature

No,
It is against
Your nature
Something, something
Outside of your world
Exists

I am in awe
Fascination, imagination
There is color, there is life
All of these things I never knew

It draws me forward
This world outside of my own
Things I cannot name
Warmth and faith

"Betrayal, betrayal,"
But you
You dare not follow
You lock the gate behind me

"Never return,
Never return"
You growl,
You threaten
You turn your back on me
On one you claimed to love
Through slaps and whips

I am scared
Of not knowing
These soft colored
Blossoms

But you…
I realize,
I think,
For myself

You… you instead are afraid of knowing of them.
Your walls, I see now
I can see
Built with rules
Built with eyes closed
So you can feel safe

You protect yourself
You shut me out
I am contaminated
I am evil

I am not you,
Betrayal, Betrayal
I disappointed you
I am not welcome

There are fingers through my hand
There is softness in this touch
If pain means love, does this mean hate?
I don't understand

An embrace
This is soft
This is good
This light is the world

And to look back on yours
Yours is small, is closed, narrow
Cold and dense as stone
Unyielding, Unyielding

So small, so dark
"So safe"
You would argue
But I pity you

You feel strong
You command those beneath you
As little as they are
You feel safe

But I walk away
And see sky
See possibility
I feel fear, I feel uncertainty

But I feel freedom
I feel grass,
I feel light,
I feel love,

I feel life, I feel life.

She lives a quiet life,
she tiptoes around,
she whispers when she speaks,
she hardly ever makes a sound.

Although her words are quiet,
her mind is very loud.
She has so much to say,
but no one listens for soft sounds.

She's an invisible girl,
who doesn't want to stand out,
she just wants to be heard,
without having to shout.

Sometimes the loudest people,
aren't saying much at all.
Empty words and promises,
just leave their mouths and fall.

But whispered words fly high,
and catch peoples attention,
they're intriguing, so amazing,
but only when they listen.

So look outside the spotlight,
because often the real star,
isn't anyone on stage,
but the mind behind it all.

I tried to
write
a poem about you
but instead
I scribbled a
big, orange-ink blob
and I figured
that made
just as much sense.

If someone were

standing on top of a mountain of sand (maybe on a camel, maybe with a cough)

along the Dead Sea at four this morning they might have heard

two voices

one accented thickly enough to leave an aftertaste,

one small forced into lower registers for old reasons echoed in new habits

bouncing along the water like insects, like light

“Talk to me in Hebrew” “Want

to see me walk on water?”

”I have the same handwriting as

my mother” ”Let’s start a religion”

“You can see it in the R’s”

”I was in a war” ”My shoulders

are turning brown”

“Summer is coming” “Your back is smooth”

”I don’t believe in anything” “I got on a plane”

“My fingers are salty”  ”There’s

mud in my mouth”

“Your hair is blonder than yesterday”

“I don’t

love you”

If someone had been

standing on top of a mountain of sand (maybe itchy, maybe pregnant)

along the Dead Sea at four this morning they might have seen

two bodies

one white, one brown

floating on the surface, the light coming over the ripples like a thousand slaves carrying morning on their backs

one head on one chest, one palm on one shoulder

“Nothing can

live in this water”

“I’m trying”

Somewhere between
space
(and)
Gd
there's a star
made out of all the seconds you
cleared on the microwave
just before it was done because
you didn't want
to hear
it beep.
That is where time
goes when it's mad
at its parents, to play
old records and smoke
cheap cigarettes and
complain that its
best friend is dead.
My best friend/is dead/And although she would never sleep in the bed with me/And although she doesn't fit in the dollhouse anymore/I  dreamed she was gone the day before it happened/and dreamed she took a part of my life with her. That
is where
your thoughts go
the first time
you
don't miss someone as much as you did yesterday. I am not proud/that I am waiting/for tomorrow/you are that star/and I will sit on you and dangle my feet in the water/Meet me/in the Mediterranean/so I can kiss your toes goodbye.

Somewhere between
you
(and)
me
(and)
washing my hands in the morning,
I learned
how to lose things.