Boy,

Those girls who are breaking your heart,
oh, my darling - you don't know about them yet.
What a cruel
and vindictive bunch,
who will eat your kind heart out
and who will snap your fragile bones.

That family that stings your pride,
oh, my dear - they don't know about you yet.
Your pain, my love, hurts me in deep-down ways:
Your pain in your imperfection,
your insufficiencies,
your too-hard caring -
You are enough for me.
You are perfect to me,
and oh, my dear, I love you.
Your pain, my love, is the same as mine:
Your all-you-have is their not-good-enough,
but you are good enough for me,
and I am good enough for you.

We are two kind people in an unkind world,
two almost-there-trying in a too-fast whirl,
and I'll hold you up if you'll hold me.
Boy, you know you've got it,
and boy, I know I'll have it,
the sparkle in your eyes that means
(you'll be okay).

We could be okay together, you and I.

Boy, I think you're perfect
and I think the world revolves around you.
I think the sun shines out of your smile
and the stars live in your eyes,
I think the moon is in the soles of your Nike's.
Boy, I think you're something,
and boy, I think it's one thing,
that I simply can't afford to ignore.

-Girl

dear sarah.

i heard
today
that it was in your blood,
your bones,
your body
(the cancer, sneaking and slipping its way
into your sixteen-year-young heart,
that beats the same as mine).
i heard
today
your sister,
weeping,
and asking us if we could please,
just sign this card.
you're scared
and it would help.
i heard
today
the boy who loves you,
sniffling into your sister's shoulder
(no one had the heart to tell him
that the blackness is inside you),
and i heard, today, my heart
stop
and my throat
clog
and my eyes
fill.
dear sarah, i don't know you
well
but i wish you
well
and i heard today
so many hearts
break.

have i, then, ruined
everything?
am i such a betrayal to your picket-fence heart?
you
all i wanted
and all i want.

what poetry is:
a cacophony of tangled-up images
and slashed-to-the-bone words.
a waterfall of bitterness and
passion and
(words, just words).
a jumble of unorthodox punctuation,
and spacing,
and spelling,
a painting with verses of rainbow-colored years.
foggy-eyed venting,
bitter-mouthed shouting,
soft-hearted pleas
to the people
(hearts and love).
not-quite sentences,
half-finished ideas,
cliches and brutal originalities,
shocking in their genuine
and raw
and profoundly inspired power
(things we didn't know we were capable of).
cravings and achings and wantings and knowings and
(words, just words).
so won't you read between the lines?
it's all so much simpler



than it seems.

the emptiness in my belly
is brought on by the knowledge
that you have your funny-tragic
thinking-feeling
trying-failing life
without me in it.
and the fullness in my heart
is brought on by the thought
of your voice and your face,
your shining-eyed and dimple-pocked mischief,
and by the hope
that someday
i'll have you.
the tears in my throat
are brought on by the fear
and by the realization
that i am not
the only person
you could love;
by the revelation, of our sameness
and of our happy differences.

and the words at my lips
are brought on by the thoughts in my head
which are brought on by the beating of my heart -
*i love you, i love you, i love you.

his whole life, in those
big-brown eyes
(burning, why aren't you helping me?)
everything wrong with the world is in
the divets between his ribs
the sharp jab
of his collarbone
against his black-black skin
(****, my iphone's broken again).
this kid has got to be twelve
starving years old
(he doesn't look half that).
we first-world *******, looking at that photograph
(feel sorry for a moment).
his whole world pooled in
the furrow over his eyebrows
(not understanding
his misery).
a hand wrapped
all the way around his arm, pulling him
back towards
the hunger,
but he stares
he
watches
that camera lens,
waiting
for
his
call
his
cry
to
be
heard.

The cancer ate my sister's heart,
her liver, her bones,
and now I'm alone
with my sick-stomached guilt
and my never-told confession.
Remember, we were younger. Our neighbor's sister
came home with a ****** nose and you turned to me,
"What would you do if that was me?"
6 year old certainty, "I'd **** them,"
swelling with 6 year old bravado,
"I'd ****
anyone
who hurt you."
Our mother was appalled and our father told me not to say things I didn't mean, but
I meant it then.
And sweetheart, I mean it now.
I can't **** the cancer, because it's already killed you.
I can't **** the husband, because he's already dead
(left you widowed and heartbroken, my only sister,
and I am to blame).
And so I'm standing here, looking at the
jagged-box-shaped rocks so far far far below,
and I'm thinking
(stacking box, after box, after box
in her empty-floored apartment),
and I'm wishing
(to the crier of sorrows I've never known)
and I'm breathing
(if only he hadn't been the adulterer)
and I'm jumping
(with me).