Let me sow words into a field
Water them and watch them grow
Let me sew my words onto my sleeve
Hang my shirt as a flag, watch it blow.

Let me bury my thoughts
Into pages of text
Let history recall me
At my worst and at my best

Let me be remembered
As I go down in history
Let my deeds become famous
As my sins live in infamy

Let me teach the world
What I had to show
Let me sow words into a field
Water them, and watch them grow

dear friend
i'm sorry i'm sending another letter so soon
but i deeply need your help
it all happened last night
i know you couldn't come
so i'll tell you what happened
the party was over
but i didn't want to go home
home is where my bed is
and my bed is where my thoughts bloom
so i sat outside
on the stairs
fifth step from the top
i know because i counted
i just sat there
with my head
planted firmly on my knees
not making a single sound
and i wanted him to ask if i was okay
which is weird
because i never want people to do that
he never asked anyway
he never even looked at me
instead he stood on the field
directly across from the stairs
hugged his friend
and kissed her on the cheek
touching a bit of her lip
with his
then he was gone
and i didn't see how he left
or in what direction he went
but he was gone and he didn't care
that i was left alone again
and i know i left him too
and i know he doesn't want to hear me apologies
or explain why i acted like i did
that's why i'm writing this letter
because i know he listens to you
and i need you to tell him
that i am deeply sorry
and i hate myself for ever letting him go

My mind is racing
My head is spinning
Nothing is okay

It's like I've been here all my life
It's only the second day?

I never really fall for people who have dark hair
but somehow you rock it.
There's something in the back of your brown eyes
that makes sense even knowing you for 6 seconds only,
but feeling like I could know you for a lifetime
and it would easy.

You brushed your thumb against your cheekbone,
as if you were wiping away an invisible tear
and I could tell your touch was angel gentle,
would melt my bones if my skin was under your own,
which I imagined in my dreams at night to be there.
I wanted your shadow to brush up against mine,
danced in the light's framework together
as if two half pairs found their whole,
while our bodies kept a distance only touched
by fingertips in their secret reaching.

The hardest thing to make a woman feel is beautiful
when she believes she isn't.
I've destroyed a good chunk of my own happiness,
because I chose the wrong things or I believed the wrong voices,
but sitting here on your couch with your tan hands in my blonde hair,
coiling the ends around your knuckles and tugging
just to pull me in closer-
I never felt something like that.

I was steady and so were you and we shared
in- I think it's called trust? - together.
I never lie and neither do you.
But not because we're just good people,
and not because you're god like
(actually we're both far from it we've proven)
but because we don't have to.

I've never laughed the way you make me do.
I can't breathe sometimes and it's not like
the way literature describes or the way a guitarist writes
in the perfect, sentimental, slow song.
I literally cannot breathe because you
are stunning.

I've been driven down a lot of bad roads
by people I let make me feel inferior and allowed
to push me around because I didn't put faith into my own
self-sufficient standing.
But here I am and I haven't faltered nor shaken nor cried.
I'm still.

I don't usually fall for people who are good for me,
but somehow you changed that.

I had to walk out of physics today,
make my way to the back of the room
shoot for the door
with my hands on my hips.
Just started pacing.
I just stated pacing and pacing and pacing.

I followed the thin grey lines between the linoleum tiles
with my toes
counting every second I was out of class
and weighing that against how many more it would take
on a chance against hell
to get me back in there again.

I wasn't smart.
I never had been.
I just filled in bubbles correctly and I wrote
all the right things on a convincing, cliché
college paper.
I don't even know why I took physic,
but it sounded like a good idea when I was eighteen
and scared
and had some woman with a long braid screaming at me,
"advising" me that it was the "right direction."

I didn't even know who I was then so how could she.

I could mouth off a good response or two and I
probably embody every great literary character
in commercial fiction that is
the guy in the grey skinny jeans reading Shakespeare
in the corner of the dining hall.
Well, I'm not.
I'm not some stereotype for your next
creative writing assignment.
I just happen to think my *** looks good in skinny jeans,
I actually hate Shakespeare,
and the corner of the dining hall has the best air conditioning.
It's that simple.
There's your answer.

But my fingertips were shaking and my mind was racing
and there I was
just pacing and pacing and pacing
because this
is *******.
This class is *******.
This college is *******.
And the whole world
might as well be *******
right along with it.

I never went back into class that day.
Which ***** actually because I lost a good backpack and calculator,
but in the long run it worked out alright
because here I am
writing this
and getting paid for it,
not that I'm greedy or anything
(I get paid a whole lot if you care to know)
but I'm writing more than just about
that day I couldn't breathe in physics class.

I'm writing to tell you
that there's quite a great deal of superficial things in this world
and if you find yourself a part of it
I'm demanding you leave.
Leave your good notebook, your steady job, your filthy marriage.
Leave it because it's actually true no matter how stupid it sounds
that life is too short
and things that are real
need to be attacked and clutched onto
if you want them to last.

I guess I can thank that institution actually
for teaching me everything I never wanted to know,
and for getting me to where I am
with multiple publications, a book signing or to, a beautiful wife,
three kids, a screenplay, oh
and a big
F U
to those that said I would never do it.

(Dr. Hefer, that means you).

Only 3 people in my life have seen me cry,
unless you count that one guy on that tailgate that one night that one time
but I don't because I was drunk and it wouldn't matter in the morning.
You are one of those three and for you I cried the heaviest.
In your arms, fog catching, trying to suspend myself
in the gravity that kept me clung to your chest with fingers in your hair
kissing your ears between tears saying how much I love you
and that I'll miss you and that
every night I Google map the distance
just praying and praying that
the blue line between your point and mine
becomes shorter and shorter in time.

But it never does.

You told me you really will miss me,
that I'm one of the only one's
who actually cares about you
which isn't true but if you want
to put me there I will be because you are
that security and you are
everything that is brilliant in my life
and to know that you will no longer be
that close to where I am is like pulling at my heart
and getting nothing back
but a 10 minute phone call and I
wish you were here.

But you never are.

So I cried.
I mean,
I cried and cried until it came down to
you holding me so I would stop shaking and telling me
that I was strong and that I'll be fine
and that
it wasn't a goodbye just a
see you then.

But I've tried to hold "then"
in my hands and I've tried to write it
on my calendar at home but I can't find it,
and I'm afraid that will turn into not finding you
when it's 2am but it's your midnight and there's no
commonplace where you and I can just relive
this moment where I cried and cried and told you that I loved you
and you smiled with your eyes.

But the comfort that holds me is you know I can do this,
you know that I'm worthy,
and you know that I'm strong.
So I tell myself that when I don't feel it and I recognize
that if you can believe in me so much than I must be able
to do this without you and to move on
without you
constantly being here.
It gets me through until I can say when,
until the next time I see you
until see you then.