She took the train for the first time
To go spend a few weeks with her daddy
In the summer before she started second grade.
Her suitcase had pink light up wheels on it
And was full of her best summer dresses and pictures
She drew with his name scrawled on the back.
She cried at the station because she didn't want to go,
And slept the whole way there.

She took the train again, in high school
Accompanied by a group of friends
Going to the city for the weekend to see a baseball game.
She didn't bring any luggage,
But came back with arms full of plastic shopping bags.
She cried because her mother didn't understand
That 16 is too old for a curfew,
And smoked cigarettes the whole way there.

She took the train, once more,
Her freshman year of college.
She went to visit her best friend at school.
Her duffle bag was full of flimsy bikinis and Sartre.
She didn't cry this time, until on her way back
When she realized that something had been lost somewhere along the way,
And that she was too old now to ever know what it was.

She took the train, again, for the last time.
The summer before her second year of college;
She said she wasn't going anywhere in particular.
She bought a ticket for Sacramento, and left it in the car.
This time, her suitcase was full of heavy rocks,
And made her tilt a little to the left as she dragged it down the ramp.
She began to cry at the station, for the death of someone she used to know.
And, seconds before the train left,
She flung herself onto the rusted tracks,
Leaving behind nothing
Except a couple of ticket stubs and a poem titled "Somewhere".

Life is the flat side of a butter knife-
Relentlessly turned upwards, upon a
Battered cedar coffee table. His muffled
Silver skin glistens amidst the two week
Old newspaper and hardened crumbs of
Sourdough toast, catching the reflection
Of his  weary hosts, as loud voices and silence
Rapidly bounce off the walls and onto his
Credit card-thin body:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Purposeless, he waits for someone to rescue him-
Pick him up from his five foot grave
Covered in peeling wood and sentimental scratches,
And slowly slide his cold, frame across the counter-
Anything to remind him of his relevance.
As the rusty butter knife lays, abandoned,
So life carries on- oblivious to his melancholy
Wails that fall dormant to the loud, blaring stereo,
And shifting feet that tread so softly
As to keep the monster from waking from her slumber.
Thus, the routine drones on and on,
To the soundtrack of 2am infomercials
Claiming indestructible silverware sets:
Oh, but they have yet to enter the finite world of Father Time.
As he sets his place at the table, wearily awaiting what's to come,
The butter knife exhales hope, and suffocates in an air of subtle indifference,
Claiming his stake as a hollow prop, within an afflicted stage.

Growing up never comes when you expect it:
It's when you realize that the suicide note under your mattress
Probably has a few too many commas where semicolons should be,
And a little too much emphasis on the last four years of your life-
Missed due dates, flunked exams, and friendships that were supposed to be forever.
It's when you figure out that the boy you spent your freshman year of college worrying about
Never even knew the name of your favorite book,
Or anything else that really mattered.
It isn't something you can predict, or prepare for-
It isn't a sudden shift of priorities that all of a sudden appear
Somewhere in your subconscious, making it a lot easier to get up at 9am for a statistics class
That you're inevitably going to fail.
It isn't anything you do that will change, but rather
A shift inside of you that slowly shakes your entire being.
Youth is only beautiful until it's corrupted,
By the sultry hands of time, beckoning you forward when all you ever wanted to do was hide.
It slowly seeps down into the darkest corners of your mind,
Swallowing up all that innocent ambition
Flung upon you in the fifth grade by a board of indifferent teachers
Who decided to deem you gifted, introducing you to a world of knowledge
Too fascinating to mingle with the uncertainty of responsibility.
There's something frightening about growing old,
Maybe it's because you spent one too many hours of your childhood
Pretending to be someone else- caught up in a storybook world
Full of daydreams and simplicity, too one dimensional for reality.
It's not that it goes away all of a sudden: all the premature doubt
And impulsive wishes of death, or something like it.
But rather, it takes a different form-
That which was once a big red ball full of passionate emotions,
Has deflated, leaving you with only a faint residue of what you used to feel.
Maybe, you got your wish after all- something had to die, you know,
In order for you to carry on without losing your mind.
It's a sad paradox, this sequence of living,
As intuition slowly deteriorates, and common sense
Slinks in, in its premeditated, yet lackluster manner,
And before you know it, you're not a kid anymore.
Peter Pan flew the coop years ago, but Neverland still remains,
A testimony to all the lost childhoods of the ones
Too eager to lay their stake in the land of milk and honey.

Daddy wasn't  there to **** the spiders,
So mommy gave them the gift of life-
Gently lifting them from the crevices of my tiny room,
And carrying them off to freedom
Atop a tattered kitchen broom,
Softly whispering sweet condolences in their secret language.
And that is how I learned what poetry is..

Beauty is an empty cage that shakes the world anew-
Yet, falters at the slightest rage, or faintest sickly hue.
A sweet yet poisonous embrace, it slowly clogs the pores,
Of lonely men of a pious race, slumped against heavens doors.
A heavy weight upon the back of those cursed enough to bear it,
Turned to salt for looking back, now eternally doomed to share it.
The elegance of poise and grace send shackles up the palms
Of the amorous eyes of a lover's face- the most perverted kind of alms.
Oh, Aphrodite had her laugh, her poor afflicted soul,
And now she revels in the past, as penance casts its toll
Upon her sweet reflection, the sole source of her empty joy-
As her heart cries out dejection in the name of Helen of Troy.
Ah, fragile bird have you no cause- to hide your face with shame?
Does happiness subdue your flaws- or is humility to blame?
A lepers skin can hardly hold the burden of an empty nation,
Yet, still the world has bought and sold innocence for infatuation.
There's a subtle pain beneath the ring of a mother's sordid song,
Still she bites her lip as she's forced to sing,  while the audience treads on.
The ****** Mary cast her lot among those new and pure,
Then temptation came from Camelot, and knocked her to the floor.
It's faith that holds her safe and whole, a figurine atop a shelf
Alas, her eyes so bright were smeared with coal, for love has lost itself.
Yes, virtue finds her strength in those too weak to carry further,
Doomed to bear a thorny rose, eternally sworn to serve her.
She's rattling her bones again, in hope for something hidden,
Beneath the glistening shards of glass, twisting and churning within.
How sweet it is to stomp the ground of all that hides the eye
From righteousness and morals sound- is beauty but a lie?
Rituals and good intent lay stagnant at the feet
Of Cleopatra's testament, too indifferent for defeat.
Heaven thrives as the world recoils, collapsing crumpled to the floor-
A rotten corpse of ancient toils, too tired to implore.
I've heard the sirens sing their alms, with intentions pure as snow-
As sailors mindlessly follow along, cursing the maidens as they go.
There's something to be said about a grace so bent on fate
Of that which crafts a sultry face: vanity in its purest state.

I paint a picture of my face
And hide it every day,
For darkness holds a subtle grace,
Where only the fallen lay.

My mind retreats beneath the veil
Of etiquette and blush
Too far away to sound their wail,
My thoughts fall dead and hushed.

I almost lost my grasp, today,
Amidst the daily act,
For to forget the mask would give away
Something too hidden to retract.

The eyes I wear were  crafted
By eager, destructive hands,
Determined to mold a plastic
To withstand my soul's demands.

You know me not, my sorry friend,
And hidden I shall stay,
For to open up would bring an end
To the most beautiful facade.

My audience calls out the plot,
As I readily obey,
As my feet drag blood across the stage,
They lament their accolades.

I'm hidden here, despite the light
That bears upon my face
Only to find solace in the night
Obscured by a perverted grace.

The rotting corpse of a dilapidated morning glory
Waxes poetic in the dry summer air-
Its wilted petals droop heavy
With the subtle presence of something
Close to the end, but of a different hue.
A sweet yet sickly scent
Engulfs the neglected shrubbery,
That so gracefully collapses onto
A rusted, barbed wire fence,
Caving in beneath the heavy traces of morning dew
Atop intricate spider webs and fallen leaves.
Its bitter laments of despair
Sound out to the iridescent moon,
Cursing god in all his putrid grace.
Somewhere in the night, the sad wail echoes
Tumbling off canyon walls and over priced gas stations,
Until all that's left is a hollow boom
And the faint whisper of the Holy Ghost.
The pagan wind  slowly creeps by,
Pushing the flowers further down,
Until their stems take on the silhouette
Of the stooped backs of apologetic sinners,
Face down at the altar, accepting their worthy penance.
Dawn waits beyond the bend,
Her seductive fingers trace the fragile outline
Of the sleeping buds, blushing a faint pink
The color of a newborn child-
Beauty is only real within the tender moments
Leading up to it's intricate destruction.
Is this how it feels to exist?
Beating up against forgiveness
With bloodied palms, imprinted with the
Wilted outline of an indifferent morning glory-
Too alive to ever experience eternity,
For, in accepting life,
All else perishes.