At one time
Every atom in your body
Belonged to a star
A beautiful burning
Ball of hydrogen in space
In the first grade
When they gave you
Those stickers that read
'You're a Star'
They weren't lying
So when I wish for a star
I'm really just wishing for you
And maybe
You'll be wishing
On that very same star
For me too.

anxiety is a flood
it comes in slowly
but suddenly drowning  me

it is a constant tapping pencil
beating in an irregular beat
frantically accelerating in speed

it is a small room
filled with boisterous people
gradually engulfing me

anxiety is a breath of fresh air
refreshing  as I take a breath in
satisfaction as I exhale

Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.

Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the ****-
ing surf,
and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.

when darkness falls
so does shadow
the veil of perhaps
washes over you and
imagining leads you to fear.
your mind starts to play games
with your eyes
you see monsters
in your closet and
under your bed.
looking is not seeing
but they seem the same
so what you thought you glimpsed
sends shivers down your spine
your pupils dilate
fight or flight
because no matter
what your parents tell you
the blankets won't protect you
and the monsters
are
real.

An empty canvas
arose in her heart
as she picked up her brush
and began to paint

She mixed her greens with her dreams
and the blues with hope
and the reds with her anger
and the yellow with her fright

She gripped her tools
with white knuckles
and stared at the canvas
with her black pupils

She painted how she felt
green and blue
and yellow and red
until all she had was a ruined canvas.

Dear God,
It's me.
Again.

I have left you with so many questions...
But no answers.

Why did you create killers?
I don't know.
Why do I have these feelings of hatred?
I don't know.
Why does my mother love somebody else?

I
DON'T
KNOW.

Why do I feel this way?

You bring us pain.
You leave me with one question.
One question.
One simple question that will never be answered on this stupid hateful earth.

What is your plan?

Dear room,
I know
It's not your fault
That you're small
-you're supposed to be an office

Clean crisp piles of
White clear paper
Stacked and neat
But instead

You're cluttered
Like you were hit with a bomb
And cramped
With a bed, closet, shelves
And who knows what else

It can't be fun
I'm sorry it has to be this way

But you're an office
As a make-shift bedroom
Cluttered and cramped.

I love that I immediately know that you are mine
with your belly swollen with my textbooks
and throwing up discarded papers.

I love the smell of the alcohol from rotting pears
that fills my nose
when that four month old container falls
onto the floor and explodes into a pungent flame.

I love not being able to get my worn out
book bag into your thin frame
and the music my moans and grunts create.

I love how you resemble a museum
full of old tests and gym shorts
and chip bags and chewn up pencils

I love how you block my view
of the people next to me and
how you always make me late.

         Please don't change
        For God knows I wont make you.

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.