Rainy day phone call
      from my fogged up car
I can hear your smile
                                    it lights up my eyes

                                    I can feel my skin glowing

                                              underneath your fingertips

and tears forming
                                      underneath my eyelashes

I feel in my skin
in my hair
in the backs
       of my eyelids,
that if there was one
house in minnesota that felt like New York - -
this would be it. Quiet dead of winter, the street filthy out the window,
people wandering the cold dark streets in the night sky
me, cozied up on your paisley couch with a cat warming my feet with its soft purr,
drinking a glass of sweet red.
you, typing emails for your union organizing, and playing your favorite jazz record for me. Me,
                                            in love with you

                  You, loving me,
                                    as silly as it seems to me.

working here,
  i get the sense that everyone
is a little ****** up
   Either insecure or vain and
full of themselves
         too quiet or too loud
  too trusting
      or they're constantly getting  
    ****** over

Am i the girl that will
    break you or make you?
will I build you up
or tear you down

I want this to be a mutual decision

I'm an easily startled creature

move slowly,
        
             but always move in
                  my direction



     When you hunt me down,
                           make it painless

strike through the heart

       I will collapse

             blood seeping into
                      the soil
             drag my body through
                               the forest

to a safer place

We're the most ****** up poetic pieces of **** 

We grew up thinking the world hated us, regarding it as a hostile environment 
But never paying it too much attention
Never giving it a second or third thought 


And when you met me you thought i was beautiful

And when i met you i thought you were smart


And when we started falling into this ******* pit of dispair
I started to regard you as beautiful


And now your eyelashes brush against my skin as you tell me that I'm intelligent 
And interesting 



Interesting enough?
Is it a grey area?
How long can i keep this up?
How long until you figure me out


How long until you see me for what i am, who i used to be?

How long until we start hating each other


Just tell me how much time i have
So i can appreciate you

In this moment

Well we woke up in this relationship
And now i find that I'm talking ****
About myself and the things i feel
Because i don't know what's right or what's real
I only run sprints, not marathons
And you keep saying, "girl, what are you ON"
Because i never get tired of hanging with you
But I'm always so scared that you'll see that I'm too
Too crazy too weird too much to handle
One bad day and I'm off the handle
But hey i dont care if you believe me or not
Cuz I think you're cute and i like you a lot.

Sitting in a board room with these people licensed to teach
Talking about education gap like it's some sort of disease
Like it's only the white kid that knows how to read
And only white teachers know how to lead
But i think that some people just forgot
That like america, the classroom is a melting ***
But for years and years it's been boiling too hot
And all the white kids are floating up to the top
While everybody else gets burned
Burned by the system
That just wants them in prison
With petty drug charges
And a better ear to LISTEN
Listen to the cops and the teachers and store clerks
Listen to the president and the creeps that urge him
To cut all the funding for public education

Let's just send em' to prison
That'll teach em'