Last night the sky melted
Forever long strings of
Galactic spit and spent fumes.
And when the morning came,
(Though by then we called it grief)
We watched with tear speckled cheeks
The children splashing in sporadic
Celestial puddles
Until they were soaked and sporting
Angel wings

Come afternoon
Trees fell, hurried,
Swept into a milky current
Streets flooded
Til only ***** leather hands
Could reach above
Infinite waves
But found nothing
To hold on to

When evening fell,
Cities swallowed
In deep star oceans,
Few remained in monasteries
And cathedrals
And 4-Star hotel rooms,
And all that could be heard was
The steady drip
Of eternal pour


The more devout among us
Believed it was rapture
The more religious prayed it was not
And I myself
Plagued by that perpetual
And ineffable indecision,
Resigned to consummation

where have they gone
those blue-bodied
shadows of night,
those who have crept
upon blank pages
and offered their sight

where have they gone
those murmurs nourished
in salty breath,
those who have lingered
blooming gently through
the cracked hands of death

where have they gone
those tireless
creatures of fear.
those who have conquered
their slow mortal days
can be found no longer here

don't you ever notice
the way the wind growls
like she's alive
and she's angry

and how when she bites you
your skin doesn't bleed
but inside something stings

and sometimes when she roars
she bends trees
and pulls them
from their roots
but she also moves the tides

and when she blows back your hair
and your eyes water
she's only just saying 'excuse me,'
and 'I can't stay long'

and when she whimpers
on your skin
goosebumps bloom
and devour

have you ever noticed
how she carries your words
along her back
and then drops them on mine

and how she stays underneath
the people flying without even trying
but rarely lifts people from the ground

and when she does
she paints the sky black
and purple and yellow
like a bruise

and when she's gone
you wonder if you should move
and if you even can
without her

I am Calm
and you are my Chaos

I am a quiet sea
And you are the winds
That make the waves
You are the lottery
And I am just a penny saved

I am the stillness of the puddle
And you are the thunder in the clouds
You're the entire marching band
And I don't make a sound

I know very little. I cannot say why or how the moon tells the tides to shift. I cannot decipher The Whispers of Springtime mist.  I do not know if death himself dons a black robe or if his kiss is soft. Or given the chance if I would turn myself off. I cannot Define the feeling that floods my guts when your Whirlpool eyes sink into mine. I do not know if we discovered or invented time. But I do know this. When I think of paradise I'm in a car and it's dark and I am with you.

Tonight my room has me pondering
how something still so fresh and foreign can also feel very my own.
Cram a couple of out of tune guitars
and a dozen dusty books into four walls and I will call it home.
And I will wonder of those before me who had also called it home,
and of those destined to
long after I have gone from it.
And we will always share
this deafening bond
of discarded skin cells clinging to the walls, buried clumsily under the thousand secrets we've thrown at them.
How many prayers have been whispered that only they could hear?
How many tears soaked up by the floorboards?
How many pleas for redemption have they ignored?
Painted in the shades of our voices howling our favorite songs,
stained by those erratic epiphanies that blew our brains all over them.

To the Great Big Something,
Please send my sincerest good feelings
To my Wall Brothers and Sisters

When you're up to your neck in the tears you have cried
And you offer your envy to those who have died
And accept that your truths will be taken as lies
You haven't got time to look back.
The children can see but we choose to be blind
And the flower still grows from the sidewalk crack

Now the ones that protect us are turning away
And a powerful people are turning to prey
The reaper has come and we've asked him to stay
We can use him when we attack
The battle will rage and the warriors will pray
That the flower still grows from the sidewalk crack

And they usher our souls through industrial farms
Led by the grasp of invisible arms
But they pay us real good while they're doing us harm
In their favor, the odds always stacked
You can blow all the whistles and sound the alarms
But the flower still grows from the sidewalk crack

So rush now to the booths, make heard your voice
Pencil in your favorite illusion of choice
Both sides saying nothing, commercialized noise
Shades of grey, not white and black
The machine keeps on humming and the cogs they rejoice
And the flower still grows from the sidewalk crack

So the end of an era greets a new one again
And the old and the young must soon become friends
One versed in the past, one staring ahead
It's time to pick up the slack
If we don't come together, then we come to an end
But the flower still grows from the sidewalk crack

It is a strange feeling, wanting to die but not being selfish enough to **** yourself. It is not a good feeling and it is not a bad feeling. Just strange. Like wanting to step out of a moving vehicle but the door is locked, and you're the one who locked it.

It's liberating, in a sense. To sever those stringy limbs that are clutching on to life and all its irrelevant attachments. Unbinded by society. The friendly release of death, all the familiarities of living still in tact. Immortality stolen directly from the suicide note. Shot through the heart, but still very much full of life.

Some pathetic hermaphrodite of irony and despair.

I think it stems from this futile awareness of a futile existence. I could live with a futile existence, but by some divine cosmic punishment am forced to be aware of my place within society. My place being an insignificant cell in a cell. And no body cares about a single cell within it. If one cell dies, it won't even notice it's gone, but simply continue as it was. But I refuse to give it the power to ignore my death. To stay alive is rebellion. To love and to live, in spite of life, is pure anarchy.

tonight
i think of love as
a quiet cloud of
cigarette smoke sneaks in
through my
bedroom window.

when i say i love you
to my friend
it means my voice on
the other end of the phone
when the shadows from your head
are now dancing on your walls,
and i will talk you through
the revelation that fear and awe
are not far off.
it means i will accept
the weight you throw onto my shoulders, gladly,
when it gets too much to bear.

when i say i love you
to my family
it means mountains
and oceans and
existential planes
cannot separate us.
it means state lines
may exist on maps,
but my love will cross boldy,
any border.
it means you are my home.

when i say i love you to her
it means being buried alive
underneath layers of
frantic heartbeats,
bedsheets,
and a love that transcends love
and becomes one single
shared breath
inhaling late night epiphanies
and coughing out
paper hearts.

i love you in very much
the same way the stars shine for the earth, the way the oceans gently kiss the shore

the way smoke sneaks in through a bedroom window

It's 8:15
and I'm almost entirely sure
that this poem
is only an attempt
to put off telling you how
I really feel about you
but I'm not sure that
these shaky hands
can hold you
or that my red eyes
can bear to see yours,
bright blue.

So if I fess up to you
I need to know

If you're the air I breath, why do I feel like I'm dying?
If you're the wind beneath my wings, why am I not flying?
and do you think that we could both say "I love you"

without one of us lying?

Timid angels
do not whisper
they roar

do not ask why

you watch clocks
like children watch
their parents cry

silence is a virtue

your heart pumps
blue oceans
and ash
and burnt paper

your words explode like atom bombs

your eyes are
shallow puddles
flecked with
circling fins

you are footprints in the snow

I am the reason
you fell from grace
I am
original sin

we are not contained within our bodies

"If timid angels
roar imagine
what the
loud ones do."

i could tell you i miss you
until my lungs collapse into
sharp fragments
reflecting every moment
you took my breath away.

but you've heard it repeated
like a sacred hymn
whose tune no longer
stirs you.

so tonight i'll say "goodbye" instead.
and "i hope he's worth it."

To touch and to feel seem to me, two opposing forces.
And a hundred men may touch you
in a hundred different places
but that does not mean that
you will feel a thing.

To look and to see are acts, it seems,
committed by two different organs.
So when their eyes fall on you and
you do not feel the catastrophically
heavy weight of them, please know
that they have not seen a thing.

To hear and to listen do not coincide.
And though they may smile and nod
when you tell them about the first time
you fell in love, it means nothing if your
laughter is not swallowed like it's the deep
blue water in the desert of their lives.

To know and to understand,
to know and to understand
can be as different as rain and fire
and while they may know exactly
what to say to make your insides
ignite, that does not mean they understand
that there are days when your skin feels like glass
that could shatter in an instant if his skin meets yours.

I'll call her the beholder
Because there is beauty in her eyes,
And for the price of her infinite touch
I will linger, clinging to her side

even in my dreams you pass through,
carrying with you a beauty
deep and indifferent

and from frozen lips
you leak my name
slowly,
consciously

then we watch it linger
in the cold, pale air
until it consumes, entirely,
the silence that surrounds it

like only your words can

and I knew it was real when
you said        I love you
   and I said         I love you more
      and you said
                                          "impossible."

"Have you ever seen someone create a rainbow with a 12-Gauge shotgun"

10
I'd thought about that new year's kiss
even during the months no one cared
about the holiday
Only to find my crush
with her ex, trying to decide
who's tongue tasted better

9
And while my ex
is receiving cute texts
from a new man,
I'm higher than I've
ever been
nurturing a borderline
****** relationship
with a bag of Doritos

8
And my friends were laughing
in the back seat
because I said
"The moon is sideways"
and I guess
they couldn't see the
poetry in that.

7
And though I didn't receive
a midnight kiss,
I'll most likely be receiving
a ticket for Indecent Exposure
in the mail.

So it wasn't a total loss.

6
And instead of wishing for happiness
I wished for the ability
to properly express the rest of my emotions
in hopes of achieving it.

5
And I hoped to dis-acquaint
myself from feeling lonely
in rooms so full of people
I can't even move
or think

4
And my friends are close
and I think they were
expecting more

3
And my sister
inadvertently became the
goddess of drunk girls

2
And seeing love fail
in nearly every direction,
I closed my eyes

1
People shout Happy New Year
but only truly wish it on
themselves

You don't look a day over green eyes staring blankly into waste baskets carefully selecting pieces of yourself that you want to place inside and when you find that missing puzzle piece don't drop it in place but instead swallow it whole and maybe then you'll understand that some holes were never meant to be filled

Ten. Breath in.
9. Sleep in. The world will still be there when you wake up. Hit the snooze button until you're ready. Remember that it's okay if you're not okay.
8. Get up. Let the day begin. Stretch your muscles, tired from carrying the weight of the world, and try again to shrug it off. Remember that it's okay to shuffle your feet as long as they are moving forward.
7. Stay in. Curl up on your bed with a good book or your favorite movie and let yourself forget the outside world. Remember that those nagging responsibilities will quietly fade as you let yourself escape.
6. Go out. Your friends know how to make you feel better. Let them. Walk around town at 2 A.M  and spill secrets to them and to the night sky and your worries will begin to deflate like a tired helium balloon.
Remember that the stars will always listen.
5. Talk to others. Let down those walls you've built up from years of heartbreak and loneliness, even for just a second, to let someone in. They may not understand but they will listen and you will feel the satisfaction of being cared for. Remember that it's worth it.
4. Talk to yourself. You know yourself the best, and you know what is best for you. Listen to what your heart is telling you to do. Remember that it will never lead you in the wrong direction.
3. Forgive others. They don't know what it's like to lie awake all night waiting for the sun to rise, while also dreading the start of a new day. They do not know the pain behind your smile. Remember that they are trying their best.
2. Forgive yourself. For sleeping in too late, or shutting your friends out. For hiding inside yourself. For feeling defeated. Forgive yourself for every time you insult yourself. Remember that you, too, are trying your best.
1. Breath out.

Mr. Isaiah N. Felix had overslept. Again.
He put both hands on his face and grumbled a long, sleepy
"Fuuuuck."

Mr. Felix rose from his bed, resentful of most everything
including himself.
As he stood, he breathed "****" once more before heading to the bathroom.

He made his feet move toward the seashell themed bathroom
his girlfriend had insisted on decorating,
even though she had her own apartment.

While he ******, he thought about the dream he'd had.
He was a child again standing in the fun house,
afraid to go through the spinning tunnel.

He wondered if it had been a real memory.

He didn’t' have time to shower or shave,
but he hurried to get dressed,
and didn't notice he'd missed a button.

On the way out the door he noticed he had a voicemail.
"Mr. Felix, I'm calling again about your father,
please call us when you can."

He coughed into his fist and walked out the door.

After the short walk to his office,
he incorrectly swiped his keycard,
and the machine sang out its small cadence of rejection

It sounded familiar.

Once he sat down in his cubicle
he was called into his boss's office
by a plump women who wore too much blush, he thought.

His boss cleared his throat and said "Isaac-"
"Isaiah." Mr. Felix corrected.
"Isaiah, I'm sorry to have to do this, but you've been coming in late..."

He continued, but Mr. Felix only closed his eyes, slumped in a squeaky leather chair
and thought about the spinning tunnel in the fun house.
He packed up his things and was gone within the hour.

He found himself at the park, sitting on a bench covered in bird ****.
He looked down at the words scribbled on it,
and amongst the profanities, he read "I will always love you guys"

And he thought that was really beautiful.

Then a pigeon **** on him from somewhere way up above
and he thought to himself,
"Man, I really should have seen that coming."

Mr. Felix decided he would walk to his girlfriend's apartment and surprise her.
He picked up two roses on the way for $9.95
and thought that was a little much to be spending on flowers.

After knocking twice without response he used his spare key.
Inside he found his girlfriend with another man,
******* under seashell sheets.

He thought, "She must really like the beach."
And then he thought that was
a strange thought to have at the given moment.

"What are you doing here?"
"Why aren't you at work?"
"Are those flowers for me?"

Mr. Felix fell to the floor
and as his girlfriend rushed to him covered only in bedsheets,
he noticed a reoccurring pattern on her ceiling.

And then he said
"Do you even love me?"
And again heard a small cadence of rejection.

"Isaiah..." she had said.

As his now ex-girlfriend filled a vase with water for the flowers,
he stood and left her apartment, and thought maybe he felt blood on the back of his head.
He heard her call from the door, but marched forward.

He stood in the elevator feeling slightly dizzy
and remembered the time she had wiped vanilla ice cream
from his chin, and kissed him, and said something very beautiful.

She said, "You're always going to remember this moment."

And then Mr. Felix passed out.






He dreamed again he was standing before the spinning tunnel.
He wanted to walk through it, but for some reason
he knew he shouldn't.

When he opened his eyes
he realized he was in a hospital.
The same hospital that his mother had died in.

He blinked.
And then he thought maybe he should cry,
but he didn't. He couldn’t.

His now ex-girlfriend noticed his eyes had opened.
She stood next to the bed holding a bouquet of flowers
and Mr. Felix wondered how much she'd spent on them.

But he didn't ask.

The nurse said that the damage was not serious,
and after a few hours and a few tests,
his room had been replaced by a young girl who had been struck by lightning.

Incidentally, she had been the one who wrote the really beautiful words on the bench.

His now ex-girlfriend had driven him back to his apartment,
and they were now standing in a silence only she thought was awkward
when Mr. Felix noticed he had another voicemail.

"Mr. Felix, um," the voice began,
"I hate to have to do this over voicemail,
but your father has passed. We've been trying to reach you...”

He continued, but Mr. Felix only closed his eyes, slumped on the floor.
Again he saw the spinning tunnel, this time a kaleidoscope appeared at the end,
and the thought he would walk through it.

When he opened his eyes again
He found he was on the roof.
He wondered if God had carried him there, or if it was just the fire escape.

He wasn’t sure which one he preferred.

Mr. Felix stood on the edge of his twenty-story building.
He noticed that from here all the people looked like ants,
And he noticed that he felt like one.

Mr. Felix closed his eyes once more
And saw the kaleidoscope spinning
In front of him, around and around.


He was amazed by how it was constantly changing,
But somehow it was always how
it was supposed to be.

And it was always beautiful.

Mr. Felix finally summoned the courage
To step into the spinning tunnel
And into the colliding colors.

He thought about his funeral,
And how much they would spend on flowers.
And then he wondered who “they” would be.

He thought about his now ex-girlfriend
And how she cared more about flowers and seashells and *******
Than him.

But she could say some very beautiful things.

He tried to think of what his father would say
And then he tried to remember
What his mother looked like


He heard a sharp wind howl,
Maybe an angel singing,
And a scream he thought might be his own.

He heard every small cadence of rejection.

He heard his grandmother playing her grand piano
With arthritic hands
And a gummy but perpetual smile.

He heard someone say,
In a voice both happy and sad,
“I will always love you guys.”

Mr. Felix heard many things on his way down.
Sirens, shouting, and a love so heavy
It was collapsing on itself.

Mr. Felix finally heard the sound
he’d been waiting
His whole life for

The infinite, the sweet,
The intimate, complete,
The absolutely beautiful song of acceptance.
And then Mr. Felix hit the ground.

I believe in the sound of raindrops
applauding humanities imperfections
on tin roofs
while simultaneously washing them away.

I believe in the bellow of thunder
like the beckon of temptation
and the satisfaction of giving in.

That  I don't need forgiveness for sin
I don't regret committing
and those sitting in polyester pews
mindlessly reciting don't's and do's
only feel regret because their preacher
tells them to.

I believe in you,
and me,
and the galaxy we created,
or the realities we imitated,
at the very least.

That no great beast
lives inside me
and that no great being
cares.

I believe in long-haired lullabies,
hidden desires in perfect disguise,
in loose little lies
flying free from loose little lips

In magic singeing fingertips
playing songs
on nervous skin,
tracing directions to where our homes have been

I believe the walls are caving in
and our generation is not to blame,
we were given a broken toy
and asked to play,
Inheriting debts in a broken ballet

I believe that either way,
we will not be stopped
by crooked cops with too
much power,
raining gun-fire like a
meteor shower,
or by faithless politicians,
lies like ammunition,
vanishing voices,
like deep pocketed magicians

But I believe that it's not as bad as it seems.
I believe in that goodness, innate
that our children our taught to hate
but don't need to learn to love.

I believe in love.

I believe in love.

I believe in love.

Me against her, her against the wall
we found parts of ourselves in each other

In her eyes I saw an anchor
and in mine she saw the future

She was slipping into the blueness of the evening
disintegrating fiber by fiber into waves of music

I kissed her temple and she fell apart
I touched her lips and I watched them part

I asked her what it means to "be"
and then we ******

Kissing every part of her face
I watched it metamorphasize into a picasso painting

Her heavy, red and rubber eyes widening
so she could see everything for what it is

Then she muttered "huh"
and closed them while her lips curved

She fell asleep to the lullaby
of my drumbeat heart

And I said "You're beautiful"
both to her and to no one in particular

I have never crossed an ocean,

there are parts of me the world will never see

I may never conquer mountains,

fierce ranges scraping thundery skies.

Or forge paths through matted jungles

sticky darknesses and wildlife.

Forgive me, myself

for I am not yet of able mind

to be the adventurer you wish to be.

My name is not important. It was the first of many predetermined decisions that I myself had no say in. But today I went outside and the clouds looked like giant white manatees swimming through the depths of the sky, and it was beautiful. And I'm only mentioning this because it was beautiful. And every single beautiful thing is always worth mentioning.
I was sitting on my porch and letting the sun rub against my skin, when I heard a small voice calling out to me. At first I could not here exactly what the voice was saying but it sounded like a question. I looked down and noticed a small colony of ants walking in a line from one end of the sidewalk to the other except for one who stood still. The voice called out again and I leaned in to hear what it was saying.
"What's the difference?" It called.
And I said, "What?"
"What's the difference," it said again, "between you and I? Every day so many of you live your life just like we do directly below your feet. Working and working. Working so much it's become like an instinct for you. And are you even sure who, or what, you're working for? You work because they tell you to work. They make you think your value lies in the amount of work you do, or how much you get paid to do such work. Then you teach your children that they too must work, in order to acheive their dreams and desires, or your dreams and desires for them. You encourage them to walk in straight lines in the same direction to the same destination. Warn them not to stray, because it's not safe, not secure. But in some ways you are worse than us. You are slaves to money and to time. Or rather, you are slaves to time, and because of that, devote your lives to money in order to slow down time. We are mearly slaves to survival. Survival. This concept must seem foreign to you because you've all become so comfortable and complacent that you're barely even alive."
He paused.
"Stand up and live."
And with that, he fell back in line. I tried to keep an eye on him, but lost him in the line

Today the rain was belting out, as it fell on the sidewalk,
a song specifically for me. She was telling me about the
time she filled the earth under command from a god she
could not believe in. She was singing in her thundery alto
pitter patter pitter patter whooosh whoosh. She was also
greeting me at my feet, collecting all her clear and crisp
and clairvoyant ideas and soaking them through my shoes
and making my socks wet.

But when i kiss Her,
souls like tectonic plates
collide.

And bodies quake.
And hearts ache,
only to be closer
to beat closer
To be the blood that
flows in Her

And when i kiss Her,
in sensual silhouettes
from her tongue bleeds
hot cinnamon gum
and stale cigarettes
and love
like Her secret ingredient.

And when i kiss Her,
skin cells sing,
melodious high-pitched
desires to cling
to Her own.
Heart beating over-grown
forgets the rhythm of alone

And when i kiss Her
in the quiet moonbeams,
stars begin to foxtrot
like celestial dreams
that i wish never to wake from,
so i let the night lights take from me
every sadness stored up, gladly.

And when i kiss Her
in the strong sunlight
reflecting off Her
half slit eyes
i have to smile.

i have to smile
when i kiss Her.

I remember hearing
about how the super continent,
Over the years,
Drifted apart

But the dreams
I have about you
Are no longer about ***.
They're about spotting
You across the room
In a crowded roadside
Museum
And falling in love again
As you say "Hello"

And I swear to God
I've never felt closer.

In the spring
her teardrops
flood the flowers,
Those soul shaking showers
Making way for better days

And in the summer
She draws whispers
deep into her lungs
Those secrets given to the sun
In return for shining rays

And in the fall
she changes color
and she hides among the leaves
those love notes hidden under sleeves
And wishes winter winds away

And in the winter
she lies on the ground
and lets the snow bury her body
Those snowflakes only she can embody
And keeps her darknesses at bay

waiting quietly
she holds herself close
and tries to mask the
smoke in her hair
by whispering
sweet nothings
into the air

in the form of questions
she discovers
she does not believe in god,
but this love in her gut
refuses to be ignored
so she bows to its
existence.

watching intently
for the stars to arrive
she counts the scars
on her thighs
and tries to rearrange them
into constellations

stuttering quietly
she picks herself up
from the floor,
she plucks a few roses,
And she ignores the thorns

And I'm walking,
I'm departing
toward a sky that's glowing red
and there's a thousand different poems
being tossed around my head.
And with every beat I measure
and with every word I rhyme
I'm trying hard to question answers
and keep my thoughts outside the lines.
Yes, I am leaving
I am running
toward a home that's really home
filled with simile and imagery
where my words can be alone,
and it is cold there,
it is frozen,
but the cold is fit for me
because my heart is like the tundra
and my blood is like the sea.
and now my lungs are filling up
with the sunset up ahead
and it's distorting all the pictures
that I've drawn up in my head.
But believe me, love
I'm going
and I don't think I'll return
so all my money, you can pocket
and all my poems, you can burn.
Because my old words now pursue me
and they nibble at my heels,
because I've succumbed to plagiary,
those three words I did steal.
So call me convict
call me criminal
fleeing from the law
leaving verses on the sidewalks
scratching with my inky claws
So if you find me
where I'm hiding
bring a bottle of something strong
because home is where the heart is,
and in my heart I don't belong.

I laughed.
When I picked up
her favorite book
and smelled the
words on all the
pages,
and tasted every
intention of the
author's pen
I laughed.

I laughed.
When she curled
up next to me
spitting drunken
'I love yous'
she'd later regret,
instead of
saying it back
I laughed.

But
when I realized
that her eyes
could not be
confined
to mere galaxies,
that in reality
they were the
source of life
itself
I only smiled.
I only cried.

I read somewhere that Nemo is Latin for "nobody"
and the way you look at me confirms,
you see only a long haired mess
and a box of childish thoughts.

I was never one for silence,
Those times I hear nothing but the earth
moving along with a wheezy breath
pushed wholeheartedly from my chest

I was never one for quiet,
the heaviness of unmoving lips
the weight of every moment held
on a tight, tense string

I was never one for stillness
I revel in the way chaos moves
with steadiness and deliberation,
she makes no mistake.

I don't want to *******.
No, I want to be the midnight air
seeping into your pores,
witness the horrors
of your mind
and make them no more
I wish to row,
                    row,
                           row,
gently down your stream
of consciousness
and to arrive safely
at the solutions
to all your heart's
conundrums
and hope to God
that I am one of them.

I'll make love to you,
if you want to, too,
or lie silent in the night,
syncing heartbeats,
never touching you.

But I don't want to *******.

I want to set sail to your words,
to conquer the ebb and ride the flow,
establishing allies and vanquishing foes

I want to know the history
of every mystery
that you find compelling,
to correct your m̶i̶s̶p̶e̶l̶l̶i̶n̶g̶s̶  misspellings.

To be the lyrics to your favorite song
to be the sunrise when the nights get long
Yes, I long to be the object of your sideways looks
and to sleep between the pages of your favorite books

To stare in admiration at your eyes
like constellations
and wish on every star
to know every part of who you are

To have my sun-baked skin
be consumed by the waves
on the curves of your face

To trace and map
every landmark
on your effervescent skin
and be the nervous sweat
that clings to it

I want to let your strong lungs intake me
and let your cool air sustain me
and pray that you might save me
a spot in your heart

I wish to start pulling your mind's
fibers and wires
and to start a fire
under your frozen tongue
and be the unsung hero
who rescues you from yourself.
I want to silence your loudest thoughts
and embrace your silent tears
and I want to make this clear:

I do not want to *******.

I want to be inside you.

It's like floating,
sinking in a deep pool
of potential raindrops
that are destined to fall
on your head.

My 2 Cents

“the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.”

Let me start by mentioning that I don’t usually get involved with political matters, but in this case, I’d say it’s more of a basic human rights matter.

I’m a man, and I’m a feminist.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a home with three women; my mother and two older sisters. Growing up with them gave me an enormous amount of respect for women, (even though I may have lost a certain amount of socially expected masculinity along the way), and their current lives continue to increase my respect for the opposite gender.

My oldest sister is leaving to study abroad at Oxford in less than a week to major in philosophy. Philosophy. She also graduated high school with a 4.0 and was involved in power lifting competitions and is enlisted in ROTC. Simply put, she’s an animal. She’s worked hard her entire life and I’d hate to see a world that put that hard work to waste.

My other sister is working three jobs to pay her way through college and is planning to major in psychology. I’m always envious of her work ethic and level of commitment to not only her education, but to her friends and family as well.

My mother has been my backbone since I was a child. She was always the one I turned to in times of trouble, and continues to be. She works hard everyday, while going through mentally straining marriage problems, and comes home and still asks me about my day. She has given me nothing but unconditional love for my entire existence.

For these reasons, it boggles my mind why anyone would ever be anti-feminism. I am genuinely confused as to why, because their bodies are different, women get less privileges, respect, opportunities, and even money. I just don’t get it.

I am also disgusted that women are seen by most men as walking ****** organs. l will admit genuine guilt to using the number scale to “rate” women. It’s something I grew up with, but now it sickens me. Assigning a number to a woman based on your misguided views on how she should look, whether you would **** her, is something I find repulsive. There’s nothing wrong with admiring the opposite ***, but no one gives a **** about your stupid opinion, especially the woman.

I hope someday if I ever have a daughter that she will have the privilege of living in a country of gender equality, tolerance, and open-mindedness.

Anyway, I just wanted to put my two cents in.

I am a man.

I am a feminist.

Peace.

I grew up in a home
where words like "atheist" and "agnostic",
if uttered, were shoved under rugs
or place mats or quilt-work sentiments reading
       "God Bless This Home"
And so I too, would hide from those who hid
from God.

But then amongst the distaste and disregard of things
less than God,
I Became An Evangelist!
Ah, yes!
Because whose soul doesn't want to be saved
by a thirteen year old with a clever Christian
saying on his shirt that's a size too small?
But not only that, no.
I dragged my friends along with me.
We were, in fact, a regular children's crusade.

But I was a little bigot.
I pushed away those who
pushed away God,
shocked at the thought
that anyone could not believe
in what now seems
completely
unbelievable.
I even scorned the science teacher
who had the audacity to introduce
the evil of evolution.

I was on fire.

But then the Devil himself
put Kurt Vonnegut on my lap.
Yes, I accredit my loss of faith
to a crazy science fiction writer.
At least, he pushed the first domino.

And my God, I was afraid.
Afraid of feelings of distance
Afraid of questions that never seemed
to have an answer.
Afraid I was losing myself.

I struggled with the traditional questions, of course:
Why would a benevolent God send good people
to hell for not believing? Is he that insecure?
If he is omnipotent, wouldn't he know what
he was getting into when he created such sinful
little *****?
Why should we be indicted simply because we
were born?

How does He expect me to give Him my entire life?

Fast forward about four years.
I'm eating lunch with my oldest sister,
a philosophy major, no less.
She tells me how she experienced almost
the exact same thing I did.

And after an inward struggle of four years, finally I had the courage to admit my Agnosticism to myself.
I simply did not know.
How could I?

But now I'm left to deal with my friends,
and most of all my mother.

I should not feel guilty for my beliefs, or lack thereof.
I am an agnostic.
I am a humanist.

I am on fire.

I was asleep in the backseat.
At least I pretended be.

The man in the driver's seat
began to spill insecurities
on the cold steering wheel
and into the woman's ear
about how his children
judged him too harshly,
were too emotional.
That he'd done the best
he could with what
he knew.
That man was my father.
At least he pretended to be.

I was asleep in the backseat.
At least I pretended to be.
But my mind was wide awake
flashing angry colors I couldn't
comprehend.

I could not comprehend how
the man in the driver's seat
believed that his actions,
his infidelity,
would roll off his children's
shoulders like warm rain
water.

I could not comprehend how
he felt sorry for himself
because we would always see
him as the bad guy,
the cowboy with the black hat.

I could not comprehend how
he'd expected us to feel.

But we were all okay, now.
At least we pretended to be.

You will find nothing here.

I am a balloon in the slippery hand of
a child standing idle on the boardwalk
and in seconds or years I will be released
into the grey sky

And for a while I will fly there
Hell, I may even die there

But for now I'm lying in the darkness
letting the summer ants crawl on my skin
and in the s p a c e s between sad songs
i ask them their opinions

and they tell me
You will find nothing here.

When you live your life like I do you will find yourself assigning meaning to mundane things like broken shopping cart wheels and lonely cigarette butts in tired playgrounds.

You will dream of girls who sit in ***** hotel rooms letting the smell of smoke settle into their nest of messy brown hair and chemicals and guilt.

You will become envious of Dorothy and empathetic for the Tin Man.

You may begin to dabble in the dark arts of poetry but will never quite grasp the art of conversation.

You will live in fantasies of romances with girls who live in fantasies filled with music, and you will die in them.

You will demand happiness for all the broken girls at the expense of your own

Don't live your life like I do.

A girl with dark hair and true eyes.
A girl wrapped gracefully in self-confidence
and unconventional beauty.
A girl with a heart so heavy it takes two to hold,
and with a hole in her soul she tries to fill
with poetry and sad music.
A girl who will sit on the floor
at odd hours and listen to old records
and not say a word.

Seeking:
A girl who knows how to love
but just barely.
A girl who is too **** sad to care
because I can't care either.
A girl who knows I can't love
and will learn not to love me.
A girl who will lie next to me
and lie to my face.

Seeking:
A girl.
A warm body and a soft pair of lips.

Forget everything you thought you knew about love
because I'm here to tell you that love is poison.
It's in all of us.
Killing us.
Making us depressed
and discontent.
But the anti-venom
is the poison of someone else.
Someone who will let you cut them open
and see all the filth inside them
and you will drink their poison.
it will be bitter
and sweet.
It will be strong at times,
and sour at others
but you will drink it.
All of it.
and they will drink yours.

When the earth is quiet

And the children stop laughing

I swear I can hear God breathing.

And it seems to me that He

Is struggling for breath

The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that love is inescapable.

Love will find you. Find you naked, shaking in your darkest caverns clinging to heartbreak and faded polaroids with trembling hands. Find you locked up in towers fortified with fear. Find you upside-down. Find you alone once again walking the streets at one in the morning praying for street lights to fade behind you. Find you standing before tombstones or ice cream trucks or a preacher man. Find you hiding from your mother or God or both. Love will find you.

Love will take you. Take you to the place you parked your car that night and noticed for the first time the way their skin in the moonlight had the unspoken power to shatter your own. Take you through the annals and ventricles of your heart and peel away at the scars like super-glued band-aids. Take you to the hills and home again. Love will take you.

Love will bind you. Bind you to your family like the pages in the cookbook your mother used to prepare your favorite meal. Bind you to the girl who makes you shake when she's cold or the boy with eyes warm and clear blue like hot springs. Bind you to yourself. Love will bind you.

Love will break you. Break you down to jigsaw puzzle pieces your grandparents attempt on Friday nights, hands shaking with arthritis, and leave you incomplete. Break you away from your callused convictions and shove a blunt fist into your softest spots and leave you covered in scratches. Break you the way earthquakes break buildings or alcohol breaks families and bones; unforgivably, irreparably. Love will break you.

Love, desperate and strong, simple and tenacious, fiery and fierce.
Love will find you, take you, bind you, and break you.

And you will not escape.

Before you fall in love with me
you should learn a few things,

like how to live in a shell of thunder storms
or in the breath battered by
whatever drink I could get my
trembling hands on,
you should make yourself at home
so I can too

You should learn how to adjust
your naive eyes to the
darkness in mine
so you can see what lies behind,
so you don't become afraid and hide
and in turn I will reveal myself

You should learn to swim
in my silences, deep
and cold enough to make
your china skin turn blue
and I will hold you in
fiery fingertips
until you're warm

You should learn to live subtly
not only in my reality
but in between the lines
of the sullen poetry
that I write mostly about you
and I will promise you every word

You should learn to push back
with every fiber of your perfect being
when my thoughts get heavy
and I push you so,
so far away