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.

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.

You know
I still remember the sweet release of quiet chemicals
into my pulsating brain
the first time I kissed you.

You know
I won't soon forget.

You know
I still feel the silent tingle of your words
on my skin.
Desperate hands reaching, longing for you.

And you know
I can feel the warmth of the sunlight falling through your bedroom window
delicately wrapping us up together
while your head rested on my chest.

I can always smell your hair
when I inhale
and I love you
when I exhale.

But you know that.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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."

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

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 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 watched the sun quietly collapse
and heard it plea through gasping breaths
for a few final seconds to repent.

What a thing of beauty.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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."

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

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

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