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.

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

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?

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 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.

A man walks into a bar...
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
A man walks into a bar,
the same bar every night.
The same seat,
the same drink,
The same friend by his side.
Swallows his fear and chases with beer
and fumbles with the question:
"Why are we here?"
His friend snorts and he spits
and he laughs and he chokes.
The man says,
"What if my life was merely a joke?"

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

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.

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

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

Now you're breathing champagne
I can feel it sparkle on my skin
while you revel in the falseness
of forgivable sin

Now I can feel the air around you
deflate and search for words
to stop your own from hemorrhaging
and to heal whatever hurts

Now you're breathing champagne
while you stumble to the places you once called home
like the park behind my house
and the west end record store

Now you can feel the world behind you
nipping at your heels
like the hundred hungry hounds
and the weapons they conceal

Now you're breathing champagne
like it's oxygen
and you are
lost at sea.

I wrote a note on the bottom of the bottle
you can read when you're in pain
"keep the memories in your chest
and keep breathing champagne."

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

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.

They told me you had a past, and I guess I should have listened.
But who was I to deny the way you cried when your laughter was genuine?
  And I think I fell in love with you when you played your violin
But the music you played no longer resonates in me.

  You told me about your past, because I was the first one that would listen.
And I saw pain in your eyes that I wanted to steal and inflict upon the man that broke you.
  But you told me you were not broken, and I apologized in my head.
Not because you were right, but because I could not fix you.

  And for a short time I lived in the confessions you made while we drove through dirt roads
But now I reside in the first time you told me you were addicted to me
  And I wonder how easy it was for you to quit cold turkey
Because it's almost impossible for me to quit you.

  I told you that I'm empty and you told me you didn't think you'd ever be happy
And it felt like a shot to the heart because that's all I ever wanted to do for you.

  And now I'm not quite convinced there is a cure for what's ailing us.
Other than every moment you spent in my arms,
  the smell of your hair,
and each other.

Hey,
It's me again.
I just called to say
I miss the way
you'd sigh
when you kissed me

Do you remember
the night I offered
you the moon? You
refused, so I stole you
the sun instead
and you laughed.

I know it's late
and yeah, I've had
a few. You know it
makes me think
of you
and the music
of your breath
escaping and
expanding in the
cold air.

I can still smell you sometimes,
when the world is particularly empty.

I won't call again.
I just wanted to tell you
Goodbye. I love you. Goodbye.
Enjoy the Sun.

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

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've recently fallen into an elite group of individuals: youth diagnosed with depression by their mothers.

I can't argue with her; she is licensed.

But I can't help but feel that my case is different, minor in comparison. I'd like to call it loneliness but it's more developed than that.

It's like a cancer that started in my fingertips when they realized there was nothing to hold on to, and has since spread to my heart or my brain, whichever is responsible for the distribution of numbness to my bones and vital organs.. I'll call it 3rd stage loneliness. I'm saving calling it the 4th stage for when it starts to feel terminal.

"Lonely" is kind of a **** of a word, like "love," or "beautiful." I think people like to use "lonely" like teens use cigarettes. It taste good when it falls off the tongue. And by my observation, they both cause cancer.

Everyone wants to be "lonely" but no one wants to be alone.
So I've put it upon myself to separate loneliness into subcategories, based on mortality rate.

If you're wondering why I'm lonely, don't bother. I'm wondering the same. I have friends a family that loves me, and the rest of the chemo-esque **** that's suppose to nurture you back to health. But
I've still got that tumor buried under my skin where no one cares to look.

I ain't got many friends I can talk to.

I've concocted a list of side effects of 3rd stage loneliness, if you're interested:
1.) Insomnia - the inability to completely shut the third eye on your skull because it persists on looking to the future.
2.) Selective Hearing - the inability to listen to supposedly happy music and instead sulk with the sounds of Bon Iver or Bright Eyes ricocheting through the canals of your brain. Music your friends "probably haven't heard of"
3.) Loss of Appetite - Don't worry, you still crave food and other survival necessities. You simply lose the appetite to expand through the universe. Loss of Ambition, as the form would say.
4.) Improved Acting Skills - You'll eventually learn to manipulate the stringy muscles in your face to pull up the corners of your lips when you feel you are expected to. Not all side effects are bad.


I am not one of those darkly dressing teenagers that complains with visible angst about being misunderstood. But I do have the hair for it.

I am not suicidal. Maybe I would be, but I seem to have been struck particularly hard by Side Effect #3.

But at first mention of depression you can see their faces squirm and contort to resemble a clumsy soldier tap-dancing through a minefield, while simultaneously conducting open-heart surgery on himself.

5.) Exaggeration.

This poem is not meant to sadden, to depress. It is simply for the public awareness of 3rd stage loneliness. If you know someone suffering from this disease, please call this hotline:

1-800-462-5663
(1-800-IMA-LONE)


The more you know...

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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

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.

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 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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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