I was born on a belt
In the factory of man,
Rolled into a home,
Labeled and stamped.

My life was made honest
By ink on a page,
And my future controlled
By a system of wage.

My whole life thus far,
Two decades of lame,
Incompetent bureaucratic,
Institutional reign

Has seen us shuffled down
The educational lane,
Made unified products;
For unified gain.

I can lay
right next to you
and never touch you

I can see you smile
from across the room
without kissing you

I can watch you
leave the room
and resist hugging you goodbye

But sometimes
when I'm next to you
you have to ask me to move away

Because for a few minutes
I let fantasy get confused with reality
and I lean against you during a movie

And it's so warm
your arm and mine, touching
for that minute I'm at peace

But when you ask
of course I make room
Because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable

And if you weren't my friend
I would probably try it
just once, to know what it would be like to kiss you

But ideally,
I'll get over this
and when I am, we'll still be friends

So in the meantime
I try not to think about kissing you
and I only hug you when I have reason to

What I'm saying is
I will do what I can
to keep myself sane and our friendship intact

But just know
that with every look I give
I wish I could give so much more.

She stands there on the corner
Looking at you with a fixed stare.

You stare back.
As if to say "What do you want freak?"

She just stands there.
On that corner.

What you don't realize is
How BROKEN she is

You just see a girl who looks calm.
But she's crying on the inside.

Don't just stand there unknowingly.
Go talk to her.

Maybe she needs a FRIEND to make her SMILE again.
You just might help HEAL her broken heart.

When the heart
is in a state
of collapse, it
failsafes
to stone. It
Hardens, then
Breaks, it
Explodes,
but not
Into pieces,
Just inside,
It releases pain
Within.
Don’t
Be wary of explosion
Fear,
The unexploded.