Welcome home to me, my love
In this autumn gilded bright
The summer's lonely skies above
Are flecked with fresh and flaming light.

I'm glad to see you safe, my dear
The unspoken words still true
I'm glad to see our friendship here
Revived from across the ocean blue.

It's sad to see you torn apart,
It's good to see you home again.
I hope to spare your battered heart
From an ounce of unshared pain.

I cannot always walk with you
You cannot always lean on me.
But I know somehow you'll make it through
To become what I cannot be.

Words are beautiful,
Precious things.

Please, respect them.
Think of all the books
That have been banned,
All the hopes and dreams and fears
Silent, or just
Unexpressed
Because the language we had,
The language we have shaped,
Was not enough.

"u" is not "you."
"&" is not "and."
"your" is not "you're."

I understand, in the world of cell phones
Of impatience
We want to get to the next word,
Already.
But stop for a moment,
Savor the taste of you,
Think about all that the word
Could ever mean
To poets
To lovers
To loneliness.

It is so much more than a letter.
And although the world is profaned,
I beg of you,
As a writer,
As a person,
As words on a stark white background,
Profane no more.

I will keep pushing myself.
Keep going.
I will read Edmund Spenser,
Shakespeare, Wilde,
Shelley, Doyle, and CS Lewis
By the end of the summer.
You laugh.
Two weeks, one book a day, it isn't hard.
I only have four chapters of chemistry to finish,
Two chapters of AP Physics,
Four chapters of AP US history,
My personal reading list,
Four debate cases,
And a little light reading
(Judith Butler and Ayn Rand).
I WILL finish everything I have to do.
Refill the coffee ***.
I'll use more eyedrops.
Two weeks.
I will finish my summer homework.

Writing is all I do.
It is who I am, the dialogue
Spinning through my mind
Every moment of every day.
It is all I see.
My life in words.
But I have to write about things.
Stories, always stories.
That’s what you’re supposed to write
That’s what people read.
But why?
So much noise in a story.
The colors and the worlds
And the loud, loud people
That aren’t people, they’re just a waste
Of ink and paper and hope and love
And the stupid, stupid readers fall for it
And believe it’s somehow true
And it’s just so much noise.
My poems are my soul
What I really think
Said plainly,
No mouthpieces
No wasted love on those stupid things
The imposter people.
This is me.
Black and white.
Insecure.
Unsure and imperfect
But honest, always true.
Look.
Read.
Know, this is what I do, what I am
Born to write
And do it badly
Knowing no one cares.

Bleeding inside
Like a clock, each tick
A silent sob, converted to noise
Noise that isn’t sound
Isn’t important
All it is
Is relief from the silence.

We want to be loved
We want to be found.
Each of us, alone as we are,
Unique, longing to be the same,
Longing to be together.
We love each other,
Give all we have away
Fall in love with everything
We lay our desperate eyes on --
The hills, the sky, the sea
We forget the spin of the earth
And the scythe of the end
And the burning words has been
For a little while
Consumed in the beauty
Of a soft summer evening
Glowing in the palace of memory,
Locked away for safekeeping.
We are misers of happiness
We bargain for empty joy
All we are, fleeting
Hollow.
Echoing in the winds of time,
Singing and laughing
Silently.

We are unique.
We want to fit in.
To be inside, to be known.
And so we act like we are.
Like everything’s okay.
Like a little girl dresses up like a princess,
Because that’s what she wants to be.
And for a little while, we’re happy.
But then we have to grow up,
Then we have to change, and find
Something different.
But we want something that lasts
Through the years
Through the centuries and eons,
Because our immortal souls
Long for the solid horizon
Of this storm-tossed sea.

What keeps you here?
Why do you keep treading water,
Keep looking around,
Like a ship will come soaring out of the fog
To rescue you?
Do you want to be rescued?
Or is the silence of the summer day
Locked away inside you
Good enough?
Are you good enough?
Is that all you want to be?

I want to be known.
Knowing is not enough anymore
Anyone can know something, can look in.
I want to be inside
Accepted, held
To know what I’ve never known
To walk along a glassy shore
With one who loves me.
To be forgiven, always and completely
Forgiven what I am.

But I don’t know how to say it
It feels heavy and immaterial
Like the silence in between the words
When the words don’t say anything
But suddenly they have meaning.
Between the moments you’re
Totally immersed in the living world
With all those people
Suddenly you stop
Suddenly you’re alive
You breathe
And see
You’re not alone.

The Northern wind brings storm tonight
Stirring the clouds with veiled light
The lightning cracks upon the grey
And shatters the dim twilight away
Rolling in upon its wings
In throaty roar, the thunder sings
The voices of dragons, lost and old
Ring out tonight in freedom bold.

They play with wind, and play with rain
And dance upon its midnight strain
Rev'ling in its freedom high
Drunk upon their battle cry
They hover now, on whirling clouds
Behind their dusty, swollen shrouds
Tonight the storm upon the hill
Echoes the dragons' voice and will.

Is this all we are
Creatures destined
To fight, and die, bleeding from the wounds
Of battles long and weary
Taking up weapon after weapon
Just to get ahead
No matter how much they weigh us down --

Is this all we are?
Afraid?
A people terrified of their own nature
Of their own kind
And the world they have created?
Children, crying in the dark
Just to be heard
As though somehow that will make it better --

Is this all we have?
Our steel and iron
In the night around us,
Until the dawn of the end
Slowly replaces hate with wisdom
And anger with regret
Until we are old men dying alone?

Or is there more?




There is more.
There is light.
There is fire and blazing heat and glory.
Just look around.
We are right to be afraid --
Afraid of people, afraid of ourselves --
Because we blaze
With the power of immortality.
We are wrong to surrender.
Wrong to give in.
Let the fire of your soul shine out
In the cold and the dark
Feel the thrilling beat
Of your mortal heart
And your immortal soul
The flood of love and pain and joy
And the life that makes you alive.