I'm still awake
Still, as the cold seeps into my bones
And my candle gave up an hour ago
I toss like a raft in an ocean
Puppet of the waves, and yet riding above them.

Sing to me, please
Like you did when I was a child
When I still believed in God
When I didn't hate myself
Before I poured myself out for others to ignore.

I miss you
I will choke my pride and say it
Because the missing is more bitter than my ego.
I miss the way the world would sing
Vibrating with a passionate harmony.

I'm still young
But I feel very, very old
Weighed down with selfishness
Already wasting away as my blood peeks out
From the perfect razor lines on my skin.
Will anything ever change?
There are too many years left,
If this is all there is.
I miss you.
And I don't even know who you are.

The very blood in my veins looks for you,
Spinning around and around with
Every beat in my heart
Until it finds an exit and bleeds out
Just for the hope
Of hearing you sing
One last time.

Hands on the wheel
window half open
I stare down the road into the perfect golden sunset
toward the city and the sea
the verdant spring forcefully blooming me into mania
the radio singing me onward
All I want, all I ever wanted
to leave
I have my debit card and a full tank of gas
I can go anywhere.

I sigh
pull onto the exit
and drive slowly home.

The ocean plunges, deep as death
Purging, hating, human breath
The ******* current licks upon
The sand, once gold as Avalon
Unsated tide that never rests
But in my unmoving chest
The aching ocean meets the shore
Stained with blood, demanding more,
Sharpens its pink coral knives
To shear from home our mortal lives
Not content to obey Fate
It must instead hold seperate
The earth and sky, the man and soul
Far from the land with deadly shoal
Rend from his precious love and home
Stretch into lonely unknown
Savor his hopeless, dying sighs!
Scorn the free, wide-open skies,
Strike his heart to burning core
And his echoes, nevermore
Shall carry over your grey waves
As you betray the heart that craves
The freedom of your blue embrace
And escape from mortal ways.

Everyone deserves to die
For something or other
Every man is a murderer
Every woman a *****
In that we take what is not ours
And do what we must, to get what we want
And what we need
To keep going
Stealing seconds
Slivers of breaths
Slivers of sleep, shattered by
Screaming-silent dreams
By the roaring fires over which we dance
Caught in this beautiful
Nightmare
Caught sleeping in the
Inferno
With only one way out

The snow used to be sparkling and white
Now it's grey
Worn thin by the lukewarm days
Tired of pretending it's Christmas already.

The birds don't sing anymore
And I don't blame them
It's cold and the sun has gone into hibernation
Nobody is outside to hear them anyway.

The scars on my wrist are healing
Just in time for my concert
Good. I don't want to explain.
I'm tired of pretending as it is.

4.0 student, captain of debate team
Painfully, incredibly lonely
Like the birds, hiding in the bushes
Waiting out the winter
Nobody's around to hear me sing anyway.

The snow is grey, worn thin with impatience
Tired
So very, very tired.

The sky is damp as a sodden t-shirt
Worn running into a hose
On the green of summer lawns

The sky is grey as a crone's tight bun
Conservative and chilled
Knowing summer's youth is done

The sky is proud as an archaic monarch
Much-loved, and yet much-feared
Intangible, yet all-encompassing

The sky is not friendly
It is not warm
But it is constant
Through summer days
Through greying hairs
Through the tumbling of kings

I stare at the ceiling and
love myself
for a change

It feels incredible
to be loved by someone
who knows me as I know
myself

Broken as a
                      stubbed
toe

Lines broken off
                             in the
    wrong
                      place

Falling
                 into
     what            would
                  be
                           love  
       if
                anything
    existed
at
           all.

No more nostalgia!
I will not sleep tonight
There's too many books to read
Too many friends to make
To many things to say and regret
And make up for
Before I die
Or grow up
I am flying down the steel tracks of my life
At a thousand miles an hour
Memorizing speeches and vocabulary words
Hugging strangers
And being me.
There is no time to hang off the end of the caboose
And stare at the things I didn't see earlier.
I want to stand with my arms out,
Feeling the wind wash me away.

When not being sad makes you confused
You're doing it wrong.
Let yourself be happy
Give yourself permission
To define yourself now
Instead of trying to figure out who you are
By what you have done.

I don't have an answer to the question
"Who am I?"
Right now.
But I don't care, because for now
I am free.

I am a child
Sleeping in a bed I don't belong in
Listening to the parents talk
About Stocks and Physics and Money and Future
And I hear how I must go to college
And be a scientist
Because that is what Good Kids do.

I am a student
Who confuses my teachers
Who loves learning and hates school
Who loves books  and not letters
Whose friends don't know her and who doesn't make new ones
And fades to the background
And observes from the outside.

I am a traveler
Who was accepted, once
Who walked the streets of Mexico and Germany and England and France
And then it was a dream
And I was at home
Where I didn't belong.

I was a daughter
Who didn't go to college
And saw strange sights and loved strange men
And confused my teachers
And left my parents
And made new friends
And learned about the whole world.

A world I didn't belong in.

But I decided
It's okay.

I'm not in love with anyone right now
and to be honest
it's pretty boring

I don't know who you are
But you're reading this,
For one reason or another.
Whether you're halfway across the globe,
We have something in common right now.
And I just wanted to say,
You're amazing.

The sunset paints the hills with gold
As summer fades the velvet green
And reminiscence takes a hold
On all that was, and might have been.

The music beats like a trembling heart
like a baby bird, naked and ugly
fallen and trying to fly.
The pen scratches, my favorite one
spilling green blood
on the cheap white notebook's skin,
my immature secrets
into a listening ear.
I strain forward, to the east
incessantly
thinking of someone.
Maybe this obsession has gone far enough.
I thought it would fix me, be good
to think about someone else for a while.
But it was too much, in the end.
My best friend said, "A crutch
will only make you weaker.
And eventually, it will break."

Are you happy now? You always loved
being right.

I feel my beating heart
and in between pulses
I see you all
feeling your own hearts
washed in midnight glow of computer screens
shining from your pupils.
Human
not abstract
Real
and very much
Alive.

Your love is terrifying
It leaves me clinging to the earth
Dizzy, reeling with gravity
It leads me outside at midnight
To climb a mountain and watch the city
Sleep

Your power is thrilling
Your silence all-consuming
Your spirit a tongue of fire
Burning in my soul
I stepped upon the holy ground
Alone

Never alone, looking at the sky
Looking into your eyes
At two AM, in the rain
Being washed, being filled
Your call deafens me, I will follow you
Forever.

This is
me,
standing before the crowded room, exhausted, uncertain, offbeat
the sound of applause at my name
the face of my friend as I
step forward
look around
and begin.

This is
looking out over a group of 600 high schoolers below me
taking in a breath and feeling it liven my lungs
feeling tall and powerful and free
and home.

This is
awards ceremonies at one in the morning
standing on a stage before 600 people, stepping forward
hugging the friend who watched me read, striding up again
to take the prize for my team --
my family.

This is
realizing that some time in the last six hours I have fallen in love
with my opponent
as he steps forward to claim his prize

This is
smiling so hard my face hurts and hugging strangers and feeling okay
This is
reading poetry for a room of strangers
This is
realizing that my voice has not failed me.

I feel motion sick
Even when I'm not moving
I wonder:
Is it physical,
A side effect of the medication;
Or is it in my soul?

I'm looking for someone
but I don't know how to phrase it

The sea is dead so
come on and take a swim
let it pull you down
meet the horrors of the deep
let your laughter end their sleep
      as you drown.

The world is dying but
you seem just fine.
Somehow you are happy here
bafflingly impervious
to ethereal delirias
      and cosmic fear.

There's no such thing as wandering
There's no such thing as home
There's only this moment of existence
This feeling in my bones
There's asphalt shining in the rain
Colors brighter than they were
There's coffee stains and rising steam
And music you can't hear
There's friends who've forgotten who you are
And strangers who memorize your face
When you forget your family's birthdays
And you're proud of second place
Home's already fading
As the future eclipses the past
The road is endlessly winding
Nothing feels as good as being lost.

Words won't come
To tell you how I feel
All I can do is smile when you talk to me
And try to be myself
And hope you notice.