my cousin loved to read and write
she said she liked fantasy better
she never understand the hate and fight
and i couldn’t explain through a letter

my sister said my cousin sang and sang and still could not be heard
and my mother said that in this way, she was a mockingbird

once i read a book that said
it's a sin to **** her kind
i told my father this one day
but he did not reply

she does not a thing but think beautiful thoughts
and fill others with wonder
and yet once she told me that if people were water
she would have already been pulled under

so how can i blame my cousin
when she tells me she hates these lives
because at least she knows there is no chance
of the miracle they claim arrives




*last night my cousin called me
i think she tried to say goodbye
but i could not hear myself respond
my mother heard me cry

i wish i could have stopped her
and i wish she’d had a chance
but instead she was a pretty mind
that no one gave a glance

a shadow of a person
a glimpse of sun behind the clouds
she was always half a person
she hides even now behind her shrouds

my cousin loved to read and write
and my mother always said
your cousin was a mockingbird
nobody listened and now she’s dead.

it is so easy to find things that don’t belong together,
to find opposites,
fire and water,
young and old,
fear and bravery,
there are millions,
and it is just assumed that those things do not go together,
because they are different, complete opposites even, and that is irreversible,
and because of this, nobody stops to think about why they need each other,
nobody thinks about how fire needs the water to contain its flame,
or how the young need their elders to teach them,
or even how, to be brave, you cannot be fearless, to be fearless would make you un-human,
and i think that if we understood that about each other,
that we need one another to become stronger, that our differences can help us,
we would stop trying to separate ourselves and only place ourselves with people like us,
people we don’t have to worry about risk, or hurt, or loyalty with,
but maybe if we became a little braver and started going after people we know it won’t be easy with, maybe that’s what will work out in the end,
and maybe opposites don’t attract,
but so what,
maybe that person who makes everything a little harder will wind up worth it,
maybe they’re the fear to your brave.

Freedom:

1. The state of being free or at liberty; independent.

2. The power to determine action without restraint

isn't it odd

how one word can be so different from itself


Power:

1. A great or marked ability to do or act; strength

2. The possession of control or command over others

how a word can so easily contradict itself

Confidence:

1. Belief in oneself and one's power and abilities

2. Presumption; Impudence

isn't it horribly ironic

Independence:

1. Not influenced or controlled by others in matter of opinion or conduct

2. Rejecting others aid or support; reclusive

that something so beautiful, can mean something so different

without even

*changing the letters

If it were possible to hasten life
To blur the years, and daytime into night,
Regret would be our lonely widowed wife
Ourselves soldiers with nothing left to fight

Why then, is it common to demand love
To place stiff bars around the fair and pure
Encounter it only to let go of
You cannot push what is not yet secure

It is not a trapped bird to just observe
Its song is clear, the echo of a breath
It’s touch is something that we all deserve
For without love, life just waits for it’s death

Love is free it cannot be ours to choose
Let it be, love is our limitless muse

I am a raindrop
falling falling falling
too high to believe there is an end to this journey
but too soon the ground comes into view
and i am drowning
drowning in myself
in the water i was created with
i cannot swim
and i am breaking as i fall
breaking before i even touch the surface of the earth

i shatter

and the last thought i can recall
is the disbelief that i am hated
that i am unwanted
that i am cast away with the wind
by everyone who meets me
this small broken piece of nature
that i am

and i am hated
even though i have just fallen to pieces

i have just shattered like glass

and i am still thrown away from the shelter
i so desperately need

because i am a storm,
too fragile,
always too fragile

and i have fallen.

White walls always closing in,
too bright lights make it impossible to see hope,
prayers hang suspended in the air,
never coming, never going,
the walls have taken them prisoner as well,
each second is more painful than the last,
wondering if this could be the last time,
I see the glimmer in your eyes,
and constantly fearing the moment
when I will learn to tell the difference
between slumber and death,
guilt is always present,
loitering in the corners of the too bright walls,
faults that cannot be proven,
but they are given all the same,
children walk with tired feet,
and at times it is almost easy to see their hearts slowing down,
along with their will to fight,
these too bright walls are a sad imitation
of the energy and cleanliness they supposedly represent,
because this place, is filled with the weakest people I have ever seen,
and every day the moment comes,
when in these small white rooms,
the beat goes still in a heart that has already given up,
and the thoughts leave a mind that was already long lost,
and everyday another arrives to take the last one’s empty spot,
and it is only a race to see who can outlast who,
and who has the desire to try at all.

She left with beauty and pride
and with tragic goodbyes
that lingered a moment
before the wind carried them away
and for days she went,
without hesitation, and without mistake
and not a single seed of doubt
was planted in her peoples minds

and perhaps
it was this feeling of infallibility,
that caused her defeat,
for her peoples faith had been her destruction
and as the realization
of how wrong they had been
began to sink in
the music played on

and while the haunting cries for mercy were heard
and the whispers of childrens stories
were told calmly in the midst of chaos
the music played on
until the last ragged breath
of thousands
was let out in a broken shudder
the music played on,

and on, until it was only an echo.

im drunk im sure
because i cant remember whose picture i burned
earlier this morning when it was still dark out
and i really dont want to

because if i start to remember
i might break my promise
that i made someone

the one i can't remember
and i might start to break myself  

and if i break
i might finally wake up after all these years
but i think that i'd really rather stay
drunk on my own tears

i can hear them at night
and i can see them in the morning
when the sun struggles to the sky
and it’s rays flicker and dip lower than i’ve ever seen them

everything is so tired

they’re crying and they’re hungry and cold and
lost they are so lost
and they’re everywhere
burning out

there is so much regret

and i think i am the last person
who still remembers how it felt
to love the smell of the ocean
and the feel of a book coming to life in your hands

this is so wrong

right now, this moment, is the only real thing anymore i think
but i wish it wasn’t
because these people are living off their last  hope for humanity

and humanity is taking its last breath

and this cannot be real
and this pain this pain this pain cannot exist
but it is
and it does

i think.

I’m sorry

that the chills live on the bones in your spine
and that they invade the soft skin that rests upon your neck


I am sorry

that the frost finds you at night
and whispers lies in your ear, and i’m sorry you believe them

I am so sorry.

you are not damaged
and you will always matter

but you do not know that
not after they not after i told you differently

....................................................­..................

and i hate that the snow stays frozen in your pockets
the same snow that has been there for years

you are so cold, so cold
i don’t feel your stares anymore

i don’t think you feel at all

i guess you’ve been this way a while now
i can see your breath when you speak

but you don’t speak very often
not anymore

i think your heart might be stopping
i think it might’ve stopped

encased in a jail made of icicles
that i planted there

i am so sorry
i am so sorry

look at what you’ve become
a hollow body with a crippled heart

and a love so painfully numb.

They told me you were all wrong
that you fought a war inside your head
but you couldn't pick a side

they said you remembered your past
but your eyes said you wish you didn't
and i suppose that i cannot blame you

because who would want to remember
the hatred that chained them for so long
and know it is their fault they cannot break free

they said you forgot how to feel
and they told me you were broken
like you were a machine or a piece of glass

but no, i cannot blame you
for thinking the mistake you made
was yourself

but i know you were not broken
and i know you felt things
more passionate than any other

but i do not blame you
for finding a way out
of those chains that bound you to your war

so as the tears roll down my cheeks hot and angry
i can only blame myself
and i know that my biggest mistake

was you

I have sat still at night
and watched the stars
hazy and only half there
because of the city lights
that seem to shine a little brighter

and often i have paced
back and forth at 2am
listening to the quiet drone of rain
that is drowned out by the cars
driving people to places they don’t want to be

and once in awhile
i wake up to soft light bleeding into my room
casting shadows on my walls
but the curtain that is drawn
blocks the morning rays
and it is not enough to wake me up

and it is not enough
to glimpse the stars
and have reason to believe
it is not a star at all
but only a mere reflection

and it is not enough
to see the rain fall
but without sound
like a silent serenade
overrun by loud machinery
that doesn’t hold the same grace

and these ******* curtains
that we hang from our windows
they’re killing us
we are not awake
and we are becoming blind
and adjusting to the darkness

it is not enough
not for me
this world is not enough

and the saddest moment
i have ever experienced
is the realization
that the world is not the problem

but we are

and we will be the ruin of ourselves
and everything around us.

The land that has long ago forgotten the smell of dampened Earth
is the land that I call mine
and it is on this land that I was raised and taught that there is no such thing as miracles
but it is on this land that I have wished on an infinite amount of stars to witness just one

My mama used to say the bible was her savior
and she read it to me every night before I fell asleep
but now mama’s bible sits on a dusty shelf rotting away
along with everything else she gave up on

I can still remember the story of Jesus though,
and how He loved us enough to die
and I cannot think of a braver thing to do,
so I pray, and hope for a miracle

but as the weeks passed
the heat began to creep into my mind
and I could not hear my heartbeat over the sound of the war that dictated our little town
desperate for a single drop of reassurance

but it would not come
and we all knew it
so we began to hate each other
and the life we did not choose
and perhaps it was all this hate
that caused the day to come
the day we had prayed for,
for so long that we had forgotten it was still a possibility
the day we looked up to the sky
and saw the shadow fall over our land
the day we looked past our little war
was the day God began to cry

Tears like jewels from heaven fell
shattering us out of our daze
and this was the day
I witnessed a miracle

and after the shouts of thanks had passed
all I could think about was
how ironic it all is
that we are saved, only because of the pain we create.