Last night you told me that
you don't want to go to school anymore
and i've never loved you more.
Your life is better than college
your life can grow past purchased
knowledge.
You are so full of light
and i would hate it to be contained
within mason jars.

I don't know if I'm sad about it
but I want to be there.
I want to be there when you get what you want
I know it will happen.
I want to be there when you don't
I want to be the one who helps you through.

I want to hold your heart in mine
until our lives decay

you helped me find my voice
I will not easily discard it
and your "suggestions" resemble commands
what you call a comfort zone
is me
my feelings
my way of thinking and speaking
my representations to the world
declarations of who and what
I am
contentment can be found there
for there is peace in me
success is formulated
not in well-rounded-ness
but in focusing on one's strengths
and many of my poems were not written
in or for comfort
they were labored in life's pain
I can write in other voices
the full human spectrum is inside us all
I can try different styles and forms
experiments and departures
I have a whole heart
with lifetimes of experience
to draw upon
but in the long run
in the end
even posthumously
I can be only me

poetry is heart speaking
her deepest wisdom
or lightest whimsy
traditional form or free verse
let souls sing
sprinkle metaphor and simile
if you are a poet, write like one
words are music
let them breeze like a melody
color with mix-matched sensory
don’t stay inside the lines
see sounds with eyes closed
hear flickering of fireflies’ light
smell beauty in distant mountains
taste majesty of flowers’ bloom
touch forgiveness
bring personification to life
“she” is much sweeter than “it”
and a seat cushion may have a roundness to her
throw in some high speech
make someone grab a lexicon
delete those extra words
‘I’s and ‘the’s especially
alliteration can create cacophonic chorus
while similar sounds of assonance
tie hoards and scores of words together
although there are no rules
try your best to use poetry’s tools
with this above all else:
let your truth ring
let your insights and revelations
be a healing to self and reader
let experiences resonate in hearts
and harmonize voices

my eyes are heavy
my head is cloudy and sad
it was a long day

bones and skin
hair and teeth
eyes and lips
hands and feet

i've been dreaming a lot during the day
and less and less while i sleep
i've been thinking a lot about your fingertips
and the way that they're shaped like the end of a butter knife

i've been walking around my living room in circles at night
losing my mind somewhere between the sofa and the out of tune piano
i've been staring into the sun for hours in the morning
staying in bed and dreaming of daylight that never fades

i've been kissing your eyelids in my mind
while your eyes are open and laughing somewhere far from me
i've been humming the tunes of my past
now my bird is too and i'm afraid i'll never forget

For the same reasons that I stay hungry
for dinner and tired for bed, I keep my
heart a little lonely for poetry; that way,
I can imagine your weathered hands against
my pale thighs as clinging starfish – my
fingernails, bleached cockleshells washed up
on the barely evening beach of your back.

You had your words and I had mine.
But where your words were beautifully crafted,
mine were a jumbled mess.

“I don’t know why...”

Wait.

That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever written.
I know exactly–
Why I don’t write.
Why I can’t write.
Why I’m terrified to write.

Every time I open my laptop–
I’m loading that hollow point bullet into
the cylinder, giving it a casual last roll,
and pressing the muzzle to my temple

Every time I push my pen to the paper–
I’m finishing up that thirteenth rung on a
noose and slipping it tightly over my throat,
standing at the edge of the seat, waiting to take a step.

Every time I think–
Every time I write–
I hesitate.

And you make it sound so simple.

You can pull a beautiful phrase from the skyline
and have a masterpiece in minutes,
while I set here scheming for hours;
trying to expel just a word or two from my consciousness.

It really ****** me off that you can do that.

You know?