My ascent into adulthood was just that, an ascent. It has come slowly with little consistency and massive amounts of determination, stamina, and a reassuring trust in the universe. But the idea of adulthood has slipped its way into my expanding comfort zone with ease, which I think has come from the preparation I received throughout my childhood. The importance of perseverance and hard work in achieving anything at all was beyond emphasized in the parenting techniques of my immigrant mother and father. They sent the babies straight from their unemployed bellies into the best forms of higher education they could find because
My achieving of adulthood was more of just a gradual shift in mentality and perspective that developed into my addiction to change and new experiences, distaste for dependence, and denial of my previous nostalgic tendencies.
With more maturity also came a more logical understanding of the world around me. The more I understood the working ways of my surroundings, physical and psychological, the better I could feel my drive to achieve. The achievement I sought was not economic or career oriented in any aspect. It was based off of my ceaseless search for something new or for the rad or for the gnar or for swagger or for living a life that could inspire a minimum of 3 people including myself. The seed of this search was planted in me during my childhood by my five older siblings who all held within their bellies a fire of the same breed.

I am a yeti
I am the mosquito king
I am a continent
I am a too hot hot tub
I am Batman
I am a tick on a deer
I am the fourth of July
I am short term memory loss
I am a corpse
I am nightmare hot dogs
I am a bad dream
I am a billion kajillion bucks
I am Big Country
I am parachute pants
I am hatred
I am everyone else
But myself.
I am the mountains and trees,
a growl of the wind even.
Where are they, where is everyone?
I'm right here.

The lizards sip tea on saturday afternoons
and discuss the bourgeoisie
and the effects of the French Revolution on their political stability.

Rabbits sniff their butts and eat their ****
because the sake of science calls for it,
they know that better than humanity.

The monkey's choice to live without clothing
was conscious and
involved their understanding of their roles in the delicate ecosystem.

Ants live without emotional attachment
Because before they evolved
Too many died from broken hearts
and they realized it wasnt worth it.

Trees dream every night of the places that birds whisper about in their branches
and cry at the corpses that go unburied at their feet.

As humans go,
they live lives climbing not to the sky
But social ladders leading only to unhappiness
and unfulfilled lives full of ignorance
and baths of political corruption and suicide.

Yet they say they are the superior species...

There are places I have found. There are places that I have gone. People give strange looks with laughter in their eyes when a child walks off on her own into where the ground is not covered with cigarette butts and nothing is paved. Because of them, I go more often and I laugh louder. I have many of these places that are just for my brain and me to inhabit for a while. When I find a less temporary escape from the sickening truths of my own humanity, probably in an UFO, I hope to find others like me tagging along with the aliens that comes to destroy us. And we will all be laughing our ***** off; we saw this coming and packed our thoughts in airtight containers. For now, my thoughts are packed in a backpack with music, a hammock, and some seltzer water. I am walking to get out of here. I find myself getting lost in cornfields and peeing in the woods. It’s rejuvenating. Fresh air and headaches are a perfect match.
                    I am sitting, swinging, hanging from the dancing trees of the crack ******* forests. I think about how every time I chase a squirrel it attacks me. They are fluffy and cute but they want to get inside my house; they want to pry away at my poorly assembled pieces. I’m so unused to that attention and curious affection. I think about my subtly strange mannerisms and my lack of cautious paranoia. These things have had a tendency to intimidate, to make people leave the crowbars in the basement and eliminate any sort of prying. My attributes are intimidating to all but the squirrels. They only seem to see them as weakness. I am still swinging, but my hammock is slipping from the branches now, clinging onto them, a child to its mother. The instructions told me it could hold up to four hundred pounds but even I can hardly hold the weight in between my shoulders. Heavy thoughts are pulling me down. Ropes are slipping more and I can already feel my *** getting sore from this drop. But I do not get off. I keep swinging. My brain is telling my legs to move, my heart is screaming “Save me,” but my legs are not replying. I stay on this hammock, praying that my legs will pull me off before I fall to the ground. I am afraid of being even near to this littered ground. I want the heights. I call for help but only a sigh leaves my mouth. There is no one around to save me anyways. I chose a place in the woods; I chose a place that could grant me the illusion of seclusion…an escape from the trivialities taken too seriously. I cannot wait for someone because this slipping will not even wait for me. I will crash if I do not save myself. I try to coast and the swings get shorter and shorter until they have stopped and I am stationary. In moments I will have more broken parts than I can count.
                     I lie there silent, unmoving, not thinking any longer. Only waiting...finally, I hear snaps of the branches falling and breaking. The ground came up fast. It punched me. It crowded me. It abused me like a misguided lover. I do not wish to be in its arms any longer. But the ground is holding on to my bones, pulling me in. I hit it hard. The drop was farther than I expected. I have no feelings anymore. My nerves have shut off. I am scared. Someone take me some place safe, some place sound…no, take me some place wild. Lying on my back, numb and careless, my eyes are glued to the blueness of the sky above me. I am so relaxed. I hear screaming. I see blood, but I don’t feel pain. I don’t want to know what’s going on, I keep my eyes staring straight up at the view. I ignore everything but the wind-shaped clouds. My mind is gone, lost like all the rest of time. It wore away because I remembered too many times how my father’s hands smelled of sawdust and how they felt like the sandpaper he that used to make it. I try to avoid addressing the situation at hand, things are turning redder. My eyes are filling with blood and it is hard to see. I think about life and the lack of it. All it is really is just memories, without those the only thing that exists is right now. Which doesn’t exist anymore, it’s a different second, and now another. Life is nothing but the time we are losing. Maybe this view of the tree tops framing the sky will be the last thing I see, or maybe I will lay below them again tomorrow. I am glad that everyone must die. It is more beautiful that way.
                          I gulp, a gust of air fills my stomach and it feels like floating. I am still lying down. The smells of illegality, fire, and cut grass fill my ears just like music. Everything mixing together, all into one entity. I am the only thing alone, still lying on my back in the middle of some trees. The same trees I have been crowded by for all of these years, but dug up and replanted on the other side of the country. All of a sudden, I hear something pop. It is the elevation still stuck in my head, the headache I couldn’t defeat. The pain persists and all throughout my head the places and the people that I had made my home were telling me to stay. I am glad that I did not. There is no place or person who could carry my weight. I am my own constant. I am on the ground, just another fallen leaf,  and I am finding a place inside my brain in an attic of ideas where I can peruse the shelves and maintain my insanity. No matter if I am here or elsewhere, I must maintain. They will not make me sane, I won't have it.  Even the pain I feel now, sticks jabbing into my ribs and fear everywhere else, will not be enough to dull me.
                     I had dipped off the path to find myself away from what was familiar and now it pounds in my head, the lack of altitude. Without it my brain doesn’t know what to do. I am worried what I will become when I am alone here. I hear the chapel bells chime in, four rings and then they fade away. I still hear it ringing in my ear, though minutes have passed since it sounded…
                  Ringing…
        Ringing…
Ringing…

“H­ello?”
“Finally you pick up your phone, I’ve left three voicemails today…are you okay?”
“…”

I trust much too easily
Much too frighteningly
Yet, if I could only trust one thing
If one day I became a cynic and grew senile
If only one place i were to place my trust
Then I trust only Future.
Past is manipulative,
He has only false consistency
He tells my mother he will have me home by 12
And I find my self spending the night.
Present is only sneaky
And finds joy in the fright that she gives small children.
Not to be trusted...
While the Future,
The Future is noble....
I believe to be trustworthy.
Always pulling through,
when the Present is stabbing you in the back.
The Future will always be there,
Pulling through on the promises made of a better tomorrow.
The Future is a rolemodel.
Guiding the Present on her path to righteousness.
The only one I trust is the Future.
Even now, when I trust everyone.
I only truly trust the Future.
Because the Future has control over everything,
We can conquer everything,
If only with trust in the Future,
The Future can end this poem
however would make the biggest impac.......

“Before I die I want to be married with kids before I’m 30.”
“Before I die I want to work with kids all around the world.”
“Before I die I want to be able to look back on my life and be happy.”
“Before I die I want to climb, ski, longboard, backpack, see the world, surf, and do it with people who make me enjoy it rather than put me down for not being the best at it.”
“Before I die I want to pursue my photography dream.”
“Before I die I want to love with all of my heart.”
“Before I die I want to be kind to everyone I encounter.”
“Before I die I want to travel to as many places as possible.”
“Before I die I want to have kids who I raise right”
“Before I die I want to marry my best friend”
Well what about before you live?
What are you doing now?
Waiting.
*Stop waiting.

I talked to an 77-year-old man who was washing the windows at Pizza Hut today.
He was young and so happy.
He was kind.
And wise.
He was rich.
He had no money.
He had nice eyes.
He was going blind.
He had a beautiful smile.
His teeth were rotten.
His name was Jerome.
And all he wanted to do was help people.
He taught me so much in 6 minutes.

I've always fancied myself to be a care-free person
I never  give a hoot as to what people think of me
I know that I  am good inside, if others don't I shouldn't mind.
But there are certain words, insults, and phrases
That I cannot brush off, with a HAH and a cough
Things I tucked away, sent to bed years ago.
But sometimes these self-concious demons
Get up to ask for water.
"You're so aggressive"
I am not aggressive,
But I am not a swan princess, do not expect me to be.
"You're such a brat."
I'm am annoying when I am,
But I am not a spoiled 8 year old.
"You're so fake"
I am kind to all whether I enjoy their company or not,
I do not gossip. ever.

Do not make claims about my being
I know my faults better than those who observe them
I am working hard at them, to be a better person
I do not need help
There is no benefit when hurtful words are expressed
I know me
You know you
Why should you try and make anyone better but yourself?
If there was more focus inwardly on being a better person
No one would be sad.
Or bad.
Or self-concious, not even a tad.

don't be afraid you're already dead

for he was not lucky enough for the train to take the other track
the pills were not vitamin C
the gun did not shoot water
and it was not, instead of him, me.

we are no longer the kids with capes crinkled in knots around our necks
but in their place are the rope burns of our selfish regrets

only attempting to rid myself of the crushing weight of confused sorrow
the dreams in my head have fallen to the floor
he placed his in patterns there

searching for adjectives inside a dictionary
where only nouns are found
lonely, the adjective being
the one word to describe this
is trapped in the moldy basement of a frat house

he taps at the window
sliding through its confinements
back where he was days ago
a silhouette of the clock

plucking at your hairs
chickens clucking that their scared
they keep changing this cyclorama
but it's always ripped and torn

walking into the abyss
singing his cares away
thinking himself sick
will we feel like this for the rest of our lives?

who owns this beating heart,
it seems to have been misplaced

you'd written horror stories on the sides of elementary schools
superfluous thoughts were rays of sunshine
that only cast shadows in your head

don't be afraid you're still alive

The top of my head is open
My scalp lays on the floor beside me
It is open to the world
Every germ and every human
(if they are any different)
But the gods drilled the holes in the tops of my skill
To sip from my moods and my thoughts
as they went on tropical vacations
They cut me open to find me empty
And to fill me again
They shaved out the insides of my skull
So they could sprinkle it onto their yogurt with granola
And they left me to dry
But I awoke with an ache of ruin in the back of my neck
I went about my daily life
I bought groceries
I met with friends
I chatted about politics
But I couldnt help but feel a bit empty
I took Advil to calm the pounding of my head
It could not be avoided
Until the day I looked up
My brain was gone
And the top of my head was left open
And all I had now was the rest of the world filling it in.
I did not need a brain.

I am sitting, swinging, hanging from the dancing trees of the crack ******* forests. I think about how every time I chase a squirrel it attacks me. They want to get inside my house; they want to pry away at my poorly assembled pieces. I’m so unused to that attention and curious affection. I think about my subtly strange mannerisms and my lack of paranoia. These things have had a tendency to intimidate, to make people leave the crowbars in the basement and eliminate any sort of prying. My attributes are intimidating, but the squirrels only seem to see them as weakness. I am still swinging, but my hammock is slipping from the branches now, clinging on to them, a child to its mother. The instructions told me it could hold up to 400 pounds but even I can hardly hold the weight in between my shoulders. Ropes are slipping more and I can already feel my *** getting sore from this drop. But I do not get off. I keep swinging. My brain is telling my legs to move, my heart is screaming “Save me!” but my legs are not replying. I stay on this hammock, praying that my legs will pull me off before I fall to the ground. I am afraid of being even near to this littered ground, I want the heights. I call for help, only a sigh leaves my mouth. There is no one around to save me anyways. I chose a place in the woods; I chose a place that could grant me the illusion of seclusion…an escape from the trivialities taken too seriously. I cannot wait for someone, this slipping will not wait. I will crash if I do not save myself. I try to coast, the swings get shorter and shorter until they have stopped and I am stationary. In moments I will have more broken parts that I can count.

I lie there silent, unmoving, not thinking any longer. Only waiting...finally, I hear snaps of the branches falling and breaking. The ground came up fast…it punched me. It crowded me. It abused me, like a misguided lover. I do not wish to be in it's arms any longer. But the ground is holding on to my bones, pulling me in. I hit it hard, the drop was farther than I expected. I have no feelings anymore. My nerves have shut off. I'm scared. Someone take me some place safe, some place sound…no, take me some place wild. Lying on my back, numb and careless, my eyes are glued to the blueness of the sky above me. I am so relaxed. I hear screaming. I see blood. But I don’t feel pain. I don’t want to know what’s going on, I keep my eyes staring straight up at the view. I ignore everything but the wind-shaped clouds. My mind is gone, lost like all the rest of time. It wore away because I remembered too much about the times my father’s hands smelled of sawdust and how they felt like the sandpaper he used to make it. I try to avoid addressing the situation at hand, things are turning more red, my eyes are filling with blood. I think about life and the lack of it. All it is really is just memories, without those the only thing that exists is right now. Which doesn’t exist anymore, it’s a different second, and now another. Life is nothing but the time we are losing. I am glad that everyone must die, it is so beautiful.
I gulped, a gust of air filled my stomach and it felt like floating. I was still lying down. The smells of illegality, fire, and cut grass filled my ears just like music. Everything mixed together, all into one entity. I was the only thing alone, still lying on my back in the middle of some trees. All of a sudden, I heard something pop. It was the elevation still stuck in my head, the headache I couldn’t defeat. I had dipped off the path, away from what was familiar and now it pounds in my head, the altitude. Now without it my brain doesn’t know what to do, I only worry what I will become. I hear the chapel bells chime in, 4 rings and then they fade away. I still hear it ringing in my ear, though minutes have passed since it sounded…
Ringing…
Ringing…
Ringing…
“Hello?”
“Pick up your phone, I’ve left three voicemails today…are you okay?”
         "....."

I wrote this poem with oil, vinegar, and fine foods.
My pen did not.

I drew this picture with eyelashes, mustaches, and tears.
My paintbrush did not.

I thought this thought with lip balm, pine trees, and mosquitoes.
My brain did not.

I do not dream with REM but with caterpillars and manure.

Oh, Jack Kerouac, take me to bed and ease my itching.

Listen to that bluegrass play...
Fall asleep...

Flames are burning the clouds to ashes

A hole, a perfect circle of light
was torn into the patchwork of the sky
and sewn back up by the burnt bits of thread
That were made from the sun's fiery goodbye

capture-able  
no camera
no words even

Help prevent wildfires
The sky's the exception.

You are everyone and everything that has ever existed.
You are every *******,
every ******,
every murderer,
every psychopath,
every person you have ever done any wrong too,
and every person full of bitter hate.
.....
But you are also every lover,
every hero,
every leader,
every activist,
every philosopher,
and everyone anyone has ever loved.

You are even me.
And you love yourself,
no matter how many cuts are on your arms.
Because I love you.

I'm sorry, darling, but you're my second love.
I cannot lie to you, I love you less than one other.
The mountains have my heart,
But you can have it second hand.
Those rocks and trees were the first to caress my curves
And you were second.
That is a competition you will never win, my sweet.
My kisses belong to the ground below my feet,
While you will get soil in your mouth
When we smooch.
The animals of Mother Earth cuddled me
Before your arms ever warmed me on cold nights.
So when we embrace,
Leave room for my bunny to curl between us in bed.
The fields of powder were my home,
Before your heart,
And what's first your home is always.
So I hope this won't break your heart
...the fact that you are second in mine.
I'm sorry for the muddy kisses and the fur on all your clothes,
But I'm doing my best to love you both.
On nights I lie beneath the stars,
Don't yearn for the attention of my eyes
But lie beside me and hold my hand.
...Only one hand though, I'm petting the dog with the other.
Sorry....

There was chatter reflecting off the water just like the moon. The Milky Way was swimming with us, wrapped in algae and moss. We had no swimsuits, only spontaneity and laughter. We were far away from trivialities where there was no light pollution, you could see so far outward into everything. We were not looking up, we were looking out at what we are part of. Light, so much light. When our thoughts were finally chilled like iced lemonade, we ran through bushes and flailed in the mud to the car. We drove. Once sitting on our bed, a delicious thought bubbled into reality.
              We discussed it, unanimously deciding on this nights adventure...we'd enjoy the first rays of the morning while seating comfortable at Sacajawea Peak.
              Eager legs kicked and finally slept…too soon later, a buzz of a telephone awoke us, then another. I bounced out of the covers and to the kitchen to prepare a hurried breakfast of peanut butter and fruit roll ups for us, nutrition was priority. Then the clock blinked 3 AM.
Whines squeaked from tired mouths, but excitement prevailed. We packed into our seats and struggled to keep our eyes open, but the drive was bumpy and our sore butts kept us from forgetting the purpose of our trip. We were there to make our lives radical, and you can’t sleep in moments like these. 4 AM screamed at me, we had to hurry. I plowed my way up that mountain as the sun painted the tips of the mountains red. We crossed streams, tripped on rocks, marveled at climate change and the disappearance of the snow we had skied on just a week before. As the incline increased to nearly vertical, we met up with the mountain goats. Their tiny hooves danced on the faces of cliffs and I stood on the trail not more than a meter away. They smiled at us, said good morning, and we went on our way, huffing it up the face. As the sun’s light began to engulf the sky, we watched as the snow capped ridgeline shined pink and gold. A mountain shades us but as we reach the peak, the sun splashes our face, I felt godly. The sun has risen, and so have we. This is why we are alive; this is why we are happy. The valley below us still dozes, and we sit on top a mountain wide-awake. There is no item I could ask for that could ever give me this happiness. I do not climb mountains so that the world can see me, but so I can see the world…and it is so beautiful.

What if this was all bones bones bones
Rocks were nothing but bones bones bones
What if I was all bones bones bones
What if we were just bones bones bones
When I go, leave no trace but our bones bones bones
Oh home is where I'd like to lay my bones bones bones
What if cemeteries were more than just bones stones bones
What if cemeteries were just forests

I have spent so much of my life trying to limit myself and say:
"This is who I am, I feel like myself"
But so much time trying to define myself to one feeling
was the biggest waste of anything I've ever had
and it had to be life that i was wasting, didn't it?
and I have wasted so much
like toilet paper
or my liver
or food
or space...
but my biggest regret is wasting my life
my time that is ever so short and precious
And I threw it away like the last piece of pizza no one thought they wanted
but I did want it
i do want it
I have realized so early in my life
that who I am is not one definition
and I cannot draw my own boundaries
Unless I am drawing them with a white crayon
on white paper
I am so many people and so many different feelings
in my realization
I am taking that pizza out of the wastebasket
(it's called that for a reason)
and I'm brushing off the dirt of years thrown away
And I'm going to eat my pizza.
Savoring every bite to the last bit of crust.

I worry you will fall
As you teeter up on top of your insecurities
Stamping them with your materialism
"PRADA"
Attempting to hide them below your feet and beneath your masks of paint
Attempting to keep them out of frame, out of the photos, out of view,
But the photographs were over-exposed
And now your nakedness is only covered by your self-doubt
Your lack of self-worth.
Don't try to hide the tears you cry out of unappreciative sadness
No need to validate happiness
With crest whitening strips
Because all they do is stain your already filthy mouth.
Bleach couldn't wash the ignorance from those gums.
Your cavities sloshed with your parents Chardonnay
and chocolate fountains drip upon your white dresses.

I try so hard to remain kind
Remain happy
Remain real
When all I can do is laugh
And hope you understand
That all I am is sad.

There is only sadness
When the best view that I have
Is of your huge fake ****.

All I do is dream of the future and crave the answers
This is now the future I had once fantasized
I have reached the future
I have seen what has become of my 6 year old brother, now 18
I have seen where the world progressed
I see now the places my choices have taken me
I am living out the life that was once only dreamt about
I am part of the future now
We are the futures of our pasts
And my tongue is damp with the bitter after taste of this pleasure
I have the pencil in my hand
That is connecting the dots of my past
Forming the picture of the ever-coming future
As much as I want to rejoice with my youth
Tell me about all that is to come
But I know it will make no difference if I do or don't.
Nothing would go differently.
If I tell my past what is now,
It will no longer be exciting to experience
What was expected is only as surprising as you pretended it to be.
But now, these discoveries of this now present future
I see

THE OTHER HALF OF THE POEM IS A POEM

now eleven years later
the boy whose graham crackers were high demand at snack time
who sat beside me at the table and pulled giggles from everyones lungs
who drew the drawings of dragons and dinosaurs
With angels above
The boy who was the best things before sliced bread was even invented
who
held all the definitions of importance in his tiny first grader hands
when it came to my search for wholeness.
Had I known that
I would have done everything the same
and nothing differently
and everything all the same
and nothing at all differently
And loved him no less.

1917
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2013
short life
to make an impact
on this trivial human existence

long enough
to pull rivers of tears
from my unexpecting eyes

Waarom zijn je huilen?
Ik weet het niet.
Ik hou van jou.

We go about each day, telling ourselves the words our mothers fed us as children, “You can be anything you want, you can reach heights unseen and untouched by any other being.” But we speak them in monotone, we see them without processing.  I played along like every other and chanted them with a smile but with no idea of the actual meaning and interpretation. I did not make those words mine, they were merely an idea; an unexplained, unrealized idea. But my eyes have opened and light has shown upon it and the truth to it. I can do anything and there is not necessity for schooling or to go to an elite college. I can do the things I love and with passion because I want to! The flaming passion that burns in my eyes spreads upon those who hear my words and my excitement.  I am seeing the world’s situation in large and each act and each rule and law as changeable. Revolutions and riots have brought change and the rules we live by and each thing we see as so common can be altered and flipped upon it’s buttox if only one sees the possibility, wants it, and speaks the benefits. We are not a perfect society. We are not better than the past. We are not lesser than the future. We are what we have and we have to live and deal with it, but that does not mean to be content with out society nor does it mean to over appreciate it. We can change and we will change. No one is content, and we must realize we cannot ignore the change or ignore the history being made. Do not sit in your homes huddled away and watch the news as if you are not part of it. Step out your door and watch as we create history and we decide what is the best that we can do to be able to do what we love to do as humans. We are so often restricted by society and it’s beliefs on what is acceptable and what is available. As a child we grow up and we see our options as firemen, policemen, doctors, or teachers and then as we grow up we keep our brains in this mindset that those are our options and then we get into highschool and start realizing we know of nothing, we don’t know our options, we don’t know what we want to do with ourselves. Then we say we have time, we say we can make that decision later and then we cruise through our schooling not focussing on anything and then keeping in our head the 5 options of life and occupations that were given to us when we were children. We need to not just tell our children that they can do anything and then give them a few options, they deserve to be shown throughout their whole lives what it means to do the things you love and are passionate about and not having to be pushed into a category of work or life that they “kind of like”  and think that’s what passion is because they haven’t experienced enough to realize what their possibilities are. Life is so much more than what we have built it to be as society. Life is not going to school till youre 30 and then doing work and having a family and going on a few vacations and then growing old with a person you hardly care to genuinely ask how they’re doing. We belong to this earth and I swear to God, I’m going to embrace this earth and frolic upon it’s soil until the day I die because I want to experience it all and I do not want to live in the confines of what society has confined itself to. The things you find social acceptable are your own barriers and the limits you are making for yourself, so do not bash another for going against the grain but applaud them and follow behind them and create your own path as they did. I’m done doing what makes me most financially stable or what the upperclass would respect me most for. It’s not like I did before but gosh ****, I’m not going to busy myself with other peoples fear of change and the unknown.

you are so young
so innocent
so naive
yet so am I
you have worlds of wisdom dancing between your ears
yet you see it for so much more than it is
you do not see the same world as many other children
yet you do not realize that your world is not better nor worse
you are not too mature
many are just too young
you maybe 26 in your 12 year old head
but I assure you
The average 26 year old
is not 26.
You are blinded by the little bit more you see
you feel as if the treasures you have unveiled within your mind
are the only treasures left to find
you have years to grow
to realize
that you know nothing..
I know nothing
I am selfish
I am dumb
Or maybe just happy
But so very dumb
we all are.
Einstein was only kind of clever
you are nothing
we all know nothing.
Humans are silly
childish
and those who invent snuggies and moonboots
have only found ways to live easier with our ignorance
I do not want to be part of this world
because so many have come to terms with not knowing a thing
they feel as if there is no reason to learn, if you cannot learn it all
but there is no life without learning
you would be a vegetable...like a carrot or a pea
yet, most people do not learn when they think they do.
You have not learned a thing
unless you have felt the epiphany.
or seen the shimmering glaze of the interior of your mind
dawned upon the realization of the words
rather than the dull incoherent idea of what the words "mean"
people are dumb.
Dont think yourself any wiser.

She reads five books a day.
And forgets her children's names when they call.
She works.
Hard.
But she plays almost never.
Only clapping games
With special-needs preschoolers.
She will try until she dies
To stay alive,
But she is quiet and she is shy.
Her thoughts get dusty
Pacing repetitively in her head
And never making it out of her lips.
Her mouth is glued shut...
She married a man
Who switched her Chapstick with glue.
But, Mother, let us dance.
Let the rhythm move your aching bones
And grow happier as you grow older
It should not be the other way.

our entire existence means absolutely nothing
we are so perfectly trivial
there is nothing i can do in my short short life that is even going to make the slightest difference in the history of our world
and the history of our world means nothing in the universe
we know so much less than will ever have existed
i do not want to die
there is still so much more to learn
we will never know it all
the amount of information in all the human minds that have ever existed
will still amount to nothing
when the amount of things to know
is so large
i do not want to die

You are my darling,
You are my sweetheart.
You're my love and your father's just jealous.
I can swoon and I can flatter you.
You're the reason the moon hides behind shadows,
Cause it sees you and gets self-concious about it's figure.
When you summit those mountains, you're the reason those fish swim upstream.
You pick those strings better than your brother picks his nose,
And boy does he do it well.
Rug makers idolize you because of how you weave those words.
The ebbing of the ocean is in constant competition with how you swim the tides.
And with all of your multitalented-genius
I wouldn't be surprised if you could calculate the coordinates of the sun while sprinting a marathon But I know you'd just find that
You are sunshine.
Watch out for those boys, chica, cause the line for you is longer than Gamestop's.
If you never understand how well you recited your ABC's that 1st day of elementary school,
I just hope you know...
You make the bees jealous, honey.

I never understood the world or life or love of what any of it meant.
I didn’t want to write a love story,
But I don’t want to lie about the importance and relevance of the love I had for people.
My life was always centered around me,
Every time it would start becoming about someone else
I lost myself and those were the doldrums,
The droughts, and the floods of frustration.
But now out of them with a clear view looking in,
Those are the times I give my past self a candy bar and a pat on the back
Because I got through every ‘*******’ the world shot at me without killing myself.
I still owe it to him.
I owe so many things to him.
We had a strange relationship
But the oddest thing about loving him was that I never wanted to touch him.
With every crush,
Every love interest I’ve ever had
I’ve always wanted the warmth of their body around me and
The touch of them on me
And I would daydream about it constantly.
But with him,
I never noticed until now
That I never had an urge to touch him
And even more so I was mentally incapable of imagining any situation where he loved me.
That sounds sad, but I’m not sad.
I love him.
I love you.
I love his soul and everything hiding within his piercing eyes
And to a degree where there was no physical interest
Because in this day and age that physicality has been ruined.
Plagued and poisoned with self-interest and insincerity.
I didn’t want his body, I wanted his soul
And his heart.
But it wasn’t up for auction and was he wasn’t bidding for mine.
I dont care, none the less.
I know I love him because those mutual feelings dont matter
Nor  does having him as mine physically and mentally.
I’m in love with him because he doesn’t love me
And I'm in love with him because he loves himself modestly
And that he speaks his mind and there are no things getting in the way of his thoughts.
But also because of his ignorance and everything that’s wrong with him,
In all of his innocence and childish ways I love him.
And because he listens to what I care about
And because he doesnt love me and I dont care.
I love him because he makes me better,
Even if I never see him again, he makes me better.
He makes life easier.
He makes hope brighter.
He makes me love him.
But, I said I didn't want to write a love story...

i am not a definition.
i do not fit inside the lines.
i am not confined by one decision.
i do not belong to only one dream
or calling
or person
or life
or occupation
or belief.
I am not the same.
To be in this day
in my state of mind
is to be the sky
captured inside a bottle
It is not possible.
I have too many wants and needs and dreams to follow
I have too many lives to live
and I have no time.
I am forced into the border of a page.
Forced to be defined by one category
But I do not belong to one category...
I belong to all of them.
To everything,
to every bit of this world,
not half of it,
I do not pick portions,
I am not picky
I am welcoming to all of it
Why would I choose one thing,
when all is beautiful and very much attainable?

Inconsistency
a great flaw
that only taunts my frail personality
as I attempt to tame its wilderness
am i one thing
am i another
will i be succumbed to one life?
Only to live shielded by comfort and ignorance?
But if not to do that,
how will I live with broken boundaries
and no anchors to the ground
that my feet no longer touch?
How can I live as 7 million people
In one life?
But how can I live only as one?

A sweep of a paintbrush
Is the only thing that could capture this angelic devil of a place
All that could create the crumble of this sidewalk,
Or the tickle of this wind and these stabs of sleet.
Or the dashing of the shadows by this Spring's happy rays.

All of this wonder and this common rarity
In this baby of a town
That cries to be heard and loved
For the mind that sits inside it
Wanting to be known for more than the just it's beauty of a school.
It sits as a daisy in a field of sunflowers,
Unnoticed until the ladybugs that fly from it are seen
Fluttering to great heights
Showering wonder on all the witnesses.

But what of the aphids,
The townies,
Those that call this home?
Do they get no credit
For building a life,
A family,
A dream,
Within this cozy corner of the country?

They see this place as home,
Looking at it with comfort and nostalgia.
It is their point B.
Their finishing line.
Or maybe even their starting point,
But still a place of birth.
Through their eyes,
These cracked roads and looming trees
Are glazed in memories
Of hopscotch and snowmen.
But no matter to whom, there is love and there is hate.

There are those who wish to flee this beautifully forsaken prison.
There are those who wish they had never been elsewhere.
To everyone though, there is beauty in it some place.

If you think I am sane,
Just know that I am far from it.
I am swimming in disappointment and lies
I will splash in it and get drunk
I am only nostalgia and déjà vu
Not a real person
They say crazy people don’t know they are crazy
But I am not just one person
Someone told me I was crazy
It was me
So I guess I am
I’m not very okay with it
But I’m fine with it.
I’m the smartest crazy person,
Because no one knows it but me.

Put on your father's hat
Full of stickers
About nuclear war.
It Will Be The Death of Us
Send it in a package
as Thomas waits
He listens to Tom Waits
But only the old stuff,
the better stuff...
Waits for reality
To be as good as mine.
Snapshots of his jealousy flash from the screen,
I pity him and his envy.
Ridge lines could **** me.
I never want to sleep again.
I have slept enough, eleven days
Only dreaming for sixteen years
Now I could die.
But I died before,
This time it is only fun and I am only happy.

The ocean's powerful dark waves
Spit in the billowing winds
Splash onto our already tearful faces
The ocean is big
We went for a dip
But found ourselves out of land's sight
I feel these pinches
and bites
of the world's stammering mouth
surrounding the waves and
preventing us from resurfacing
shaded by the sails of the drowning boats
the drowning economy
the flailing political states that forgot how to swim
the last breathes of human rights
the Earth is frightened as a child
as the disease of humanity
quickly devours her
and we race her to our own deaths
As if it was a friendly game of Marco Polo
We can see blots of our trivial goals
as we come up for air.
But oxygen doesn't visit us so frequently anymore.
Maybe because we didn't invite him to our dinner party and took him for granted.
And my dreams of being part of the things that happen on a big scale
Are realized.
We are in the center of the whirlpool,
and our toxic boats are pulling us down with them.
No matter how small we are,
what we have built was too big
To avoid.
I tried to climb the trees,
take my loved ones to the tops,
but any attempts to salvage were useless.
The trees were not on our side,
even if we were on theirs.
I would prefer to drown in water
Than this.

The bird
He flew high above,
My eyes only gleamed with desire,
With lust, but more so
with love
Of everything that bird was and would ever be.
His feet danced
Hopping only close enough to taunt me
Pecks touched my hands
All the way through to my heart
That bird taught me who I was going to be
That bird was part of me
But slowly as that bird flew west
Farther
Farther
Away....
I walked east on my own.
We flew opposites.
He was my bird,
He taught me to fly,
And so I flew,
And forgot of the bird,
But held inside me
Everything that was given to me by him,
everything was me.
That bird gave me life,
love,
happiness,
and we flew.
Opposites.

the three of us sat with music playing and the tires rolling and
unplanned adventures in front of us on the road.
With a few bucks in the bank and a bunch of ideas floating in our skulls,
the aches and pains to escape the mundane were finally being treated.
My best buddies and I spoke only out of true stoke and excitement over our lives.
Laughter carried the weight in all of our conversations.
Each of our words were hardly coherent because they were beaten through
giggles, coughs, and mumbles.
Nothing was to be taken seriously and
nothing was to be judged.
We were free to mumble whatever words we pleased, so long as we laughed.
The car muffled its own contribution to our discussions about cats, rebellion, pounding Mountain Dew, and jumping off of ****.
Those things are our only cure from monotony,
so we spoke of them often.
But we also shared thoughts on intellect, society, passion, and time;
however, we took them out of their limitations.
To be friends means to leave the judgment to the strangers,
and to help each other grow.
We followed these guidelines as an unspoken constitution.
As friends, we understand that there is much more to a person than can be expressed in words,
so words take the short end and we do not care much for their maintenance.

I'm a fine head of lettuce
A handsome romaine.
But I haven't a cranium
Made for a brain.
I am simple and shy,
I remain on my own...
I am known in the garden
As the lettuce alone.

It was midday and the clouds loitered around the edges of the sky as if they were suspicious of the sun. Beams of light ricocheted off of goggles and snow and beads of sweat that were caught in my oldest brother's beard.  The hike up was our way of earning our run. The hard work and constant determination to get what was important to us made the view and the ridge taste so much sweeter. Finally able to rest, I planted a granola bar in my mouth and squinted through a frame of icy eyelashes to see a sight I had seen before, every day for the past week, but still punched the air out of my lungs. The powder was up to my thighs and the snow lovingly seeped its way into my boots just to kiss my toes with painful numbing. I wiggled them to try tickling some sanity and warmth into them. I only hoped that my toenails wouldn't fall off, but they would inevitably be purple. I pulled up my balaclava to dodge the lunges of frostbite's ravenous teeth. Each nip of cold, the company of my brothers, the view, and the raw interaction with the mountain created a moment that reeked of a dream: a seemingly perfect balance between pain and pleasure.
      The hype of the day kept us from settling our thoughts and quickly my siblings were bounding down the mountain on tele-skis, skis, snowboards, and giddiness. My mind was simultaneously crowded and opened by the superfluous love shared between myself and the people I shared this moment with, the people I look up to, the people who raised me.  My four brothers' elated screams echoed off the mountain ranges that boxed-in the valley below. I joined their chorus of "Shred the Gnar!" and yodels, knowingly embracing the carefree and somewhat foolish mindset of Mother Nature's glee. My skis led the way and found fresh tracks. The lines of the songs that blasted into my ears were translated into the lines that I skied. The music shuffled from Wu-Tang Clan to the Tibetan Monks Of Gaden Sharste & Corciolli but the abrupt change of pace did not hinder my contentedness. I have gained a knack for happily going with the flow, knowing that what the universe hands me is often what I need. The peaceful bellowing of the monks allowed me to take a moment to appreciate that my life is this one on top of this mountain not limited by my economic state with this physically fit and capable body and this working mind. While just minutes before, the fearlessness of Wu-Tang's hip-hop allowed me to bring an angst and stoke for life into my current experience, while also finding the gangster within me. The random shuffling of songs only fed my innate addiction to change and let my enthusiasm multiply and blossom.
Although childish in our hearts and in our unpracticed aerials, we were not childish in our perspective. We had a shared mature understanding of the bigger picture. This was a vast understanding of the world that comes with being a small, overrated mammal sliding on some sticks down the biggest thing it could get its hands on. Each of us took our fair share of tumbles and we iced them each with cacophonous laughter that got muffled by mouthfuls of snow. To be atop a mountain, to go almost unnoticed by a mountain really teaches the skill of not taking things too seriously. In one instance, I grabbed some air and landed scattered into a disorganized pile of all my gear. But my commitment to the bettering of my skills, my world, and myself, let me rise from even my greatest wrecks and the most deadly of wreckage, not unscathed but changed and always for the better. With such a brutal fall, I gained the experience necessary for landing it next time...and the next time, I did.
         After reaching the bottom, without hesitancy, we followed our spontaneous urges to pursue more. Every run I took and every moment spent on that mountain came from a drive to experience and learn. It was based off of my ceaseless search for something new...or for the rad or for the gnar or for swagger or for living a life that could inspire. The seed of this search was planted in me by my five older siblings who all held within their bellies a fire of the same breed. And we sewed that common thread together on ridge lines and in powdered fields where nature is in perfect harmony with man and my head is in perfect harmony with my heart...where my intelligence and ambition trust one another and I trust them because they have gotten me this far and I know they are not tired yet.

regretfully, hello
happily, goodbye
time will fly
we will carry on
i will see you soon
love,
gone
My head will **** me one day
but for now
We will all carry on
And happiness will be ours

I live inside a little boy's head
My birth day was the day he figured out he had an imagination
Last night he had a nightmare
His dream only lasted a few minutes
But I lived inside that course of time for 10 months.
He dreamed of suicide and manic depression.
Upon awakening doused in sweat and tears
His mother told him it was only a dream.
He thought up the shape of my arms
Because he loved how his daddy's looked.
And then he curled my hair to look like the girl down the street.
At age 3 he learned his ABCs and
He dreamt me to be a writer.
He couldn't spell any of the words
That he pretended me to write.
I sleep more often now
Because he forgets to remember his dreams.
The little boy is getting older
And so am I.
My life unfolds in REM
My entire reality was built inside this little boy's head...
I hope he sleeps well tonight
Because it's been raining a lot
And the weatherman said that it would be sunny.
Someday when we're older
I will meet the little boy who invented me
But for now I only live inside a little boy's head
Being forgotten as he falls in love.

Im so sad and dead
But that makes me so very happy
So happy to be sad.

I just sit here
Enjoying the worst day of my life
Wishing my death could live
Where do I want to live
In the city or the mountains
Just as long as I have love and I am very happy
This is a choice
A choice I can't make
With my head
Cause it stopped working when I pressed play
Oh where is this voice
To tell me what to do
Oh, my life just seems so **** bare
Since I left
I am just too fragile for this
Oh just as long as you are swimming there with me
I just want to be happy

52 i love you
34 ***** boar
21 you are fun
83 you've seen me ***
45 let's do a jive
22 i miss you

Let me reassure you on some facts:

This little **** we call life
Will *** on your carpet and
Have a weird obsession with trying to bite your boyfriend’s **** off.
But you will love it anyways,
Because it sometimes does nice things like
Cuddle up to you when you’re sad that your boyfriend doesn’t have a ***** anymore.

This life will stalk you on a seemingly pleasant night
And this life will hit you.
Hard.
When you’re least expecting it.
Then as it is flashing in front of your eyes,
Your life will mug you
And take all of your money.
After it all, you may be scarred, you may be hurt, you may be bankrupt…
But that pain may get you thinking, learning, questioning
And someday you may realize that
In life,
The kisses last much longer than the bruises do.
The laughter is much louder than the cries.
And the boyfriend is much better than the *****.

My heart sits rotting away in a rattan chair
All the love and the people I long to be near
Progressively grow closer to one and other
As I slowly drift out of their lives
I will not longer be the lining in their memories
Not even remembered as part of their lives
Just a humorous picture on the screen
A name in a book dated "2011-2012"

On the other side of the country
my brain grows and cripples from
A lack of blood flow
As my heart begins to give up
And break down
because this distance is too great
and hearts only have so much strength.
But my brain stuffs itself with meaningless facts
and replaces the heart
with stuffings of leftover ******* from the 'elites'
and a horrid instability occurs.

False faces and shattering smiles
Can no longer be redeemed.
I am a new human
as this hole in my chest
is filled with hate and judgment
and my brain cries for happiness
but only receives E=Mc^2.
I am the ugliest human to have ever lived
The only warmth I can seem to find
Is when touching the broken heater
of this insane asylum.

I rejoice,
despite the fact I try my best
and the sky
continues to fall
and the world only gets more bitter.

Father calls to me,
Willing my brain
Handing me a hand-knitted heart
That pumps false hope and paper-mache dreams

"You will not survive, You'll never make it out alive."

Heaps of regret
Are staggered on every path I face.
I may as well die,
No.
I may as well do what i please.
why should I attempt to please those who will never be pleased?
I'm sorry that I am not sorry at all.

This troubled heart,
Now strapped to a surgical table
Connected by tubes to the welcoming hands of my chosen family.
Those who grew me from the dirt,
After i was dropped there out of the womb.
My roots were strong,
But my wings are tattered,
I cannot fly just yet.
But I was thrown from the nest,
And now I am drowning in the fiery depths of hell that were below.

I cannot make this decision.
Not because I cannot make a decision,
But I literally don't have a choice.
And my heart will only continue to die.
And soon enough I will be a carcass.

I will be just as conscious of my existence when I am dying as I am now.
I am alive and I will still be alive when I'm dying.
At whatever age my body grows unfit to hold the thoughts in my head,
I will be just as alive
As when I was 15 on an airplane flying to a place I felt was home while listening to Harry Eifler sing:

Soon enough we'll be dead
Get it out of your head
Cause the waves crashed your beaches long ago

And when I'm dying where I'm dying
In the future,
My famous last words,
No matter how legendary,
will not be famous
or remembered.
Because the only words that get remembered
are from the mouths of those
who people care to hear.
I am not one of those mouths,
And my words will be forgotten
Just like my name by my great-grandchildren's children.
But despite that, I will know that I was still vigorously alive when I died,
And I will know that the last thought that my body could provide my brain
was the dreams of the broken hearts,
cures to the diseased,
secrets that are spit with giggles into hushed ears on playgrounds,
and the keys to all the locks in the world.
Just like every last thought ever thought by everyone who has died.
But no one will ever remember my attempt to say those secrets,
Because none of the trillions of last words in existence
were ever important enough
for anybody to care to listen to the whispers that escaped dying mouths.
No one cares to listen and that is why my words will be forgotten,
along with everyone else's.

Leaves were falling, crackling beneath the girls’ feet.
The sun peeked through the clouds, warming their faces that already dripped with sweat as they ran. Central Park folded around them;
With each twist and turn another couple was taking wedding photos.
Their laughter cascaded throughout the city, bouncing off the buildings.
The city was naked and new to her, a different world than her home in the Rockies.
They ran until they lost track of where they were running,
Finding themselves in a part of the city they had yet to see…
A completely different atmosphere enveloped them, and they ran on, smiling.  
Spontaneously, a café caught their eye and their stomachs pulled them in.
They sat with an eager plop, ordering simplicity and perfection in a meal.
They spoke of yesterdays and tomorrows,
Dreams and nightmares.
While they ate the meaty, juicy grapefruit and savored every last drop,
They realized how happy life was.
With a crunch of granola and a sip of coffee,
They paid and snuck their way out the door
Hoping the waiter wouldn’t realize they didn’t have enough money to leave a tip.
And they were happy.

I carry rocks in my pockets so that if someday I am to go swimming, I may be drowned by accident and the pure joy of swimming.

I love.
You want . 

But life knows
How to make the world happen.

The future is just people dying.

When hearts live,
Words are happy and eyes are like better days.

Are you ever going to do things?
Maybe something real?
Make a home and a life to care for,
To carry away the time.

The body must feel
And the mind must think.

I trust that your lives are better on the inside,
The best are long and the worst are longer.

A place changes with years,
I hope...

A head is more than a brain.
It makes children into birds.
The mind is the past, a time traveler.
That kind of sad person that dreams things so human
Only to stay alive in a room, in need of a story.

I realize that you thought you'd exist,
But you're dying years ago.
You wanted the earth's history to lie beneath the sky
And touch your feet until you were old,
But it flew upwards,
I'm sorry.
You cannot have that, but you can have what you make for yourself.

Without him
I have no morals
Without his eyes
I cannot see beauty
Without his heart
I have no home
Without his mouth
I cannot speak
Without his hands
I cannot feel myself
If not for my love for him,
I would not know a thing
About how the birds chirp
Because they have so long waited for the sun.
I would not know a thing
About how fireplaces and families warm.
About how God is not just a myth but love.
About why the children call my name.
About how to speak it myself.
About the drifting of eyelids when bodies are not yet tucked in.
Without my love for you,
My heart would have been broken long ago
and I wouldn't count as a human being.
Without you,
I would be nothing and no one.
Without you,
I would have died years in the past.
Without you,
My body and soul would have been defiled...
And I would have let it happen.
Because without you,
I would not know what it means to be worthy.

Thank you, Lord, for giving me him.
Not even mutually,
He saved me.