Our bodies are dumb
but we use them well
Like last legged engines
Like ugly cars you drive into the ground

This is how we live

Moriah Carter dances diligently
A body of prayer
Til all she has are heavy heaves
And the choreography of a long lost language
Leaving the speakers speechless

Kelsey Martinez is a ball of energy building
And he’s begging some beautiful woman
for an angel fist of light
Punched right into his dark side
An eye bulge duet of disgusting duality
But this **** feels good

We just wanna feel good

Janelle Gibson ***** like music
***** like a jazzy slap bass in a dark room
Like gritty distortion during a slow jam
Like this has the potential to be so much harder
But it won’t be
Even if you want it to

Kacie Brumley knows how ******* our bodies can get
She never forgets the importance of her own breath
Even when she’s holding it
Here
Hold her breath she’ll be right back
She is gasp and knee buckle praise for
Awkward types of beauty

Jennifer Smith is embracing fragile
The fragile ties that link lives to other lives
As if she were a knife
Sharp enough to sever
But patient and still enough not too
It takes patience to stand that still
And she wants you to know
She doesn’t have to

Amanda Lee Van Zatten wears her rose colored glasses backwards
Because she’d rather be naïve beauty
than see naïve beauty
So she dresses up in childhood
And still does things
Like wish on wells
And stars
And people that break

Tim Pagaard teaches English
Respects the breath that speaks like it has something to say
Knows that all this poetry and language is just practice for our mouths
So when it comes time to actually speak for something
We can
He believes we can

We’re all in this process of becoming broken
And in the short time interim
Are learning how to live
It takes a long time to learn to live
And I feel like I’ve been here for that long

I think you should live like you’ve got aids
Not so much that you are going to die tomorrow
But you might
But you don’t have to feel so bad if you like rest a day
But then you gotta get back out there

I fall asleep in other people’s beds
So often I am too drunk to go home
Not that I’d want to
I am clumsy bear hug boney
Begging my roughness to rub people the right way
Am broken and fake toothed smiling
Because I believe even when you are unattractive
Smiling is beautiful

And Christoffer Jones is man still finding ways to fit in his own skin
Not that he feels he doesn’t
But there are more ways to fit than one
Is obnoxious in the mornings after
He lives
He lives

Life isn’t short
Seventy some odd years is a long time
It’s just not long enough

We know this
And this is how we live