I **** & it's okay because
I **** for my country

Wait no, that was a father
that was a son
I watched the life ebb from
the body of an uncle
whose favorite color was green
who loved old music.
I turned this husband,
this pro stone-skipper
into less than a corpse;
into a statistic
a number.

I **** for my country

I wake up, it's noon,
I bounce around my mind to find
that it'd be better if you were here,
but I'm not alone anyway.
Endless options sing me songs
as I dance around an empty house,
seemingly infinite.
I hear Emily Dickinson's call of irony
"Dwell in Possibility"
from a girl who never left her home
Perhaps, I, now, should do it too--
dwell, but never pick a road,
as Robert Frost did.
Maybe I will stay idle
& watch my choices melt away
as I let time run free,
crawl into bed & watch the
sun slide across the blue
& call today "No Paths Were Traveled"

Three nights in a row, you came to me,
And it still was only Wednesday.
I tried to help you each time--
I sang songs of my heart,
But you demanded
An orchestra.
So I failed,
Of course.
"Thanks."

I'm not writing to you,
I'm not writing to anyone at all.
I'm writing because my heart aches
because the words,
each LETTER,
appearing on the screen places me one step closer
to getting absolutely
nowhere.

I'll let you in,
Like I've never let anyone in before
I'll show you my scars
& worse, my wounds
I'll open you up to everything
what I don't even want you to have to see

You'll touch me,
send shivers down my body
& I'll take you for granted
like I'm supposed to

& we'll call it love

The wind
                                                       at my door
                                                                                                              RATTLES me

shakes me
                                                       free of my
                                                                                                               pointed finger

Blameless, I
                                                       turn inwards,
                                                                                                               concave,

I search
                                                       for the love
                                                                                                                in me

& return
                                                       with a bunch
                                                                                                                of old bones,

skeletons of
                                                        myself that
                                                                                                                 I have wasted

away on
                                                         pleasing other
                                                                                                                   people's needs

so that
                                                         they could use me
                                                                                                                   as a net

when they
                                                         fall, & tell me
                                                                                                                   that I pushed

them, that
                                                         it's all my
                                                                                                                   fault.

Is it you--
are you the rain
that my children
dance in?
Are you the
harvester of long
grains and seeds
that the lone bird
feeds on?

To know you
is to know for an
eternity.
It is you,
the hand of death,
the whisperer of
rustling motions,
who knows of both
the grandest scope
and of who I am
in my smallest ways.

It amazes me that God made mouths,
knowing that they'd talk this much;
                                   judge this much,
                                   hurt this much,
                                   curse this much,
But everybody rambles, everybody spits venom at their mirrored flesh,
people who are just like you, just like me, just like everyone.
We do it anyway.

Honesty is
doing a perfect job
on a blind woman's
hairstyle.

Meaning is entirely
subjective in a
world where
some
starve &
others *******
& someone,
somewhere,
breaks an iPhone.

How do I find unanimity
in the midst of spectrums,
ranges, & degrees in which
one
falls?

Who is like me?
Who is like you?

Sometimes I
                            p
                                o                                      all that I have, all of my energy
                                  u                            & time, maybe even some of my love    
                                    r                       
                                      ­                   into
                             **nothing

Expectations
What am I deserving of?
          Am I not a mere human
amusing the divine
          with my feeble attempts
to scavenge scraps
          of what I call control over
my life? I am an ant
          who wants to change the
ways of the
                                           w                   i                    n                    *d