A circuit land,
Overshadowed by late, orange, blooms.
Tough powers tower high,
Mirroring fear to passersby.

Forest rich with opportunity,
Potential plots for growth,
Short showers bear us fruits,
Of evermore enriching schemes.

Spikes of hopes, dreams and wonders,
Base levels of lost sympathies,
Crying wounds of hungry symphonies,
Howls of jeer, malice, and thunder.

A shattered system holds us together,
A web void of its structure, and spider,
Leadership is not without its tethers,
Binding back what was once deep.

Inside those who  not heed,
Of the instincts that lead to their greed
We need you dreamers, to help us gaze
And see the stars again, through that lamp lit haze.

beyond Montana’s yellow lines
there is a field
~a field of painted soles
     and laces rubber tread
~a field of ****** curls
     and fallen headlights
where kaleidoscope lenses
look onto twisted frames          like origami halos
where teddy bears hug stop signs like pickets
     fringed in anger
          runaway childhoods sleep cautionary tales
  
beyond Montana’s blushing acne
there are red cup melodies
     blasting from blacked out tints
          weaving blues notes through Rock & Rap
distant cries are drowned by Bass
     or maybe Bud (light)
a haze of teenage eyes
they might as well be ghost riders
whip game copped from GTA
these pubescents are a Vice to their City
blooming sidewalk sloths
like flowerbeds

beyond Montana
is a country of bar stools
   where bar tenders play therapists
        and therapists play coroners
precedents are shots of whiskey - taken to the head
and reflected in flooded eyes

beyond Montana
is a country of MADD mothers and SADD students
beyond Montana
is a country of unexpecting pedestrians
beyond Montana
is a field
~a field of wing-clipped snow angels

That field is Mariah's home now
and she challenges you to change
   yourself
        your friends
             your country
she challenges you to
**STOP DRUNK DRIVING

you know how the song goes:
a stitch away from making it
and a scar away from falling apart.
holding on gets hard when
the light at the end of the tunnel
goes dark.

my friend told me he doesn’t purposely
befriend actively suicidal people anymore.
so when a 14-year old friend
was hospitalized for an attempt,
he was shocked.
I’m not fourteen
and i don’t go to the hospital for anything,
but when i was fifteen i
asked my mom to start taking me to therapy.
she told me,
sweetie,
you can just talk to me about anything.
so i started writing poetry instead.
but poems can’t diagnose me,
poems can’t prescribe me meds to
fix the chemical catastrophe in my head
poems can’t cure me.
but neither can people.

there was a boy that i used to call sunshine,
but he told me that he would
rather be the moon.

i deleted your number from my contacts
once you stopped using mine.
you don’t keep me up at night.
i’ve stopped losing sleep over you.

i haven’t broken the habit of checking
people’s wrists when they move
because of all the girls i knew in grade school.
i have a friend with the first letter of help
permanently scarred on his stomach.
we’ve never talked about it.
i don’t know if either of us know how to,
or if either of us really want to,
or if either of us really need to.

when my brother was 18, he was convinced
that he wanted to go into psychiatry.
i think the closest we’ve ever been
was when i had a mental break over
orange juice at one thirty in the morning,
watching him play GTA on his Xbox 360.
when my brother was 17, he was convinced
that his future was in professional photography.
i’m 17 and i don’t have a ******* clue.
I’m 17 and i don’t think I’ve ever felt so much
like I’m just constantly drowning.

they say a captain goes down with his ship
and I’ve set myself up for losing all my friends.

she’s got year-round summer skin
and winter has never been my friend.

i sleep seven hours a night
and i wake up exhausted.

my cat has all his claws
and when he crashes through my bedroom
when i’m on the brink of extinction
it leaves me haunted, hearing
breathing and footsteps that aren’t really there.
so i’ll put studs in all my jackets
and wrap myself in blankets.

i wish you were here,
i wish i was there.

the first rated R movie
that i saw when i turned 17
was that one that brought back ryan reynolds,
starring a moody teen with
the best superhero name ever,
a CGI man who acted as her mentor,
a pretty girl like a damsel in distress,
and the bad guy called himself ajax
but his real name was francis.
i cried
a lot.
i’m not sure why, really, but when the credits
started rolling and it was everything that i’d
been waiting for in a movie for the anti-hero
that I’ve been in love with since i was 13,
i sat in those velvet seats and started sobbing.

when i was six, my dad took my
9 year old brother and i
to see ‘revenge of the sith’ when it came out
in 2005.
the scene on mustafar, the volcanic planet,
the downfall of anakin skywalker
stuck with me until i was 12 and rewatched
all six of those old movies,
stuck with me until i was 16 and rewatched
all six of those old movies.
when i was a kid those scenes were scary,
now i see a mimic of Shakespearean tragedy.

i pick things apart until i know that they’ll scar,
but scars have always faded for me.
the first mark that ever lasted for
more than a month was when i
burned myself getting a cake out of the oven.
i remember my brother telling me
that he wouldn’t care about the burn
if i ******* up the cake.
we laughed about it because it was a joke.
i still think about it.

i still check to see if you
watch my Snapchat story.

i rip the hems out of all of my clothing
compulsively. I’m sorry.
i’ll pick up all the balled-up threads from
the carpet eventually.

i keep ticket stubs and scraps of notes
hazardously strewn across my bedroom,
because i’m too sentimental for my own good
but organization has never come naturally.

solar systems are borne from my fingertips.
supernovas power my lungs.
stardust glitters in my veins
(i tell myself these things in order to
keep thinking straight)

hey, look at the moon.
see how she reflects the sun for you?
it’s because she’s got nothing
of her own to give away willingly.
i gave you everything willingly
i spent too many nights
shredding notebook paper into pieces
of white birthday party confetti.

i swallowed six painkillers today.
I’m passive like aggressive,
letting my liver slip into uselessness.

it’s really hard to write poetry about bruises.

Every time I touch a controller
I set a new highscore
I said a new highscore.
Look out behind you, *******.
I capped that ***;
You should've watched your back.
Now I got an L-shaped block
Watch as I drop it in that L-shaped slot.
Haters gotta throw the blue turtle shell,
Because they can't keep their kart on Rainbow Road.
Donkey's going to throw some barrels at me;
Don't worry princess, watch me jump.
I promise I won't get hit, not even once.
Hey there champ look right here;
I just stuck a plas grenade
On you right ear.
Lucky shot? So you say.
Still watching me tea-bag you
From the grave.
Pilot Wings, Punch-Out, Mario
Madden, Sonic or GTA
It doesn't really matter
The number of pixels we play.
D-Pad or joystick,
Night or day,
It doesn't really matter how you play,
Put me on tron I'll blow you away.
Turtles in Time:
You take that next slice.
Even blindfolded your no match
For my SuperScope.
Tony Hawk, what a joke!
In Pacman or Galaga in space
Even with the Kunami Code
You've got no hope.
So the next time you hear
Scorpion yell "Get over here!"
Have no fear
A Sonic Boom will soon be there.
Busting out Atari's Pong?
Noob, I'll pwn you
One-thousand to none.
Hell, not even Parapa the Rappa
Can touch my rhymes.
Read those initials
That score is mine.
I said read those initials;
That score is mine.

Minecraft calls
And gta parties
Horrible races
Repetitive insanity
Midnight laughter fits
Midnight promises of forever
Midday I love you's
3 o'clock it'll be okay
Daily please don't hurt yourself
Weekend need
Constant no interest in what I look like
Even if we were on video calls constantly
Sentence finishing
Food envy
Parent envy (at least you had one good one)
Horrible cry-fests
Constant panic spamming
Insane laughter with horrible puns
i'm done with references
Why are you ignoring me
You are the love of my life

Bedroom’s painted fisherman’s blue

There’s a cut out of Hayden Panettiere naked in a pink bikini with a hula-hoop on the back of the door

Copies of British Vogue desperately hidden underneath the bed accompanying an empty bottle of Glen’s

Manchester United duvet cover and matching pillows to boot

The bin’s filled with pre-packed home-made lunches from the last six months

Wardrobes a collection of ill fitting blue jeans bought for me by grandmother and football jerseys for teams that I’ve never even heard of, yet let alone see play a single game

Uniform ironed and sitting out ready for school on Monday at 8am sharp

***** clothes cover mostly all the floor smelling of Lynx’s finest even though there’s an empty laundry basket just waiting in the corner to be used

Inside one of the woolen blazer’s (that is way too big for me) pockets a single unopened ****** and an AES 256-bit encrypted USB stick

An old PlayStation 2, with a single controller; games including FIFA years through 2004 to now, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and GTA.

Blood red shoplifted lipstick that’s now melted hidden in the little secret compartment at the back, meant for network expansion.

Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, and Harry Potter all adorn the bookcase

Physics, Maths, and IT textbooks remain firmly closed on the desk in addition to a smashed phone from me and Daddy’s last “physical altercation”

Lady Gaga’s “I Like it Rough” is playing in the background on repeat…

Leong and I are at a party, a graduating-high-school-senior throw-down. Their school year is over, and they are ready to darty. We’re at a lake house, well away from parents and neighbors.

These are the kids I high-schooled with - I just got promoted a year early. I get a lot of nods, waves and winks from some guys but none of them approach, like a mysterious inversion of attitudes has occurred - as if Yale were a nunnery and I’m a known novitiate. It’s just as well, I’m not looking for a hookup.

It’s Friday night, about 11:30 pm, the party started long ago and it’s britney-spears-2007. There are drunk girls in the pool in their underwear (Ok, that’s just exhibitionism, who comes to a lake party without a bathing suit?).

We’ve been here for about a half an hour, long enough to dance a couple of times. It’s hot and we’re sweaty but we can’t swim - Leong and I are moon sisters tonight - it’s our trauma bond. Our ad hoc solution, rubbing our arms and necks with ice, is congroovesive.

Leong is loving the bash, she keeps saying, “crazy,” like when large football players jump from the second story roof into the pool. It’s a huge pool, a huge party (with maybe 150 kids), a sound system that Led Zeppelin would envy and the house is a beach.

Everett, the host for tonight’s decadence, comes over and takes a seat by Leong and my lounge chairs. He’s a handsome guy, but there’s a cocky, entitled edge there that’s off-putting. He can be nice when he’s not trying to impress anyone.

There’s a break in the music. “You’re traveling this summer, I hear - me too - what games will you be playing?” He asks,
“I have my switch with me,” I say, “it travels well - not the whole console mind you - that seemed too extra - just the switch. So I’ll be playing Animal Crossing and Zelda - what about you?”
“Oh, I’m gonna play Grand Theft Auto - It was my favorite as a kid,” he says.
“You played GTA as a KID??” I gasp, “Why has THIS never come up?”
“I don’t know.” He admits
“How did your parents let you have that?” I ask, astonished.
“My dad’s the one who turned me onto it,” he confides, “he wanted a partner.”
“No wonder you love ******* music!” I say, making new connections.
“I DO.” He laughed. “You do,” I confirm, knowingly.

He holds a bottle of deep red something near my glass and raises his eyebrows.
“You can gas me up,” I laughed, “I’m not driving, I’m ok with it.”
Leong holds up her glass as well and he pours generously into our Sprites.

“What song can I play for you?” He asks, as a reward.
“I’m going to go basic,” I announce, after thinking about party music, “Beat it, by Fall out boy”
“You got it,” he nods, taking a moment to text the request to the DJ, before moving on to the next table.

After a moment, “Beat it” begins, there are a few cheers, but conversation becomes impossible.

Congratulations seniors everywhere!