Today is my birthday,
I’m turning eleven.
My one wish is that when I’m twenty,  
I still feel like seven.
I hear yelling,
An explosion of pandemonium.
I rush downstairs,
Tripping over them.
My smile stretches from wall to wall
I see my loving parents,
Knives in hand,
And at each other’s throats.
The smile fades.
No wishes of any kind.
I return to my room.
Take pencils.
And make myself blind.  

— from my chapbook Glass Three Quarters Empty

For the first time
prioritizing myself
Feels unnatural,
But oh so satisfying!

Sea, a mist of blue
Gentle waves draw me, nature's
mantra to the soul

I used to have to sit down and make myself write
Now it comes as naturally as breathing

Ideas churn in my head
Spilling out when emotions get high

I have so much to write about
And I find it so relieving

To see my feelings typed out
In dark black ink on a page

I can understand them better that way

Poetry filled a hole I didn't know existed
And I am now a complete soul

When I read
poems from the past,
I barely understand them.

I try, yes—
but they are minds
from another time.

It takes time
to connect with them.

Then I imagine myself:
will they, in the future,
read the poems I write to you
and understand
anything at all?

a wisp in the night
you are a flame I followed
till the ends, till you went out
and left me in the pitch black
all alone.

a beautiful weaving knot of
emotion, desire, despair and
freedom.

To live is to feel.