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You
  could cut
        the air  
with a knife
it was just that thick
it had me
  chewing my nails
     gnawing them to
        the quick.

A small voice
  inside my head said
- you are not the boss of me -
     No question about it
         I work hard to be free.


I plan for
the worst
but I hope
for the best
born to create
I take my imagination
and put it to the test.

They say that a bad
   attitude is like a flat tire
       you have to change it
   if you're going to get very far.
     Free will,
         choose the things you choose
            But you just can't go pinning all
                your hopes on some far away star.

As life goes and go it does,
I hold on tight and
leave my past in the dust.
I've come face to face with my demons
and lived to tell the tale,
I was backed right up against the wall
but my morality is in tact,
this cat's not for sale."

I'm alive for two reasons
        yeah it's down to that.
Reason number one I was born
                and two I didn't die yet.
    I am no go between
        it hasn't come down to that
           I can't deliver what I never had
       Although sometimes I have to
give my head a shake. I always remember
to give a sucker an even break.

©2013
I wish I were a cigarette
Perched in-between your perfect arched lips
Breathe me into you
I'll swirl in smoke tendrils around your face
And then I'll happily fade away
Until you light up another later
Being your bad habit isn't so bad
If that's what I am to you,
I'll take it
Amara Pendergraft 2013
First month, first seat change. we were on opposite sides, no interaction. I relish this, i am not a
BOLD or EXTROVERTED person
some might say I am shy or introverted
now that the time has come, I am not ready to change seats,
to take the chance of sitting closer, forced interaction,
I am nervous,
but am calmed with the thought that chances are, we'll be seated even farther apart,
I was wrong.
our elbows will brush, our knees will touch, our gazes will meet.
I hear the words coming out of the teachers mouth,
but  am stunned into silence ,
my whole being shaken,
our names are called,
our seats given.
To some, this may seem silly, immature, an overreaction.
For them, this may be true, in this situation calm, collected, thinking: this is no big deal.
But with dread curdling in your stomach as you snap to,
stumbling to your seat,
this is an earthquake shaking the earth, a volcano spitting ashes,
a panic attack waiting to happen.
and it pounces.
seated, trying not to squirm, to shake, to ****;
wondering what he's thinking, trying not to stare.
he thinks you don't see,
the glances he shoots the short foot between you,
thinks your engrossed in the teacher, the clock, the pencil
any thing but him.
But your any thing but engrossed, you see every shake, gaze,
fell every brush of the hand.
Finally, this long hour is over, the mixture of excitement and torture has come to an end.
As is to be expected, on your way still in has gaze, you trip, you stumble, your face cherry red;
embarrassed, but thankful,
that he doesn't have a class with an even more abundant chance of embarrassment.
over the day,
you forget the way he gazes,
his shy way
different from the others,
the way he's taller,
in a way that makes you feel safe, flushed, happy, even if their is no chance of him being yours.
But then lunch comes,
you sit down,
ready to devour food that can only fill your stomach, not your soul as much as you wish it would, or
could;
but looking across,
you spot him, watching you,
his gaze surpassing the walls of people, as much as a shy person wouldn't like,
is it coincidence that he found the one gap with a view of me?
is he staring at me?
what to do?
with all this questing running your mind,
your appetite flee's,
and so do I,
to my safe haven within the books.
tomorrow, the nervousness has subsided, its over, your over, its done.
but then, on the way to first period,
our paths cross,
glances exchanged,
blushes made.
You know that this is not over, not done,
the time has come for class to begin.
I've tried to forget, to overcome this nervousness, but I've been defeated,
ground to a fine powder of nerves by a crush.
our knees bounce in anticipation,
our pencils tap,
our feet twitch.
time to share the book,
the dreaded closeness.
Finally it happens,
the brush of the elbows.
we both feel it,
the sparks that glow blue,
the cheeks that grow red.
we have been given a gift, a chance,
to overcome shyness,
to create something wonderful.
but to take that chance, to accept this gift means time, courage.
and every day until then,
this tension will be relieved
and i will be a nervous wreck.
We started on opposite sides,
but fate pulled us together, forced a chance.
now we sit close, still tense, still wired,
but strangely happy,
exhilarated,
alive.
to this day, he still sits in the gap :)
His eyes
Pressed into her with the pull of polarity
A haunting indication of an impossibility too beautiful to protest
He looks
With a longing he has hidden deep in his sock drawer
So no one can tell him he’s wrong or irrational
A locket only to be worn round his pulsating mind’s mannequin
But she wears on her sleeve what he’s trying to leave
And dressed like a nightingale
In feathers so free
Her eyes with a fire that waves like the sea
Closer they crawl
Past night’s shadowed humans getting drunk off doubt and betting on beauty
Past the scratches on stools once straddled by sorrow
And Isolation, his lover
Who lost her last words somewhere under the covers
That they shook out in morning
To shake off the mourning
But the streets crave a sweep
For the ashes are thick and catch on their tongue
Reminding the runaways to stop feeling young
And as they both draw so near
With the friction of fear
And the whip of a wish
And a harsh hit of hope
For the call of a kiss
Her hairs stand on stilts at the nape of her neck
An impatient frenzy that’s waiting on deck
But the lights left her lonely
A bubble-bruised brain
And he left her only
The promise of pain
As he grabbed another hand and rushed out the door
She smiled a sadness that left her lips sore
And gathered her hollows
And the last of her trust
And took to the streets with the ashes and dust
There is a moment that repeats throughout my life.
Every time I encounter it,
I am brought to tears of wonder.
Both sad and happy
Free and also confined,
I begin to remember all the amazing things I have done
All the beautiful things I have seen,
And a thought forms...
I realize...
"I know nothing..."
            ...
And I am lifted...
As he sails around  

eyes blurred by the motion of the world as it whizzes by

                                    
                        ­                                                               A smile escapes him
Not even the wind can chill his mind
From the rolling boil of the ecstasy
Which bubbles and dances in his shell

                                             The greens, the blues

                                     The fresh air burning his cheeks
                                 The rushing wind pummeling his ears
                                           All play the song of life

                                                                ­                        For the first time
                                                                ­                    He can hear it in all its
                                                                                       syncopated glory

He exists

And finds solace in being lucky to exist

                                                         
In this life…

                                                    On a bike…
  
                                                                ­                                      Going home
                                                            ­ …
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