how can i explain
the earthquake
the silence
how the world stood still
and white
the blur, defeaning nights
times spent waiting
crying
standing still
feeling everything
nothing
ears beating
their silence
i was the one left dying
again and again
there's hell in the sky
and darling
i'm the captive

her
l(ovely)etters
curve
so easily on
the paper
like tend(er)
rils of ivy or
fine win(gs)
e glasses
enc(ompass)
ircling the thin
blue lines.
maybe she
could write
(me)
a(nd)
word or
two for
m(aybe)
e.
her neat hands
around the pencil.
i wish she would
carve
her name into
my skin.
(she loves me?)

My cat lies in the laundry basket
I wonder if she'll ever know
There's a world outside of this place
Where there's love and loss and pain and sorrow

My cat rolls into the sunrays
Shining through my window
I doubt she dreams about the past
Or if the sun will shine tomorrow

My cat rubs against my leg
And she doesn't know a thing
About how insignificant she and I are
And how often others' hearts stop beating

My cat sits on my lap and purrs
And I know it doesn't matter
This is the longest life she'll ever know
And her heart will never be shattered

Her blue eyes say what mine cannot.

When it comes to us, we are the muffled silence on rocky sunrises,
hushes the morning with a faint orange feeling.
Two of the same, but we fit together like jigsaw pieces.
We are not different in the way we sit, oh, but when she walks,
poised, i know she is elevated far above me.
Unobtainable, boys sneer words they don't understand towards us as if
their words are venom flicking from their tongues to ****.
Oh, and she, she talks her broken words and I could listen for ages, sinfully indulging in what I cannot have.
By standard definition, is it aesthetic or platonic or am I falling for her?

People talk against the beauty we form together
when our two hearts merge into one, constant
and rocking like tidal waves constantly lapping the surface of our cheeks.
And they say we are abominations: we, together, are abnormal.
As they push us down and say they are saving their love
that is soggy like tomato juice bleeding through the sides of a sandwich
and broken, abused, but we are the abnormality while our love is
punctured only by night and new like stardust every morning.
How can our love be wrong when it becomes an art form?
I want her to imprint her faded red lipstick on my bare lips through the silence.
They do little else but talk and talk and their words are spit, filled with hate, while we,
we whisper promises in each other's ears as the sun rises on the rocks and pillows in our dreams.

All they do is hate and hate so blindly.
Their words scrape the sides of concrete condemnation,
but what we plead is love that fills up novels.
They don't know passion unless they're smearing freedoms we can't have in front of our faces.
Our lines aren't fed to us from a book
and I guess that's why when she touches me I know she exists.
Why would anyone hate us?
We love and love and it is so breathtaking and, oh my God,
how can you hate our love if it's become an art form?

Her blue eyes say what mine cannot.

Pity the day that goes unnoticed,
The sunshine dancing on blind eyes.
Mourn the sky for existing to the point of ignorance.
But cheer for the fox that dances at twilight,
For the child who still sits in awe of life.
Root for those who know little and embrace it all.

It would be incorrect
to say
that I dislike the rain

I love the way it
falls
and the shimmering left on the sidewalk

And after
the rain falls
and my shoes are soaked with water
I appreciate the drizzle
and the sun that comes
just after

and in that moment,
the weight on your side of the
bed left me again.

---------

every story has
an ending. ours was not an
exception, darling.

White shoelaces tied carefully,
clothes ironed straight,
not a strand of hair in his face,
private school and Christian home.
His momma packed him PB&J.;

She said, "Son, don't hang with the wrong kind of kids,
the ones sitting in the back of the classroom
who wear words on their necks and
black every Sunday."

And she puts a napkin in his lunchbox and reminds him
to wash his hands.
And she prays for him to find cleanliness,
and she checks the internet history every day
while he finishes homework and practices piano.

She tells him, "Son, don't let those celebrities
with their drugs and their ***** words
influence you."

And she emphasizes "man shall not lie with man"
and not "God loves all His children"
and tells him not to let any mud get on his new socks.

He sits on the couch and
he sits in the audience and
he's told what isn't okay.
He is raised following predjudices he doesn't agree to,
stereotypes engraved deep in his brain to the core.

He was never taught any different,
he was never educated on differences.
He knows a million shades of white but God forbid he touch a blade of glass.
He was taught to keep his window locked,
head down,
eyes shut,
mouth closed,
hands folded,
back straight,
shoelaces tied.

Momma says, "Son, better keep yourself clean,"
but she touches him with ***** hands
and ties a rope
he never wanted
around his neck.

I want to read the words you write to yourself
I want to see the pictures you paint with no one else in mind
I want to see the butterflies you dream up with eyes wide open
I want to hear the words that whisper you to sleep

I want to see who wakes you up each morning
I want to know what you see when your eyes are closed
I want to hold the hand that helps you breathe straight
I want to be the thought keeping you from jumping

If time can slow the beating of a heart,
But lights will bring them up again each day,
Then why should we dream to fall back apart,
And why should we carry on the same way?

Wishing is something that hopeless men do,
Even though they know it will never work;
And hoping is something that I've turned to
In the time when life is going berserk.

Nothing flows steady when you flood your mind,
Nothing is broken-- just pushed to a side;
Nothing is constant and no one is kind.
The only way out is to jump in time.

Grieving is useless, 'cause you'll grieve again,
And crying is stalling each of your wins.

I would enfold into myself, I swear.
Crumple under that weight, till I'm nothing.
I would just drown inside this lie I wear--
Suffocating sea of white, blank feeling.

I could soar above those shadows, I could,
And then what numbness would awaken me?
Die with eyes wide open, when all is good,
When I have given all I am to be.

I just close my eyes and dream of blindness,--
No doubt the brightest dove is more opaque,--
For ignorance is the greatest kindness:
Infinity is beautiful when vague.

I can't hear the music birds sing at dawn.
I can't leave this hole until night is gone.

I once saw a butterfly, its left wing was broken,
and it fell over and over, its legs crushed with feeling.

What is beauty?
We ask ourselves as we pile powder on our face like cement over our flawed skin.
Most attribute "beauty" as a physical trait, something you are either born with
or must qualify as to achieve happiness.
I think beauty is in the scrawled message at the corner of a Post-It note shoved in your right pocket
and in the tears welling to your eyes that have not yet fallen.
I think beauty is the hair unstraightened with wide tired eyes
and collaped words stumbling over themselves.

All we know about beauty was bottle-fed to us.
As a society, we have set aside what is and isn't beautiful.
It is unattractive to have acne, obscene to have leg hair,
and a downright sin to spend less than twenty minutes on your hair each morning.
But I've counted the zits on your crumpled forehead
and wrote in the stars the strands of your hair.
Your beauty's unbroken and awesome and perfectly celestial.

I've touched a million dizzy tulips, their heads nod off to the storm and rain.
But you held me even when I was unforgiving and broke me through the icy winds.

To me, beauty is not just what encompasses us, what we are born into;
Beauty is the yet-to-come and what you've tranformed to
after moments of fading lights and sick feelings.
Beauty is weaved into our minds, where no one can touch.
It's not in our appearance, nor in our actions.
Holding yourself high isn't cutting it for me.
Beauty is intricate thoughts, what you desire and feel.
I can't see beauty until you tell me by the dying light of noon
how much you'd love to change the world with your fingertips.

I once saw a butterfly, its left wing was broken,
but I swore it was beautiful.