it's too late to fret
about decisions made
and ties cut, past tense.
it's hard to see it
without the glaring minutiae
of my demise.
I'm scanning the walls
for a change of subject-
Polaroids and butterfly carcasses,
city skyline sketches
and old cigarette advertisements
in gilt gold frames;
satisfy yourself.

my mind is saturated
with degenerate cogitation-
a stew of pantheons
and painstaking nihilism.
my bones are brittle
and begging to break
and my eyes are growing heavy,
with the weight of it all.

perpetually human,
romanticizing the madness
of a world that's come undone.
oil paintings of the sea
hang upon the walls of our minds
and we marvel at the sorrow
mimicking beautiful colors.

cryptic fingers stroke our egos
and tell us that we will persevere,
that we are the ******
of evolutionary prose.
lunar rays beam down on us,
shrouding us in a gentle glow
and we almost believe
that we could be infinite.

I quite like the virginity of a fresh notebook
the way my wrists and palms drag across its leaves
breathing life between lines in pink magic marker or the severity of red ballpoint
I like the prickly practical meticulousness of a shopping list:
a dozen eggs
one pineapple
one bag of fresh spinach
one bag of English muffins
one bottle of dish soap
I like the tender impressions of curlie cues and firty cursive
communicating endearments placed on counters such as:
TAKE OUT THE RECYCLING YOU LAZY OAF ******* <3 XOXOXO <3
I enjoy the audacity of a wandering doodle
meandering
cartwheeling
hopskotching
between
and under and over
indices

and spaces
between shopping lists and death threats
i enjoy the lingering ghost of prose shaped caverns
carved onto seemingly empty sheets that carry on for pages
until they fade like whispers into an evanescence
I crave the obnoxiousness absurdity of a to do list
daring me to take a day off from procrastination
until tomorrow
call Gramma
rent due on the first of the muuuuuuuunth
take the GRE
update resume
be awesome. like a boss.
most of all
I love the pain and joy of a poem
the way it slowly leaks from heart to mind to hand to paper
staining
spaces
urgently
faster than muses whispers
barely escaping onto lines
prolific terrific poetry
sporadic spacious atrocious poetry
I croon over the denial of the last page of a beat up notebook
the way the paper hangs onto spirals haggard
littered with stringy remnants of lists and reminders and death threats and poems and goodbyes

From when I was a child,
I wondered,
I pondered,
I was confused.

Life.
It bewildered me.

I was put on this earth.
Why?
Do I have some daunting mission ahead of me?
Some prophecy to fulfill?

What gave my life reason?

I'm only a teenager,
but from what I've gathered,
most people have no idea what their reason is.
Many of them haven't even considered it.

As of now,
Mine is just to live.
Be myself.
Follow my dreams.

Most importantly,
make a difference.
This doesn't mean save the world,
or become president,
or invent the next Apple product.

It's the small differences that count.
The ones that can make a person's day.

How can we be satisfied with our own lives,
if we have not bettered the lives of others?

She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother's car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls'—
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she'll sew rag rugs
from textile strips of kelly green,
bright red, aqua.

When she enters,
and the millgate closes,
final as a slap,
there'll be silence.
She'll see fifteen high windows
cemented over to cut out light.
Inside, a constant, deafening noise
and warm air smelling of oil,
the shifts continuing on ...
All day she'll guide cloth along a line
of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders
rocking back & forth
with the machines—
200 porch size rugs behind her
before she can stop
to reach up, like her mother,
and pick the lint
out of her hair.

my mundane life
is all too trivial
I am a child
I still live
in my parents house
the one my father built
with his words,
the one my mother
blew spirit into
with her macaronis
the one I sat
in my room
studying in
useless packs
of forgotten information
trying
to cry.
into new notebooks
and ukulele
filling bathtubs
opening windows
letting air
form an air
of beauty
in my ugly
homely
country
unloved country
every being here
utters poorly articulated words
of loath
to you
how do you stand
so strong
whilst staggering within
adversity?
would my life
be more
or less
mundane
if I were nabokov
living in russia
transcending and transmitting
beauty?
coated with cold
and cruelty
thats cruel for cruelty
and aesthetics sake,
rather than
heat
and rage
and silenced
misery.

A Lamar Original

Honey, I know that times are hard
And the moments like these are tough,
So let me reassure why we shouldn’t be apart,
And allow our future be dictated by love.

Baby, every night before I sleep
On bent knees to God I pray
For the hearts we have to not leak,
Because he has brought all this way.

We can succeed if we give this a chance;
I can see us growing old and grey,
Looking back on this very day;
We made it beyond our own recession romance!

Honey, I know that at times you feel alone,
And the world can be such a crazy place,
But that doesn’t mean you have be on your own,
I just hate to see the stress on your face.

Baby, everyday after I wake
With closed eyes to God I pray
For the hearts we have to not break,
Because if it’s his will, together we’ll stay.

We can ascend if we give this a chance;
I can see us with laughs and smiles,
After all the tribulations and trials;
We overcame our own recession romance!

Even if we have little money, little work,
All I need is you, honey, for what it’s worth...

It was deep April, and the morn
Shakespeare was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers evermore,
To laugh and dream on Lethe's shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgement never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Who never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
Continually
With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.