Give an infant a blank canvas and paints and watch him instantaneously dress the white square with sloppy lines of reds, blues and yellows.
Crossing each other in no logical sequence.
Mixing into awful shades of greens and browns.
But observe his face as he does so.
And you will see his face flushed with joy,
With every rush of the brush.
With no designated design in mind.
He loves to paint.

Give an adult a blank canvas and paints.
And the first thing he'll ask you is;
"What do you want me to paint?"

How can it be
that you can have everything
and still want more?
Am I greedy when I ask
"is there anything else?"

How can it be
that the ties of friendship
can be undone?
Are they not elastic?
Aren't they impervious
to the ever-shifting sands of time
that weather meeker men
down to disassociated
piles of dust?

How can it be
that you can plant roots
that spread and intertwine themselves,
seemingly immune to any upward motion,
just to pluck them from the ground
that nurtured them for years
and place them somewhere
unlike anything they've ever known?

How can it be
that the world can hold so many secrets
and yet our instincts tell us
to discover the truth?
No secret was ever discovered
by trusting a single source;
like the threads of a dream-catcher,
we entangle ourselves in multiple realms
to capture what we seek.

I don't know which face means more:
the smiling ones
that coax me into song, and folly,
and memories as precious as time,
or the one blemished with melancholy
as it stares back at me
knowing there's so much more.

How can it be
that we have an imagination
as wide as the universe,
and yet we never dare
to find the borders?

Teach her not feminism
but femininity

for as she finds herself
only then,
rapt in purpose

she will know
what is worth fighting for

You are the cause of your own suffering*
I tell myself everyday,
but I still bathe in silt and shame.
Rinse. Recycle. Repeat.

I tell myself everyday
how mundane it is to be redundant:
Rinse. Recycle. Repeat.
Everybody that looks at me sees

how mundane it is to be redundant.
You only get one masterpiece;
everybody that looks at me sees
that's not a rainbow, it's an oil spill.

You only get one masterpiece,
but I still bathe in silt and shame -
that's not a rainbow, it's an oil spill.
You are the cause of your own suffering.

How could you ever love me to death?
What a morbid thought to think!

But if you ever attempt such a thing,
I'll love you back for being so crazy
because I'm kinda crazy,
and somewhere along all of that crazy,
well,
Perhaps I might die.

And even then,
I'll cry in my eternal sleep
Knowing one day you'll fall in love again
While I still love you
as the sky soars above you.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I once did,
sitting on top of a sand dune
under the lights
of the Fourth of July.

                                         The water below
                                         cast the reflection of beautiful chandeliers
                                         bursting with color,
                                         and as timeless as sand,
                                         and yet my eyes were elsewhere -
                                         capturing something unlike I'd ever seen.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I once did,
laying on a couch as I held her,
she turned to me and smiled;
the chandeliers were bold and raucous
as they decorated the sky of my mind,
and the stars twinkled in the depths of her eyes -

                                        that memory since faded with time.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I once did,
the pen in my hand
gave birth to words and worlds
made from my reflection
like they were my children -
and I had always feared
impotency.

                                               I created places I'd never seen,
                                               but they were as real as sand,
                                               and for a moment,
                                               I felt like God:
                                               watching from above
                                               as my creations began to breathe.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I once did,
living on a page of black and white,
if I was God,
she was an angel,
and the song from her trumpet
reminded me of the chandeliers
I thought were lost in time.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I don't know if I ever have,
but what I have is something
that gives me a reason to be;

                                                 Something beautiful
                                                 and intricate
                                                 like a chandelier
                                                 whose glass was once
                                                 nothing more
                                                 than countless grains of sand.

Do we happen to life or does life happen to us? How do we know what the **** we can trust when our minds can't conclude whether something's enough but tears fall from our face with no thoughts to their name and we feel like we should be starting over again. Another attempt at a life gone one way, without the slightest idea where I think it should be. It's all the same. There's still sun, there's still rain, there's still pain. But no mix of the three can explain this lock in my brain. Am I here? Am I lost? Am I okay with this loss of walls hidden behind far too long to hold on. Are they gone? Or am I? We're all going to die and I want to look back and be pleased with my life. So I'll hold my breath tight and dive into a path with no clue if it's right and just trust that I must have some say in my fight. Being human means confusion and an illusion of time we spend trying to find our own way into the light. And why? Because no one has a clue but we like to think we do and that's what's on all of our minds at the end of the night. After days where we run until our lungs collapse in hope we can find a place where we can see the maps of the world and the life that happens right before our eyes. How simple it looks and how I hate to despise but this world I see right in front of me isn't a scratch on the pain wanting to break free. It screams and I dream I can get it all out but the best I can do is reluctantly numb it or shout "Why the **** is this me?" This is not what I want to be defined by but no matter what I try it arrives and it's bigger than before, not ready to be ignored, so how the **** do I find more? I'm ready to hit the floor running again. I'm not sure if this is the beginning or the end.

I am a mirror.

My father looked at me
and he saw a disappointment;
so he ran away
to find someone with a kinder reflection.

My friend took a peek,
and they saw something pleasant:
They saw themselves in a different light.
So they put me in a place where
I was never more than a glance away.

A former lover glanced at me
as she passed by;
she saw something unstable,
so she found a mirror
whose glass she could bend at her every will.

My mother stood before me
and she saw her hopes and dreams -
I've never known someone to admire their reflection
more than themselves,
so that's why I love her in return.

I can see it all:
the beauty,
the filth;
In fact,
the only thing
I've never seen
is me.