I am not a good poet,
And I internally know it
Deep in my heart.
Even though people compliment my so-called “art”.

I am not that smart:
And it causes me to fall apart.
Today when I tried to take a test
I was quite a mess,
And distressed...
Mixed with “depressed”.
I was trying hard...
I still try hard
With my poems that are so-called “art”.

Art is magnificent.
I am not.
Some say I’m “falsely-modest”
Because I am a true “artist”.
I am not.
This is all that I got.
I can’t whip up anything new.
I can’t think any problem through.
I can’t see through another point of view.
I am not.

I am not a poet.
This poem shows it.
I am not an artist.
I am being honest.
I am not that smart.
Even if everyone says that I make words
Into works
Of “art”.

I am nothing.
I am not.

Heart pounding
Hands shaking
b r e a t h e

Palms sweating
Still faking
b r e a t h e

Brain frying
Lips drying
Still trying
b r e a t h e...b r e a t h e...b r e--

...I can't breathe.

I wish I could sleep peacefully like a housecat,
snuggled into a reclining chair,
without a care in the world.
But instead
I toss and turn with the thought
that I’m not sure where I’ll be resting my body to sleep
6 months
or a year from now.
I lie awake with the worries
of missing home and feeling guilty
for leaving my needy parents behind.
The thought of distance separating you and I,
causing us to not be together
keeps my eyes open,
so that I cannot close my eyes to sleep -
not even a wink.

I had this tremendous fear.
The mist soon all around;
The water around capsizes.
Substance attends, a funeral of sorts.
I've never ventured this far.
Soon they return, looking back.
Fleeing wildish scream.
My former thought bold.
Such my hope.
Resurfacing the ill fated.
The thought of sinking.
Forced to roam in darkness.
Where would I place my feet.
Perplexed, nothing was the same.
Cold, unable to find comfort.
I drifted, longing to chance the size of waves.
Distant waters courteous in expectation.
I too braced for it.
Becoming motionless.
Awaiting descent.

Not all ships sink.
The voyage extended from strangers eyes.
When the wind stops and the sail settles.
Some peculiar gaze, heavily weighed in length.
The ship sinks.
But this I feel far too late.
I am at the bottom.
The bottom of her heart

and all these gods are in one place
conspiring and -
all your efforts are misplaced
whining like an -
off-key note in a seraphic choir
lamenting a -
weekend's bitter aftertaste.

here's a thing you can't avoid:
a war of worlds on a bedroom floor
the house is kept unlocked at night
and a crosswind billows through the door.

...and all his questions are ignored
he chipped his teeth cause he was bored.

we wrote missives to a shallow grave
dug with musicals we rearranged
to fit the arc we fashioned here
as we waltzed atop the sinking pier.

...I am prone to switching off
So I will never turn you on.

The girl in the red dress
The first time I saw her I was a little boy, she walked past my window.
She smiled brighter than the sun and all the burning stars.
I watched her walk past my window for the following ten years, she walked in rain, snow, and storm, always in her pretty little red dress.
Everyday I said to myself that today was the day I would talk to the girl in the red dress with the blinding smile. But I couldn’t my anxiety had taken over my body, I was so disappointed in myself, why was I like this.
One day she stoped walking past my window, I didn’t get it, I waited for days, weeks, months, until one day I looked in the paper, and I saw this big picture, it was the girl in the red dress with that stunning smile, I started reading, Emily Marie Anna Johnson, wow what a beautiful name, to a beautiful girl, I continued but stopped in chok, Emily Marie Anne the amazingly beautiful girl in the red dress, had committed suicide.
I wouldn’t believe it, so everyday I stared out that same window to see that pretty little girl in the red dress walk by...
she never did

I am no longer the past
wasted in a prison so hostile,
where these sad-looking eyes never saw light,
where every moment spent meant literally to die.

I fell into strangers’ arms,
whose smiles were too disguised.
Strangers who had the world mesmerized
and forced me to hide behind their lies.

No more mouth of hate to listen to.
I have just recovered what I had lost because of you.
My worth no longer depends on your opinion
and I no longer live in your dominion.

I thought my heart was made of sadness, but my spirit’s mending.
I fought through what I felt was never-ending, but somehow it ended.
I'm up here looking way down there at everything,
staring anxiously at the life that once was kept from me.