Whenever someone asks you about yourself do you always know exactly what to say?

She always says " You have to tell me what you are thinking for me to understand," How can I when I don't even understand myself?

We sat in quiet whispers--resigned and frozen
To the wrought-iron slats--shoulders touching,knees barely bumping,
Shivering in the sojourn of our anxious intentions...
We were in default wait mode
And it was the waiting that tinged the tension.

You referred to me as your Jaded Juliet--
Impulsive innocence of perfect porcelain,
Protected within my world of privilege and power,
All feigned sophistication at fourteen.

I regarded you as a renegade--
A rouge in Romeo's guise aloof, unattainable;
I longed for your street-smart savvy swagger,
Thought of you as my iron-hearted hero at fifteen.

We huddled with few words--motionless for hours,
Wrapped in false facades of our uncomfortable indifference...
Feelings and fingers  entwined in the fantasy realms
Of our imagined lust and nervous satisfaction.

My head at war with my heart--fidgety and flustered,
In that feet-twisting,breath-hitching moment of madness,
With the cold creeping into my words of nauseating embarrassment,
I brandished them as loud, unweildy weapons of awkward....

I blurted out "I  l o v e  you," and meant it,
To sodium arcs reflected in your copper eyes--
Staring transfixed, as brilliant uncirculated  pennies--
Marveling at the 297 ways to make change for one dollar,
But absolutely no way to alter those words.

Suspended--swirling, and writhing like wraiths--
They floated as feathery plumes of breaths ...
Within the icy, silver stillness,
The scheduled snow fell as the hush between us.

******.

I was sure not to lead you on.
I know we hit it off
I know we get along.

We've been texting all week
And I am honored that you think
I'm beautiful.

I can't wait till D & D
The invitation means a lot to me.
So strange that you'll be down the street.

I want our friendship to grow
Do I want to date you?
I don't know.

Just don't send me heart texts.
Don't wish I was there.
Breaking another heart is my only fear.

"But you like him-"
"-That's what you said!"
Before I flushed the hormones out of my head.

I don't want this to happen.
Not again.
Don't make your affection something to regret.

Because I could never tell you I like your best friend.

Dear Adam,
Guess what?
All I have of you is an iPod.
It's filled with your songs
It's filled with your thoughts.

I was in your room
i peered insid a box
I was hoping to find something
but you didn't keep much
Not your ****
or your pipe
or your old secrets

I don't understand maybe we wanted to keep it.
I see nothing of you
this is not your room
you didn't live here, I can't tell
It smells like you and your picture is all over
Your blue painted walls
the room is getting older,
There was a bag of razor blades but I don't know what they're form.
I felt kind o awkward in there sitting with your mom
maybe i wanted to kiss you
before you left
or tell you  you were cute
you knew nothing of my heart
and I knew so much from yours
Im torn.
Being in this room makes me squirm and feel all wrong
you left us in the middle
of a new found fairy tale.

You were no prince and I was no princess
but I didn't want that all quite yet.
I wanted you to know, all the things I wrote ini my heart
but you being here to hold my hand and ill say thats a start.


Sometimes I think you'll come around
you'll say you didn't go
you'll say you panicked and got lost
but really it was a joke.
I know its not true
I know I'll never see you
They found your body
They found your car
you were still hot
because you went so far.

now I'm here with your ashes in my bag,
feeling absolutely mad
knowing that I didn't help,
that you cried for me and I couldn't do
what i needed to.

You are gone and i am here,
Ill spead you out here and there.
your dust will flow for a thousand miles
ill float you in the sea
ill flow you in my favorite rose bush
and under your planted tree.

It's funny how it ends so fast,
how people can be gone.
How drugs can make your mind possessed by heartless hopeless thoughts.

It's wired how I can't hold you,
or tell you how I feel.
I wish i could have yelled at you enough for you to stay here...

We laugh at him,
My friends and I,
In our bubble of teenage invincibility
We laugh at him,
Skinny and ungainly,
In shirts one-half size too big and
Kakis  that were probably $10 at Meijer's.
We laugh at him,
Hair carefully gelled and combed to cover the
Bald spot where too many nights of
Indecision and loss have rubbed it clean.
We laugh, his awkwardness fueling our
Shameful antics,
Shrinking him until he appears no more
Than an irritating fly with
Strangely sad eyes and  
32 years of small-town memories not
Validated,
Never appreciated.
We laugh at his first-time fumbling and confusion,
Not knowing how to handle us,
In our smug overconfidence and
Judgement like one thousand pins,
How to reach beyond our stubbornness
To teach us something worthwhile,
Something beyond the plan.
He sits like an origami bird that was made
Without instructions,
Perched on the corners of old desks,
In storage rooms of old textbooks,
Wrinkled and refolded.
Yet his sad eyes and open vault of memories makes him
Stronger, stranger, than I, we, have ever seen in the
Four walls of our learning.
Favorite books and winged metaphors
Fly
Next to seeds of joy and a father's death,
Twenty-two pieces of musical
Coping
That we laugh at,
That we see as a pitiful attempt at rejoining life,
That we scorn
With our teenage invincibility.
It's alright.
We know the value of less than nothing-
Our judgment means nothing.
His too-big shirts
And lyrical memory will
Exist
To anchor a life
Far after we have left,
Lost,
Wandering.