Today I finally felt equal to you
When we were standing in front of the class
Talking about History
Side by side
Together

Let me neglect your voice
Let you out of my head
If I told you I tried
Well I didn't try enough

That's gonna change
Believe me now
I'll show you how
You can have me

I'll tell you everything
And every thought
Run across my barren wasteland
Of a mind

And if you're still there
By the end of my story
You can have
All the stolen glory

Nervously sliding my hand
To the soft spot tissue
That is your hand
And as our fingers interlock
I'm not at all shocked

But my heart is racing
My head is calm
My hand is shaky
And you're just there

Expresionless

Your sweater
and brown hair
are all I have
To make it through the day

Your embrace
and your laugh
Belong to you

Could I borrow them for class?
I'll give them back at lunch

Can I borrow you?
Be mine for a while
We can go a mile
or two

In my stupid car
with my bad music
And my shaky hands

I'll go slow
Not to worry you
I'll take the backroads
Cause where we're going
There isn't a main road
to get to where we're going

We're going away
Leaving this town
This state
We're going to travel
The whole wide world
And as long as you're in bed
By sundown
Then I'll be happy
As long as you're happy

I write soundlessly
My message to students
erasable
words the color of night

that cloaks still the marching band
practicing and
hiding loudly in the moments before dawn
awakening the day
calling forth the sun and
students--

rise and
greet one another with kindness
the message the color of night.

I like the idea... Of falling in love strangers who don't know me.

Who don't know what I've been trough or my favorite book. Who don't know how I like my coffee or what my favorite food is.

I like the idea...of being someone to somebody new.

I don't want you to know my ***** secrets yet, or my lack of showering every day. I don't want you to know I hate not blow drying my hair after a shower or how I hate walking around naked.

I like the idea... Of new beginning With new people.

I want you to get to know me for me. I want you to ask my favorite color or why I prefer white chocolate instead of dark. I want you to ask me why I take too many pictures or cry for no reason sometimes.

I like the idea of falling in love with someone who doesn't know me at all.

Sitting inside the oven’s lower drawer
Between the cake molds and over the cookie sheets
His laughter is laced with bubbles.
No one knows why sitting inside a drawer is so fun.
I’m standing near the kitchen door
Admiring his imaginative game.

The toddler studies the situation closely
His raspberry lips contort in a pensive pout
Patches of gold hair stick out from the back of his head
Like a crown fashioned in a very different land
Where the cake molds and cookie sheets are lucky.

Lucky they have such a terribly beautiful king.

A perfect sentence must be beautiful and true
Surprising, and it must contain metaphysical dimension
But what if all sentences were perfect?
They would then cease to be original
Loose their surprise
And no longer be perfect.

How does a sentence achieve a state of perfectness?
Must it go to the gym five days a week,
Get straight A’s at school,
Play the piano,
And make all the girls swoon?

Maybe a sentence could cheat
Surround itself in a paragraph of clichés,
So it seems perfect by comparison.

She hates that she is a woman
The putrefying weakness perceived in the curves of her body
The naivete shown in her blues
With the unintentional flutter of butterfly lashes
That refuse to meet the glances of those that pass by
The fear-- Of what?
That stereotypes are true?
She doesn't even know
And it sickens her.

She sickens herself.

She hates that she is white
The blandest vanilla
The marble statue
Somehow revered
Worshiped
Privileged
But simultaneously overlooked
Boring
Unimportant
The Caucasian mongrel
In light of the fact that her People
Have no proud history
Which she can name herself heir to

She hates that she is middle class
Not poor enough to struggle
Not rich enough to be free
Just situated dully in the middle
A footnote in the statistic
That they tell her she must use
To identify herself

She hates that her belief system
Has to be called by a name
That she has to choose
To be a part of a group
As part of her "identity"
And she is not allowed
To stand by her own integrity

She hates that she is American
The pudgy, loud-mouthed, laterally-speaking nation
The brashly jumps into conflict
Guns blazing
As its political system decays
In the stench of its overwhelming debt and corruption

But in truth
She hates
That they force her
To whittle her essence down
Into Gender, Race, Class, Religion, and Nationality
A *****-inducing statistic

As if there was nothing more to her
Than the facts surrounding her existence