No time to sleep.
Too broke to eat.
Into my books
I start to weep.
Said I could be
anything:
Go out! Go forth!
Chase your dreams!
Except I ****
at calculus,
and who the hell
is Romulus?
I need two jobs
to pay the rent;
An exponential
growth of debt.
They say, "go get
an internship,"
but with pre-reqs
I'm not equipped.
Need to study,
everyday--
'less I throw
my whole life away!
Volunteer!
Try something new!
Stop giving me
more things to do!
I'm up to my knees.
My waist. My chin!
Not sure if I
know how to swim.
Will this ordeal
ever desist?
Or I am going to
die like this?

married to fate, chained to the future
my wounds won't heal, not even with sutures
the roulette ball rolls; who knows where it'll land?
will i know to take hold when you outstretch your hand?
each day my doubts plague me, gnaw at my soul
and sometimes i wonder if this is why i thrive in the cold
what prompts us to write, to shove words out in the open?
who can look into our eyes and know that we're broken?
the pen is a blade; my heart is a trigger
this place is a maze; my blood clumps thicker
three years ago, i thought i would be different,
thought i'd be bigger, or less worried about insignificance
i thought the world would turn on its' axis boldly,
and that i wouldn't crave days where i want someone to hold me
three years ago, i wonder if my sails had a stronger direction
and once upon a time - i swear - i had more connections
fear still finds me,
a panther stalking its' foolish prey,
and time still blinds me
with how quickly it ticks away
is success just a feeling? is it only a name?
is it even a level, a possibility in this game?
is passion a feeling, or just a thirst for fame?
is home a person, a place, or an imaginary plane?
my mind still haunts me, with its' rattling doors,
and sometimes my demons whisper that i'm doomed to bore
questions ignite my being, setting me ablaze
as i wonder if i will ever be ready for the adulting daze

This large square ceiling hanging above my body
is a blank canvass that needs to be painted
with bold strokes and bright colors,
with smooth orange and ocean blue,
rapid pummeling rhythms dictating tone and mood.

I have a pen in my hand that squirts out black bird ink,
but to me it’s a stone sculpting tool that carves deep inside my imagination,
and scoops up newborn thoughts before they disintegrate
when I wake up from my daydream.

So I climb on top of a cocktail chair with malleable
aluminum legs and I attempt to shape the dry whiteness
into something colorful and beautiful.

I want to create beauty because I don’t enjoy surfing the channels of Comcast digital entertainment
having to paddle through the brainwashing
and the ******* and seaweed that washes up
on my hometown shore.

The waves are all the same across the television screen, I am desensitized and numb to the upper class Anglo-Saxons,
who mind-****** my favorite poets and Hip Hop musicians in the mouth, so that they cannot speak with

honesty
and
compassion.

I don’t wonder anymore why some prominent media-figures choke on the microphone; it’s because they have been force-fed
chicken-****
and injected with
snake venom.

That’s why I don’t take all my time of leisure resting back on a tan cushioned boogie-board, riding a cable channel that will not take me anywhere except for an escape from the loneliness of living alone, away from close family and good friends.

That’s why I prefer to sit below a yellow and red pinwheel umbrella and stretch my toes in the wet sand, I don’t even need a beach towel to lie on, and sometimes I just want to sink into the grainy sand
and
forget about time,
forget about love,
and
forget about my reason for being here.

But back to molding a new form of living; that top white wall takes up the majority of my apartment and I think it deserves to be drawn on, painted on, spread with posters of voluptuous artists and cool brooding actors.

A canvass needs to have flesh, just as a skeleton needs meat and skin. I stack my sandy tan sofa cushions one after the other on top of the cocktail chair and I reach up to brush long and wide strokes of bravery and euphoria.

The bristle-tips flicked up specks of green apple paint and sunk deep blotches of red heart into the ceiling.

I danced on top of the spongy sofa seats while they swayed to and fro, but I didn’t think of falling down, what is the point of thinking about

failure?

That will only impede progress and I’m not merely trying to fabricate an illusion to drape myself with a safety cloak. I wish I could have pranced and jumped on the wavering cushion tower,
but instead I begun to grow a look of seriousness and submerged myself into a pool of
focus
and
concentration.

Nonsensical imagery floated adrift from my mind and the energy pounced onto my fingertips and I started to write and draw, and draw and write. I popped a small remote from my pocket and made the stereo sing opera, followed by jazz, followed by something bluesy.

Those songs carried me into this calming state where nothing mattered except for the now kaleidoscopic landscapes and the spacemen with hypnotic eyes. I wasn’t jacked up on Columbian coffee beans, diet coca-cola caffeine, nor psychedelic highs and lows, I was just going with the current baby.

When the canoe is in in the river and you’re rowing with a chipped paddle and without a life-vest, don’t even try to make an adjustment when the water gets rocky and the water pushes you around like an elementary-school ***** bully.

You keep paddling and you don’t throw a rope onto a branch and feel the scene; go with the flow and travel down-stream,
because where you came from is long gone and there’s no point in wallowing and pleasuring yourself late at

night just

to feel better about your ****** life.

But, I don’t even want to think when I’m in an artsy mood, I just want peace, and if peace won’t come to my doorstep and will not call me back when I left five messages, then **** peace,
I’ll settle for a shot of cheap ***** and a scrunched-up cig.
I stop drawing and painting and writing
for a while and take a nice long gaze
at my chaotic collage and smile until the jester frowns.

In huge messy cursive were the words, “LOVE YOURSELF, DO NOT SHOW YOUR EMOTIONS AT A WHIM.”

I was now beginning to struggle to smile. This wasn’t easy to be so straight with yourself, I’m used to bending my back in the wrong way

                 and not accomplishing anything in the process.

You are walking through what seems to be a narrow hallway. Bodies stick to the walls, complacent with the space given, bumping shoulders, shaking hands, saying hi, saying goodbye.

You hold your school bag closer to your chest. There is a laptop in there-- pens and notebooks. Things you need. Things you cherish. And as time will not stretch, you make your way to class, do not worry, -- it will quickly pass.

The ceiling lights in the classroom are dull, dying, uninteresting. Bodies file in, breathing heavy, sighing heavy. As the florescence seems to keep you further away, it is dimming you as well, repressing, submitting-- only you cannot tell.

He speaks redundantly. Hands raise high-
do they even know what they are going to say?- you wonder this at every selection. He points to she and he and they. They who are chosen, loud and bold. He says "YES!- You are right ma'am. Let us begin to unfold."

The smell of a spring rain
settling on the earth
is the smell of life anew.

At the window, I sit with a book,
both cracked,
cooled by the alfresco air seeping through,
and tiny droplets glissando down the pane.

The pitter-patter of a soft rain
falling to the parched earth
is the sound of life replenished.

At the rain's offset, I leap from my chair,
exiting the front door,
to saunter through the lush green pastures
that linger outside the library's confines.

How green the trees appear, and the grass--
how rich the stalks of the trees,
their boughs with budding leaves quenched,
glistening in the sun.

I even enjoy the scent coming off the once arid pavement--
it is the smell of the earth,
freed from its impedance,
rising above the stifling asphalt.  

I smell the life that lingers beneath,
and the dull metallic tinfoil taste of the pavement
fills my open nostrils--

It is pleasant, though a little less so, than the ambrosial landscape.

I inhale ever so deeply,
relishing my favorite part of spring,
in the offset of a warm afternoon rain on a brisk day,
sauntering through the wood-laden trails on worn brick paths,

to the paved parking lot where my car awaits--
delineated in a filmy layer of mired pollen residue.
It needed a wash anyways.

Another wonderful night, quite a college student's delight.
I sit with a book open but no mind to read, no mind to heed, instead I type up this grieving student's creed.
See, there lies within me the desire to study and succeed, a desire that holds the ferocity of a bear!
But much like a bear, it lies dormant in there, hibernating without a care for my fruitless despair, and I must say, it's kind of unfair.
Nevertheless, here I begrudgingly open up my textbook for law, staring in awe with an unhinged jaw since the words on the page seem to only make me go "uhh."
I have a quiz, a midterm,a research paper, and much more to follow! Unfortunately, the information is a bit much to swallow. And frankly I'm worried my head just might be hollow. So, within my tears I'll continue to wallow.
So I read, and I re-read.
I cry, and I re-cry.
I give up, and I give up, albeit on tackling a different beast.
My only solace is the little mini-naps, closing my eyes for just a second or two, just to refresh my mind and continue reading the ch-

or waking up in an awkward position on the couch with my laptop on and my glasses barely holding onto my face, another morning of realizing I only did half the work I intended to!

Time's a fickle friend
Summer; our momentous dance
Fall comes, will it end?