Today I am a tourist
In romance, her swaying hair
Across my lap
She showed me this long night
And I bit into it

Laughing loudly and aroused
Not for sensation, but for feeling
She showed me the stages of joy

We folded our lives
As we folded laundry together
Ate our meals in complete comfort
The interior of thirsty years
Of suffering, made worth it

In a few months of purest joy
Loving her was like a Jewish legacy
Of an expression of American hope

I could hope I belonged
But romance usually had a way of
Burning my letters at a bonfire
For a muse I couldn’t have
So much color, so much sadness

So many postcards from
The women I believed I loved
Thus I remember your face everywhere

Like a poet infatuated
With the idea of love
Who has some difficulty
Recognising her at “face level”

It comes in the void of my chest,
In the silent dryness of my motionless lips,
In being seen and left alone,
Begging for attention, for a canvas
On which to paint my love in
Rainbow shades, then to be showered with foreign
Color: joy, guilt, lust, depression.

I want it all on me—to be the subject
Of one's art, to have it all
Flood my ears and hug my very
Existence—to have my body justified
By the gruesome secrets that hide.

the grass is always greener on the other side -
or so they say. but when you’ve been to the other side,
and you’ve felt what it’s like to be there,
you can’t help but wish you were from the other side.
i’ve forgotten the days i used to feel like i had
people who didn’t hold a knife to the small of my back
all the time, i’ve almost forgotten the last time i was truly happy.
sometimes, though, i wish i’d forget - maybe it would be easier
not to know, maybe it would be easier to be content with
todays. but today is today, and i am trapped
(or so it feels), and will continue to be for a month and a day.

I’m from opening my front door, and hearing my back door slam
I’m from bleeding lips and bleeding fists
I’m from walk the other way around the block after dark
I’m from mouths running quicker than legs
I’m from hazy blue and red lights
I’m from soft pools of yellow ones
I’m from watch your back because no one else will
I’m from steel bracelets and lead pits
I’m from bitter words and sour spit
I’m from spinning records and pounding keys
I’m from jars and bottles and glasses and tubes
I’m from zipped lips and wide eyes
I’m from long, hot showers without conditioner
I’m from narrow minds and pretentious ******
I’m from weights and wait, lies and lying
I’m from thin walls and thick skulls
I’m from dull eyes and sharp tongues
I’m from do what you’re told
I’m from fires and fires and fires
I’m from pocket knife upgrades
I’m from t-shirts and mundaneness
I’m from faking smiles and screams
I’m from dreams that involve dying
I’m from fat fingers and fat books
I’m from sorry, what?
I’m from pushes down stairs and scolding words
I’m from scalding water and instant coffee, just milk
I’m from saving painkillers
I’m from we don’t want to hear it
I’m from *you never do

maybe it was the best mistake of your life,
maybe it wasn't even a mistake at all.
whatever it is, i hope you felt it was worth it,
for the ache in my stomach still gnaws at me from
time to time, and the holes in my heart have
yet to be stitched up completely.

for what it was worth, i thought we could've been
spectacular if only we had (you had) the bravery to
try.

“I parked my car in the Harvard Yard”
People ask me to say.
My state was a
Paper
T o  r     n
by terrorists
This day.

7th grade, April vacation
on a cruise ship, I was excited
To get out of that cold
New England weather

Laying on the twin bed
Stomach churning
From the sea, Like butter that never thickens

TV said,
“Boston Marathon Bombing”
My face turned red.
I willed my friends to stay out of Boston.
Jill was in Boston
Thank god she’s alright

What kind of fame did they want?
What kind of pride comes with this?

The worst part:
We could not do anything about it.

Aged 13, 7th grade.
Nothing we could do.
Cruising past Virginia in a stark lit cabin room
I couldn't do anything.

In these months passed since the attack
I have taken the live and dead and held them like a closed fist in my heart.



They will cease to remain a number
of a statistic
of an event
5 dead
It said.

5 dead means nothing
They had lives, families, people knew them.
People knew them as more than the “5 dead”
So when you say 5 dead. Think about what lies behind the number,
1 was 1 to many.
No time for regrets.
Could we of changed what happened?
Could we of taken more precautions?
No one knows.

We can’t change what happened that day.
So if we can’t change our past,
Lets start by changing
Our
Future