Rushing downstream
everythinggoesbysofast
gasping above the waterline
idontrecognizeanythinganymore
grasping at rocks and branches
wherethehellaminow
heaving breaths haul me ashore
ilaygasping&vomiting;
where the hell am I?

The long breath before the plunge into the sand,
That which makes you want to not pick yourself up,
For once you know, you get ***** by the end of the month,
But the greens you can count on,
Makes it rather a fair deal, or does it?

The real question is, would you rather deceive yourself
and the rest of the world, for the denomination,
to only trade your fortune to be in the rut  that is called
the day to day life of the survivors,
Suffering from the plague that is called The Normal

sometimes
i forget who i am
not my name or location
just what sets me apart
due to desire
to be more like someone else

i just have to remember
i am an escapist
i am a vagrant
i am a writer
i am a pyromaniac
i am an inhabitant of purgatory
i am half living
i am an addict
i am a statistic
i am a radio wave surfer
i am a bridge burner
i am a coffee stain
i am two young lungs

i am the girl across the hallway
in an old jean jacket
with paint on her cheek
trying not to cry

and i hope someone remembers
because i'm trying to forget
that i exist
to make it unreal

Relax.
         Breathe.
Let the words flow naturally.

Unfiltered,
direct honesty.
Speak from the heart-
they can tell when you don't.

Something crafty,
a hidden double entendre;
Make them think about
every.
           last.
                  word.

A piece of your soul
served on fragile paper:
2-star meal from a 5-star chef.

Real.
Authentic.
Not good enough-

Good night.

Look at the child with the rifle
She's posing for a photo
She just doesn't know what it means.
Give it three years, and she still won't know.
Except now her people,now her country have nowhere to go
She's 6 years old with an arms embargo
The country is suddenly three now
The people inside can't see,the people murdered along its beaches can't see.
The people washed ashore can't see.
Air strikes fall somewhere distant.
Militants front and center
Nothing else but to surrender
The country's identity is reduced to its language,their colors and the violence around them
Never did it experience serenity
Fully get the wealth from their oil and luxury
Nobody could guess that people could shake and shimmy along the beaches
Where the nameless faces appear,dreams dust in their open and clenched fists.

this isn't so much a poem as it is me just trying to catch my breath
the weeks fly by and my friends are already packing their bags
the great unknown lies just ahead and their exit plans are finalizing
and here i am
weighted and thin
winter already purging any signs of pigment in my skin
I'm just trying to breathe
until I can walk outside of my house without instantly regretting everything
I don't have time to process anything
and certainly not prospective affection
but here you are anyway
thin like I like them
blonde like winter wheat
and I know it doesn't mean anything
but I couldn't sleep the whole night after we first spoke
contemplating all the ways I could get to you
cataloging your tweets and analyzing the time it took for you to speak
where you've been all these years and why we never knew each other sooner
I do this all the time
chase your imagery on my bike
stay up late and try to find you in bits of the city
and this isn't so much a love sonnet as it is just another waste of space
unattainable and shimmering and new
tinted golden and blue
god I want you now but I always do
and everything is changing but I still feel the same as I did when I first started writing this
so don't look for resolution
don't look for some cosmic statement about how this is how we were meant to be
or some pretty sentiment of unrequited love
because
this isn't so much a poem
as it is me just trying to catch my breath

I am a completely different person than I was seven years ago.
Physically, yes, because my cells have been dying
and renewing so much that
everything is gone and I am new.

Mitosis took care of that in the way that
everyone is a new collection of cells
every seven years.

But we're still the same collection of memories.

I am also different mentally.

I am not a simple eight year old anymore,
but what is a simple eight year old?

I want to be a stem cell,
blank and waiting for instructions.

Either I want to make my own decisions
and take control of my own life
or I can recognize that I don't know what I'm doing
and any control given to me will be lost.

I want to stay blank, ready to be programmed
and have a job
and a purpose.

But maybe I don't want to be a cell
and I want to be the collection.
Maybe I'll find my purpose.
Maybe I'll find my job.

I want these seven years to pass so I can be this
new human.
Maybe they will know what to do.

Am I the stem cell, hidden in the nasal cavity, or am I the human?
Am I really that different from my simple eight year old self?
Am I really different at all?