Smells like sadness
Sounds like crying
Feels like death
Tastes like depression
Looks like anxiety

i was told that every poem is about death,
***, and love,
never in that order.
that it's our job to organize
the chaos in a way that makes us feel
as though we won't be forgotten
when we're reduced to atoms and scraped,
bit by bit, from every etch
we've ever made
and the earth retakes our homes,
our names,
our loves,
lives, the lost.
but it's just a feeling.
what's important is embracing
every curve, every laugh,
every spat of anger. and learning.
that hurt won't always last unless we let it.

God said, “I made you only so you would obey me.”
His voice was something you didn’t hear so much
as feel rumbling in your bones, and sometimes it
made you feel so shaky you could hardly stay standing.
And you and I learned how to fear God,
how to do everything we had to to get by and then
hide our faces, be quiet quiet, and then when we knew
God wasn’t looking we would act it all out on our toys
that weren’t meant for the games we played.
You used to cry more than I did. You were younger.
But not all the tears were sad. Sometimes our
spirits caught fire and we cried because everything was
holy, holy, holy
and we didn’t notice yet how that just meant full of holes.
We didn’t know who God was, even though we already
called him Father. Didn’t know enough to call him Dad.
“Our Father who art standing in the living room with a horse whip,
David be thy name.”
And we prayed for peace.

The cloud was sobbing so badly that the rain can't stop falling.

I don't understand how someone so strong
Could think they are so weak
When they deal with way more bull
Than anyone should ever deal with.

I don't understand how someone that handsome
Could think they are that much of an abomination
When they have hated themselves way more
Than anyone should be hated, particularly him.

I don't understand how someone so amazing
Ended up so strong
So self-loathing
So anxious
So depressed
So misplaced
So disadvantaged.