learning from mistakes
definition reality

Faint(adjective)- (of a sight, smell, chance, or sound) barely perceptible,
Like the beating of a broken heart being drowned out by
Screaming behind closed doors. The redness that circles
Around the crying eyes you use concealer to hide behind.
Faint as the sun shimmering over your receding silhouette
As you pass just beyond the horizon line, away from me.
Faint chances of survival, when fifty yellow-gold and black
Rosary beads hang free around the necks of those who surround you.
The tinge of iron you smell as your blood pools in your mouth, but
The will to never faint, as in fall to the ground in front of thirsty crowds.
Faint thoughts of happiness that arrive like butterflies, though
They never land long enough to wrap your arms around.
A faint pulse after chasing a feeling through a needle.
Faint, like the beauty of life being burned away. Ever faint
Are the screams of smoldering redwood trees.
The faint spinning of the globe, balanced on an invisible finger.

“What is a poem?”
My English teacher asks,
then barely pauses before answering his own question.
Lists of rules and reasons
spill from his mouth,
so many that he’s cut off by the bell.

I refrain from raising my hand
and telling him that anything can be a poem
if you want it to be.

The painting on the wall,
the fleeting peace that comes
from looking at the moon,
the little boy whose hands are already rough
and calloused with use.

Nothing makes a poem
but our minds and thoughts and wishes
for “poem” is just a word
but what it gives us is ours to decide.

Maybe even this is a poem,
though my English teacher would disagree.