You hate my printed tees and high top shoes,
you disapprove that I still wear my toque in June.
Always saying that I ruin the plot too soon.
You don’t know your worth, you are my Earth
my sun and my moon.

It’s how you get my smile to touch my cheek,
and the way you get my knees feeling weak.
The ten things that you hate about me,
are outnumbered by the things you’re loving.

You hate my shark shorts even though they’re cozy,
you can look past it because you’re the only one who truly knows me.
I’m tripping on words, the ones you prefer
because you know I’m clumsy.
You say I’m too loud, or my head in a cloud,
but the way that I feel I’m always showing.

It’s the way that you look me right in my eyes,
and how you still manage to give me butterflies.
The ten things that you hate about me,
are outshined by the things you’re seeing.

You hate when my hair gets too long,
and when my cologne smells too strong.
You hate when I exaggerate during fights
and when I snore during late nights.

Just the way that our fingers interlace,
and how you get that look on your face.
The ten things that you hate about me,
are just quirks, you’re making it work,
as you still get to know me.

I cannot sit with this disgust
while you thrive in life.
I make the wrong choices—
you stay right.

What a sad game
we play.
I always enter the fight
with my eyes tied.

The sores on my body
leak with stolen glances,
moonlight nights.

My bones turn outward.
I crawl to God—
forgive me once.
I beg
for the hundredth time.

Agony owns my heart.
It’s stuck in the yesterdays
where you and I
rot.

We have become a society engulfed in static noise
Ineptly assenting to untruths of money-grubbing publicity seekers
Garrulous banter by self-promoting fame hunters
Disintegrating our already fragile minds
Previously destroyed by brain rotting internet forums and absurdities
We are at war with one another with comments and supporting “likes”
My opinion, better than yours because I am louder and angrier
Your opinion, better because it is thunderous and provoked
Execrating each other over the words of self-important personalities
Spewing hate with ads in between.
Let us return to three local channels and phones clutched to the wall
Let’s go back to less information
Go to the library and read more books
Sit and talk with our families
Play outside when it rains
Let us stop listening to news that is no longer news
Because it is all just loud judgment
Let us retrieve the miniscule quantity of hope we once had
Before this world is gone

All that hate,
can’t stop me,
from loving you

It can be hard to love the world, and the endless tasks that seem to come
It can be hard to love the people, and to love those that are not enough
It can be hard to love the needy, and the protected and the past
It can be hard to love happiness when even that cannot last
These centuries that come and go and the world seems to fall apart
Over and over the wars continue, with one kingdom’s end comes another's start
This can make it hard to love the world, with all it’s stitches and it’s tears
It can be hard to love a broken glass when what they see is just the mirror
And the monster that’s beneath it, that is too hard to love too
It can be hard to see the pain when the population grows,
The success is seen when there are people on the street and babies born blue
And for that, the world is hard to love, because it is made up of lies, we know
That one day it’ll fall apart completely and we’ll have to make do with the scraps
It can be hard to love the world, but yet we do, what ever good comes we seem to catch
It can be hard to love the world, yet for every moment we hold the world
Rock mother earth in our arms until sleep comes to take the rest
It can be hard to love the world, but we must wait until the best
Learn to love ourselves, for that mirror cannot be fixed if we cannot dare look into it
It can be hard to love the world, and yet, this dark trail begins to be lit