pulled yourself up by the roots

then violently shook off

the clinging dirt

you who like to travel

let yourself go wandering

and find yourself again and again

in an unaccustomed climate



grasping your hand

I can feel the roots

that crave sunlight and water

climb up my arms

and cling to my heart

******* greedily

the remnant water droplets

from our moist homeland soil

I keep losing things that I never had.
I feel homesick in places that feel a lot like home.
I find light in the dark spaces between stars.
The moon is screaming back all the secrets I howled.
I swear that at this moment everything feels like nothing.
And no matter how hard I pinch myself, it still feels nothing like reality.

When we walk down the street
We don’t fight, we don’t scream
He just smiles right at me
Making me know where my home really is

When she still holds my hand
I don´t feel alone anymore
I can feel an unbreakable connection instead
That goes straight to the bottom of my heart

When those feelings come back at me
It feels like a day of summer
In the most rawest winter
It feels like thousand of flowers
Bloom over dead dried leaves

When he makes me smile
For a tiny moment I forget
We’re living the bitterest times
And I don’t care if this isn’t growing up
But this is how I want to feel my whole life

When she waved at me
Saying goodbye trough the window of the bus
I feel I’m facing the worst lost
Because my world is fading
Into a place of pure darkness and dust

And when I see the truth in their eyes
The grey color doesn’t longer exist
Because they add it glitter
Turning into the shiniest silver

But most of all
When I there in one of those places
I learned something I refused to believe
When you are loved, loved for real
They don’t lie when they said it’s the best cure
Because I finally knew how much it makes me heal

i understand the ocean better than you
ever could, an inlander within a prison built of
browned ivy. i rose and rose again from the sea
after the waves crash and yet i know nothing
of how the tides swirl, besides me being part
of that neverending cycle of salt and bits of
coral. can summers go by without a seagull's
cry carrying me from the inland and plucking my
soul towards the great waters of home?

i had died the other day and from my grave
i saw a hand with rings upon each finger. on each ring
was a gemstone that spelled out the infinity known
in my fearful tongue which bleeds whenever
i bite the knife that cuts the flesh of time;
will i ever understand the meaning of decay?
will i ever comprehend my bones giving way to worms?

My heart is skyward.
I feel light at the sound of low flying planes, recalling my home now so sweetly.

I am a wilted Trilium,
for months fed by a foreign smoggy sun, with roots longingly outstretched for rich appalachian loam,
but grasping instead at the plumes of dust left behind overcrowded buses.

Still, I've grown.

It was what one might call a rainy day, but I had called it a melancholy of nature. Everything had been sorrowfully drenched as if the rain itself was weighing on their minds. A heavy mist had settled just above the cold ground, one that limited your vision to only a few feet. The pavement had no cracks, no indentations for mournful puddles to dejectedly form.
   Indeed, as I walked down the endless paved path, It seemed as though I was the only one here. As though an eternity had stretched itself around me, around this single moment in time. And I could walk, and walk until time ended.
   As rain rolled down the hood of my gray raincoat, thoughts and memories ran slowly through my mind like a slideshow of bittersweet emotion. I fingered the strap over my shoulder. I had, of course, brought my camera.
   My camera, an old Polaroid, had served me well. I had once dreamt of being a photographer, but as my dreams for the future had disappeared, my film was eventually empty. Now, it was nothing more than a memento of the past.
   I began to approach a figure standing alone in the rain, though they seemed dry. They wore a raincoat, much like mine, except a dark shade of purple. They had no camera, and would not face me, but followed when I began to pass. As we walked together down the paved road, they continued to face the ground, seemingly avoiding my gaze.
   I did not know who they were, nor where they came from, other than the mist. They seemed almost familiar, and yet they did not seem tangible. I heard them take a small breath, as though they were gathering their courage. Then, they said,
   “Always. . .” They stopped for a moment and then began to speak again. “Let your heart decide what is the truth. Then, let your brain decide how to explain that to others. And never be ashamed of who you are. For when you are true to yourself, your creator cannot be disappointed; they have made you be that way.”
   I heard the sigh, who I then guessed was a girl about my age, and then watched her stop, fading out of my view as a continued to walk through the mist.
   I cannot say with certainty that I ever saw her again.

Underneath the overhead window, overlooking a chaotic city,
on cotton sheets,
gathering breath longingly like
soft blades of sawtooth grass in a woven basket,
I store them in this vessel, the size of a pea.

As humans we cannot truly feel the present moment,
as all sensations of the present have already been devoured by the past by the time our brains can reckon with them.

With each word that you read of this poem, another micro moment will have passed, and the seeds sewn by your consciousness will already be
setting to sprout.


But underneath the overhead window, my fingers circle the center of my sensation,
and my consciousness is caught beneath their pressure,
and submits
to their rhythm.

Outside a storm converges. I hear soft thunder,
the wet smell of rain, and the pinging of
droplets.
I devour their energy between my legs,
surging into a complete connectedness
with the world
and with myself.

And although the present charges ahead, I’m carried now languidly with it: eyes closed, legs spread, breathing the world in deeply.