as kids we used to go out in
the cold holding pretzels
between our fingers and pretend
our frozen breath was smoke

(funny how
kids grow up)

we rang in this new year
with a half gallon of last
year's apple cider just turnt
enough to bite and fizz

half glasses of
questionable mango juice
mixed with a stranger's
thick cream ***

and a full season of
mash but after
this year i know
suicide is not painless

(it burns and stings
chokes and screams
leaves friends
crying at five a.m.)

stood on some kitchen steps
cat-scratched hands red
from hot dishwater and icy air
stomping cold feet

(the plan is to get me addicted
for just a couple years while you
*** them off me until i prove
i'm strong enough to quit)

and you held out the zippo
lighter you got for christmas
i handed you a cigarette
and you held it between your
fingers and tapped away the
ashes like richard dawson would

(there's something poetic about
historical self destruction)

it burned my lungs
enough that i coughed
but then again it
felt right

natural
like we had been
practicing for this
new year all our lives.

2016 taught me nothing feels as cold as the people you love leaving you. No winter, ice pack, or shower can startle and overwhelm you like the absence of a person who brings you warmth, energy, and purpose.

2016 also taught me how fragile the people we consider our rocks can be. People crumble. I wish I could see it happening and do more. This speaks for my individual connections here, and the world around me. I’ll work on it.

2016 showed me the world is unkind and broken, but there are enough people who counter that everyday, and I want to work alongside and among all of them.

Another year, another night.
Darkness is depressions light.
Numbness' is its new sound track.
With confused emotions last years attack.
Now to my alarm, full of dismay
It uncovers my mental doomsdays'.
Numbness is left me with out my emotions at all,
Now I'm the darkness it resides in.
With out emotions to confide in,
Am I even living when I feel dead?
Should I go and hang this head?
Or instead Am I dreaming my doomsday dreads?
For all I know , I'm numb.

It's another year coming to a close -

A time to give and sit around
Talking about all the wonders

Unexpected, and crossed fingers for - alike

A new box we now have filled
With brand new moments
And snapshots of memories
Nights we danced like crazy
And those we spent staying up talking, far crazier
Dreaming and stretching out our fingers

To grasp the distant future
And hold the best of new days close

A whole new box of all wonders
And reminders of when we were most human

To open and sift through, picking apart

And piecing together the parts
Of our lives and holding on
To the fewest, the brightest
And those we can't live without
On the bleakest of days and the longest of nights

For all we have is this firecracker of a life
The last five seconds between

Lighting and setting off
And on to the explosion we become

We've spent our years sitting and holding on
To one last glimmer of hope

A slow burn, simmering

Almost never going off

And right before we've all but given up
We're taken aback
By the loud crack and the dancing of lights,
Falling embers and exposing new dimensions

Now there is more to discover
Time to spend
And create
The next great adventure,

A hopeful new year, lasting long and
Filled with sights and stories

Two in the morning worries sitting on the roof,
Long swigs and watching the faint trail of smoke

Days for searching and nights spent answering
Questions that make up an existence
And those that give life

To the new year
And how it posits,
Theorizes all three sixty five new ways
The odds are fought, not so much as even defied

But goes down among storied days
It remains and awaits

With the grace of kind hearts and warm cheer
To be remembered and placed

On the footnotes and small scraps
Of history and the infinite loop

Of memories that together, create.

I walk through the crowded mall, hearing the bustle of the after holiday rush. Everyone is looking for that one deal, or meeting up with their friends one last time before the busyness stirs up again. I, like always, am in my own little world. I see one thing, and my mind goes off on a tangent. Frozen Yogurt!-Oh that reminds me, I'm hungry. When did I eat last? Was it before or after...Oh yeah we met up with Grandma! She was wearing that pretty blue sweater...blue...I had to do something with bl- Then it cycles again. Honestly, I'm pretty used to it, I just kinda deal. I continue to walk, until I reach Hot Topic-my favorite store, of course. So, I go in, shop around. I'm minding my own business...then I hear it. The first note plays and I freeze-I haven't heard this since... anndd we get to the bad part of my mind. The crazy tangents can change my mood in an instant. My mind spins, and it leads to the same place it always does. I just stop and stare. I thought I was done with this-I thought-- Aye-that's where I was mistaken and went wrong. I thought-thinking-thinking is bad, at least in my context. One more thought came into my head...It's 2017.I repeat that over and over again-It's 2017...It's 2017-Why you ask? I'm putting up a shield. Things that happened in 2012, 2014, 2016, etc. They are all behind me. There is no use in holding  a grudge, no use in holding onto the anxieties that worried me then, because I can't physically handle holding onto these. Now, haha, yes-Easier said than done. Because yet again today, I passed a sign, I passed a person, I passed a decoration-and I thought-thought way too much. The thinking I'm doing is not random-I have my reasons, even if those reasons are crazy and insane. Now, some of you may be thinking, Isn't that unhealthy? To block something out of your mind? It will only resurface at a later date and be worse. It's better to face your problem head on, rather than ignoring it. Yes, I've thought about that, and well, it hasn't worked so far...Sooo, I'm thinking everyone has their ways to heal, and I have mine. Maybe one day, I'll be able to listen to that song again. Maybe one day, I'll be able to listen to the  entire album. Baby steps, I continue to move forward. Right now, I put up my Shield of 2017, and continue on my way.

Read more.
Words are the map fragments of wisdom you need to navigate your way in a world constantly sending you searching for that which you don’t yet have a name.

Write more.
And don’t keep it to yourself.  Your voice deserves to be heard too so scream in cursive and whisper in all CAPS, bleed through paper and heal through the spines of notebooks
you’re spiraling onto something, breathe in commas and step over periods because you’re not over
you’re the most beautiful run-on sentence

paint more.
You’re an artist whose perspective warrants an audience,
so leave cerulean fingerprint traces in your titanium touches,
mix gesso with mars and be alizarin against charcoal

stand out. And stand up.

Find adventure in the every day.  Skydive through small talk, zip line through steps up stairs without an end,
life is the ellipses in silences your eyes seek to make stories,

explore.
This world. People. This city you’ve landed yourself and take calculated risks.

Tiptoe through moshpits and stomp through meadows.
Cartwheel into concrete conversations headfirst eyes wide open,

be vulnerable, to those who deserve to see the rawest parts of you.
And leave the ones who’d rather exploit them behind

leave others’ opinions behind.  Let them be the ones collecting dust.
You are stronger than you’ll ever know and ten-fold what they’d ever expect.

So let them guess.
Be the question mark in the corner they can’t place.

Your story is complicated.  But that makes you interesting.
What doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you and you’ve been challenged each and every day

you get out of bed and speak when so easily you could’ve lost your voice the night you lost your body.
It took you some time and a few nameless faces to claim it again and you’re still working out what that means,
you’ve always had your own way
but all the ****** assault pamphlets name this normal.

[For once it’s a label you don’t detest.]

So this year be normal if you so choose, but also be weird.
Be loud, not small, be confident, and not sorry.
Take up space.
You deserve to.

You are Woman and you are Strong.

Push, but don’t ever shove.
Love unapologetically and fiercely.
But don’t force what a boy is not willing to give.

Find someone who will pay your heart the same attention he does your body.
Scratch that,
find yourself.

Read your body’s brail, your chapters of goosebumps, and play chess with checkers across your skin.
Unlearn and relearn and unlearn and learn to remember you are enough and it is your turn.

Look in the mirror and accept the pieces looking back are in progress.

Keep writing.

Watch the moon make way for the sun. Be brighter than both.
Let your irises draw constellations across galaxies unwritten.
Move so far forward, you stop having a reason to look back.

Forgive that which you cannot change.
You’ll make more mistakes, scrape more knees and trip on chainlink chokers, your jewelry limbs you haven’t yet untangled.
But forgive yourself.

Kiss the boy. Kiss the girl. Kiss no one.
Live in the present tense and with future declaratives.
Appreciate the thousands of little moments still looking to be made yours. Make them yours.

You are worth all the struggle.  Don’t forget.

Be kind but don’t rewind.  
Stay authentic even when you don’t make sense and your words aren’t oil enough to separate

paddle through the waves eyes closed if you have to,
the salt may burn your scars and you may lose your bearings, but keep going.
Maybe this is the year you’re going to learn to swim.

Just wishing all the poets a
HAPPY NEW YEAR


Hello 2017