sometimes I just want it to stop
not for it to end
just enough for me to catch a little breath
just enough to keep up with the rest
just enough to laugh so hard my tummy starts to ache
just enough to enjoy those little moments, without worrying what's coming next
just enough to find myself again
just to know what I'm living for
before everything is too late

She spent her time with Mary Jane
     And diamonds in the sky;
She skipped with joy down Penny Lane
     As Rita passed her by.

I am the walrus yesterday
     Tomorrow never knows
Whate'er became of Lucy Gray
     And where her bonnet blows.

She was only five when the teacher said,
“Write your name, it’s time to learn.”
But what she felt was something else—
Like fire blooming with each word.
The pencil danced across the page,
Her tiny hands began to glow.
While others traced a simple name,
She wrote a world no one would know.
She fell in love with lines and rhymes,
With paper dreams and silent times.
Her heart spoke louder through the ink,
Each verse a breath she’d learn to think.
Down the starlight path she ran,
With notebooks clutched inside her hand.
The world was big, but she believed,
Those words could build the life she dreamed.
She wrote through storms, she wrote through pain,
In every loss, she found a gain.
Now the stars are singing back—
She’s the girl who walked the starlight path.
She sat between her sisters four,
The backseat like a traveling world.
With every mile, the silence spoke,
So she wrote the words she never told.
Outside, the trees were flying fast,
Inside, her thoughts were built to last.
While laughter danced and voices roared,
She let her pencil paint her soul.
She pressed her notebook to her knees,
And captured feelings in the breeze.
The car became her sacred space—
A moving world, a writer’s place.
At fourteen, she held a trembling pen,
But every word was truth back then.
She wrote of fear, she wrote of flight,
Of lonely thoughts on moving nights.
Then came the day—her name was called,
She’d won it all, against the odds.
The poems born from backseat roads,
Now echoed loud in quiet halls.
Regional crown, department-wide,
Tears in her mama’s softened eyes.
But no one saw the countless pages,
The silent work, the secret stages.
She smiled shy, they clapped and cheered,
But deep inside, she held back tears.
Not 'cause she doubted what she'd earned,
But for the fire that still burned.
At fifteen, no guitar in hand,
But in her mind, a dream so grand.
Her words became a melody,
Without a note, but still so free.
She hummed her poems, softly loud,
Her head filled with a growing sound.
No piano keys, no strings to play,
But in her heart, she found a way.
She'd sing them quietly in her room,
Imagining each note would bloom.
Her words were music, pure and true,
A melody only she could view.
Her sisters shrugged, her parents sighed,
“Why can’t you let the silence slide?”
But her little sister, with eyes so wide,
Said, “Keep singing, sis, don’t run and hide.”

Through every rhyme, she found her voice,
In every line, she made her choice.
The starlight path, it called her name,
She walked it through the joy and pain.
No map to guide, just heart and mind,
Her dreams were stars she’d never find.
But still she reached, beyond the night,
For every word, a step to light.

Love flooded fields,
gave us harvest,
granted us a tide
for growth, for both
of our hearts
to decide.

We weren't meant
to be ones to hide,
while we were
always open
to confide.

Light shined when
we were wilting.
Water quenched us
after a long drought.

But it is now
when I want out.

>crumbled, rumbled, street survivors,
paper scraps that took the rage abuse rap,
dead love notes, bills red with overdues,
these pre-poems have traveled wind currents
some in from Jersey, some hailing Minnesota,
ain't never see one that crossed the Atlantic,
but reckon it is not a theoretical impossibilty

unpretty city streets, like a museum, collects 'em,
plenty of exhibition space, forlon, historically
orphaned, disbanded, whose paths all got confused,
some sweet, all beat, balled and thrown, no home,
no more, each a reveille, each humming taps, now,
all scented by strret odors, none pleasant, each was
in its prior life, the meat, the grist, the meal of what
was, coulda been, a poem that would have survived
yellowed in care, tender glanced, tucked in books,
safekept, but slipped away, victims of friction, fraction

look down, be unafraid, unravel them slow, careful,
abused, all these messengers all need a good home,
a box in a closet, a book of tenders, witnesses to what
they've seen, places they've been, hand held, tenderized
by words spiced, variegated, ink, pencil, typewritten, like
their prior human authors, all sizes, all shapes, some on
colored paper, a l l astrayed, accidental, purposed, details
and detritus, once deemed essemtial, important, necessary
and needed, even believed, but times change

you're stuck, brain ain't cooperating, tired of staring inside
your self's self, pull on a sweater, it's a chilly spring overcast air,
that don't natural warm, more naturally warn, be careful where,
you step, your next poem is laying right there, grab a few, take
more than a couple, this is like a school dance, try a few, until
you bank the right one in the till, the connection made, a kiss,
in secret stolen, and the drive, the forces, the perspiration urgency
leads to you desk, nook, granny's cranny, and the world of words
overflow like seagulls in a harbor, so many spilling, hard is the
choosing, but excited adrenaline, free basing, in your veins and
****, you gotta just write again, right now, add a ***** poem
back to its rightful place in a heart, upon eyes, tongue taste them
syllables, clap and laugh as they symmetrically form, subtle rhyming,
the sleeping seeds have sprouted, the brown brain loamy cells,
fertile and potent, energize, impregnate, and you just can't wait
to walk the streets, in search of many, many more

it's ok, you have permission to utter a whispery nearly silent
hallelujah<