person feels a wave of heat through their neck and face when struck with a thought of their ex boyfriend. a ninth grader gives them a ***** look. person leans against a cold cinderblock wall and relaxes their face. focus on the empty space between the eyeballs and the brain. feel the limp arms and identify the beat of a pulse running through them. repeat after me: self care is boring.

paul laurence dunbar knows why the caged bird sings. he never wanted to be an elevator operator. it's a point of privilege. person asks a ninth grader if a bird could see the wind, the river, the sun. "oh... no..."

one thing person notices time and again is that when these students drop something they do not pick it up. they let someone else do it. where person is from it is not like that. students would not help person like that, they think.

person remembers one time, when they themselves were in the ninth grade, dropping their lunchbox in a crowded hallway and picking it up swiftly in the next step without slowing down. a tall boy behind them said "smooth". person felt proud at the time. person feels good remembering this.

So I was having a-a-a
Thing where you...
Oh! A conversation! Yes!
So I was having a conversation.
With... Brown haired....
Ah yes my freind.
Well ex freind.
She saw me stuttering and buffering
Like an old computer
Tak1ng
1t2
T1m3
And
N01
Pr0ce221ng
1nf0mat10n
Clearly
So as the conversation went on
It was abandoned
As by the time I got my sentence right
The bell rang for class
And she vanished into a sea
Of people
Talking L O U D L Y
And I was lost in the crowd
But what do I expect
Since I get lost in my own conversations?

Rotting meat lined the walls
of the spot where the crime was committed
Locked from the outside
Shut in as the oil burned,
the smoke engulfing,
the flames consuming the people as they screamed, "Let me out"
but the indentations of the footprints on the door spoke loudest
They spoke of 25 beautiful faces
lost in pursuit of the American Dream.®

the line between the conscious and unconscious self; how easily i eek by and walk it like a tightrope, a never-ending circus act that defies the laws of physics and psychology all in one. studied and rendered, the darkness is forever intrusive and limits the layers of light as they fight for ownership, my spirit and soul far too heavy for a world gone mad with the weight of ego.

insecurity, maybe an aimless plight, its acknowledgment hardly anything new but still just as disarming. i watch myself cross the room, moving in direct proportion to the molecules that fill the space and i wonder how much of it i consume, where exactly do i begin and end. how much more can i become without becoming nothing?

laughter, a gift; an art form; a defense mechanism, merely a guise to hide what falls below and leaves empty space between. i don’t make others laugh, though i wish i did, could, knew how. instead what i do is force them to think, to draw back, to discern. myself a mere vehicle, never the driver, though often wishing for the opportunity to direct.

love is in there too, it brews like tea leaves, ghostly images fallen to the bottom of the cup. no one knows how to read them really, not even me. i am forever in the processing, the guiding, the questioning, the limitless bounty of loss that has plagued this span of existence. i know how to love, but like the winter, my snow suffocates the seeds and forces them into hibernation.

a girl without a garden, not one she knows how to tend alone anymore. my back more ache than muscle. my ego, an ant crawling up the side of a mountain. hubris once the feared fall no longer in the picture. think, think, think. too much though. always too much.

The weight of reality sits in my chest.
This is all beyond what my mind can comprehend.
How can it be gone if it's still here?

It wasn't perfect.
It left scars as I shed tears
No one ever saw either anyway.

Who am I? What have I become?
Is this all worth this path I walk on?

My pen is a knife,
Bloodletting across pages since I could hold it in my hands,
Since I know what it meant when shapes became words
And sentences became bought.
Now they won't stop
And I don't know how to let go
Again.

Every day is a new dance with grief,
Torn between remembering
And trying to piece together reality.

The pen pierces my heart.
It gushes new words onto paper with every beat
Words my mind and mouth are at a loss for
Words ears will never hear.

Even if they did, they're impossible to comprehend.
I write them anyway.
Just in case there's someone else out there
Crying alone in the shell of everything they've ever known
Trying to convince themselves it's worth it to inhale.

Cold on this love lift,
her coldness was her last gift.
Hear this, feel this.
This everlasting summer,
this beautiful beach bliss,
this fiery kiss has gone cold.
We know it's necessary
but it's nonetheless scary,
to lose a love so intense,
so real,
without judgement or pretense.
But I sense that this is necessary,
if not temporary.
This was her last gift,
a final kiss.
Who knew it would be our last?
For how long will 'last' last?
I miss her laugh;
Our love was made to last.
I'm sure of it, aren't I? Aren't I?
A secret love that was a delicate dance around horrible circumstance;
Forbidden love that tears the heart, the mind, the world in two.
But what could we do,
but try until we simply couldn't anymore?
Our last kiss haunts me,
it taunts me...
Lips cleaned by the tears that streamed,
but what I mean
is that we had too many goodbyes to ever make it.
We didn't fake it but,
it was never enough.
Love snuffed,
drowned in distance,
choked by fear,
too much persistence,
insistence,
hesitance,
reticence,
innocence,
distance,
always too much distance,
and inexperience,
and in my experience,
there's no good way to leave.
No easy goodbye,
not when you've been this high,
on a love lift.
Snow drifts... my mind drifts.
Gentle caresses,
passionate undresses,
****** intensity,
always too much brevity.
Searching for levity,
much needed serenity.
I find gratitude in the strangest place;
it has a bitter taste:
In the coldness
of her non-existent goodbye,
lay her last gift.
The coldness of it was her last gift.
Like a bandaid pulled off with a single rip.
You once said I had a heart of gold.
Falling into the snow,
hopping off this love lift.
My gentle heart now grows cold,
wandering... adrift.
But still I want,
just one more kiss.

I write a hundreds poems per year
My mind explode in words every day
But still I havn't got the point
The point of the poems I write
Cuz what is point of poetry?

Is it to get followers and be famous ?
Is it for processing your thoughts
Is it to compete with friends who write?
I dont know? I just write, like right now
I just write all my thoughs down everyday
but why?