Amy asked for
Brian's basket,
Casey almost blew a gasket.
Daniel went to summer school,
Ethan thinks he's super cool.
Fiona fell right on the floor,
Gabby laughed and laughed some more.
Hugo got the heebie-jeebies,
Isaac loves to score some freebies.
Jess is top in all her classes,
Kylie needs her reading glasses.
Lyra loves to sing a song,
Maggie never thinks she's wrong.
Noah broke his little nose,
Oliver drinks right out the hose.
Penny poses for a photo,
Quincy's dragon's a Komodo.
Ryan thinks his dog has rabies,
Stuart's cat just had some babies.
Tommy likes to play baseball,
Ursula likes the season fall.
Violet plays the violin,
Wyatt's strength comes from within.
Xavier needs all
Your attention,
Zane just got his tenth detention.

Pale faces and red eyes
approach making no sound
Pale faces and red eyes
emerge from diamond studded cars
Ask the sun why it dares to shine
For her rebelliousness, is it a salute?

My subconscious mind
looks for a yellow bus around
In front of the class, summarize
who you are in words, just few
Ask the sky why it looks so blue
For it feels like the first day of school

Her casket holds the night skies
Frozen flames struggle to dance
to the tunes seen by her eyes
The lilies may wilt if given a chance
It's a Visitation, you're supposed to cry
But frankly, your eulogy is full of lies

You wear grief just like school uniforms;
For a few hours and out of formality
Funeral director, the head of the school
Making money out of a dying galaxy
Her thoughts shall live as immortals
There's more to bury than just the body

A masked old man makes me realize
He bleeds black tears from his eyes
He tells me they performed an autopsy
Out bled nothing but art and poetry
Lo and behold! Another galaxy has died
In whose heart now, will my soul reside?

rows of two!-three!-four!-boys-bloc-king-the-cor-rid-or
will soon be gone
and the RHYTH-mic-tick-tock-of-my-leg-BOUN-cing-on-the-floor
will be no more
it's fresh cadavers wrapped in string
it is a joyful gospel hymn
mourning the best and worst of youth
(those shiny kids who'd first walked in
with all the grace and all the poise
of hatched arachnids missing limbs)

but what of "her" – you know her name –
that overfed, reptilian thing
who shed her hair and scratched her skin,
cursing the odds at Him upstairs, demanding He re-shape her?

some say she cried herself into extinction
– sailed away on a crimson tide –
balking at the trauma of being seen
(enforced, cursed vulnerability
in being known to man).

the rest knew better;
they were voyeurs in this
fruit-carving tutorial
on 'how to grow up':

STEP 1) consider all other alternatives
2) take the scalpel and initiative
3) before adrenaline gives way to doubt,
turn the flesh-vessel inside out in a cocoon of your own creation!
while organs may rupture and it aches like you've skinned yourself alive (good for her, setting herself free!) you'll look cuter in the class photos and has you-know-who... finally... shifted the weight?
4) breathe through the blood loss and searing pain
5) notice
           you
                can
                     breathe again.
                     at this point, does it matter that it aches?

did you hear the murderous yell
when they announced
"there's a dead girl in the pool!"
did it make you shiver, make you squirm
did you watch her mother weep?
did you see the unbearable
blood, pulsing out
streaming from her eyes?
her new Chanel dress
blossoming orange now
as she lay perfect in the pool.
do you wish that she was you?
you're the one who put that
poor girl there-

The dead girl in the pool.

Exploring possibilities,
The future holds so much
A spirit of tranquillity
I'm foreign to its touch

Creating opportunities
Extracting experiences
They've never reached the  twos and threes
Much sacrificial expenses

Stress
           Stress
                       Stress
It never ends
Just continues
Due to
Family
            School
                        Friends
                                     Depression
                                                         Expectations

                                     STRESS

It weighs on your lungs
Suffocating
Drowning and going
Down the
        W
            H
           I
        R
           L
        P
      O
         O
       L
of stress