Fall break came at the perfect time. And it's a memory I'll cherish forever -- waterfalls and falling leaves and sunshine and cold waterbottles and plaid flannel shirts named Rufus and milk bottles and miles of blue sky. Monday. Rain on my umbrella, smile for the camera. Tuesday. And then like waking up from a magical dream, blue carpets and textbooks and shifty-eyed girls in Ugg boots and my anxiety. Wednesday. Back to studying for midterms and I'll throw in a pair of borrowed shoes.

I've got hours to wait, so I went outside and Ron said "it's people like me and you who give a **** that'll get A's." Then I went back in and found a side hallway. I wrote down what he said and listened to the janitorial staff. She opened the supply closet and told her friend "come into my office" with a laugh. Five minutes later they came back out talking about how Jamie was ******* about them at nights but it looked to me that they were more ******* about Jamie, and whoever she is, she's apparently worthless. And I wonder if this is how to make friends, by chilling with the cleaning ladies. Actually, that would be a family tradition. Is this how you find your niche?

Now they've moved from talking about Jamie to school shootings and all the good cleaning closets to hide in. And I wonder if this is why I spent 17 years "sheltered", because I'd rather be safe than normal. I'm writing all of this in the back of my science notebook because when I write my fingers don't feel the need to pull at my scalp. Rifle my hair, maybe, but no snapping. And I have 45 minutes before I get another hour to wait.

Sometimes I walk by the art department and I always want to go in, but what would someone like me be doing there? I'm not an artist by any sketch of the imagination. But it's always dark in there and I wonder what goes on in that back hallway. Like this back hallway where I'm sitting with these collegiate white cinderblock walls. How much misery from the cleaning crews have they heard?

Everyone says I'll find my niche, but it's looking to me like all I'll ever find is empty corners and solitary benches. People are okay, but the only person I really have to fall back on seems to be myself.

The whole thing smells like chlorine, which is extremely unsettling because chlorine always tastes green and a lot like hereditary paranoia. These pants were only two washes  removed from brand new, and now there's a slit in the knee, a slit as precise as the shape my eyes make when I'm suspicious of wanderlusting newcomers who moonlight in my former prison cell.  And I'm unsure if I should call it like I'd like it to be and say the **** things were defective or if I should investigate further as to where I placed my legs while hacking bits of plastic.

I'm TIRED of hacking at bits of plastic. I daresay if things start looking up, I could get there. I'm desperate, while this pumpkin-leaf hole grows in my chest, I'm realizing I'll never get to Lancaster at this rate. Sure, sure, I'm obsessed. I also have a blonde tail hanging from a tack on my shelf and a lot of cards tacked to my wall. They either resemble a quilt, a window or a complete mess.

I'm relying on plastic cups and the Internet to continuously foster this false sense of belonging. And I don't want to shatter it, but I'm terrified by the threat of a midterm and I feel trapped by my own sky. I mean, have you SEEN the prices for quaint bed and breakfasts? But the sad truth is, I would be haunted by insurmountable guilt at leaving her behind. The cash flow isn't flowing, either. I'm thinking I'll have to forget about it and sit at my shiny laptop on an empty desk, staring at the cottage cheese ceiling and wondering if God is looking back.

Words have always been an effective method of construction. In fact, if I ever wanted to build a wall, I would use nothing but my shoddy verbal and written constructs, and it would be stronger than my willpower and higher than the same wall you've built for yourself.

I keep saying I'm just tired, but you're disputing that fact and I'm sleeping at nights as if nothing were wrong, but when I sleep like that, I know it's all wrong. I don't miss the way things used to be, I miss the way I used to be.

I've got this ridiculous theory that you can love someone without being in love. Call me crazy, right? There's got to be some kind of distinction, but with you, the lines don't make sense. And I can't imagine a world of mine without you in it.

I'd like an out, a kind of escape from the harsh truth that you're a boy, and I'm a girl and our skies don't line up. I've got a long driveway with a lot of trees and stars above them, and you've got a life trajectory that doesn't include me and never will. The second you realize there's a hole in your pocket is the second you know that you lost your hope.

Mowers that bump and buses that jolt are two things that cause anxiety. Sometimes the only way to reach me is through my poetry, my cracks and chips. Hand me a sledgehammer, we're all crumbling anyway.

The sky was tilting and dipping downward and if it hadn't been so beautiful, I would have assumed it to be a tornado. The way the clouds clustered and swirled into a hole directly above Pennsylvania reminded me of when you shut the bathtub drain and rinse the soapsuds out of your hair, then open it back up and watch it vortex away.

Like I said, I've never seen Lancaster at night, but I'm assuming it's lovely. At least, it must feel lovely. How lovely can anything really be in the dark? But if you think about it, even little old ladies have a nightlife, they play bingo and then go to bed. What more could I ask for? A pencil that doesn't attempt ****** on a sheet of drawing paper? Because every pencil I have keeps trying to **** something inside me that's trying very hard to stay alive.

It's strange to be in someone else's shoes, and even stranger when they fit. If you ever want to trade teddy bears for the weekend, I'm down.

I haven't cried since April 24th, but lately every time I start thinking about life, my eyes get damp and my expensive eyeliner starts running onto my cheeks. And speaking of eyes, my lids are always feeling sleepy and puffy and my lashes frequently weigh down my entire body. I'm trying to see the bright side, but all I've got over here is a cup of mistemperatured coffee and a dimming world that I already extracted all the poetry from. Somebody get me to Lancaster this fall, I'm thinking a slew of unfamiliar parking lots might lift this insufferable fog, and maybe you'll become my Seattle.

It was a strange thing to throw a house party for birds, especially since no one showed up. I was left sipping honeycomb champagne and gawking at the colored glass bubbles descending from the sky. And I thought it odd that a car dealer would care enough about my obsession with old VHS tapes to throw a few onto the cruise ship. Never mind the fact that with all I had paid on fixing my transmission of thought, I was dead broke and looking for a summertime getaway closer to downtown and nearer to autumn.

The things I'd like to do if I could paint. I would construe a white front porch in repurposed chair caning and glue it to a canvas, mottled in shapes and light. Or maybe it would take multiple canvasses to hold what I consider to be the best image of a future. Perhaps a patio with an overgrown garden would do the trick, and I would be just another loner.

Will anyone remember when we were children and we dug a canal by putting the dirt into paper cups and leaving it in the forest? You can't deny that life was easier before I ingested that Matisse print hanging on the graying wall. All these skewed angles and les possions sont rouge make for a bit of a stomachache.

I have a question for you to ponder as it gets dark. If I were to fill a swimming pool with blotchy pastel hues and sit in it as if it were a motel jacuzzi, would I receive some kind of tye-dyed epiphany or would I just catch a chill?

I'm not a fan of spatulas, not when the pancakes burn and their gilt edges look pretentious. Perhaps ostentatious is a better word when mahogany is used in the kitchen. I feel a lot of guilt, mostly over silly things I can't change, so sew me a quilt of pockets in which to store my regrets.

I won't say I got especially drunk, but a few nights later there was a skunk, and I'm thinking that if you had stopped to ask his name, he would have introduced himself as Alfred. However, all this talk of individuality has got me thinking of the polyester comforter in beige she sewed and how there was once that mix-up with my former Sunday school teacher and a national holiday that didn't exist. Does a bigger beard make a man a better prophet?

When a person stops to contemplate a grass blade, the whole world opens up in wonder. What good does greenery do? I'm telling you, it's not so much the greenery and more the change of scenery that's what makes a person whole. Thankfulness won't come in pieces, and God's grace is one of those intricate jigsaw puzzles spread out on a table in your heart as it gets glued with love and matted and framed with goodness.

It's not that I'm in love with my billing office, it's just that I'm thinking of someone else when I put the stamp on. And I've tried to keep my thoughts quiet, but forget wearing my heart on my sleeve, I'm a bank window with paper cutout promises. But if you ever think of me, I'm thinking you might have a deficit on your account.

Just because there's no way I left the oven on when I left the house doesn't mean I don't have the right to check.

they talk about water like its giving birth.
     when i met you i was swimming. you were treading water and i stopped to give you a hand.
     like this, float here stay a little while, i will too.
keep your head above water we can play marco polo and grow gills turn into mermaids you be Ariel you always liked Disney movies best.
     isnt this nice, arent you growing arent you starting to understand how to swim, dont do it just yet i havent shown you all i know yet.
     be careful now not everyone you love is going to love you but keep your head above the water hold my hand ill help you float.
     look at that when you start singing everyone listens everyone falls in love with you here they come to give you their souls im showing you off like my favorite pearl.
     be careful now youre not going to love everyone who loves you but dont sink too far youll choke.
     what are you doing why are you swimming away come back youre going under swim up like i showed you why are you forgetting everything we learned together where are you going come back this way i forgot how to swim all i know has been floating right here with you for so long i gave you all of me you cant just take it with you youre going so far down i cant even see you anymore.
     yes, yes i know not everyone i love is going to love me but i swam so far out into this water just to keep you afloat how can you leave me here you made promises dear god you broke them all and now i dont know which one of us is actually drowning.

Vindictive viral inception,
Sneaking in my thoughts pretending
ta be the Ego inside o’ me
No!Free! Digo me,
Quickly

WHEN,WHERE,HOW, WHY? come the questions
“No answers” quoth the clouds as they transfigure by.

I am done defending why
I don’t think I need to take my slice of the pie.
Take a look; exclaim ow, oh my
I got a piece of SKELL truth in my eye

Sincerely instead of me, so trickster
this shadow amphetamine

But my light is gone
A denser Vibration I adorn

One of Absorbtion,
no reflection ever
since this inception

…of attachment
…of suffering
…of another love

So in love it tears me apart
So in love it wears my heart

so instead of being asleep
I’m desecrating thoughts, tainting delete.

Making others worry and weep
as I sweep my gaze

From external to internal
infernal extension

referral to station
impatient inflation
we stand together in the dirt o’ the nation

so in love I seem to flirt
So in love I always hurt

I read the text on the screen….and **** NO!
It can’t mean…eye look, I scream.

Shock sets in, while I’m translated in the hug of a friend.

We lock eyes and she knows why…
Darkness sets in and she helps me cry;

tears from near realized fears,
tears from the suffering

desire steers.

My boy is in trouble
I’m in a hurry and on the double
STAND BACK
PLEASE SLACK
this information noose is too tight to *******…and my throats so t.i.g.h.t I can’t taste the air. This isn’t fair! What a cruel affair to send me into such disrepair.

Mental suffering burns like a flame, so I use cigarette burns to tame
the Pain in my heart…………..fading away.
My body cools off and with a different pain I can face the day.

So often I pray for the day where my loved ones can stay in zion with me, oh wait hypocrisy risin inside o’ me
please state, the ideas deriving me, Caged in my psyche, found the lock, but lost the key.

gotta get outta my mind, gotta get outta my body
opaque and dense, and way late for defense
Wee wait in such suspense for LIFE to dispense, of us and our love.

WhyohWhydotheseideasresideinme, if i leave my body will i be free, they think you justgottado1morethingtosee.

I just hope to god they don't try again.  I just can't take that part of the plan....
Please live. and be glad for it.

It's like a diamond stake pushed through the silence of my brain
It's like a thunder of voices coming down like a hurricane
It's like a forest of gunfire blowing past my bedroom door
It's like the force of a god pushing down on my floor

Whip smart, by all accounts, but lost beneath the sheets
Forced out of a comfort zone and pushed out to the streets
Spastic changing voices like a record out of line
Just speak like you always do and don't **** with my mind

I'm like a tidal wave that only gets halfway there
No shore to erode with no Taiwan to even care
I'm like a promise left on the kitchen table after dawn
Someone will find it but it will be thrown out on the lawn

Born without a spoon but there is silver in my teeth
I'm made out of as much spirit as a plastic, clearance wreath
Dust beneath the stars cancels out the dawning sun
Shine on the bums, the prophets, everyone