We were artists
But you had the brush
And I had the pen
You drew the worlds, the people
I wrote down the feelings, explanations

You captured the images perfectly
While I can only guess at the words
The way you moved your brush
While I can only stick to lines
Beauty versus perfection

You express your worlds radiantly 
But I can only write in black and white
I wished I traded my pen for a brush
To feel the colors you weaved 
To see the world beyond my script

Maybe if I knew how to color
If my pen drew more than rigid letters
You would have understood me 
In a world of black and white 
You were the color in my life

I was supposed to be somewhere holy by now.
Twenty-eight, maybe.
Soft-eyed, loose-shouldered,
eating cherries on a porch that faces west,
“I trust the sky not to drop me.”
“I haven’t wished on a coin in months.”
Instead, I’m awake at 3:47 a.m.
Googling “What does it mean to feel inside-out?”

I keep finding pieces of myself
in weird places—
a sandal from eighth grade
in my mom’s basement—
a song I skipped for years
until it wrecked me—
now it’s the only sound I can breathe to.
A fourth grade diary entry
that ends with:
“I think something’s wrong with the air.”

I think something’s wrong with the air.

I was so sure by now I’d
quit making altars out of absence,
retire from bleeding for the line break,
know how to hold still when people love me.

I thought I’d hear God more clearly
and panic less when I don’t.
I thought I’d be done
being undone
by
a read receipt.

/ Then the break. /

And yet.

I flinch at compliments
like they’re coming from behind me.

Sometimes I still check
if my name’s spelled right on things.
I still rehearse
what I’ll say in case I’m asked,
“So, what do you do?”

(I become.
I break and unbreak.
I drink soda in bed and call that healing.
I make it to morning and call that enough.)
I keep living like the soft things won’t leave.

There’s a version of me
who doesn’t bend into a wishbone
for every boy with a god complex—
and a version
who flosses because she thinks she’ll live
long enough
for it to matter.

There’s a version who never had to explain
the scars on her thigh.
A version who didn’t stay
just to see how bad it could get.

I keep dreaming of her.
Not to compete—
just to confess.
Not to ask forgiveness—
to give it.

She sleeps through the night and means it.
She makes plans and keeps them.
She doesn’t exist.

So I just keep writing toward something
I’m not sure I’ll survive.
There’s a version of me
who didn’t touch the red button.
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t hope.
Didn’t write any of this down.

I wonder what the pages I left hanging feel.
All of the things I promised I would write on it — gone just like that.
Does it still have the faith in me?
Will it ever be able to trust someone else if they found it?

I feel sorry for those pages,
but I do have a reason!
I may not be the best person there is,
but I do wish for every page to be finished —
pages full of words, proud and filled.

But if I were to deliberately finish one
just for the sake of finishing it —
won't that be unfair to the page?

Therefore, I made a painful decision:
to leave it unfinished!
Unfinished it may be, so,
but at least it will still have the essence of something meaningful.

I hope the page forgives me
for what I took away from it.
But I never had a better choice.

After all,
it is my fault.

                                                                                   -Asher Graves

What’s the matter
Why can’t I relate
These poems I read
Make no sense to me

Am I such a simpleton
Do I have no brains at all
Why can others see
Things that are so lost
To me

Words too abstract
And jumbled to me
But I guess that’s what people think
Poetry should be

I’m sorry to say
Don’t expect that from me
I can only write-- plainly
Of what I see

I read some poetry
That everyone said
I should like

I’m sorry
But I guess I needed to be
High on *** and *****
Like I was when I enjoyed
The Muddy blues

Now that means
Nothing to me
Just like this poetry
You said to read

Not that I have anything
Against Muddy
But, I didn’t need no
Touch of the ****
To enjoy the music
Of the ****** man
Johnny Lee