are you still here?
if so,
why haven't you said anything?

it's been four years
six months
and eleven days

i talk to you,
you know?
every night.

do you hear me?

If you want to understand where I'm coming from then take your mind to the darkest place it can go, build your wall to keep others out so high that it surpasses the stars and beyond. Closed your mind, lose hope, and let hate engulf your being completely. Then imagine living like this for 10 years. All of the sudden one day, for whatever reason, you consider the fact that maybe your wrong and that there is still good in the world. That your not alone and being happy is a choice not a circumstantial emotion. Realize only in complete darkness can you truly appreciate the light. Realize there is a reason for existence and its to find our way home while loving and aiding others in the same journey. Us humans, we are just billions of pieces of the same puzzle and only when we fit together can we perceive the bigger picture. We may be at different levels but those levels are just different steps on the same staircase. Maybe if you can consider even trying to see me with eyes of understanding, them maybe I can understand you too.

The iron drips from my fingers.
The man gives out a yell.
The child launches, she launches at me.
Sadly her launch had failed.
I chuckled at her, with no pity.
Her frightened face, what a laugh.
The person she’s crying for isn't worth dying for.
After all,
he was a bad man.
It’s funny, so funny, funny the fact.
The fact, she thought if she grabbed my neck then,
maybe, just maybe, maybe I’d die.
I laughed again and finally, I gave out a sigh.
“Poor child,” I said my voice left unchanged.
“You misunderstood. I shouldn't be ashamed.
Your idol has done so many bad things,
now he’ll pay for his sins of adultery,
in a place which this blind man cannot see.
She fell to the ground befalling her tears.
This was the end of her happy years.
What? Did she think it was a fairy tale life?
Reality is sharp, just like a knife.
I laughed at the fact I took his life,
with just one swing of my most dull scythe.

It was not love that struck me first.
Before anything else,
it was an arrogance that
overwhelmed my senses,
so I held my nose
to keep out the stench and
went on my way.
I ignored you and
let you exist in your
perfect little multilingual corner,
thinking it too put together and
not for me at all. It was
dull and silent and
no one could dance there.

Then, one morning,
while a foreign language
spoke in jazz in my head,
you expressed the complexity,
the utter chaos of
one molecule slipping into another
and weaving the majestic
world of science that
baffles and amazes
even the brightest of minds.
You opened your mouth
and love hit me harder
than ever before as I realized that
you,
just like me,
wanted to figure out
the math of the world and
solve the equation.
How could that not ensnare me
in an awful trap of trying
to not only calculate the world,
but to also dissect you and
determine what you are made of
and what fuels you?

After that,
you became a rush of Golden Years1,
a reminder that,
“dearly beloved, we are
gathered here today
to get through this thing
we call life”2,
an extraordinary personification
of old time rock ‘n roll3,
and an interpretation
of the love that stays
even when summer is over4.
The music danced through my veins
like never before because you
were all of those things
and more!
Anyone could ask me about you,
(Oh, dear, what is he really like?),
and I would just sing for them
and hope they understood.
How could they not?
If they really listened
to all of those lyrics and really
let the notes slip across their skin
and sink into their pores,
they could know you.

But melodies change.

Without warning,
I am held back
by your
darkness,
not because you
inflict it upon me,
but because
you shelter me from it.
You want to
save my light,
so you refuse to
let me see inside,
afraid to lose it,
afraid the demons
will take it away5.
That is the melancholy tune
that changed
your definition
in my dictionary.

You are the lesson of betrayal.
A bittersweet song
which reminds us all to realize
your savior can also be
your captor
and executioner6.
That is a lesson
you learned the hard way,
though you never really say how.
You hide it beneath
the rhyme and reason
that is senseless poetry.

Not to be repetitive,
but you are music
only I can hear.
The genre is always changing,
but you are always demanding
space in my ears, a clamor
of so much to dance to
with wild abandon.
The endless noise often hurts,
often makes me curl up in a ball,
begging for silence.
But, when it unifies...
when it slows down...
when it decides what to be,
even if only for a few seconds,
you are the
most beautiful thing
in the world to me.
Those are the moments
when you are one song
and I can see you
for just a second
before all the others
demand attention and
obscure the real music that
follows the beat of your heart.
This is when I am head over heels
and I have to beg you not
“to take my heart,
don’t break my heart,
don’t, don’t,
don’t throw it away.”7

How incredible
you really and truly are.
You are a soundtrack and
you come in different volumes.
I swear I want nothing else
from you than to just listen,
slip on my headphones
and submerge in the
raucous of sound and composition
that is you.
I can’t always see you,
but I can always hear you,
and I will listen
until the day you turn it off,
the day when silence ensues and
you are
nothing
but the shell a great ballad
will refer to
as a
cause
to
smile.8

1. “Golden Years” by David Bowie
2. “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince
3. “Old Time Rock ‘n Roll” by Bob Seger
4. “Boys of Summer” by Don Henley
5. “Demons” by Imagine Dragons
6. “Miss Missing You” by Fall Out Boy (Specifically, the line: “The person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger.”)
7. “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears
8. “American Pie” by Don McLean

January’s light is bright and sure;
Skipping, dancing, o’er river and moor.

February’s lamp is warm and yellow;
Prancing, jumping, like faeries so mellow.

March’s candles are orange and cool;
Autumn leaves drop into the pool.

April’s sun is starting to fade;
Slowly, slowly, trying to evade.

May’s moon is cold and bright;
Illuminating even the darkest night.

June’s glow is small and short;
So little present, so dearly sought.

August’s dawn is soft and thin;
But slowly growing from the dim.

September’s beacon is red and crescent;
Emerging from the darkness to be ever-present.

October’s star is hot and strong;
The days and shadows are growing long.

November’s torch is happy and loud;
Laughing and playing alongside the crowd.

December’s bulb is joyous and true;
It was lighted for me; it was lighted for you.

going against
parents and
the world,
seems silly and
stupid,
because you
know you don't
stand a chance.

but when you
feel your
blood rushing
through your veins,
and adrenaline
pumping,
when you
have finally
proven a point,
after years of
arguing and
fighting,
you realize
that this feeling
is why you exist,
why you live,
why you are *here.

As a child
I quickly learned that if I blinked several times
and took a few deep breaths
I could stop myself from crying whenever I wanted
and it worked
From child to teenager
no one had ever seen me shed a tear
and I saw this as my own power
to hide my weak self from others
I could be strong
and benefit from my own shield
but it also made me seem detached
with the ones I cared for the most
I feel that one day It’ll happen
I will burst into tears after years of waiting
but I fear
If I start crying
I just may never stop.

Your colors are so heavy, how dare I, I cannot sleep. Years inundated under, through skin coils, marigold fields. Yellow crocuses, orange California poppies. Moors of cattle ranchers, yokes of oxen. Plasticine uber-confidence, silky white-skinned testubular thrice people harmonies. Blisses of contagion, contagious bliss. Wrists and incisors, tying down in a bedroom, waking up to live harps and choruses. You dance like you're so alive, but I'm so alive I can't dance. Or breathe. Or knead my fists of earthen wears, or sell my soul completely. I drove off a cliff last night, but the four foot fall ended neatly. The plateau authors my chance to sew my bright, beyond- my fortunes. But the hour before I fall asleep, seems to be the greatest torture.