Sixteen,
skin baked with brine and chlorine,
Top 40 hissing in my Walkman.

The girl found me first,
barefoot on the sandy trail,
tears spilling, pointing back to the sea.
A jellyfish sting, she couldn’t say it,
just clung to my leg like kelp.

Her mother rose from the dunes,
black bikini, tan lines,
two beach bags gnawing her wrists.
coconut oil, salt, chipped Jackie O shades.
She sighed, called the girl dramatic,
drifted home on scraping sandals.

Their world leaked into ours,
adjacent green bungalow
with fronds rattling like bones,
oranges sagging into white fuzz,
ATV ruts torn through the yard.
Rob polishing his Camaro,
coughing through pollen and Skoal,
swearing he saw a gator the size of a boat
slide into the canal at dusk.

She’d wander up, black bikini,
thighs shining,
shadow falling across my pool chair.
“Hey, you see my kid?” she’d ask,
leaning close,
the scent of Coppertone
and Marlboro Gold
fogging my thoughts.

I’d shift polite, church-boy manners,
“No, ma’am,”
She’d smile
at the clumsy hormones
rising off me
like steam.

Nights were bonfires,
oranges softening to flies,
Rob coughing in his driveway
while the pool light hummed and flickered.
Her shadow swam on the walls,
slick as the gator sliding into dusk.

all in a group
talking after church
they asked you about a girl
you denied, denied, denied
you keep looking at me now
“she’s just not my type”
you’re looking at me
with eyes that wonder if i care
if im possibly jealous
it gives me a spark
a glimmer of hope
cuz why would you care if i cared?
i must be delusional

Being young seems to be a lethal thing,
It's hard to see future days,
When there's so much haze,
Over today.
Falling back feels worse,
When you were just there,
And it's hard to resist giving painful people second chances,
Because I can't see my future soulmate,
As good as others can.
At least not finding them,
I can visualize them.
Someone a little similar to me,
But not exactly the same.
I'd like to be a little taller too if that's okay,
But that's really it.
I just want somebody,
That I love,
Who loves me back the same.

i saw this prompt somewhere,
asking me what i'd do
if i had nine lives.
and my first thought was—
was i being given a chance
to live as a cat for a while?

sarcastic, of course, it was,
but it really made me think.
so i settled down
and began making a list
of what i'd actually do
if i were to have,
not one, but nine different lives come true.

i believe i'd spend the first
living and experiencing
all forms of art my eyes could pick up:
reading and listening,
watching, looking,
visiting museums, talking to people,
asking the writers what gave birth to their empiricals.

the second, perhaps, i would—
put myself up and forward,
creating the same art
as i hoped i would.
and maybe i'd write
to the length of the night.
i'd create all sorts of felonies,
live somewhere unknown to horizons,
creating my life away.

the third was a confusion.
what did i truly wish to do?
maybe this time, i'd learn
all that there was for me to.
i'd look on and become one
among the smartest people—
to get to know what put them at the top,
and whether it was a life i truly yearned for.

the fourth came easy.
i'd be an artist,
a model or an actor.
i'd climb up high on a pedestal,
look at the faces watching me
from the crowd below,
trying to understand
whether it was really fun
and cut out for me so.

the fifth, i wondered—
what would it be like to live on the roadside,
barely surviving, dying the next day?
i'd want to understand the aches they go through—
those without a home, money, or food—
to perhaps help them better
and make sense of what inspired me to.

the sixth life—
i wanted to spend it being loved,
and being loved by someone
who wouldn't want an other.
just loving, spending my entire existence
there, physically and spiritually,
seeping into one another.
love was it for the sixth.
unknown in the end,
it finished with my sacrifice—
from no one but my lover,
whom i couldn't defend.

the seventh life, then—
i'd hug everyone i come across,
take away their pain:
child-like sorrows, grave depths of despair—
all kinds. and even as i end it,
let it consume me.
i'll have it known that maybe,
this way, the world will be a lighter place to live.
so when i take birth next,
someone could do the same.
and maybe we could share each other's sorrows
and laugh out all the pain.
let it seep through all the shared veins.
and maybe that way,
i'll spend two of my lives together.

eighth—one more to go, and then it’d be over.
so i lived in fear, avoiding getting close enough
to make anyone dear.
i wandered through the nights,
unsure of when i made this choice.
the mornings seemed scary;
i yearned for voices.
i found comfort in the lonely,
slid away slowly,
and let the last life catch on to me—
before i ended it myself,
i know it was lowly.

ninth life. here i was.
and i realized i hadn't chosen the previous three.
someone else made those choices—
who opted, i wondered?
who gave me those experiences i wrote?
suddenly, i realized it was honest:
the past three were lives i never wished to live.

this was perhaps my first.
now, i’m back in the present,
in my twenties,
the past years gone forever.

i don’t know how i spent them,
(i wouldn’t want to remember the forgotten)
but now i realize
all i yearned to do
and the fears i saw coming true.

i’m still here, putting down the list.
i'm going to sleep in tomorrow
and go to my classes the day after.
and i’ll continue,
doing all that i wanted to,
in the nine lives i was offered.

for i could wish,
but i was given just this one.
and i guess i’ll try to live
all of them
in a single one.

Am I too young to miss the past
Am I too old to enjoy the rain
Too young to notice the change
Too old to be immature

Or maybe too young to think when to blink
in fear I’ll miss the bliss if I stop to think

Or maybe age isn’t real
Just there to control when we do what
When we should be embarrassed to cry,
or when to start to live our lives,
and with a blink of an eye
you’re caught barely alive,
wore out from existence of time

"Rusted Harp"


Strings crust over
like ancient ossuary bones,
once vibrant with touch,
now mute in neglect.

Each pluck would be agony—
a resurrection of rust,
a hymn to how
we let beauty corrode.




.

The rugose skin has helped me see better.
And every time, as now, I close my eyes,
The dreams become less vivid of your tender,
And I can see behind those sweet old lies.

The music gets me going; I wonder where it leads.
I still keep those **** letters up my sleeve,
And notes that kept me warm are burnt by your own words.
They don't tell any stories anymore.

Salient pace, turned to a race,
Keeps me moving still and in time.
I invented a machine that would make me old and real;
You, I left as young and past behind.

Someday, I'll sit by the river
Where all the promises were made.
And as I close my eyes, I won't make a sound,
Because there won’t be a flicker
Of my thoughts trailing away
To the day I said "I want you" in reply.