#michigan
Sits a lake in the north
full of dead children.
The children of children
robbed of a childhood
“like a bad tummy ache” blood spurts to the floor, the perfect girl born
and though she was brought into a world of evil, a place no child deserves to be in,
She was loved by her mother.
And so on that boat stands dead children.
Though they may be breathing, heart beating,
Their eyes are not. The horrors upon them sit heavy on their souls
And below, lay their children to rest.
Dismembered, and dishonored.
I do not know where the dead children live now, but I do know
where their father lies.
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 7:21 AM UTC
Please don’t fall back to sleep,
I pray the gods this road to keep.
I travel on through a life of snow,
the heavens shines the moon aglow.
There beneath my weary aging feet
the crush of snow two foot deep.
A racing breath of frozen air
it’s so good to be
alive out here!
Dec 29, 2025
Dec 29, 2025 at 2:35 PM UTC
I look out my bedroom window
and I see the church
that has lost its steeple
in a bad storm.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and I see the basketball hoop
where countless people
have attempted its rim.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and I see the soccer goal
where many hours of games have taken place
and I see the dented garage behind it from our many failed shots.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and I see the stump
from the tree that stood outside our house
for many years.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and see the tiny little sandbox
where we would play for hours
while Mom would sit in her chair and read.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and see the holes in the ground
where our swingset used to be and where
hours were spent pretending the ground was lava.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and I see the tiny slide
that we would slide down into the mini pool
as we were having the time of our lives.
This is my home.
I look out my bedroom window
and I see the burn pile
where we always said we’d have bonfires
but we hardly ever did.
This is my home.
Thinking back on all of this,
so much nostalgia rushes to me
and so many memories
come flooding back.
In reality, this isn’t my home
and this isn’t my bedroom window.
All of these views
are now being enjoyed
by another little girl,
just as I once was.
No matter where I go in life
I will never forget
the special memories
from my childhood home.
I’m thankful for my childhood
and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I’m thankful for the people
and I’m thankful for the places I got to go.
No matter what’s in store for me
and where life takes me,
Michigan will always be my home.
Feb 25, 2022
Feb 25, 2022 at 3:43 PM UTC
girls like you
deserve a love that
always feels
like summer,
a love that
sings like waves against the sand
feels like freckles and anklet tanlines
smells like sunscreen and
Mackinac Island Fudge
dripping down your chin—
a love that never ends
like those rays of sun that
spray over Lake Michigan
and tickle heaven.
you part your lips
to speak and
just like that
my world
becomes
lyrical—
dipping and twisting
like a kite in the sky
flowing freely like
your baby hairs coming
out of your braid,
like your laugh as it
echoes down the
quiet shoreline,
around the chambers
of my soul.
girls like you
deserve a love that
always feels
like summer—
I pray that
your summer
never ends.
Jun 18, 2021
Jun 18, 2021 at 9:35 PM UTC
Sipping on that juice
You are tripping
Screaming and laughing all at once
I'm flying getting my game on
Mystifying you be wearing your *** kicking boots
Smoking one, putting that roach in a jar
Popping vicodin just to stay alive
Not even sure if I exist
Selling Adderall's so the ******* can stay skinny
Sweet little boy shot down on his big wheel bike
All I can do is grab the mic and send the message on
People on the street begging for money for addictions
******* **** just to get high
What if that was your daughter?
Hoping the soup kitchen is open
Do they have a empty bed for me to sleep tonight
Dressing in color
It's a true story this town is in demise
The water is not even safe to drink
Lake Huron to the Flint river
The town showing no love
Then Rick Snyder declares a state of emergency
The first person to come forward Sasha Bell
Was found murdered in her home as her small one year old son was left to roam
She had a law suit against the Flint water crisis
She is now silenced a baby without a mother
Nobody is winning here
90 people were sickened from exposer 12 died
Delivering bottle water to Veteran's, as they are losing there homes
People who have worked there whole lives
People just trying to survive
Oct 3, 2020
Oct 3, 2020 at 1:28 AM UTC
2/5/09 - The day I lost my best friend (Grandpa)
7/?/12 - Moved in with dad
12/11/16 - Tried to KMS
9/16/17 - The day my dad and stepmom got married
4/3/18 - Started dating my boyfriend
6/19/18 - The day my dad gave me up and kicked me out
6/23/19 - Day my uncle died. He never gave up on me
10/3/19 - My best friend died(Grandma)
12/9/19 - The day I broke up with my boyfriend
New: 3/13/20 - Moved states
New: 7/21/20- Moved schools
Sep 11, 2020
Sep 11, 2020 at 12:32 PM UTC
All of this feels strange and untrue,
but here I'm am in Chicago winters with you.
Where windows oversee the frozen lake
And snow glows on streets at daybreak,
As we sit in front of the fireplace,
blankets covering us as on your
arm I lay my face.
Jun 8, 2020
Jun 8, 2020 at 10:09 AM UTC
I am on Mackinac Island,
Lying down on a big white lawn chair
In front of the Grand Hotel.
The faint scent of fudge
Lingers on the air so I can almost taste it,
And my hair is getting constantly blown
By the wind that flows among the
Chairs, grass, and music.
The music comes from the direction of the water,
Where an old style jazz band has
Temporarily set up shop,
Creating gorgeous silhouettes
Against the orange and pink sunset sky.
The purring of the clarinet
Bounces off of me like the waves are
Bouncing on shore,
But even lighter than that,
Even lighter than the
Wings of the seagull trailing overhead.
The clarinet drops in and out of sync
With the waves as the silhouettes start to
Bounce to the music.
A distant bike bell dings,
But it matches so harmoniously
With the music that I don't notice it.
Waves, bike, clarinet.
Waves, bike, clarinet.
A constant cycle interrupted only by
The saxophone and drums occasionally.
Waves, bike, clarinet.
The sun is set.
Silhouettes turn to shadows.
Waves, bike, clarinet.
Waves, bike.
Waves.
May 20, 2020
May 20, 2020 at 2:44 PM UTC
It’s as bright as hell
my eyes are squinting
Due-east the sun is rising
The shining snow welcomes
a break from days of overcast
Banshee and I aimlessly walk across
the frozen lake to avoid the traffic of the winding slippery busy roads
Dead critters feathers and fur
cars and trucks slip and swerve
Ice fishers on the horizon
year rounders in summer cottages
Far and few people but hardly alone
So I sit on this ice and write this poem
...............
Feb 21, 2020
Feb 21, 2020 at 9:16 AM UTC
When we all go to Memphis, we spread Ludington sand in Matt’s flower beds, like somebody died, and a silence falls as we let the sand sift through our fingers like ashes. It smells like Michigan, like seashells and ***** lake water, and it drowns out the construction workers making new-money houses.
Instead of funeral hymns, we’re blanketed by sawdust and cigarette smoke. We sip and savor Evan Williams and for once, none of us speaks.
Our veins light on fire from the whiskey, and our souls share a collective ache, like our bodies are made from some sort of symbiotic cell.
After The Spreading Of The Sand, we go to a haunted bar where entry is a password, where there’s a frown of a front door, and the exposed brick walls reek of the dead girls upstairs. I think, This is Memphis, a very loud city with louder secrets – the overpowering shadow spreading its fingers in all her corners, silent until she swallows you whole.
Memphis realigns your center –
a snap of the blues, a crack of whiskey and, all of a sudden, things run much more smoothly.
Memphis, she’s known as the City on the Bluff, a place where summer storms split at the river, don’t reconvene ‘til east of Arlington.
Her protection, it’s always there.
Like DNA shared among siblings, blood is always thicker here in her quarters.
Memphis, she tells me I should’ve kicked Worry to the curb all along.
Memphis, she keeps her people safe.
Feb 23, 2019
Feb 23, 2019 at 7:34 PM UTC
(The one where I’m feeling sorry for my cheating ex-girlfriend.0
We met the grim reaper on my 18th birthday.
He arrived to the party, uninvited,
dressed in ribbons
and legality
and student loans.
Driving a silver Sudan
Eminem turned all the way up,
He hard braked in the turn lane next to us,
Skillfully smirking, words pulled back on his tongue like arrows.
ready to strike.
Bullseye.
There I sat, cross faded in your passenger seat, crying for the 50th time over how Brockhampton is like
The best thing to happen to rap since Odd Future.
Singing “who’s got the feeling” at the top of my lungs.
Happy.
I got a kiss at every red light.
No matter how quickly you turned away
Back then red and orange traffic lights were our dancefloor
We stood glowing in our favorite colors
Making up for every touch we could not share at prom.
I thought “god, if this barres me from heaven I’m already here with her.”
I’d heard he always shows up at the worst times.
He, the reaper.
He’d really been there all along
In the smile of the lady at iHOP who invited us to church
In the down turned edges of mouths on waiters faces when I say,
“no, sir, we’ll be paying together”
I saw two girls kissing in the corner tonight and I only wish you were here to see it too.
I beg you come be with me.
Careful pitches “See these examples see what we can have”
Blue blood runs dry when their hearts are still soaked in red,
so no the money isn’t worth staying for.
You’re suffocating in red and right and trump signs.
She’s screaming baby, my love, pretty girl,
You are just too far,
and I am just too lonely.
We spent hundreds of days hating ourselves for loving each other.
Maybe we were too busy hating ourselves to actually love each other
She cannot meet me in the middle when she shackled to the start.
She reminds me of the reaper,
He lives inside her.
In the memories of being called a ****** at Christmas dinner.
Between picking out pears in the grocery store.
In the happiness over a haircut.
Happiness from my hands
Our breakup was not clean or neat or wholesome
It was all tears and excuses and hatred.
I still should’ve been there,
You’re the only one who understood how badly loving me hurts
I know it’s hard to love me.
To be good enough for me.
I haven’t figured out how to be good enough for myself either.
We’re Joking about how you mother thought we sat in circles
Whispering secrets, braiding
instead of pulling hair.
Now I watch as you pull yours out
Because god **** it you’re trying.
White people get away with killing kids all the time
Why would this be any different?
I’m in your passenger seat again
Asking what’s wrong, please answer me.
Where have you gone?
I’m pounding on a sealed casket
Pounding on the earth you lay beneath.
She is silent.
We held each other in pools of tears
Repeating that one day it gets better.
One day.
I feel guilty for living that truth
While you are stuck.
Yet still,
I will smile every June 11th
And wish you well.
I hope you’re still swimming
The creek we loved picked up quite the current.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 2:00 PM UTC
I haven't smiled with a glimmering passion since then.
The salt water wasn't as pure, but the heat filled my heart.
You weren't so far away, yet you were still many states.
I sigh with incomprehension, I've forgotten my lease and there's so much to do, yet nothing new to see.
I hope I make it in the blistering cold, as I miss who I was but this is who I'll be.
It's time for change, I hope we meet again some day.
When I reach a fervor with the mildest degree of sincerity, I'll be like I was back then.
Oct 23, 2018
Oct 23, 2018 at 12:04 AM UTC
Lake Michigan looks like an ocean
Mad autumn waves crash on the shore
You get so close to God, in this sacred place
Especially in the warm months, you want more
Young love is best savored here
Pure innocence found walking on the pier
Behind the lighthouse is best to steal a kiss
Happiest place ever with the one you love near
The sand on the beach is perfect
It's the only heaven on earth I know
Perfect for lovers to walk hand in hand
If you saw it, you'd want to go
As sun sets, purple and red hues
light up the heavens above
And birds overhead fly by
As people below fall in love
The stars are out tonight
I wonder if you see them too
They hang in darkened sky
I could reach and get one for you
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 8:15 AM UTC
At an unknown time of night at our cottage in northern Michigan…
My younger brother and I heard strange noises coming from the beach again…
We looked up at the ceiling and then the window…
As the voices from outside, in a lively allegro…
Grew softer and louder in repeating crescendos…
We skittered out the door and stared in fascination…
For what we saw must have been our imagination…
The door closed with a creak as our feet hit the grass…
It was at that moment we got a look at the mass…
Of stubby foot, hunchback creatures from which the sounds had amassed…
There was about six of them chanting like a choir…
They danced and paraded around our burnt out fire…
As we looked on, we saw our fire raise…
It got brighter as they lifted their hands in waves…
As light betook the blue beach night…
A crowd of colorfully masked gremlins caught us in their sights!
Their feet slowed to a stop and they quieted down…
They stood still as the fire flickered off their weird wooden frowns…
One reached out his hand in a come-here motion…
They seemed to stand and wait with an encouraging notion…
As the fire crackled and the waves tumbled onto the beach…
All I can remember, is for the rest of that summer…
My younger brother and I served as the drummers…
For that quirky marching band of lake sprites…
With which our burnt out fire we’d reignite…
At an unknown time of night at our cottage in northern Michigan…
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 8:41 PM UTC
9/28/18
Dear Future Self in 2024;
Hey. You still alive? Well if you’re reading this then you’re alive. So congrats on making it this far. I know you have been going through alot over the past 6 years. I just wanted to see how you were doing.
As I’m writing this, I’m a 15 year old sophomore at Dowagiac, in choir, art and in honors. I’m about to join color guard. But I have some questions. You still dating Dakota? Possibly engaged? If you are planning our wedding, it must be in a barn. No exceptions. But are you graduated from Central Michigan for meteorology? Do we work at The Weather Channel or NWS? Got our stuff back from our dad? Martha still our best friend? Did you hurt yourself more? But please tell me we went to prom.
Well I hope you are doing well. And Dakota, if you are reading this with me, I’m glad we made it this far. I love you.
But don’t let others bring you down like I did before. Graduate, get married, have kids. But most of all, have a good and fun filled life. I wish you the most of luck.
Love
You from 2018
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 8:11 AM UTC
Sunbeams sift through emerald leaves
as 'munks pitter patter down below,
their whiskers tickled by the spring breeze.
At the shore a cerulean wave splashes,
while young lovers soak in the sand
brushing joy-filled tears from their lashes.
Baskets of fresh fried fish are passed around
to a picnicking family on the hill
absorbed in the peace of nature's sound.
There's something about these slices of time
that melts away the darkest of minds,
and that my friends is truly sublime.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 12:51 PM UTC
i felt the great lake in the summer time
i swam beneath her depths
her currents rushed beneath my feet
the upwelling water refreshed.
i knew the great lake in the winter time
i walked across frozen waves
i saw her ice and destruction
her chill took all i gave.
i never met her in October
when her shores were cooling down
the west winds glazed over her churning surface
surrounded by orange, then red, then brown.
the world around her was dying
but she was coming alive
excitedly, she slammed the pier
warning all to step aside.
sand whipped across the naked beach
but now my body was not bare
i was protected by an autumn sweater
and i learned from the springtime wear.
we rode our bikes through forest dunes
the sun snuck through the departing leaves
the last remnants of summertime fell to the ground
air whistled through the trees.
nothing can last forever
no matter how sweet, how pure, how true
there is a time when it ends and falls to the ground
and waits to become anew.
the lake must let go of her summer guests
and spend the winter alone
the trees must release what holds them down
and with freedom they may grow.
i sit here holding onto something i loved
even though it is no more.
my fingers still gripping onto the strings of the past
like waves afraid to leave the familiar shore.
maybe i can learn from the autumn lake
maybe i can be like the trees
maybe i can release what holds me down
and step out into the chilling breeze.
it scared me once to be alone
to face the world with no one by my side
but when i let the cold air hit my face
i felt a tingling sense of pride.
we cannot fear what we do not know
we cannot live if we do not let go
a seed is afraid to fall on the frozen ground
but in the springtime, she will grow.
Feb 20, 2018
Feb 20, 2018 at 12:14 AM UTC
Your body is like a road I traveled along when I was a child
Bumpy and all of the twists and turns drive me wild
Your eyes are dark blue like the sky I could not look away from when I was young
Full of stars and I cannot wait to stare into them and find constellations
Your voice is like the wind blowing through the highway fields in Illinois in the midst of spring
So swift and soft, yet could catch the attention of any person perusing through
Your hands are like gravel I fell into when I was learning to ride a bike
Rugged and painful to the touch however I cannot stop touching and yearning for more
Your smile is blinding just like the sun's reflection over Lake Michigan in the summertime
It has left everyone who viewed it enamored by its beauty and coming back for more every possible opportunity
Your demeanor reminds me of my childhood and all of the love I wanted to feel when I was young
Rare and sublime and everlasting
Dec 6, 2017
Dec 6, 2017 at 12:47 AM UTC
Relatively;
They’re traced back to your hand.
Where the lakes meet the palatial forests,
Ensconced by a foreign land,
Ink stains, summer ice cream, soccer matches.
They spell what raised you from the ground.
Farther;
They pull you to the motherland.
Whispering to you in unfamiliar characters,
On a train across the vast verdant terrain,
Reliving the arduous lives of your predecessors.
You are a product of cold animosity and two rivals.
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 12:13 AM UTC
The kingfisher darts
through leafy branches
and between trees,
ringing and bustling
as it gently lands
from one bough
to the next.
I feel the breeze
upon my shoulders,
I smell the cattails
and water lilies,
I see the light of morning
reflecting off the surface
in dazzling ripples.
This river runs
from Au Train Lake
to Lake Superior,
flowing with
such purity,
allowing nothing
but tranquility of spirit.
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 9:32 PM UTC
Rain was falling this morning
on my way into work
harder than it typically does
in the morning.
My office was darker
than it typically is
on a cloudy day
like today.
The rain and darkness
are pairing well with
the interviewees in my ears
as I vacantly stare at the computer
entering letters onto the dull white page.
They discuss their respective crafts
while the fan-girl interviewers
go gaga for their answers.
It's usually days like today
that would make someone
slump into a depression -
eyes glazed over, aimlessly working -
but there's something quite beautiful
in the colorless sky today,
something almost musical
in the falling rain.
Aug 22, 2017
Aug 22, 2017 at 12:59 PM UTC