I arrived at your house this morning, and snuck through the front door.
You father didn't hear and your mother didn't see.
The steep stairs creaked as we followed our quick-moving feet.
In secret nooks that look like your mind, we whispered secrets that could have changed the world;
Your mind is brighter than the dim fluorescent lights.
It makes me feel more human to hear what your heart and mind have agreed upon.
Mostly the world needs more compassion, to allow people to be more than what they're labeled.
You may be a Jew, but you're also a human.
I may be a man, but I'm also a human.
Every human has this in common.
When I saw your room, I lost the fight with my tears.
Your ambition and hope suffered for years.
And so, Anne Frank, I will remember you.
Humans are more than strangers, and freedom is more than living.
I won't take either for granted.

Walking on
Shards of
Mirror. I have a
Thousand clones
Sharing
My pain.

Such is
World. Humanity. And
Tragedy.

A shoebox of letters
hand written on yellow looseleaf
pages upon pages of promises
written in red ink,
a coffin in need of a burial
a reminder of a life
and a love denied.

February 14th, 1989
penned within my first year
the name at the top is not mine
but she writes to him
the way you will write to me
only two decades later.

I shiver as I read each draft;
to realize our failed romance
was but an echo of the past.

the way life used to be
isn't what i miss,
it's each individual moment-
lapsing over and over one another
creating an inconceivable picture
of everything i love,
now lost

too proud to quit
too proud to improve
the noble poet died
as quietly as he
could