At the age of five
she had big blue eyes
and never left her mother side
and loved to see her daddy and mother smile.
At the age of seven
her long blonde hair was all the way down to her hips
she saw her sister with the curly blonde hair at her shoulders
and told her mom she wanted it cut.
Her mom cried when she cut it to her ears.
At the age of ten she entered third grade
with short hair
and a loving smile.
The boy she liked then told her to check yes
or no on a note if she wanted to date him.
She checked yes and spent the whole day smiling.
She was thirteen her hair now past her shoulders
and her eyes covered in makeup
but it still didn't work to keep the boy
that she checked yes for.
At age 15
her hair is now long and her eyes are now dull.
she spends most of her time in her room
staring at herself in the mirror
and picking out every flaw
then covering up what she can
with makeup
she barely goes to school
she hasn't seen her mom and dad smile at each other anymore
and now her mom has way more things to cry about
than cut hair
she has given up on boys
even the one who wrote her poems instead of boxes to check.
Age 16
and she has wrote her last poem
for the boy who never did her any harm
then decided she had one more note to write
but left it unfinished.
Because she couldn't hold on any longer.

“Studying at ------- University
Would afford me so many opportunities
That I could not find elsewhere…”

Personal statements are always BS
Filled with flowery phrases that
No one
In her right mind would ever actually use
My sentences had started to look like
A thesaurus had come along
And vomited up last night's party all over them
Who even talks this way?
Who can take himself so seriously as to think
That his pompous-assery would go unnoticed?
Moreover,
Who seriously wants to read all of this
Pretentiousness
Splattered all over the page
As though some English major's senior thesis
Had been brutally murdered?

“I am ready to bring my own
Determination and
Motivation
Into the equation to improve the
Lives of patients.”

I am disgusted with myself
For trying so hard
To impress a committee of nameless, faceless
Academics
To convince them
With fancy words and pretty sentences
That I am the best person ever
The more I write
The more I wonder if it even matters
If it's really so important for me to become a
Well Connected PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Engineer Extraordinaire
Patients are going to keep dying
And there's no guarantee I can do a **** thing about it

“The Institute of Biomedical Engineering teaches engineers
To work side by side with clinicians to deliver
Meaningful healthcare results.”

Meaningful
Healthcare
Results
What a wonderfully vague phrase
It means nothing, really
Not without context
But it's Impressive and Dynamic
A phrase a committee would salivate over
(Because "drool" is too simple a word for them)
It's not enough for me to just come out and say how
For my entire life
I've dreamed of myself as Superwoman
Armed with engineering skills and a well-stocked lab
Ready to take down human suffering
I just want to heal people
And blood makes me faint
So I can't be a doctor
But I know my way around a lab now
And I can make medicines
In fact, that's all I want to do
Is to make new, better medicines
To grow cells and tissues and cures in my bioreactors
To make someone, anyone's life a little less painful
And these things cannot be told in florid prose
Because these are the messy parts of life
These are the parts that ache and ooze and itch
Keeping us up all night
Until words blur together
And all that's left are limbs and bodies and faces
So you can throw your thesaurus out the window
Because it's of no use here
None of the BS is helping anyone
Pretty words aren't going to make
A failing heart grow back
And this personal statement isn't going to
Purge anyone's cancer from their veins
But this person
Untroubled by higher diction
Might just do something useful

This house doesn't need ghosts to scare anyone
The walls take sanity for fun
They'll hex you with whispers in tongue
Arrive with confidence - leave with none
The longer you stay, the further undone
The air stifles, it thickens and numbs
It weighs down on you like tons
Constricting every cell, it stuns
Skeletons in these closets tote guns
Heat comes at you like fire from the mouth of dragons
I mean heat like blaze of a million suns
All the while, your mind weakens and maddens
This house kills souls like it's a soul assassin
A suffering only the wicked can fathom

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be live-*

The revelation will be streaming through your Windows
laptops and smartphones.
The revolution will be blogged
Tweeted, liked, shared, RE-blogged RE-tweeted
and Stumbled Upon in between
midnight ******* sessions
sandwiched between funny cat memes.

The resolution will be HD.
It's evolution will be high speed.
The whistles will be blown at with frequency.
The revolution will be commented on;
Scrutinized.
Vandalized.
Scandalized.
Stylized and advertized.
People will pay attention -
People will forget to mention
that some stand up, occupy, riot
and die.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution be streaming live
through the filter of your choice.
The facts will be democratized.
The democracy will be corporatized.
The corporations will personified.
People, objectified -
Spied on and villainized  
The powers that be will will lie, deny, and try to justify.
The people will be disenfranchised.
Prisons will be privatized.
Death drones will be utilized.

No one will bat an eye.
Because revolution will be multiplied, over-simplified,
The violence, normalized.
Lives, sacrificed
to satiate the Golden Calf's appetite.

The revolution will not be televised
but Jerry Springer will...
Go figure.

You unknowingly reach to me.
Feel the energy in your fingertips when you touch me.

I can feel it, too.

It feels warm,
Cold,
Fuzzy,
Pressurized.
It makes me shiver.

You've done it.
You've accomplished the next step.
You have the sight,
Now you have the touch.

**I can teach you more.

ohbutitisfair.wearenoweven.besidesivegivenyoulessthanyouvegivenme­

I think I should leave this page blank.
I wanted to write something for you,
But all of the lovey-dove-y romance-y stuff
Has been taken.

I wouldn't have been able to say it all anyway...
Maybe just a portion.

Now, though, I realize
I could never put it into words.