When I was ten I would go to work with my mom
She worked at a preschool in a not-so-great town
There was one girl who was my favorite
Her name was Trinitaria.

During nap time she asked me to lay with her, so I did
And I remember she said things to me
That I didn't quite understand

A few days ago I took a child abuse prevention course
Because I'm working at a camp this summer
I went home and asked my mom
About Trinitaria, what happened to her

She looked surprised and worried
She told me her adopted father sexually abused her
It was an ongoing case that I was too young to understand

This course I took taught me the signs of abused children trying to open up
And I suddenly realized I could have helped my friend Trinny

But while her innocence was being stolen, mine was busy shielding my eyes and hiding a reality
She couldn't escape from

At seventeen I am almost grown.
Almost old enough to own a home of my own.
Yet, i remain viewed as young, naive.
Told I am too young to know what i believe.
At seventeen the world drowns me in a sea of questions it doesn't want the answers to.
At seventeen everyone thinks they know whats best for me,
"....grow up, be a part of your society."
Don't worry about happiness that's a selfish priority.
"...grow up."
But at seventeen its hard to differentiate between hopes and reality.
It's sad you can do anything you believe,
but i fear it's a lie, we've all been teased.
The proof?
On the streets.
An endless stream of people who've had their dreams seized.
I dread the thought of this stream consuming me.
Me?
Me?
At seventeen I don't know if I am me.
Or just everything that's ever been crammed down my throat into a part of my brain I cant pronounce.
At seventeen I've fallen down a rabbit hole.
The queen of hearts pounding me with every cliche ideal every adult has told me to believe.
The white rabbit screaming to me the time.
17..18..19
I just want to leave.
I am only seventeen.
But if not this rabbit hole where?
Just a new nightmare?
Filled with symbolism I should get.
Things I should know.
Seventeen is plenty of time to grow...
grow up.
But I am only seventeen.
I am only seventeen.
Am only seventeen.
Only seventeen.
Seventeen.
I am seventeen.
At seventeen the world says I am almost grown.
At seventeen I am scared to have a home of my own.
At seventeen I question everything I ever knew.
But remain unchanged.
Remain floating through life without a clue.

describe to me the setting sea against the tidal suns
tell me bitter lies of why it is how you used to be
and how again it was no pain for wave to break
shore leave fantasy incredible relations between
***** muck cracked claws on diamond webbings
sin first to be last to win thirst against troubled
these times are horrid ticks against the nature
of the beast of the man un nat ural ural ural the sea
it'll be better, he said he said to me once on a sunday
hell is plane that ever plain never lands upon the shores
never leaves absent mothers mothered bothered by
and never never never ever always contradicts
by nature it is it is unatural unnatured beast of wild
a forsaken tool to best be bit by other claim in sin
the thirst is taken by the moon, a tidal blood
in throat the catchings diamond webs of spiricals
of the sunday bishop movements, ever always after
before before the time it was again begun
and and in somewhat strange obtuse pear trees
strange fruit from cocoons hatched sideways
until pear time fruitlets dropped in spheres
into the open casket boiling cracking crab like muck
of breaking waves in boiling oceans, horrid licks
you find you dunce that chasing shadows much like days
pass far too quick to grasp the nettle and be stung
and be thirsty for a placement upon the mantle up
where higher drownings laugh all about the smoke
all in shade of biscuit trees all in fade of tin echoes
empty Christmas biscuit tins sound like themselves
the hollow noise of prophecy against september
again the bland misunderstandings recalled
no pain, never ever always was in hell in heaven peace
that breaks the ocean belts the cliffs produces shame
in fingertips in felt like cat skin rugs and wigs cat hair
counterparts to breeze it is the summer storms the
bleak monsoons of rain that's ****** from mothers ****
that seen to rise in single breath of sky and fall in
grey obtuse sleets to earth made sea made mirrored sky
sage test by broken widowed insect feelers pert to thunder
hunger by the hundred lightening strikes to mass in
bleak grey ember skies, silent spiracles of sun in
shade take refuse out from heap and pile again
beneath the skins of elder hills of somewhat tainted
trousers made up of younger weeds and roots and
****** thirsting up against the garage door that opens
fast too quick too soon too much and **** dirt up
again ever never after seeing hell far too often break
up break up and smile that ocean going smile
wave goodbye with breaking helm with crack of pearls
and peal of thunder late reminder of the blinding
light against the grey now november skies
again, again, it ever never is always maybe somewhat
breaking on the steps on the path away towards
under bleak stained crab carcass shores away towards

dear goldfish -
if I'd been you
I'd have jumped, too.

grass crunches softly in rhythm to your compassionate jaws
to be slow and spotted is to be the subject of some onlooker's pause...
no words to exchange
  just desires to imitate
    through sounds and the absence of thought.
friends weave their wishes into the moist poetry glistening out of your big brown eyes
while the mellow motion of your mouth traces saturn's rings around the sky
i, entranced and graciously assured
  the world and all its needs
    are a body to drink from, like this lake at your knees.
it isn't random how we found each other with only a fence between us
what's a fence if we've grown tall enough to step over or strong enough to walk through?
to everyone around me it seems
there's somewhere else to be,
this scene bearing you and your family lays itself out like acrylic cows and trees
a moving picture to impregnate
the awakened veins of my future.
switching bodies, i poke & sniff at shade and water
while these dry stones beneath our feet
in part gravel arriving here from mountains we've yet to reach,
find me realizing
i was never just passing through.
  moo was meant for me
    i was meant for moo

I found your flaws first:
your thin, wispy hair,
the arch in your back,
that slightly crooked nose.

And you found mine:
following a girl who took my heart
and the air right from my lungs.
She'd wring me dry
till my veins were scarred purple,
caked with pale red dust.

While you and I laid on the floor
in the dark, planning
our escape to California
as we had always done,
I realized the mistake I made
by not loving you first.