dear self,

you cannot save everyone.

he is a snake-
making his way
curiously, furiously,

into my life,
into my mind,
into my dreams;

and i won't allow it.

on a concrete island
in the middle of the ocean,

i put the metal hook around my neck;
chained to my failures.

it quickly began to sink,
pulling me down
into the deep sea wreckage.

i felt myself falling
to the bottom of the ocean.
i knew i was drowning,
penetrated by the invasive waters.

i didn't fight it at first;
i swam in slow motion,
not looking at the black mass
beneath my vertical body.

the judgmental creatures
watched my human figure crawl
towards the layer of oxygen.

my head crest the surface,
air swimming into my open lungs,
becoming a piece of my insides,
integrating itself with my cells.

i swam back to the concrete island,
and resumed my position.
sitting, and waiting.

destruction,
as a form of creation.
annihilation,
the first step to evolution.
natural disaster,
the checks and balances
to human eradication.
it is the wars of nature
that breed progression.

to that kid in my freshman year class:
who said, "there should be no
labels, i am just me,
not an identity"

i'd just like to say
as someone who exudes
heteronormity,
that even though i am
as queer as can be,

i believe
the beauty in words
being able to put
a definition to a word
with such strength and
duality;

what is the purpose
in erasing it?
do not let them
delete the terms from
their dictionaries.

with knowledge
comes understanding
comes acceptance
comes peace
comes unity.

he says to me,
i remember when i was young.
i stood under the bridge
and watched as cars passed above me;
i stood there, alone
with my fishing rod,
waiting.
i waited and longed
to one day be able
to afford more than
a fishing rod.
now, i am fifty years old.
i have more money
than i ever imagined;
i can buy
more fishing rods
than i have fingers.
but i want you to see,
when you watch the cars pass above you;
let them go.
let them pass ahead,
all you need
is what is in your hands already.
because you can't be buried
with a car
with a house;
you can't take money
to the grave.
to live simply,
that is the bridge
between life and death
to the nirvana.

i need you.
i need you on good days and bad,
to hold me and cradle my face in your hands
and tell me everything will be okay
and dry my tears and say
"you are not crazy like they tell you you are,
you are perfect to me"
to kiss my aching body, when it feels ****
and when it feels sad and sore.
i need you.

i crumble under your fingers.
i break with your touch.
i weaken looking into your eyes.
i scream imagining your body.
i tear out my hair
reliving that night.
i run away from you,
away from myself
into the dark.

stop, it hurts.
stop, leave me be.

you tainted my soul,
that night broke me
into a million
pieces.

where on earth
is the remorse?

help
help me
my hands reached up
grasping helplessly at the emptiness,

hello - the void
so invitingly
dark and damp,
beautiful depression awaits

It knows
It is cunning,
in Its evil ways;
It manages
to crawl under your fingernails
squeeze between your toes
and the crevices
of your thighs,
enveloping you
in the ice cold breath
gasped from the
lungs of The evil entity.

It always knows
how to play the game
that is your sanity.

It frees you.
an intimacy
only shared
with the demons
of a clouded mind.

do tell my love,
ill come home
one day;

ill come home
one day,
when my mind
is clear
and i can stop
breathing
to look up
at the sky
and think,
'wondrous, beautiful
this world is
simply astounding.
so, this is
what i've been
missing?'

the birth of stars is my divination,

the whimsy of the universe is my damnation,

the peace of death is my flirtation,

the waves of the ocean are my liberation,

and your body is my temptation.

as a child does
in her dreamscape
whimsical,
out of breath,
running from her demons
born from her
imagination;
i run from
you.

memories,moments,pictures
deleted.
days,hours,time
pas­sed;
no other time
will present itself
to let the
lingering
thoughts
fade
away

i didn't know i was lonely

until i saw your name.

where does it go?
does it dissipate
with every kneeling
at night
to you?

did we give it up
when we were born
into this world?
unwillingly,
unknowing of life;
****** into the
harsh environment,
flush and blind?

did it escape my back pocket
the second i imagined you;
walking along the sidewalk
as the cars collided
and i called out to you
for help?

where is the freedom.

we live in the
land of the free,
but when will
we begin to
believe
if the divine
is the truth,
and our free will
is the lie?

girls do it too,
girls know how.
they know what it means.
but they abstain
for their benefit
of keeping it hanging over our heads.

but I,
I am awakened,
I know better.
I know not to let them
get the best of me.
I am More.

We are More.
so much More
than their rag-dolls
hanging off the bed
in the dark lit bedroom
wondering when will be
time to play.

We are More
than a lonesome
playmate.

green eyes and blue jeans,
lips like a mint dream.
crew necks and boxer briefs,
hands to touch me gently.
love me, love me,
hug me and hold me,
against your freckled cheeks;
don't ever set me free.

-a girl thats needy

thundering feelings,
tightening in my chest;
heart booming.
lightning,
the electric current,
the beautiful storm in
your blue-green eyes.
the curled lips,
like rose petals.
the crinkled corners,
with small folds;
i'd never imagine
could bring so much joy.
my face
in your careful,
cupped hands;
you tell me the words,
"you are so beautiful".
i am wax;
i melt by your body heat.
inside and exhausted
i love you's,
i can't wait to
see the world with you's
i need you's
i want you's.
never in my life
do i want to lose you's.
gentle fingers
down my neck,
shudders sent
down my spine.
i see you.
i see through you,
your vessel,
to your spirit.
the one intertwined
with mine.
you,
please me,
tease me,
appease me,
my love,
please never leave me.

i take the flower by the hand

she guides me slowly and gingerly

i feel lost in the folds of her dress

she swallows the key whole

i am drowned by the beauty

of the distress and destruction

in the womb of worldly possessions

and distractions.

when can we go home?

i love you to the ends of the earth,

because the earth is never-ending.

as much as i'd rather be a bird or maybe, a cat
i have to remind myself that i am human
and i have a mother who is also human
and she had a mother who was also human
and sometimes, as a human, we lose our feelings
they fly away, sometimes, leaving humans not feeling.
feeling nothing but numbness, emptiness.
all i said was "i feel sad today".

she looked at the sky, gasping for her breath and praying
she prayed to her mother in the sky because she needs strength.
she says to the emptiness of the car, because i've melted into the seats into nothingness,
"god, why did you take her from me? she was all i had. now you have left me all alone with myself. and i cannot even save myself. how can i help my daughter too?"

she told the nothingness about how her grandparents came here for her, from the land of communism, sick and dying and seventy years old.
they died here and were buried in foreign soil, sad and alone. for her life to be better.
and about her mother, who left her daughter at seventeen to live alone for ten more years in the land, a victim of alcoholism and of the government.
she told me of the sacrifices they made for her own life to be better than theirs, and for the lives of her children.

the salt was drying on the face of the nothingness at this point, angrily staring out of the windows at the nothing.
she said it wasn't worth it.
the sacrifices they made for her were not worth it.

not worth the life of the nothing. that is why it is nothing. it is not something. and it is never anything.

and it will never be anything.

all because the nothing felt sad today.

i love you, i hope you know.
i love you to the ends of this earth,
to the stars and into heaven.
but i stopped you.

i stopped you, because of him
because i was remembering his touch,
his hot breath and calloused hands
violating the sacred spaces of my body.

it brought me back to that night,
i had smoked for the first time
and the only time, since.
high and paralyzed, internally
praying for the sun to rise.

he says he's a Christian.
Well God, i hope you're listening.

life gives its strongest soldiers
the harshest twangs of pain,
like experiencing the perils
of *** after abuse.

God, i hope you're listening.

no rhymes to fill the meter,
no meter to grind along,
no grind to fuel the intentions,
no intentions to prolong.

the poetic prose
of the defeated and the broken,
the longing, the brave,
and the soft-spoken.

he is who i love.
you are the one i once fell for,
to the ground in pain,
in hell-raised agony;
and rose again
only to ask why, God,
must it feel this way
when you are near.

he is the beacon.
you were the light of the sun,
deflecting from my body,
permeating my skins paleness
and keeping my mind
rid of sanity;
persisting the everlasting thoughts
of a sweet, tantalizing end.

he is my best friend.
you were my best half,
of the negativity of me
and every other human
who dare to act
the way you do;
nonchallantly
dismissive,
and rude as all hell.

maybe role-playing isn't for us

because i like to be me

when i'm loving you.

i picked myself up
off the hardwood,
the blood is glue;
my body torn apart
with sickening anxiety;
each finger print left
on my bare skin;
trembling, with nodes
of nostalgia,
thinking
of your shapes
against me

i do good for my body,
so why does it hate me?
why, when i step on that scale
do i die a little inside?
why why why
why can't i ever be content
with how i look or feel.
man, i am tired;
i am tired of waiting
to be good enough for myself.
man, i am sick;
i am sick of crying
over the slight belly fat
and the cellulite
i graciously received from
my mother.
the curves i have been told
i am blessed to have,
feel like a curse.
the small, teardrop-shaped *******;
the baby-faced knee caps;
the hips shaped like
the body of a violin;
the thighs that touch,
that rub against one another
when i run, dance, walk
you name it
****.
****, is right.
body dysmorphia.
do you understand what i am saying now?
do you UNDERSTAND?
do you get the pain
of looking into a mirror
and seeing a disgusting creature.
like looking through a glass
of water and seeing
a morphed, unsightly image.
the skin i am in,
this skin stained with imperfections:
stretch marks, scars, moles, freckles,
skin tags, dimples, fat, sun damage;
the marks of love and growth
and progress and puberty.
i cannot shed this skin.
i need to learn
to live with this skin.
it is the skin i am in.

i lay
in bed
in the dark;

the rain,
the creaky,
dull set tones

my heart
is whole
again

my breath
is calm

i let the thoughts
come and go

knowing, your time
passed and my time

is now

the sunken-in cavity
that is my heart
beats like a drum,
painfully
out of tune,
and undone,
reconstructed,
different,
beautiful,
harmonious.

waves of destruction
too familiar to relate
it is, of course,
the nature of things.

he pauses his story
of pain and suffering;
numb to the words
he does relate.

earthquake in Gilos-
omens of the impending,
eclipse of the summer sun-
infesting the sky with stars:
the exceptional occurrences

as Thucydides claims,
the laying of waste
is not exceptional;
no military action,
no ravages of war,
none of the mortal blood shed:
these are the ordinary.

understand, you must
brace for the future:
because war, of course,
is human nature.