We will leave you in the midst
of a poetic truce, as you spill
experiences into our open palms.

Writing to make sense of what
has happened, nestling your
deepest secrets in our fingertips.

Our roots so deep in our poetry,
if you tried to unearth us, we would
shriek louder than banshee's.

Unravel our words, enter the
labyrinth of our minds, there are
sunsets in our stomachs, and
December runs through our veins.

We are the stars to your blank skies,
the pause between each ragged breath,
the tragedy suffocating the air.

We are the pause before the applause,
we are rarity's like Haley's comet,
making you scramble for a telescope.

Only crows writhing with broken
necks are more twisted than the life
stories resting under our tongues.

We are poets, engraved in history,
fluent in all that is artistic and worldly.

Poetry is a warm blanket we remain
hidden in on a cold winter morning.
Reality is a cold floor that our
bare feet are too scared to touch.

*By Rapunzel and JannaLee Perry

And I want to tell her that I understand
what it feels like to be fake, insignificant,
and a shadow on the sidewalk of society.

And I want to tell her that I also borrow
the experiences of others --
that I, too, learn feelings
by stopping and staring at personal wreckage,
like a tourist of emotions,
like an inevitable wish of a human being.

Fell heal over heads
          in love with a poet,
  he's mostly a rhyme schemer
       likes Poe and his dark Raven,
  in actuality,  I'd fancy him more if
    he were like Pablo Neruda, but I digress
I'm much accurately fashioned after Emily Dickinson
        chasing heaven's June bugs toing and froing,
we'd meet at a perfectly superfluous coffee shop
    he'll be murmuring elegiac pentameter
I'm simply looking to devour precious words,
    we'd argue about abstract destinations,  
            straight forward persuasions and
               premonitions of wayward ink allusions,
some days I want to claw mine own eyes out
               amid all that nonsensical alliteration
  others, I want to rip out embellishments
                   of his black heart's magnification,
he mutters tumult under his breath,
     states he's abundantly sickly tired of all my
         fanatical froufroutant  flourished fantasies,
albeit, we're mild mannered artistes
         of overstatement and simplification
               thus, we continue laying it on thickly
I, with my hyperbolic cuppa tea and honey,
       he's all brass tacks, no nonsense black coffee
ultimately, we reservedly seek gratification,
      envisioning who functionally makes it first
to a finished line of manifestations's publication,
           in eternity's poetic intentions and beyond

I’ll stain solar systems on your heart                                                            ­                            
So any boy who loves you has to conquer the galaxies           
Before he can say “that girls mine”

I’ll paint forests in  your iris                         
So any boy who loves you has to adventure into depths unknown Before he can say “I got lost in her eyes”

I’ll draw the sun on your lungs                                                   
and the sky on your back                                                                  ­   
to teach you that your body is a habitat                                           
not a hotel or an                                          
ecosystem of forgotten love

I’ll write novels on your thighs                                                      ­                  So any boy who loves you has to read between the lines                  Before he can say “I got between those legs”

I’ll sketch the stars on your feet                                                         
  So any boy who loves you can get lost in the milky way                  Before he can say “we go everywhere together”

I’ll sculpt the gods on your knees                                               
and clouds on your fingers
to remind you                                              
you can, you will                                                   
conquer great things

When my sister played Clair de Lune
I’d go into her room and sit on the floor
with my ear to the side of the piano
so close that the sound would fill my mind
with the image of the long, coiled strings
vibrating, glowing golden in the darkened box.

I could hear my sister’s feet dampening
and undampening the pedals, muting the
strings, then letting them ring, resonating,
one note overlaying another, could hear
the creak of her piano stool and smell the
smell of wood dust, like old sheet music,
and my ear would pulse, almost hurting
from the sound of the hammers striking steel.

And I would begin to imagine things,
different things each time:
my aunt in a blue flowered house dress
standing in her kitchen holding a jar
of homemade pickles, her thin white hair
always in tight pin curls.

Or I’d be alone, in a long, softly lit hallway,
the walls covered with wainscotting and
lavender striped wall paper yellowing
near the ceiling. At the far end of the hallway,
a solarium, and beyond that a balcony
glimmering in sunlight.

Or I’d be in a field with small, white flowers
bowing with the weeds rhythmically
and sensing that I was
loved by someone.

And it would be that my sister’s
fingers were pounding deep into
my chest, and always, always
by the end of the piece
I’d ask her to play it one more time.