i.
sometimes I forget how to write because
the only thing I can think of is your
touch and the way your fingers
would often find themselves
in my hair.

ii.
on the ride home my throat burned with all
the promises I left beside you, it also
ached with words that I cannot
say anymore because you
stole them from me.

iii.
I held your hand and showed you magic,
I explained how infinity would wrap
us up in its arms and take us far
away from here, making us
into stars instead of
lonely people.

iv.
I remember telling you about the night
I tried to find myself, instead I found
the tide pulling me away from
you and your bones.

v.
“I am sad”, you say to me and it is the
most profound thing I have ever
heard, your words bury
themselves inside of
my heart and I tell
you I need to
leave.

vi.
we don’t speak anymore but
your words are still buried
beneath my bruised and
battered ribcage.

[You] were different then all the rest,
                        called me beautiful,
                        kissed me in the rain,
                        made me laugh,
                        made me smile,
                        laughed at my stupid moments,
                        thought they were cute,
                        faught with me about who was the cutest,
                        saw me when I wanted you.
[You] lied,
                        only answered when you felt like it,
                        stopped talking to me,
                        don't answer anymore,
                        don't call anymore,
                        talk to my friends still,
                        thought I didn't know about it,
                        only pretended I was the only girl at the time,
                        never gave a **** about me.
[I]          was stupid,
                        was love struck,
                        believed I was the only girl,
                        took you for your word,
                        believed you.
[You] were exactly like the rest of them,
         don't care any more.
[And neither] do I.

The olives groves you uprooted
And the homes you bulldozed

They may be gone now
But the soil must still know

To whom the land belongs.

From the rubble,
From the blood,

New branches will grow.
New homes will rise.

Because doves will fly on blood specked wings
To pass on the message
That Palestine still sings:

of the children you shot
and the blood that you spilled

The young men you imprisoned
and the hope you hoped would rot.

Our children have been promised
Your so-called promised land

So don't get too comfortable
On my well-worn couch.

I'll come back to reclaim it
My couch, my country, my land.

I will never be a professional dancer
I will never know how to do the splits
I will never be on dancing with the stars
But I'll always love to dance

In the fall we were so ready
to die under christmas lights
left up for months next to
dried-out fountains and
mismatched metal furniture
Sweaty, we baptized each
other with iced coffee
incense and revolution
so careless and unguarded
as to never feel lonesome

Do not stand at my grave and weep..
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry..
I am not there. I did not die.

What is Life?

Life is getting out of bed tired this morning, snailing to the bathroom, and finding out that my sister has left the top of the toothpaste ***** again. Life is drinking orange juice with that toothpaste taste still in my mouth.
Life is driving to school and missing the right ramp to get off of the highway.
It is cussing loudly in an empty car.

Life is coasting down the highway in between two huge, Moses-parting-the-red-sea, concrete walls.

It is reminiscing about magnificent popsicles from the ice cream man.
Life is realizing how ***** the ice cream man’s van really was.
Life is being that one kid whose dad bought him a pink bike at a garage sale.
Life is losing the reader before the poem even began.

Life is “Santa clause is real but not in the way you thought he was.”
Life is always being too obvious or being inscrutable.
Life is having a correct answer on a test then changing it.

I look out the window and see the night sky —millions of blinking glass shards on black pavement.
Life is craving to drive on that endless milky road instead of the road you are driving on to get to your school at three o’clock in the morning.
Life is driving an extra ten minutes because you missed that exit on the highway.
Life is the High School Cafeteria.
Life is your best friend who stabs you in the back.
No it’s not, life is like not having any best friend in the first place but telling your parents you do.
Life is arriving at school and entering through a pre-opened window in the dark then climbing through the vents in order to break into the math office to steal the semester exam answers.
Life is stopping - and turning back at the last minute and driving home to probably fail the test and class the next day.
Life is the divorce rate in America.
Life is the same boring start of a line over and over again.
Life is people politely nodding and saying “Yah” even if they couldn’t understand what you said.
Life is teens throwing handfuls of coins at each other’s (parents’) cars for fun at the stop light before getting on to the highway.
Life is the beggar watching them from the side of the street in the cold.

Life is not noticing that there are a lot of cars on the highway at this time of night.
Life is driving home at four o’clock in the morning.
Life is imagining your warm bed while you drive.
Life is breathing more slowly.
Life is the mellow rhythm of the highway humming underneath your wheels.
The music rocks on “Life is life, na na na na na.”
Life is soul-stirring music making you tired.
Life is a small brook bubbling silently through some far away woods.
Life is closing your eyes while driving for only three seconds.

I **** my eyes open just as sheets of heat from the air conditioning cover my body.

Life is the confidence that you can stay awake with your eyes shut for longer this time.
It is closing your eyes for 6 seconds. Then another 6 seconds.
Life is the reader knowing that you will close your eyes for 6 seconds a third time. It is them reading on excitedly.
Life is splattered all over the side of the highway.
Then life is the traffic flying past the spotless side of the highway the next day.

“What is life?”

Life is the disappointing last line of a poem.