In the third grade,
I was diagnosed with
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
My teachers thought I was lazy and
my parents thought I was under stimulated.
I just thought I was having more fun doodling
and drawing than paying attention in class.
But the school suggested that I see a children’s psychiatrist,
so my parents took me to one in Wichita.
He prescribed me experimental pills and drugs,
but all they did was make me unstable and depressed.
My parents stopped giving me my medicine
and I went back to normal…
Well, aside from the fifty plus pounds I had
put on as a side effect of the drugs.

Doodling...
Inkless...

On her Whole.

© 2014 J.S.P.

This society is plagued by the search for perfect things.
But as I sat there doodling with my finger on your spine,
I realized one of the most perfect things in the world
Is often the imperfect boy, with messy hair, asleep in your lap.
When you are afraid to move him
and to love him too much.

Remember that chick
who pulled her hair back in a ponytail
had glasses
and wore ripped jeans
that she Sharpied murals on
out of boredom?

You’d see her in class sometimes
mumbling to herself
and doodling
while the teacher droned on
about the scientific method.

She always made you curious
but you could never get close enough
to hear what she was saying
or see what she was writing.

She promised herself that one day
she’d keep a diary
to keep track of the truth
but every time she tried
it turned into a collection of
half-thought-poems
and half-drawings of half-things
half-human and half-something else.

Never autobiographical
never the truth.

She seemed like the kind of girl
who is a self proclaimed vegan
scrawny little thing
with ex-hippie parents
like if you ever talked to her
she would be all in for face
about “going green man.”

So she took you by surprise
when she beat the fattest kid in the class
at that hot-dog eating contest
that chubby ******* didn’t stand a chance.

She thinks
the truth is just the lie
that you tell yourself the most often.

People called her “book-smart”
because she wore glasses
and was bad at math.
But she wasn’t really,
she was people-smart
in the way a scientist is rat-smart.

She’d sit on the swings at recess
and watch people
her eyes were concerned
like there was something they had
that she lacked.

Her locker was always empty
she took everything home
every night
she left
no residue
no aftermath
no memory behind.

She dreamed of living out of her car
and opening a coffeeshop
and being free.

She knew she was destined
to prove there was no such thing as destiny.
That we make our own reality.

And all of this you found
endearing and admirable.

Remember her?

…of course you wouldn’t.

You would have her more like this:

That weird nerd who doesn’t talk to anyone.
has long hair and draws on his pants,
is awkward in every conceivable way
- and possibly gay.

He spends all day in his notebook,
writing who-knows-what.
Who cares -

- about what his dreams were?
He was just another background character in your life.

There was one time you cheered him on,
at the hot-dog eating contest.
The only time you ever touched his hand
was to give him a high five for that.

You always pitted him.
silently.
Never out loud.

She was there.
Hiding behind his eyes.
And she loved you.
As much as one could love someone in seventh grade.

But you never loved her.
You couldn’t have.

She didn’t even know she existed yet.

when words can't understand me
when they can't explain what's inside of me
i grab  a pencil, and a paper
then i start doodling what you fail to see
until you start thinking that i'm mental..
then , i come back to reality.

Mucky self portraits of
                   Bacon strips,
               Kraft-y singles
&           expired Perrier,
reciting tales of DogMa,

       tsk-ing at Eve
       tsk-ing at Helen
       tsk-ing at Mary

Sophia just wants to sit.

What's up, Gram-mere?
                         ....               I'mma pun chew!

A dozen good guy Hermes and some, like, no.
This one takes shots like Jäger, ja,
this one takes shots like Manny Pacquiao, yo.

Doodling constellations and
Grandfathered teachings of How To Draw A Map -
a tangled thread of a quilt patch,
                  Ultimate Boon-doggle.

Wandering home in the papaya morning to catch
the light of a magnesium sky and birdsong.

a few months ago,
you asked me: "What is love?"
As you can see,
it had taken me a long time to understand the question myself,
but I think I've finally come up with an answer.
Unfortunately,
the English language
has only one word to describe something that has limitless interpretations.
In Greek,
there are three words for the three basic types of love.
Eros;
lust.
This type of love
is when you find yourself doodling their name
on the inside of your history textbook,
dotting the I's with hearts
as if you are 13 again and you were just asked on your first date.
You chose that textbook
because it will be the only place no one would ever think to look.
You think about everything you would be far too shy to say or act in person,
making out in the back of a movie theatre
not caring who would walk past,
sneaking off away from your friends just to have two measly moments of what you both call "peace."
Most often,
this type of love is encased in "I love you"
only to obtain a certain goal.
Virginty,
a picture,
or even just one more night
of having them in your arms.
Eros is not authentic,
it is emphemeral.
Phileo;
Brotherly Love.
The friend you would drop anything for in a heartbeat to make sure of their wellbeing,
but also the neighbor you see from time to time watering their garden.
They ask you
to tend to their garden while they are away,
and you do it
even though you've never spoken more than a paragraph to the man
because it is what you believe is right.
This type of love is the devotion of time and energy without any promise of compensation in return,
purely out of the good of heart.
Phileo lasts as long as the people do.
The final type of love
is Agape;
unconditional love.
In religion,
we are guided
or pushed
towards showing this type of love towards the diety.
Yet, very rarely
it is shown towards a human being.
Unconditional love
is the ability to say so much with only uttering a single word.
I have experienced this love,
it is great pain
and great sadness
but the feelings of pain will never leave my lips
in case they are transferred to the person i wish to have the least pain.
This kind of love
is when it is not only enough that you think about them every waking moment but every slumber-filled one as well. You have hung up your needs at the front door along with the key to your heart and devoted yourself entirely to them,
even if they don't reciprocate.
They have been adopted by your body and taken the form of a vital *****.
If you do not
pay absolute attention
to them at all times
you will run into many problems.
You need to keep them running smoothly in order to stay alive and healthy,
because without them you are nothing.
You are a sorry sack of bones with a beating heart with no purpose.
Unconditional love is taking all the lessons you have ever learned
all the rights and wrongs you have finally learned the difference between and throwing them out the window.
It is the thin line between sanity and insanity,
heaven and hell,
and safety and danger.
You walk the rope
from building to building
without the promise of a net.
Unconditional love
is authentic,
but not emphemeral.
((Love *****, don't do it.))

Your fingertips
are icicles,
doodling
figures of eight
on my cheeks.
I see your breath
like little white clouds
of smoke
drift in the winter air
and vanish,
as if you didn't breathe
out at all.
The branches
of the nearby oak tree
sprayed
in whipped cream,
the ground sprinkled
with a vanilla ice cream-like
layer of snow.
And as it slowly
starts to melt
you lean in for a kiss,
the frosty blast
of mint
infecting my teeth.

"Go to sleep," said Yohaan to Ishaan
Who was busy doodling on his wall.
"But Dada," began Ishaan,
"I am doodling a tale so tall.

"I know you always tell me stories
Before I go to sleep.
But, my dear brother, it is my turn now,
To make you plunge in imagination so deep."

Yohaan looked into Ishaan's eyes.
They were big and dark and round,
Sparkling in the lamplight atop the drawer
And the innovation swirling around.

He remembered the nights when
Young Ishaan sat wide-eyed listening to stories from his lips
Gripping his pillow and burying his head on blankets in laughter.
Now the worlds of yore fizzed from his fingertips.

"Achha," Yohaan sighed. "Make it fast, haa?"

A hammer smashing through
A bright blue wall
Showing reality’s ultimate grey:
A journey more like hell
Than anything I’d known before

Sitting on top of that dam
Which flowed like the river did
I tried to talk to you
But the words got lost
And somewhere in that mess
Of dilated pupils
And impossible patterns
Of light and sound
I remembered what is was like
To be in love.

After my high subsided
And I changed my clothes
I sat lazily at your counter
Doodling and thinking back
To the few words we'd managed
To push through
The nightmarish vacuum
Of pink and green swirling trees
Which haunted our stone blockade

You asked if I was okay
And I told you “yes”
With half
Of my too-quickly beating heart

Maybe you put your hand on my shoulder
Or maybe you didn’t-
I can't really remember-
But you said
“It’s okay to say you’re not”
And definitively I assured you

“I’m not”

I am drawing my dreams,
I am painting my pain,
I am sketching my sentimentality
I am doodling my dignity
I am portraying my poverty
I am illustrating my illness

She was the quiet girl
in the back of the classroom.
The girl who never paid much attention
because she was too absorbed into
doodling on the notes.
Despite her lack of attention,
she was the girl that made straight A's.

She was the one
with the secret.
Everyday after the last bell rang
she walked away from the school
toward a broken home. The second
her foot hit the door step
she began to run into the back bedroom.
She hid up there,
kept away
from the poisonous gas
used to wilt
away the flowers in her heart.

She was the girl that kept it all inside
until there was no more room
to store her secrets.
The safe doors blew open,
destroying the locks.
The girl that broke down
in the hallway in between
lunch and study hall.

She was the girl
with the purple hair and
bright green eyes.

we call them
glory days
scraped elbows and
too much energy
we were waiting for
someone to crack
the can open and
release us.
drank too much
pop, jumped in
too many muddy
puddles and got
our clothes too *****
to look like anything
but carefree and
happy. we call them
glory days, rope
swings and crushes
that last four days
until we see someone
new who traded us
a pokemon card and
we played back-to-base
and that was our
first experience of
chasing something we
feel we can’t have.
we call them glory
days, as we scribble
hearts on our school
books and make
acrostics out of our
names and imagine
what their surname will
sound like and that
first peck makes you
feel like you’re growing
up but you welcome it
until it happens
but then i met you
and you became my
glory day and suddenly
i was 8 again, seeing
how high i can go
on the swing and
leaning back to let
the wind turn my
stomach
upside
down
you are my glory
day; all the sweetness
of summer; all the
energy i release in
the form of love only
happened because you
cracked me open and
planted flowers within
all my dark spots, all
the hollow crevices,
all the monsters within
me afraid of the light
you shone a torch at
and i have never felt
brighter. you are my
glory day and i
am doodling love hearts
on all my body parts
in all my notebooks
because you are the
freest i have ever felt.

Covering cowards fights beneath ,
Tired soul hit and hid right realists,
Glory is gone under crossroads
Gratitude had not been present,
Its still doodling its place under certain rights and wrongs,

Poping into the wild my mind still wanders about,
That great gratitude of discovery,
Cry, laugh, go wild and be mild,

Its the only truth, to thank for every thing
Even the ones we did not get,
Wander and discover the ones you lost,
In the woods and in the thoughts.

And if you find it love it because That is all that matters,
Every fight, every forgiveness and every thing you love is the sane road to peace.!

Tomorrows Exam is Mathematics
loaded my head with unknown tricks
Doodling with numbers
Yes, teacher calls us dumbers
Too much problems, yet very lil, solutions
The long mountains of  graphs
The Greek symbols alpha, beta omega
equations and formulas
Find height, depth use trigonometry
My answer a picture of a tree
infinite zeros in red
Sets, Relations,  Geometry,
variables and algebra and Lines,
Its like stepping into a field of mines
All time me wondering why
reciprocal of zero undefined?
much of the time
In exam, I stay
undefined!

i am tangled up ........and caught out in the..... doodles on my writing pad ....lines of ink ....turning circles up..... on itself..... great loops of nothing...... but sloppy eternity..... rings ...and . ....sideways.... sloping eights and ......sloveny obese zeros i am... hung up .. on time ..at present ..small moments... . .....forty-five years...of.... fore-evers ..... and miniscule secondia.... just hung.. up... ....doodling.. wasting ...time
timing space....crazy paving
.....the forcourt.. of my
oodling.... idling brain.

I miss licking strawberry-flavored suckers on the school bus
Gossiping who John kissed and wishing it was us
Passing notes in class-we didn't give a ****
The location of Africa or Amsterdam
The only sponge worried about was SpongeBOB
Wasn't our responsibility to clean, cook, or get a job
"Stinky **** Head" was the most insulting name
Mario unanimously was the best video game
As kids we frolicked fast, funloving, and free
Uncaring if our homemade tire swings were rickety
Doodling margins of each battered schoolbook
A time where if caught in a fight you got let off the hook
Being happy for no reason is what i miss about childhood the most
Awakening to my favorite breakfast made by Dad-french toast
I would jump out of bed looking forward to school
Bringing lunch packed in a brown paper bag was cool
Now I hate opening my tired eyes
This planet transformed into one I despise
Once upon a time I felt whole and strong though so small
Today I'm much bigger but feel nothing at all

lately, we’ve been talking about the way things change
we’ve been building cities with our mouths only to blow them out
as if the future is a candle, with trails of smoke like lace,
just the murmur of secrets across the grass getting
softer softer softer
until they disappear, until everything disappears
everything disappears

lately, i’ve been think about the way things change
like seasons and lovers
i’ve been thinking about how
the only thing more permanent than forever is never,
and everybody thinks it’s going to be forever until it’s not
i’ve been thinking about whether it’s a good thing or not
because all the rock stars whose names
we were screaming at concerts are middle-aged parents now
and it’s weird, but i think it’s kind of cool too

times change and things change and that’s okay
you can’t be sixteen forever, and why the hell would you want to be?
being sixteen was kind of a ******* nightmare
growing up isn’t inherently bad,
and if you’re gonna be peter pan
then you’re gonna be lonelier than a lost boy

and maybe i’m the kind of person who expects
everything to fall apart, but life is equally destruction and rebirth
everything disappears, everything’s gonna be different
everything’s gonna be awesome
everything’s gonna be awful

think of it this way:
everything’s gonna be wonderful
just like everything’s gonna be terrible
that’s just the way it is
luck of the draw, life is a crapshoot
and sometimes your hand is ******, but you’ve still got to play it anyways
or you’re just gonna fold over like house of cards

think of it this way:
even in the darkest of nights the moon is always
hiding out somewhere in the sky
and the sun going to come up tomorrow
i couldn’t tell you why exactly because i didn’t pay any attention
in science class, i was too busying doodling in the margins of myself
and looking for stars,
but the sun’s gonna come up tomorrow
it always has, and the sun’s reliable like that
and i know that only thing that’s certain is that nothing is,
and i know i’ve got no proof, but i’ve got a hunch
that everything’s gonna work out
and i know “you’ll be okay” always sounds kind of hollow
but it does ring true

and we’re still young enough to be dumb
and we’re still young enough that we’ve got so many possibilities
it makes me ******* dizzy
and if you’re lucky enough to have
the world in the palm of your hand, don’t clench your fist;
don’t let it slip through your fingers
don’t let go
don’t let go

I want to show my true colours
Paint my skin with pictures and words
Pierce it with dazzling gems
Transform it into a bold peacock
With hues of purple and blue.
Grow my hair wild and free
Warming me through winter nights.
I want to peruse my desired agenda
Quit the day job, see the world,
Fall in love, find myself.
I want to build a nest for my love
Decorate it with the fruit of our travels
And welcome in infants
Spend my days scribbling away
Doodling in cheap note pads
Filled with the greatest of treasures.
I want walls filled with photos
Memoirs of the love I have seen
Reminders of all the beauty of the world.
I want my scars to heal, to be forgotten
Replaced by traces of passionate kisses
Gifts that leave me content and enlightened.
I want to feel the warmth of my daydream
Surrounding my reality, dictating my days
I want to live a simple life, nothing grand
I want to show my true colours.

A special day for some.
No more than a weekend for others.
Little girls with bubble gum,
Hiding from their mothers.

Church hymns being sang.
Video games being played.
Church bells rang,
Preachers attempting to persuade.

People saying grace.
Dancing to the stereo.
Sharpie's doodling on a pencil case,
Writers block on a scenario.

Sunday's special in its own way,
But not always for the same reason.
Not always to pray,
Just to enjoy a silly season.

I was humming to myself,
I often do now.
A way to distract my mind
From the clouds of thoughts
That ultimately rains as sadness.
I was humming and I was unequipped.
And the trouble with being oblivious
(An outcome of humming or doodling
Or daydreaming)
Is that we shut our defenses
And open ourselves to attack.
I was climbing up the stairs,
Hair dripping water
And wet clothes in one hand,
I was climbing up the stairs,
I was humming to myself
                                      Unarmed.

(A question- if we are unarmed
And see an armed person,
Is it necessary that person to be dangerous
To feel in danger?)

I moved the thick curtain,
A choice of my sister
I say,
I can't confess how I picked it too
But I hate its colour now.
I danced my fingers through
The waves of it,
All I wanted to reveal
Were the steps that continued
But there he was
                              A beast.

In a stance, staring right at me
In my own turf
He was questioning me.
He was the stranger not me.
He was the intruder not me.
But I was unarmed
And his claws dripped of dried blood
I pictured,
We stared at each other for
The nth of a second
That seemed like ages.
I was drowning in his eyes,
An effect of humming beforehand
I believe.
Then my mind snapped
Like a rubber band
Stretched too far for too long
And a scream
As shrill as that of a kid
Escaped my mouth.
Broke all my teeth
Parted my lips
Tore away my tongue
And I screamed with all my might.
(I feel it was all my fear
Rolling out all at once
At the slightest chance of an escape).

Whether my scream faded
Or did it stick to that very step
Or did my voice die down
I can't say,
But as fast as my heart beats,
I was down
Behind a glass door closed
And a wooden one slightly ajar,
I was now a captive in my own home.
My screams now words,
It's silly how human fears
Are better described by sounds
With ill fitted
                        words.

After moments gone,
Having gathered my strong,
Calm demeanor
I carry most of the time,
I grabbed a stick.
I swear I wouldn't
If it didn't just lay there
As a lonlely toy that needed holding.
I couldn't wield it to hit
I know,
But I could make some noise
As if my voice wouldn't have been enough,
The beast had ran
                                Too.

Listen to me, he is the dangerous one
Not me, not me ever.
I tapped the stick at the railings
As I climbed a step then another
All the way till the point
Where my scream lingered last.
I bobbed my head slightly ahead
Of my body,
The beast could tear my face off
But not my heart I reasoned.
There it was, a mess,
Milk, and rice,
Cereals, biscuits,
Containers open and spilled,
Things scattered but things I say,
To the hungry beast
                                - Food?

I climbed up the remaining stairs,
Following his footsteps,
The markings he left,
The dripping water off his soul.
Can I confess now,
The beast was a kid,
And his tiny hands couldn't hold on
To all the food he stole?
                                        Borrowed?
        ­                                                  Needed.
And finally at the door,
A whole packet of cookies
Lay there, like a star
That fell from the sky
Unhinged it dropped on the ground
Where it didn't belong.
I didn't pick it up I followed ahead,
He passed that door,
I concluded from where he
                                               Broke in?
                           Discovered through.

And went ahead to the bigger one
Where we welcomed guests
That neither belonged.
I shut that door,
Locked it now.
And came to my room.
Kept the stick aside,
Leaning it on the wall,
Like a dancer resting his feet.
And sat on the bed
                                  Evolved.

                 ­     I fought off a beast?
A beast scared off a hungry kid.

(I hope he managed to steal something away
At least bit into something before I intruded.)

Integrity above all, underneath it only pieces.
We drag our way through obligations, feeling out of mind.
We are tired of being tired, tired of being dragged.
We try keeping it together, for it just feels right.

Running in the daytime, step by step by step,
time is running with us, although we know we won't ever catch up.
Time is human made, as are all of us,
we glimpse entities revolving, seeing us as set aside.

We need to see what matters, what really is the glue,
the glue that keeps together, the y and o and u.
I would say above all, there is just one thing,
and after all the time I've been wondering.

Love should conquer all, love is pure and bold,
love can take everything that will possibly unfold.
So go along your draggings but ever never forget,
that you are also someone, on who love is set.

I will stop smelling the clothes you left
I will stop doodling your name in every paper
I will stop looking for your face in the crowd
I will stop wishing for you in every shooting star

I will stop here, I will

I will stop writing poems about you
I will stop writing songs for you
I will stop sending messages
I will stop calling your name

I will stop here, I will

I will stop thinking about you every morning
I will stop calling you my sun
I will stop dreaming about you every night
I will stop calling you my moon

How I wish I can stop right here, right now
How I wish..

I wont write you a ****** poem
I'll write you the universe
But it wont look like how you imagined it
But that's life i guess
Please just remember me as you dreamed of how i was
Do not think of the tragic reality
Keep your eyes closed to shadowed corners of my imperfect mind

Hold hands like two gods intertwined in the fractal light of infinite creation
Not like two awkward almost grown people reacting to hormones and insecurities

It's what we want to believe
It's what the world is

And after working that desk job and paying that pension is success and happiness the same?
In the end we just turn into worm food
Do i really want to spend any time doing the safe thing?
I want to jump into loving you
And by loving you I am encircling the entire universe in endless love. It's more then love. Love is what you text your crush at 2 am or before your parents get on a plane. We need a new word for love.
Something that means full and endless devotion and acceptance of all the pieces of the world good and bad. For all that is and was and will be. Wanting all of it to be raised to the highest level of heavenly divine. Wanting to hold the world in your heart and breath eternity into is so it can last as it is forever in it's incandescently beautiful pieces. That is how i love you . Thats how i want to love the world.
But instead i'll sit in a ball on the edge of my bed, doodling stars and wishing the words would come and i could stop writing ****** poems. Ill sit on the edge of my bed and wish i could write the universe...

As kids we were close,
Pushing each other on a swing during humid afternoons,
Scrapping over the biggest piece of cake,
Singing and strumming old rock songs on a video game,
Cheesing in the odd school picture together,
Hiding the family dog upstairs, cartoon shows on the tv,
Volume at its highest, all to drown the rows vibrating the walls
From downstairs,
It seemed back then we had each others back,
Sobbed for the same reasons at night,
Nervously bit at the skin around our nails over unknown noises,
Shook a knee with every thought of fleeing our hometown,
Yet now we don’t even know each other,
The distance runs thicker than blood,
He said she said infiltrating a possible recovery of a bond,
I often wonder how it can be, two people from
One home, both living on different planets,
Almost generations away from beliefs we once shared,
Pinching at each others emotions from another continent.


I found a journal from when I was my angsty teen self,
Words of fury coated most pages,
Some rhymes of regret,
Plenty of mischievous essays,
Page 94 had no explanation, just a date, some doodling
And one sentence,
“You were the first one to break my heart.”


As kids we were close,
But what do kids know.