When I was nine
My mother asked, “What do you want to do when you’re older”
And I told her
Honestly
With my nine-year-old smile
As wide as an ocean
My nine-year-old heart
As deep as infinity
I told her, “mama, I wanna touch the stars, I wanna find pirate treasure, I wanna climb mountains and live in the treetops”
My mother,
She looked at my nine-year-old smile
She held my nine-year-old heart in her hands
and she whispered,
“Baby, how are you gonna do all that?”
I didn’t have an answer
You see,
At age nine,
I didn’t think about practicality
Or actuality
Or logicality
Or any big word with an -ality stuck to it
At age nine I had aspirations that I rode like angel wings
Dreams that would carry me to the stars I longed to hold
I was nine years old with a mind full of colors
And a mouth made to love
My heartbeat was the drum I marched to
The melody to my song
I told my mother once again “mama I wanna touch the stars”
Flashforward
I am a freshman in high school now
I stand before you,
Age 15
A year and a half away from driving
3 years from applying
4 years from finding what I’m gonna do with my life
Since then
My nine-year-old smile has dwindled
My nine-year-old heart has shriveled
These dreamers shoulders have hunched
Under the weight of textbooks and GPA's
The fingers that spewed color like a 64 pack of Crayola crayons
Aimlessly type out the final paragraph of an essay
The cavern in my chest, that was filled with infinite possibilities and wonders and questions that I longed to answer
Now sits
Empty
Instead of looking for mountains to climb
My aged nine-year-old mind
Searches for the college that will accept me
Not even the real me
Not the seeker of possibility
Not the tree climber
Not the wannabe fingerprint artist
They will take prim and proper not-nine-year-old me
the one who tells her mom she’s gonna major in finance but she hates math
The one who’ll have a steady 9-5 that’ll numb her skull and make her contemplate if death can come from boredom
A coffee tainted room of pencil skirts and high heels
Instead of her favorite blue jeans and Chuck Taylors
A nice job that’ll pay well but only for the price of her nine-year-old originality
But she only tells her mom that because it sounds like a real job
A not nine-year-old treehouse living
Cave exploring fantasy
I mean, I have to move on from that dream.
It's time to be practical
Actual
Logical
Now instead of making up new words
I learn definitions of the ones that already exist
Instead of painting with my own colors
I use the ones handed to me
Because its practical
Actual
Logical
Its how it should be.
I am no longer nine years old
Far from it at that
And yet,
I still long to touch the stars,
just a little less
I still want to search for treasure
But just as an afterthought
My eyes are still glowing with wonder
Just a little bit duller
Nine-year-old me isn’t dead
She just
grew up

A year and a half spent in bliss,
Flowers and kisses,
He adored her so.

Sapphire and diamond ring
Tied to the collar of a plush puppy.
"Oh my gosh! I love it! I love you!"
He didn't know it yet,
But she was going to break his heart.

Flashforward

He told her she was pretty, he told her she was great.
She couldn't do anything but lie to his face.
"Yes, I love you too," wasn't the truth.
He didn't know it yet,
But she was going to break his heart.

Flashforward

It was a warm April afternoon,
Like a rickety faucet,
The feelings were beginning to leak out of her.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I don’t understand [gasp] why you’re doing this [gasp] to me,” he sobbed.
And he knew it now,
She was breaking his heart.

And she knew it now,
She didn’t love him,
*anymore.

You slipped right through my fingers
(I never really had you any way)

I could swear up and down you don't care for me. It makes things so much easier.

Flashback to you kissing my freckled cheek while I'm asleep. Telling me words I've save for later. I'll turn them over and over in my head like worry stones.

Flashforward to you sitting with me in a crowded place. "We're just friends," you say evenly. I try my best not to squirm. Because we were never just anything.

I knew I'd pay the price for this. But who was I to give up a body that fit so well into mine?

You dowsed my ribs in gasoline when you first spoke words of your affection. You consistently threw lit matches at me.

Now you recoil and Jesus Christ, how do I begin to put myself out?

Do I even want to?

You show me a match you've saved for later. I don't know if able to reconstruct myself for the hell of it just to watch it burn later

Don't think I wasn't destructive before you. I am, and I will be infinitely. I am thinking of how my smoke built up in your lungs. Exhale now. Doing what's best for all involved parties.

"Do you know what it was like being around you, knowing I couldn't hold you?"

In that moment I'm certain somewhere in another life I would have loved you. Because all I ever wanted was the kind of romance I could write about it. The kind of sadness and longing that settles behind your ribs. If it had been a book I would've dog eared us and wept. But this is my life, real life and I can't just this back on the shelf.

I've had one?...two?...many nights of waking up not knowing.
closing my eyes and imagining god was dumbstruck staring.
fixating at the ceiling and all i can think to say "It all started last week...
standing on a cool dark step she said words directed to hurt aimed at me.
I just took it not saying a word not defending a thing, still trusting her.
All the things we were just slipped away and my vision she blurred.
Imagining she needed space, i left for a bit came back and told her i love her.
she did nothing it rolled off of her as if hadn't even said a thing.
this is the life i made, i gave my heart, she smiled and gave me nothing.
flashforward, and she does something wild, makes a mistake and plays the victim.
she did something wild, and i was too afraid to ask if she kissed him.
you're reading this and maybe you know who i am talking about.
chances are and reality is you don't know this person, i didn't even

😭😭It all ended in smoke😭😭

*********

I won't be very gentle, If I shouldn't say Goodbye .
We have gone through Countless hustle, bustle, But your heart and memory still fully dry.
          
You've passed through double-puzzle,
so do I.
Not only with your bubble trouble,
But also with covered shadow-lies.

Flashback! You seemed quite humble,
very stunninng beautiful butterfly.
Fearlessly I approach you and stumble,
with your cradle lullaby.

Flashforward! I had Bible when I fall, knowing it would give me an audible sigh.
Not because I never fall or fail to fall,
But had fear to fall in love with my Ally.

On 14th of February I recall,
Reciting my first best poem, "I comply."
Followed by  Endless texting and calls,
I cercrifise my heart to be a twisted pie.

Like an horrific mathematics table,
I felt proud criming it, wasted time rhyming love sci-fi.
Our relationship was like an American football,
Where modification was to be held to qualify.

I was left in the fog of a Temple,
Like a frog, waiting for your magnifying Justification to standby.
Was too late to clarify the jungle-rumble,
Coz you left me in a cage tongue-tied.
I never get your co-operation, So our love passed by.
Now probably, I write this last letter to you to say good-bye

Curtains hustling in my old windows

Shadows looming in fainted silhouttes

You draw nearer as I faced south

With blankets filled with sorrow

Escalating to your calmness

Your hands enveloped me

A sudden flashforward:

What are we again?

That summer night I knew

My heart was crossing the line

For in the eyes of hypocrisy

Our intimacy was a crime

I left these vivid imageries

Of the remainders of the past

Of our convoluted label

we called …

an exploding tv dinner--in a microwave,
on a **** tube.
then the Tetra-like gridlock of a channel's
spectrum, the air's breathing spell.
Robert Johnson turned over as a raw lick
at the crossroads--his voice & guitar digging
a hole in vinyl.
the bluesiest devil exhorting: 'you're almost there
Robby--I'll tell you when to stop.'
a crackling breakthrough lifts an emphatic warp.
meaty hands holding balloons & cotton candy,
having a good day above ground--as other
meaty hands check their raffle tickets for the
winning number at the fair.
which's a special house visit from Pogo the Clown,
who'll have a staring contest with anyone present,
then leave.
the following was filmed in front of a live studio
audience: hived crosshatchings, rashy doubles
(2/1-1/2)--the rippling harp of daydreaming sitcom
characters, keys in each cloud they want to throw in
a bowl.
Robert Crumb's existential countdown from zero, his
neurotic flashback-flashforward Americana,
what-to-do-nowness.
out-drawing suicide, perhaps play tenor banjo in
the South of France...