It's before first-period...
My teachers see me walking down the hallway and rudely gawk at my body as if it's some sort of disgrace.
Flash forward...
My teacher calls the assistant principal down to 'approve' my clothes.
I'm sent to the office to find out my mother was on her way.
The same mother who has to work every day to make a living, and to pay for my clothes.
The same mother who's making eighty-one cents to my principal's dollar.
The same mother who taught me to love my body and how to look appropriate.
The same mother who approved and complimented me, only an hour before, earlier that morning.
The bell for the second period rings.
I'm still sitting in the office.
Because wasting my time over what I'm wearing is more important than my education. Right?
I can hear the whispers of my degrading school's staff.
A few higher established adults to an 'outfit check'.
Quickly after, the assistant called my name.
I gulped down my fear and anxiety, as I stood up.
Then I'm sent into a room.
The dullest, dark, and grayest room I have ever entered.
"Hello Lina, we're gathered here to talk about your outfit today."
A tee shirt dress with shorts underneath.
It reminded me of when I was in the fifth grade.
Girls were told that we needed to cover ourselves up because boys thought about our bodies in a ****** manner, and if we dressed a certain way and something happened, it was our fault.
It's getting close to the third period when my mother arrives.
After the constant duel to what seemed, death, with words, I got to go.
I didn't have to change this time.
I was lucky.
Lucky that a teacher came to my defense along with my mother, and told them my outfit was fine, and I couldn't help that I was a curvier girl.
Instead of focusing on what girls are wearing, maybe we should tell boys to keep their hands to themselves and grow up.
Because that's what the girls have to learn from an early age.
Our bodies shouldn't be over sexualized for what's covering them.
Girls are **** shamed and dress coded everywhere because of what we wear.
What if we focused on teaching students to be mature young adults, rather than disgusting pigs who apparently can't handle a girl who shows her shoulders?
Let's all obsess over real world problems.
Not what someone wears, or if it's distracting to boys.
Just when someone starts having confidence (which is a victory in itself), we're torn down based off of the clothes we put on our bodies.
Girls are taught that it's our fault.
Boys can just open and claim your body, like some kind of book.
Even when the only word printed is NO.
We struggle in our bodies from such a young age.
Instead of worrying about a girl's apparel, let's worry about the men who need to learn to control themselves.

1063

Ashes denote that Fire was—
Revere the Grayest Pile
For the Departed Creature’s sake
That hovered there awhile—

Fire exists the first in light
And then consolidates
Only the Chemist can disclose
Into what Carbonates.

Dripdrop dripdrop

     The umbrella on the drops makes a tiniest splattering
     Of collected shades of transparency: Memory
     And the whitenoise of the rain

(step step splatter ripple)

     Serve to recolour in sepia shades
     Even the grayest seconds
     of Yesteryear’s faces and embraces.

(Drip
     drop
          drip
     Drop)

Were all just machines, bound for the train station that’ll hightail us out and over
To the junkyard where we never sleep and the foundry melts us down to make room
For the new undead, but non-living, to starve for what their computers say they need.
But when you smile, your eyes show me that you have a soul inside that’s beautiful,
And it proves my heart is something more than what the factory made it for;
That my love means something more than a series of chemical reactions in my brain,
That the mornings and nights we spent were worth more than we ever knew,
And that you are someone more special to me than I have ever known.

So, as we fly down the track of grayest metals and coldest weather, into the north country
To God knows where to as the sun is at dawn and dusk at the same time,
Remember that your heart doesn’t need to be held like coal, that your eyes are soulful,
That someone, somewhere thinks you’re more than a piece of electric meat,
That I think you’re worth more than my life,—my holy hunk of steel—but don’t let that
Get to your head missy! And that when we’re laid upon the cutting board
To be scraped and melted down, I want to be laid there next to you
To kiss you one more time, while I look into your eyes, searchingly.

With you by my side,
even the grayest day is full of light.

He's held for us a shy court,
In the continuity of my world.
Where time under anesthesia
First feels the cold of my shoulder,
While still showing a vague interest
In what he makes of the sordid elements
I've deposited at his feet.

Until his acting as what I've presented
Has perfected his imperfections.

His unwrapping this horror
Has lost the only bookmark
I'd destined to hold the significance of your laughter.

'This object is worthless'
He laughs, and then asks,
'Is it the grayest of ugly gifts?'

I reckon it is,
But remain stoic.
Not too unlike this damage now done.

My picking up these pieces
Of his paper misery
Reveals where the torn of his envelope
Has concealed the light of my gesture.

The key hides elsewhere tho',
On the shores of love.
A once deplorable trinket,
It now derives to hold the heart
Of my oldest fable.

So I destroy it without regret.

This truest love, triumphantly
   is a bird of prey
marauding 'twain these grayest skies and tenured gain
dine with blessed distinction,
feathered queen!
And any mice caught in between-
   For does my love in summer's rain
prey on the solace of my nightly dreams

Do gauge my love as span of wings
   the distance 'tween each finger
Her wings are spread and through the sky
she soars in arcs and swirls
Each and every blissless night,
   she passes coyly o'erhead,
The curtain in my blood unfurls
and this presence ever lingers-

Perched aloof and tauntingly in a bending oak
she says: "These stars that hover
             above the sky I disbelieve-
           Their palaver, quaint and lasting,
             I disbelieve-
They grip and guide my flutters as an ever-tightn'ng yoke."
Each hand I place o'er the other,
'til each branch is a rung, ladder to the moon.
Said: "And coldly does this horrib' moon smile,
        she laughs 'til my tail is the dust
        each stroke of hours and minutes speak to me
        this cunning moon pours in our hearts this lust-
           How could these shambles any trust?"
This sky, though blacken'd,
cannot rend apart what's happened,
and all it sees with terrible eyes
can prevent not this love fore'er mend-

She glode politely out o' reach,
To soar delightly by me-
Said: "I see the jilted morning glory
           bowing to the moon.
       Each stalk twines traitoriously
           a capsulating swoon-
       Each fruit it bears bequeathes 'nto me
       callous forms of elliptic bracts,
       eats as nothing more than flax-"

For every morning glory's betray'l
I'll harvest ten thousand Orchids from the meadow's fringe,
plucked from the margins of the bog-
This love is not a passing arc
that follows does that jealous moon-
I'll trek the acid, foy an' dinge,
and, if those mice do not erstwhile dine on this orchid's seeds,
that which lays dormant, 'neath the leaves
will send up freshly blooming stalks.

The velvet moon sprung a tide
Crashing towards the wrecked shore
Of wretched dreams and perplexed hearts.
The sand of grayest melancholy
Veils a secrecy of lies
In an ocean of saddening truth.
The sky cried out in vain
Pouring wisest drops of rain
Towards both the tide and sand
And mingled them as one
Towards the crimson sky of dawn.

a for the anxiety that burns in my heart
b for the brutality of your words
c for the chances you never take
d for every door you kept close
e for the efforts i've wasted on you
f for the freedom we locked up in cages
g for the gardens that grow weeds
h for the hands that grasp at hope
i for the illusions of this world
j for the jars we keep our hearts in
k for the kisses you pressed to my jaw
l for the laundry you left on my floor
m for the memories that refuse to fade
n for the nostalgia that haunts my dreams
o for the onslaught of grayest rain
p for the parachutes we forgot when we jumped
q for the questions that don't have answers
r for the rebels in us who will never die
s for the satellites we resemble too much
t for the trains we could never catch up
u for the umbrellas that are broken and torn
v for the vengeance we shouldn't seek
w for the winters that never end
x for the false Xs they drew on maps
y for the years that pass like days

and

z for zilch interest, the interest you never had in me

- - -

When my eyes first opened for the world
With my cries aloud and my body curled
Her bright smile put the sun to shame
And her warm embrace was the one to tame.

Through the wounds I get when I stumble down
And the tears I shed when I feel a clown
She would come running in the barest feet
And try to save me from my drowning fleet.

At times we get ourselves in a fight
And we cuss and fuss with all our might
But when our hate and rage finally subside
We would smile and swallow up our pride.

She knows me better than I know myself
And my monsters lurking behind the shelf
She’s got the best medicine I've ever known
To every sickness that my body had sown.

Her wrinkles are her boldest legacy
For the love and care she gave to me
That I can’t help but give back in return
A promise that I have tirelessly sworn.

Let the earth devour our bodies weak
Crush our brittle bones in the grayest bricks
Still my heart and soul will always remember
That I have the world’s greatest mother!

She sits on the stairwell outside,
in one of the grayest evenings
I’ve seen in a while.
The humidity is atrocious,
she’s breathing liquid air

Waiting,
but there she sits.

Ready for the guy she met In the dairy isle
to whisk her away to expensive pasta and wine.
She’s been outside a good half-hour

Waiting,
but there she sits.

Her slumped head in her knees
says she’s loosing patience
as she wipes away some tears of self-doubt.
I wonder why she doesn’t call the guy.

Waiting,
there she sits.

With each passing car
turning in the parking lot
we share the same thought,
hoping it’s him.
As each car picks up friends or parks
our hearts slump lower into our stomachs.

If you knew anything about her
you'd wouldn't have bought her flowers.
You'd know that she hates them except for when they die
because everything looks more beautiful when it's asleep.
If you had the slightest clue
as to who she is
you'd have played her Zelda's lullaby instead
on the instrument you've probably never even heard of.
You'd know that you could never understand her unless you learned to read her eyes.
You'd learn that even the grayest clouds have a silver lining
but you could never appreciate the beauty
of the way she looks as she reads a letter
or the way she walks away.
You could never admire her
a fraction of the way that I do
because I care so much about her that
this poem was already written on my heart
the day I first saw her.

-k.d.

It was quite a while
Since I wrote to you
I'll make up with a smile
And "how do you do?"

You see, I've been busy
Roaming round the streets
In this sleepless city
Of lies and deceits.

I longed for my pen
And my loot of ink
Missed going down my den
To write what I think.

But I have a story
I sure love to tell
A dash of honesty
It could ring a bell.

As I make my way
In this jungle of concrete
People live the day
With a dying spirit.

They tend for the future
And wake up tomorrow
Caged in a wicked culture
In the grayest limbo.

They don't sing the same
Nor dance the beat
They won't play the game
To warm their feet.

But the coldest truth
I've come to know
Is one to bear fruit
From a fear to grow.

Their hollow heart
Left the passion to write
Of how poems start
And end with might.

I'm stuck at a sea
Of wandering souls
A piece of humanity
In a thousand ghouls.

Magnetism:
It is in the compass you hold
A pointed needle pointing to the direction your heart seek
Whether it is to the North, East, West or to the South part of the world
It will help you find your desired destination
when the Sun refuses to shine under the grayest sky
when the clouds hid the North star tonight
when you lost your way, scared in the midst of the forest
or when you gone astry floating in the Caribbean sea
Somehow with this simple mechanism
guides you to the place you belong, somewhere you'll call your home.

The glass was full of hope and promise,
And drinking deep, I learned to live;
What twists and turns led me to linger?
Did not last but a moments glimpse.

I turned to see what weave we've woven,
Looked deep inside my heart and soul,
And every page that turned with reckless,
Abandonment of them too soon began.

What is this thing that life's about,
That keeps us slipping the slippery way?
If all our efforts filled some obscure book,
In the final analysis what did we say?

Before the day had dawned with beauty,
A life's beginning had middled away,
With soon the grayest of all  the graydom,
Came marching us into the grave.

Colour me in your mind
Am I vermillion red
or prussian blue?
Maybe a mix of the two?
Or just a hue
Of simple forest green
No wait, aquamarine
like an underwater scene
Deep and darkness within
Yet maybe you enjoy shades
that are bright
and they look so
under the sunlight
But true colours show
only under the grayest skies
to the most observant eyes

Eternally, I'm yours
We only communicate through closed doors
Communication failure, what is left?
Anything to say? Another breath?

Will our love live to see another day?

Eternally, I'm grieving
I'm still broken
Having trouble believing
The words spoken

I gravitate towards you
Your beauty always radiates
Turn the grayest skies blue
And i cannot escape

...Even if i wanted to

Release me from this spell
Free me from this mental hell
How I'll never tell
Break me out of this shell

My personal demons are breeding
Spreading diseased thought
They're eating away my mind
I can't get out of these tangled knots

I lose myself in dreams
The closest to death i can get
With memories from a time long ago
With a pain I'll never forget

...If I can escape...If I could escape...

If you could find truth anywhere,
Let it be
In the words that expel from me
It's all i have left to give
It's all i have left to live

The colors are changing before my eyes
Turning red and orange under gray skies
As dull as life and as vibrant as death
I live on the thought of my last breath

The land is barren
Only the dead grow
Expanding indefinitely
In magnificent columns and rows

I'll take my rightful place among them
Not as a diamond in the rough
But an undiscovered gem

It's that time of year again
When the sun rises late and sets
Just short of happy,
this northern climate
saps all heat from your bones
The soul itself shivers
In remembrance

I'm left to ponder winters past
Sadness and trauma surround
The residual cold, bringing memories of
The flicker of lighted trees
In most of their backgrounds
Inseparable from association.
And then the frigid season continues,
Taunting me with the grayest areas
Of the monument of all the levels
Of my self hatred,
But I've learned it's evr'y pattern,
So now I'm just jaded.

When the North wind picks up and carries
The smell of the fallen leaves death
To me, like a gift I knew I was going to get
Like when I was 9
and found all my presents
And the morning of Christmas
I had to mask all my disappointment
And act surprised
To know what's coming
Takes from the element
And gives way to boredom
An old friend, bittersweet greetings to my
Daydreams and it pulls me to the bed

And there I wait,
And wait,
And wait,

For the sunshine to come again.

~

Simple short phrases


Taken from the grayest clouds,
charcoal mist collecting my thoughts
Entwining my heart with pointed sorrow
as my stupidity takes center stage to a sold out show

Weakened at the knees, dis-jointed disappointments,
assumptions falter my eyes
Blinded by the sight of one more
licking the seasoned wounds of past regrets

Channeling frustrations with a remote, the mute button not working
Shoe fittings find my mouth, at least in silent words
Crying inside and outside too,
rivers of lost dreams stored in a mason jar…its lid rusted shut

Wrenching my fingers, twisted knots,
lacing fears that are merely a mirage
yet still flourish in desert dreamscapes fluctuating
as camels drink from my oasis on Wednesdays

Then, as if a window opens, words are heard

simple short phrases
tiny syllables counted
in Senryu fashion

and in an instant my heart spins in circular motions
A smile of winged happiness adorns my face,
sun pours through and zephyrs unfurl their sweet aromas,
dancing from flower to flower…to my heart

It is amazing how words can effect us
and all it takes is a whisper of affection, a declaration of caring
from you to me,
to make this moment, this day, this world…the perfect place

Knowing sadness,
It is easily done.

To live life in the grayest shade,
To have removed the pleasure of fun.

Anyone can see it,
As you lay your head down.

Surrendered to sorrow,
Sad songs are so renown.

Others will fire questions,
Though you assume they are far off.

Dart boards made of water,
Can never hold back the darts.

No idea what is wrong,
You swear you were smiling the whole time.

Why does everything feel so wrong,
What paused the song on which you rely?

It's crazy, I barely know you right now
In fact, I don't think we're really friends
Right now my heart's screaming
"Please don't do this again"
I can't keep pretending that I don't feel anything
These feelings, I can't keep them concealed as I'm thinking
To myself, "When will I see her again?"
I know I shouldn't do this
Since my heart's a ******* mess
But you could be the piece that fills the gap that's been left
Because when I look at you, I forget,
That I see a book to be read
And yet I haven't said a single word
I know it's all for the best
Plus, I know you want better
I bite my tongue and think "It's whatever"
The biggest flaw of the heart is, it looks for love to feel better
Nothing's the same, chances I used to abhor
I don't look back to my ex, I know I'm not who she wants anymore
My heart says yes but I never listen
You were the sign I was looking for
But I keep acting like I missed it
We used to be waking up nine to five just to strive
Go to class together at seven in the morning
Besides taking these College credits
You make the journey so worth it
These feelings are worth a thousand words
Somehow I can't word it
I know there's more to find, there's more of you below the surface
The grayest skies will never dim those hazel eyes
The walks I had with you after class made me realize
That I'm not searching for something
I'm running away from the fall
If you ever got to know me
Would you understand me at all?
Temporary affections is all I see around
I've been down and out,
Writing all these feelings before it all goes South
It ***** when these feelings won't just let up
I'm love sick and I'm sick of love
I see no cure to be found
The latest nights is when it really hits me
Realizing that no one ever gets me
I don't know if you're the one
Or if I wan't you to fix me
But I'm done trying to pretend
So let me know who you are
As for the truth, honestly I'm at the end
I keep my head up high looking at you as a start

The sight of you,
will always do,
your smile it fills my soul,
it takes away,
the grayest day,
it fills every void and hole.
I don't know why I'm frightened,
The days you end up gone.
I'm the only one to notice,
When my sun ain't there at dawn.

From secrets heard,
told from a bird,
I feel that I am losing.
I'll grip the streams,
and angry screams,
for you I'll take a bruisin'.
I thought that I could have you,
Keeps me here alive.
That there's no one here but us two,
Keeps my forward drive.

The thought of you,
is always nice,
In my mind I do percieve:
A person who,
is just so great,
that no one would believe.
It seems like I am shaking,
Not sure if I want to know.
If you are what I ache for,
Or if it was an illusion,
The fakest kind of glow.

It is in our nature to create dichotomies,
particularly in the grayest of the gray.
How do you debate en masse,
in the absence of either or?

And so we ask—
for example,
at Harper High School
in the South Side Chicago,
where 29 current and former
students
were shot
in a single year—
we ask, disdainfully,
How do we Learn
when we can’t Breathe?
On the question of need—
at a beautiful school
with 16 security guards
4 social workers,
and more than 15 surrounding gangs—
we refer back to Maslow.

I went once,
to a high school full of
“at risk” students
and discussed dropout rates—
as high as 80 percent in some parts.
We gave them cards and figures,
and asked them to contemplate futures,
for example,
as a janitor or an NBA basketball star!
Questions so self-righteous in their ignorance
my cheeks burned,
asked to faces
six generations descended
from slavery
& six decades from
Brown vs. Board.
Are we not awed by the
logic in their response
to a system with little
historical or contemporary
evidence of their success?

We are sustained more by the
business of answering,
than asking
the right questions.

So maybe the question of
basic needs versus pedagogy
was always a false dichotomy.
Maybe, in fact,
general revenue funding &
destandardization of curricula,
universal prenatal care &
a rebirth of the arts,
do not exist in hierarchy.

Do we dare ask the question,
to everyone,
“What would you do
to make your heart sing,
if you knew you could not fail,
if you knew you could not disappoint?”

you are so much more than the days you can't create or write anything.

those days where you lift your pen, press it against the emptiness of the sheet. those days where you are drenched in the skies' grayest clouds and the colors and lines won't sew you a silver lining. those days where the spines of your favorite books hold no magic. those days where inaction and emptiness will swallow you whole. those days where sunsets are just a discord of colors, and the night skies are just a discord of stars, and the poems are just a discord of words and you, just a discord of vacuums — you are so much more than all of these days. and today, it's okay to not be able to create anything.

today, it's your turn to be the art — it's your turn to be the poetry.

Feelings running all through out my veins,
trying to let them out but they only leave stains.
Other then seeing your perfect face,
That night was a big disgrace.

Took me to the highest of high.
Made me feel as if I could fly.
But somehow I'm left with this pain.
Barely able to stay sane.

Trying to put the impossible back together.
Just so it'll last forever.
Feeling more then lost.
But I'm still aware why our paths crossed.

Even during the grayest of gray.
I'd still choose to stay.
Plenty of new days,but they manage to stay the same.
I guess I'm the one to blame..?

forgetting how to even cry.
sometimes I wonder why I even bother to try.
this roller coaster never seems to stop.
just using this fake smile as a prop.

Fooled you once, fooled you twice.
Some consolation would be nice.
Sitting in my glass box.
listening while every one talks.

Word's of bitterness, word's of hate.
I'm just trying to set a clean slate.
Some say I'm no ordinary girl.
that I'm just just caught up in a whirl.

I bet you cant even tell,
the world we live in can be livin' hell.
when It's to my knees I fall.
there's only one name that I call..

people tell me it's a glimmer of hope.
that I've somehow managed to cope.
I've been holding on.
I wish to see the morning dawn.

it shows me a glimpse off light.
another reason to stand up and fight.
inside of me it implants a thought.
happiness can't be bought.

everything happens for a reason.
these hard times here for only a season.
Just forgive and forget..
there's no need to fret..

i creep back to you the same way your color floods
into my mind on the grayest of days,
and i cannot block you out no matter how hard
i **** you to hell.
i know i can't stop loving you,
and i try to recede like low tide instead of
swallowing you whole,
but the waves of high tide come and i crave being
engulfed by you.
and i don't want to be a black hole;
all-consuming for something,
for anything.
but in the dark i still find you,
and your bright baby blues,
i will always find you,
perhaps i always will.
maybe because i know your heart beats gold,
and only i see it,
so maybe i am lucky in that sense,
or cursed,
that if your soul turns black,
or vanishes into a colorless hole,
i will still always see your light.

I am dismay, despair and dread
I am the Nothing in your head
The herald of the grayest skies
The harbinger of your demise
A lurking shadow of a doubt
In thoughts you can't help think about
Conceived in death of all things good
To prey upon your childhood
And feast on unfulfilling dreams
Whilst hopelessness inside you teems
Granting me control of you
With powers that you never knew
Existed in all of creation
Not just your imagination
Withering away in time
Succumbing to your aging mind's
Loss for words of fantasy
Which never ends in my story
So who would dare so much as care
To turn the page and face me there

and not so long later it passed
not with a day nor a half
merely a quarter
but a blink of a name dearly spelled
comes what i learn-
the virtue is the refusal
of sight of all shades
but never that pact of white
not even a tinge of the grayest gray white.