A mirror is never just your reflection,
My mother once said
The mind has this devilish way of
Twisting
Things around
Making then a lot more or a lot less
That what stands before me
Suddenly
My face isn't my face anymore
Instead
I stare blankly at a blueprint
Society itself has hand-sketched
For me.
Post-it's on where things had gone wrong
Scribbles on things I needed less of
Highlighters on places I needed
Brighter brights
Thinner thins
And I just stood there
Watching
As these self-proclaimed architects
Unraveled
The plans they had for a body that wasn't theirs.
Accepting
The new rooms they had drawn next to the ones that already existed,
The ones that were always there
The ones I made a home out of,
The mole on my ear
That never seemed out of place
Until,
The impact of a critical post it told me so.
The place where my thighs met
I've always ignored,
Assuming I was normal
But the scribbles that
Begged
For less of me,
Proved otherwise.
The marks of stretched skin
I considered battle scars over a few calories at a buffet table
Nullified
By society's architects
Disapproved
As if it were up to them
Invalid
Like human came in the form of overruns
But I stare at this blueprint that suggests to change me from
Floor to floor
Head to toe
And wonder
If the one who owns the lot in which I am
Wonder
If He wanted to change me anymore than them
If He liked the original rooms
More than the ones carved to fit the trends
If He wanted me to ignore the architects
And the drafts of copies
And copies
And copies
Of different versions of me

Didn't He want me to accept the mirror for who I am?

It was supposed to be fun.

New school, new supplies,
Thin, neon highlighters glowing inside
Vera Bradley backpacks.

Skinny folders assigned to
Pointless subjects,
Which would be fattened
With pointless homework
By the end of the day.

It was supposed to be fun,
And for a little while, I forgot.

I forgot until History.

The new teacher hadn't lived here
Longer than a week,
Which was why he was
Excited
About teaching.

He had on a brand new tie
From Banana Republic
Which was obviously tied
By his wide eyed fiance.

His classroom was bare, as he explained,
"Don't worry,
I ordered posters yesterday."

The teacher wasn't the problem.

The problem was,
Between Richardson
And Roberts,
He still existed.

At least in the school system he did.

"Ashley Paulette?"
"-Here."
"Abby Richardson?"
"-Here."
"Bennett Rill?"

And my life shattered all over again.

The silence felt
Deafening.

Remembering how he wouldn't be there.
Not ever.

"Bennett Rill?"

The teacher was confused, looking around the room
For someone
Who was buried six feet under.
Someone who the teacher might've thought
Was sick, or vacationing.

It was supposed to be fun.
But then I remembered

monday hit you like a stack of bricks. ultimately, she tried to fix you. you probably dated her early on. fists full of highlighters and notebooks left no room for your hand to hold. she was too focused on the future, she forgot about the present. half here, half there, flittering in and out of reality. she made being together feel scheduled. monday drowned you in her sea of checklist bulletpoints.

you can’t remember tuesday all that much. the milky blue of the tattoo on your left knee is all you have left of her. you finger it fondly, a ghost of a memory.

wednesday made you want to change yourself. but you are not play dough, not created to be moulded. she gave you the urge to be someone new. but you lost yourself in her passions. you will never understand wednesday.

thursday got you back on track, but it felt like a routine. surely there’s something more. there were things you loved about thursday, but it felt like you were waiting for something else. you sat on the couch together like bookends, not a pair. thursday was a marionette show, you were run by the strings.

friday was a dream. she was a perfect 10. you felt free with friday. but then friday got a little crazy. you couldn’t keep up with her. carefree nights turned into mornings of advil chased by black coffee. when she snuck under the rusty chain link fence and beckoned for you to follow her to paradise you walked away with a scar from a stray wire. she only gained happy memories. you were sinking in the very tequila shots that made her float.

after you recovered from friday, you met saturday. aren’t we all racing through monday through friday in hopes that we finally meet saturday? saturday was fun. she was different from the others. you fell in love with saturday. but sometimes, saturday doesn’t always work out. you had plans and hopes for saturday, but as you look back and realize, she wasn’t everything you always wanted it to be. saturday broke your heart. but, for every saturday you face, there will be a sunday.

you know when you see sunrise after staying up all night and a feeling of pure serenity washes over you? that’s what it’s like to meet a sunday. you can be yourself around sunday. sunday helps you become a better person. she kisses your scars left from the others. sundays are magical, but they are also human. she will not sit on a pedestal, but sit beside you in the most human form. there will still be bumps on the road, but that road will lead to happiness.

Breathe
We've only just started
And heartbreak seems inevitable only because it is

Just breathe
Shed your tears if you wish
For these days of sorrow are lessons

Deeply
Take in the age you show
Weave in the stories and scars in your tapestry of time

Calmly, Serene
Taste life, both sweet and bitter
See the rain clouds as they are, highlighters of the sunshine

Love is breathing
Living is dreaming, nightmare or vision
Dare to dream, dare to love, dare to look, dare to live, dare to...

Breathe

Paint
Glitter
Highlighters
Water
Glow in the dark
Sharpie markers
Canvas
Red Bull
Cigarettes
Lighter
Sparklers
Feathers
Chronic
Uppers
Downers
Middlers
Extravagent
4th dimension
hyper being
Nocturanal Drug Fiend
Best Friend to the Speaker
Bass
Middle Fingers
Breakdowns
womp
womp
womp

Part I

My body never prepared to run out of air
celebrate it?
I said Send.
I said it again and again. Send.
the world's loneliest flipping machine
withering from your obtusity.
I'm sclerotic.
Yes, yes that's it.

I want to stir you
strike you into soup.
I'll observe the dictionary,
every word will flow from me to you.
Flip, flip off the diver's board,
Blank and Blank by the shore
Color it in, out, up, down
I'm sclerotic.

Remember this, need this
counting people all in pairs:
I saw everything through sixteen vision,
bleary, misted with vanilla yous.
Soft skinned, little girls, hot and milds between their teeth

I don't hunt but I could.
Autumnal again and I'm just repetition
speaking of repressed rage.
Let us analyze the handwriting of every
colleague, drop out, ghost buster,
Coffee house inspired.
I'm sclerotic.

I'm walking through the forest and
you're not there.

Part II

I write because I'll die
I die, I die, I diee.
It's been too long since I went swinging
Missing my pour of moon to the tip top
of my new ceramic mugs.

It's all up for traps
the reindeer, the telltales, the chlorine.
Hyperextended among the cruel cats, where are the cool cats?

REVERSE back to nail polish
I got manicures as a little girl
Staring at my hair now
every shaved bit on my leg is its own waterfall. Hah.

I cry for my beauty
I was told I was wrong with
highlighters, colored ads,
illuminated in the eyes of old dogs.

Take a gulp,
I did and I walked
for every moment I regretted.
I walked.
Childish foolish acts, crimeful commitments.
I said Send. Send.
She said you might not like me but to never fret
you love me.

I'm walking in a tunnel
(Where's the light?)
and you're not there.

Part III**

This is the beginning
of a low-budget film, black and white
this part is when the audience yells
"Someone fall in love already!"

I think there is something truly remarkable about me
(and you)
and the boy who cried wolf and
probably other people
too

I don't want my words to dissipate or fall
into space
disappear in the inners of the web.
I want them to creep in through the crevices
speak to the many as they
walk and see and notice.
I find a strange comfort in swinging at night in
an empty park
and a intriguing mystery the first time someone sighs my name.

I'm swinging in the park and
you're not there.

A student again, how cute it is and really I feel free
the thoughts, of life, and planning and how things could be
not tied down to a job and obsessing about my boss did this and that
and what does it mean for me now and why and
today I had a wasted day but that is normal

Because life is full of wasted moments, and
the most tragic moments are those we don't feel
The painful part isn't that we were at the laundromat
and put our stuff down to study and highlight in different colors
and a woman put her family there on top of our stuff with McDonald's for five even
though there were only three, and that there was nothing good at the Goodwill
Even the Rainbow colored sweater from Lane Bryant, which was way too big
and that the laundry from a month took hours and yes, we really do have that many socks

What is wasted are those moments folding the pile of shirts where we are not there
we are somewhere lost in mourning over a lost love and thinking,
he loved me more than he loves her, I just know.
Because all we have at that moment is this pile of a zillion articles of clothing
most of which looks like it could be hanging at the Goodwil and
a flimsy plastic chair and two times the amount of highlighters we needed because they were half price and we are hungry, but the snack machine is turned off and you can
only look at the cookies and hot cheetohs
and yearn for them and imagine the flakey tenderness of the vanilla wafer
crumble gentley into your mouth, and watch your creepy
neighbors walk into the strip mall listening to a song on a phone
like it's a boom box
and this is your moment to feel and live

My blood thrums against the confines of its veins
waiting for you to break my capillaries like you broke my heart
and pull it to the surface where everyone can see.

You left your hickeys like highlighters,
fluorescence on my skin.
Bit lip muffles and ****** sheets
We ended just when the *** was getting good.
It was some kind of beautiful
pulling those noises from you.
some kind of worship
I want to be the patron saint of your skin
of the flat shield of your sternum
of the way your eyes flutter closed when I touch you.

I slide into bed next to your shadow
and I want to scream underwater.
Butterfly wings,
you are a tsunami.

I’ve been watching dandelions
waiting to make wishes on dead weeds
The house always wins,
but everybody keeps trying.
And I don’t know how to gamble except
all in

I called you scared
but you have yet to realize that you are
Me, I’ve never been afraid of eternity.
But I didn’t see enough of your skin
to remember all of your tattoos.

When you run away I’ll chase you across the equator
where not even the sky’s the same.
Everyone tells me you’re not worth it
but one smile
and I’ll throw a lasso ’round the moon.

I don’t want you to know I’ve been writing poems about you
until you hear the way my voice cracks on the last line.

What goes on in my head?
The words start playing with themselves and I try
to make sense of the nonsense occupying what little space there is left.
It is so hard to explain what goes on, in, under, above, across
when all I want is a projectile through this skull.
Some nights, I'm as scared as you are.
The noise louder than panicking sirens as I cower
hoping it all stops
before it's too late,
before the worst
yet most relieving end.

But sometimes I grow as numb
as the people who think they know
a ******* thing
when they don't.
THEY DON'T.

3 AM is for studying ways to make death look like an accident
so I don't hurt anyone else after the process.
I cry my nonexistent heart and soul out
like I never do in broad daylight
while using neon highlighters
to mark exes on my throat, my wrists, my chest,
then put both blades out of reach.
I try to memorize the places where I shouldn't hurt myself.
But I am already bleeding everywhere.

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

No one wants scars around their hearts because the hurt doesn't count
unless you're dressed up for death in a hospital gown
so that everyone sees it,
so that everyone ******* believes it.

I'm not stupid
just sick.
But, if life is a lesson
I quit.

I feel like fading ink
gushing dry on my pile of unread books.
And maybe all those
record stores, libraries, museums, cafés, lighthouses
and sunsets waiting for me
won't wait any longer when I'm gone.

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

It's 3 AM again,
one day
I really am going to lose it.
But for the meantime,

I am tired.

I don't know how
long I could
keep fighting
this.

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

It's 3 AM again,
and again
and again
I'm sinking.

It's 3 AM again,
let the ghosts back in.

You know where you're going.
So when it comes,
Acknowledge and appreciate
The day that I come home late at night
for the 113th night in a row
and there are bumps and bruises kissing my bones,
there are dirt and grass stains painting my knees and clothes,
there are patches on the gear, on the pants, on the skin
from rips of rad that stroke my discomfort and
grant me a fight to win against fear.
and there are eye wrinkles forming around
bags of forgotten sleep and sexytimes
that make me feel worthy of nothing more,
yet everything more still comes.
And I clamor in the doorway hand in hand
riding giggles with an innate and undying flirtatious hilarity
into a house that radiates warm simplistic comfort
but has no locks
so I may come and go
to and fro
from everyday new adventures and
new states and new sights and new lives
but always back to the dog-fur lined rug
that tickles my circletoes as I ****** a tasty beer
to wash away the dust that coats my guzzling esophagus
filling my belly with the mountain’s leftovers
and satisfying my hunger for another day
but not until the sun rises and it is morning and I must be alive
to smooch the lips of the most important creatures
puppies, kittens, boys with fingertoes,
whose love is constant as
the beating of my wild and beefy heart
and the breathing of my battered and blessed breath
with the silence and rest within it
,between each passionate burst,
as understood yet persevering as
any will we have to live our lives beyond the mundane.
They are Nature’s gifts that make me owe her
something greater that gratitude,
so I go out at morning light each day and play with the winds
and babysit the plants and learn from the birds
who send me off with homework about listening
and about singing songs out of selfless selfishness
not for other people
but with the intent to make people listen and
make it change them for better
whether they want it to or not.
and sometimes the lessons are tough,
harder than rocks that teach them.
Sometimes the work goes untouched on my desktop
and I get lost in Milky Way patterns
made by the Sun’s best friends on a drunk getaway
but then I find my way back by a road of traced constellations
on the moley chest of the ultimate mountain man,
who flips back open my books and
points to nirvana among the pages of life’s endless studies,
emphasizing and underlining key points with
pens of self-awareness and highlighters of supportive independence.
Then bookmarks important parts with reminders of the first time
he licked his lips to savor the sweet taste of a tough cookie
he had tasted only once months before.
A recipe that had been fine tuned away in a hell he left behind
for new homes to be found.
A place he confronted again
to lead a lost soul out and into the world of living and loving.
And loving is what is done
when bears romp beside our sleeping heads and puke garbage belly
but make less of a mess than I do when giddied by that silverlining
that was merely a stormy cloud to those who predicted rain,
And I will not seek to tempt fate nor die unsure of it
but I was jigging in the right place at the right time and
the river of his rain has flooded me with forward momentum,
I will rescue those who cannot stand stronger than the current,
my quads are toned for they've fought the waves until I stood.
And after a hard day of nothing less than that and more,
Zzzztown will welcome me with
joyful snoozing, lekker slaaping, and the tightest dreaming.
And I will wave 'See You Soon' to B-town not alone, finally together
with batted eyelashes and heavy eyelids and sore bodies.

I woke up late this morning, my phone was dead. I guess I never plugged it in, I found it buried under my pillow (erah!). I barely had time for anything, just managing to cover the basics as the “Whoop” sound signaled my first virtual classroom opening. A pop-up announced that the class would be recorded and available later. “Yessss!” I thought, as I put in my airpods.

My room is surprisingly full of houseplants. There’s a ponytail palm, an anthurium and philodendrons sending down tendrils of heart-shaped leaves from shelves and tables. I drew open my curtains and the room bloomed, morning sunny. It was 22° but my windows are almost always cracked open to let in some real air.

I’m dressed in an unstylish, black school hoodie, short pajama pants, long socks and fluffy, pink slippers for my virtual class. My still-wet hair looked attractively mop-like. I began brushing it out while arranging the colored gel-pens and highlighters I use to take notes.

Was I ever starving, but I could only imagine breakfast. Ever notice how the sun looks like a giant egg-yolk? At least my Keurig was on the job - burping, whirring and dripping like a malfunctioning steam engine as it rendered lifesaving French Vanilla coffee that smelled like caffeinated heaven.

As the professor started talking about the syllabus, outlining the types of problems we’ll be working on this semester and reminding us of things we learned in our intro to econ class, a teaching assistant, in another window, asked us to press the roll-call icon and reminded us we had a paper due (this is why we read our syllabus, people). Then the assistant's window became a countdown timer showing what remained of the ten minutes we’d been given to upload the first-day’s homework.

Twenty minutes into the class, I was combed out and ponytailed, coffeed-up and positively vibrating with pleasure - I LOVE this stuff - strategies, actions, outcomes and payoffs. Student life is unnatural, stressful and myopic - but it can be thrilling too.

There was a knock on my door frame (the door to my room is almost always open), and one of my roommates, Sunny, was there. “Morning, Princess Anesthesia,” she said, teasing me about over-sleeping.

I pointed to my pink-M1-iMac screen, to indicate I was in class and she tossed me a bag. I knew, at once, that it was breakfast from the cafeteria. “I love you,” I mouthed, before turning back to the screen.

Spring Semester has begun.

The day I entered this world, my eyes lit up.
They were a shade of blue that you only see in baby dolls and colored contacts.
Like my birthstone, aquamarine flood my eyes and breathe life into the souls around me.
I was bright blue, like the pure water I was baptized in.
Blue like the baby blankets they give you at hospitals.
The blue that no one can argue with, because everyone thinks blue is beautiful.

One day, I morphed into yellow.
I was the dandelions I made into flower crowns
and the banana Laffy Taffy that always stuck to my pants.
I was yellow sundresses, bright sunlight, and a warm smile.
My hair was the color of a wheat field.
One of my first words was “lellow.”
Lellow like Big Bird and banana runts.
The idea of something so bright, something so happy, soothed my childish brain.

There was a time when I was green.
Like the green of St. Patrick’s day, which I never dressed up for.
I was always pinched.
Green like the baseball diamonds I spent hours on as I watched my brother.
I was the grass I laid in, the grass I played in.
I was the green of an aging plant.
You could see colors swirling in intricate patterns throughout my mind.
The green of maturity;
of gears turning in my head.

Green turned to purple when I was uprooted from my home.
Omaha to Lincoln hit me like a lack of oxygen and turned me purple.
Just like a body without air, my limbs turned dark.
I was purple, like every middle school girl’s favorite color.
The purple of painted fingernails thumbing through Victoria’s Secret magazines.
The purple of trying to fit in with new friends.
I was the purple of colliding galaxies.
My brain was confused. They were making me something new.
They put me in purple high heels and pushed me forward.
“Learn how to walk,” they said.
Everything was the artificial grape that still makes me cringe.
Sometimes, I taste the purple Koolaid on my stained lips.

I’m glad my soul is done being black.
Black like the empty demon eyes that stared at me.
Like the pen that cracked in half and watched its ink flow.
Black like Sharpie tattoos and chokers.
Black mascara tear stains that burned my skin.
I fell deep into the night and into the abyss.
It was so dark that no one saw me fall.
I was blind with only a hint of yellow starlight to guide me.
So I followed it out.
I tracked the starlight through the night.
It was never easy. Sometimes I fell down and was dragged backwards.
But I finally left black.
I’m not all the way back to yellow yet, but at least I’m not black.

Now, I am white.
I am all of my colors wrapped into one.
I am the good and the bad, the clean and the impure.
At first glance, I am a blank page.
I appear to be a paper with no scratches, no eraser lines, no marks of red pens or bright highlighters.

But I am grape Koolaid stains.
I am hands covered in smears of black ink that cover my mouth.
Sometimes, I still eat Laffy Taffy and lemon lollipops.
I climb up tall trees and bask in the glow of leaves in the sunlight to learn something new.
I stare at the blue sky to remember what it feels like to fly.
I am a rainbow, hidden behind an expanse of white.

I was in my chemistry class (lecture #2) and the professor was asking a series of questions. At first, hands were flying up, the answers were easy. But as questions got more complex, and the odds of being right fell off, confidence and raised-hands faltered.

I sit the front row because I film the lectures on my iPad, and there I was, doing my usual bit - taking detailed, color coded notes. If the lecturer mentioned something, I noted it, with my #5 mechanical pencil, but that something could become a heading or a bullet-point in a larger tableau. Those, I would color code with one of several gel pens - tracing carefully over the pencil. Later, in review, I might hi-lite these points with neon, phosphorescent highlighters. (I have a strict color coding system).

I tell you all that because it describes how focused I get on my note taking in classes. I don’t usually interact much due to my filming.

Suddenly, I noticed an unusual hush. I looked up and realized, to my trauma, that the professor had addressed me. He was looking fixedly at me, bent over with his hands on his knees (he’s on a platform).

“Pardon?” I said, meekly.
“Don’t just mouth the answer,” he repeated (apparently), exasperatedly, “say it out loud!”

I thought back to his last question and I offered, “Magnesium nitride,” but he tilted his head like he was waiting for more, “gave off ammonia as it mixed with the water?” I finish the answer like a question.

“Exactly!” he said, standing back up after giving his knees a little slap with his palms. “Thanks for JOINING us,” he says, and after checking his seating chart on his lectern, he added, “MS. Vionet.”

I took a shocked umbrage at this (scolding?), my whole body turning a defensive, atomic pink. What did I do - I thought - why was he being so sassy with me?

I doubt he REALLY wants answers just called out.

It might be a long year.

Lisa was carefully pulling a strand of cotton candy off a paper-coned “barbe à papa” - winding it around her finger while absentmindedly gazing at a carousel. She seemed hypnotized by its white horses, trimmed in gold, with their brassy red and blond manes, as they hopped, like slow-motion rabbits, in circles beneath wreaths and garlands of colored lights.

My watch jiggled me awake, mid-dream. I was bemused. It took me a moment to orient myself. I groggily pushed the sheets off and performed a big stretch. It's Monday morning, I think. “Alexa, what’s today?” I ask, to be sure. “It’s Monday, April 25th,” she says.

A beautiful, if cloudy spring morning was going to bloom on the other side of my jacobian glass windows - any minute now. At least according to my weather app. “Alexa, good morning,” I say, to start my rattling, sputtering, steampunk sounding coffee maker.

College time is warped, measured more in deadlines than minutes. There’s no plan other than your class or test schedule and let me refresh you on the rules – there are no rules, I’m free to do whatever I want. I actually chuckle at that thought.

College is transformative but there’s a hoary sameness to it. Read, discuss, review and test - wash, rinse and repeat. This morning is reserved for test review. I have a final this morning - well, sort of.

Some classes have a quintet of tests instead of a big midterm and nerve-racking final. It smooths out the stress, but you still have an almost forensic exploration of ideas, and you want the answers queued-up, ready for easy access.

I quickly washed and donned my workout-wear. A glance at my watch told me I was right on time. I’d loaded my shoulder bag last night, with my book, highlighters, my phone, Air-Pods and a water bottle. I grab it as I head out. I’ll do my review on the treadmill.

Anna opens her door just as I do mine - perfect. We’re off to the gym.

I propped my heels on a vinyl
trumpet case beside a Rubik's Cube
with mostly white squares. Steel hinges
and a combination latch
kept a midnight groove contained.
Last load's dryer sheets found
their way inside my backpack,
picking up character from uncapped
pens and highlighters.

power is pink
because of the “p”
innovation is blue
because of water
ideas and beliefs are yellow
because of lightbulbs
economics is green
because of money
geography is orange
because that is what was left


why do we associate colors to words?
why not?

Acknowledge
The day that I come home late at night
for the 113th night in a row
and there are bumps and bruises kissing my bones,
there are dirt and grass stains painting my knees and clothes,
there are patches on the gear, on the pants, on the skin
from rips of rad that stroke my discomfort and
grant me a fight to win against fear.
and there are eye wrinkles made of fun times
forming around bags of forgotten sleep.

Say thanks for the day that comes
when I clamor in the doorway, hand in hand with selflessness
riding a wave of giggles on a board of undying flirtatious hilarity
into a house that radiates warm simplistic comfort
but has no locks
so I may come and go
to and fro
from every day a new adventure and
new states and new sights and new lives.
Always coming back to the dog-fur lined rug
that tickles my circular toes as I drag them over
on my way to fill a thermos with the tastiest brew
that will wash away the dust that coats my guzzling esophagus
and fill my belly with the mountain’s leftovers, satisfying my hunger.
But not for long, only until the sun rises again and it is morning

And it will be another day that needs appreciating,
for when it gets here I will be alive and called forth
to smooch the lips of the land and its most important creatures
puppies, kittens, bees and bugs
whose love is as constant as
the beating of my wild and hefty heart
and the breathing of my battered and blessed breath
with silence and rest  
between each passionate pulse.
Pauses that will be treated with understanding
by those who love with a kind of love
that keeps persevering
that does not fear dormancy
that is as determined as
our intention to live our lives beyond what is expected.
This type of love and those who share it with me
will be Nature’s gifts that make me owe her
something greater that gratitude,
And at morning light on each day that comes, I will go out
and play with the winds
and babysit the plants
and learn from the birds
who will send me off with homework about listening
and about singing songs out of selfless selfishness:
songs not written for the audience or the demand
but with the intent to make people listen and
make it change them for better
whether they want it to or not.
And sometimes the lessons will be tough,
harder than the rocks and cliffs that provide me a playground between classes.
Sometimes the work will go untouched on my desktop because I know
I will get distracted by the Milky Way patterns splattered around me
made from creative bursts of the Sun’s best friends.
But eventually I will find my way back on a road of traced constellations
on the moley face of the ultimate mountain man,
who will flip back open my books and
point to nirvana among the pages of life’s endless studies,
emphasizing and underlining key points with
pens of self-awareness and highlighters of supportive independence.
And he will bookmark the important parts
with reminders of the first time
that I licked my lips
and loved the salt I tasted
and realized that it is just the right amount for the recipe
that makes the tough cookie that I have turned out to be.
A recipe that has been fine-tuned by role models with a taste for bravery
and better baking skills than Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and Paula Deen
Combined.
And these cherished bookmarks will litter life
with humble self-love and prideful love for everything else in the world.

And hopefully a satisfactory love for these days that will come,
The days when loving is precisely what is done at all times,
even while bears nap beside our sleeping heads and puke garbage belly.
I will forgive them because I shouldn't have let them get into the trash
in the first place.
Anyways, it will be impossible to be mad while giddied by the silver lining
that shines around all the bad things that just look like storm clouds
to those who predict rain.
The rain is not under our control, so why fight it?
I will not seek to tempt fate nor die unsure of its reasoning
But rain often seems pretty purposeful
and I know where I am going so I will go with purpose
and I know I will be finding good people
in the right place at the right time
whose importance I will never second guess.

But Never forget to thank them for existing
and recognize that the rain and storms that have flooded me
have also made me a river of forward momentum,
and it will be my duty to rescue those who cannot stand stronger than the current.
My quads are toned for they've fought the waves until I stood.

It will be a long, hard day of nothing less than living fully
and watching plans perpetually come to fruition
and giving all of myself to the earth and others
and lovingly recognizing that I have the life that I have worked so hard to live.
When it is finally time for rest and
the universe, with its royal authority, has knighted me
with all of these gifts and responsibilities,
I will get onto the snoozetrain to ZzzzzTown,
curl up in a beam of moonshine then tuck myself in.
With batted eyelashes, heavy eyelids, sore body,
I will sleep so deeply and dream precisely my reality.
And have not a single dream to tell in the morning,
Except for the occasional one about dragons.

There’s an old man beside me, sitting untouched in the ripped withered chair. He sits alone, his only company, a crossword puzzle. Coffee complimented with 2 pieces of apple pie, his highlighters neatly placed parallel to the book. Concentration becomes him, screaming children does not impair the streaking.

And for a few seconds, with strong beliefs of being unnoticed, unimportant, he releases a look of pure nostalgia. Memories flood the man’s white hair, pupils left vacant.

I have these imperfections
That I try to cover up
But recently I’ve ditched the concealers
For a more natural and tired look
And to my surprise
I have never been called beautiful
More times in my life
The warming of my heart
Stemming from the compliments
Adds a glow to my cheeks
That not even the most expensive of highlighters could provide
The wide smile across my lips
Creates a perfect shade of lipstick
That you wouldn’t find at the Mac store
The sincerity heard from strangers
Creates a sparkle in my eyes
Hence eyeshadow is no longer needed
People point out the allure
Where I myself see flaws
And instead of unattractive
I have never felt more beautiful

Do you have any idea what I go through?
You don't, and I
know you don't, because I never tell you.

Ever wondered why?

I have what seems like a million stacks
of paper pressing on my chest, and
all the ****** memorised facts
are fighting in my head, compressed, I
feel a bit dead. What this person said, what
that person said, my eyes aren't green
anymore, they're red,
and yellow,
and pink,
a highlighters tint tattooed into
my neural net, yet I don't feel
confident enough to bet it won't
wash off.
Yet each morning I still
brush off my shroud of too
little sleep, because I can't fall asleep
when I'm alone and when I'm sad I
moan to shadowy paving stones, as I
walk a march to the station to
and fro, and I secretly wonder, "does
it even matter where I go?", and every day
I'm just that little bit more slow, still keep
counting chances in my head, but when I
dance my heart can still
hear the lead I left at the
side, which resides with me
now.
I fall asleep on textbooks and
I wonder how this
became the focal point of
my existence, every now and
then it meets my resistance but
every time I squash it down, I wish
I dreamed of the crown of
innocence that once brushed upon
my head, but now I feel I'm guilty
instead, because every smile
is a second wasted. Instead I
dream of
paper,
and death,
and funerals.
And I watch as the
ones I love are lost, I
can't remember the
last time one of my dreams
was soft.
I can't remember.
This sacrifice isn't small, I haven't
actually listed much of my fall, but the
tallest order of all isn't even the
grades I must get if I can
finally submit to the
fact that I might be
worth it.
I'm leaving the first person I
have ever romantically loved
to do so, and just the idea
bruises my bones,
because, at the same time
as being miserable, mad, and
sad,
he has helped me be the most
happy, no more, filled, complete,
as I have ever been.
I have thrown my soul at
his feet, and he has
kissed it.
And if I leave him, I will miss
it, a part of me I finally found, will
resound like a long forgotten
tune, my new found flower
unknowing where to bloom.
He has not made it easy, I have
watched him torture, hate, and cry
to himself, I have watched him
wish himself past help.

I will always have her, nothing
can ever take her, she
is me.

But he,
he makes me fear the breeze.

I love you too, but if you think you
see a brick wall then you obviously
haven't looked to see how tall
it is,
I've run out of bricks.
All that are left are sticks,
feel free to scratch in an "You
owe me" but, you see, my perceived
"cracks" have triumphed, I'm
sorry to be the bearer of true news.
I'm sorry I can't sit up with you,
I have in the past.
I'm sorry I can't right now panic for you,
I have in the past.
I'm sorry I can't listen right now,
but I have,
multiple times in the past.

So leave a message after the
tone, and I'll get back to you
when you want a wall to moan at.

Maybe I'll chuck you a brick?

(p.s sorry if this was too "emotionless")

In crowded halls, ivy clad, walk the sleepless zombies - the walking dead.
They’ve come to grapple, the chosen few, in trials by pen and pencil too.

Long ago we quietly agreed to trade studies and stress for a lives of ease.
The fire of competition burns within, a pyre fueled by challenge and adrenaline.

We’ve been grinding from morning’s light to dark midnight, fueled largely by tasty caffeine's bite.
Sleep’s a distant memory, that’s been swapped for all-nighters, notecards and highlighters.

Professors who’ve taught us now plant briar-like, trickster-questions, to fraught us.
Have we synthesized it all - the labs, lectures and quotes, the chapters, quizzes and notes?

The hours we’ve spent, dissecting texts, parsing equations, crafting essays - pay off now.
Or don’t - the clutter of fact, theory, and tensors will separate the scholars from the pretenders.

But fear not, dear reader, for we’re tough, seasoned cowgirls and this is just another rodeo.
True, we chew erasers not tobacco and ride desks or lab stations, not bucking broncos
But some are thrown, bruised and scarred - finding their future careers discarded.

We’re required to hand-write our test essays out, a trap that negates AI with age-old foolscap.
We know the challenge, we’ve studied and crammed, to tackle the hurdle of ‘top-tier’ exams.

Beyond the stress beacons the sweet release - of holiday parties and presents that please.
But perhaps the sweetest possible tease, is the promise of slumber and weeks study free.

Red is a sunset,
Warming the summer air.
It is fighting at all hours,
Spilled liquid on the ground.

Red is poppies spreading across a field,
Petals soft as a hand strokes them.

Orange is a leaf falling to the ground,
Pumpkins sitting on porches,
Children laughing, saying
Trick or Treat!

Orange is baking pies for a holiday,
And saying thank you when it's needed.

Yellow is the sun beating down,
Browning backs and helping growth,
Bouncy ***** in coin machines,
Highlighters marking up a page.

Yellow is sunflowers,
And a bow in a child's hair.

Green is leaves dappled with sunlight,
Smelling cut grass in the early morning,
Apples tossed into the air,
Grasshoppers jumping when a shadow passes.

Green is the ding as the cashier hands change,
Receipts rolling out, tearable paper.

Blue is a thunderous wave,
Crashing against a pale shore,
Wearing at stone and land,
Seeping through the cracks.

Blue is a pen signing a piece of parchment,  
A snowflake touching an uncovered nose.

Purple is amethyst in a crown,  
The rustle of a cape against the floor,  
A gilded throne in a stone room,  
Jewels weighing down a smooth collarbone.  

Purple is a rosary clasped in fingers,  
An old's man's words as they touch the air and fall.  

Black is eyes that come from fiery depths,  
An aristocrat's smile,  
Empty rooms of an abandoned home,  
Tears falling on a wooden floor.  

Black is a scythe held in skeletal fingers,  
A scepter held beside a throne.

Grey is pressing keys and forming words,  
Clouds coming in from a dark sky,  
A belt worn in a triangle,  
Eyes that hold only one emotion.  

Grey is a pencil's lead snapping on paper,  
Drawn rain with no umbrella.

I am the only girl sitting in a deserted library.
Lonely girl, sad girl.
Girl who fills her mind with fantasy
and fiction.

The empty rows of shelves,
The unoccupied study cells.
She sees it all, but dreams of
Her comforting bed, her soft pillow.

The printer whirs, the night deepens
And the moon shines through the loose blinds.
Mismatched books, cluttered highlighters,
She has it all in front of her

But midnight strikes, and the tantalizing urge to
Procrastinate presses on her mind.

I smile so widely,
And there's a time I act so wildly.

People think I'm a happy go lucky person,
But not really it's only a different version.

I change from time to time.
People doesn't know my struggles.

Too many of them keep on saying that you should love yourself,
How am I going to love myself if I always felt the same way,
Wherein I felt like I'm just a trash.

I'm not degrading myself,
I'm just telling the truth.

Those mistakes hides on my jacket,
While keeping it on a locket.

Drowning myself on my own tears,
Makes me want to run like those cute deers.

People wasting their highlighters ink, on a book, highlighting the important details, while me highlighting the days that I cried a lot.

Behind those smiles,
is sadness.

So noisy, it’s crushing
Its songs; sad ones
happy ones, silly ones.
It's jokes; fallen pens,
****** texts, Durcan’s poetry.
None of these thoughts are helpful.
Not even by a little bit.
Pastel highlighters, a new pencil case
My jacket is green.
I did the bare minimum of Spanish
I organised a previous debate’s cards
My Irish notes glare at me.
My math's teacher won't give up.
I keep all of history in my head,
But not in a place I can access.
I can give you Sinn Fein manifesto
but not the sections of Mozart’s  
23rd concerto in A major.
The room is loud, but silent in  
Comparison to my argumentative mind.
Busy, so busy.
Nothing will be done.

China cat writing on grandma's pearls
Quarters turned into penny slots
A tired little look at
2 pm

Where oh where did the
brews go my friend
Where oh where did the
cigarettes burn
out

A simple smile over coffee
in the morning
A simple brush of her
hair

Lying in long leaf clover
for hours

A simple connection between
the cortex
A bullet for comparison
Where is the jettison button
for all the built up
****

Dice and pink highlighters
on your dreary
afternoon

Could you spread some of that
love over here?

It's the simple things I think I'd miss
The highlighters and neatly organized notes
The colored pens and the loose-leaf papers
The animals and the food
Raindrops on windows
The crunch of snow
Sun hitting my skin
And a fresh summer breeze