"kickball" poems
We used to swing under the big willow tree
We lived 3 doors down from each other
We were princesses who fought dragons
We could save the kingdom and find our prince by lunch time
Our moms laughed and talked about how cute we were
Four years old was a cute age
Fast forward a bit
We went into elementary school innocent and young
Boys had cooties
Girls had cooties
Kickball always ended with someone getting hit in the face
We would always sit out field and pick grass and shape it into a little birds nest
Life was good
Until your parents started fighting and I mean really fighting.
It scared me and I would have to go home
I would make you come with me
three doors down
Our moms didn’t laugh anymore
By Christmas break your parents were broken up and divorced
Eight years old was a confusing age
Junior high was mean.
Girls would rip you to shreds and then hang pieces of you on everyone’s lockers
Boys just wanted to make out
A whirlwind of uncontrolled hormones
We were the quiet ones
Always flew under the radar
Just trying to make it out alive
We found a little spot to eat lunch under the stairs where no one would go
We giggled and talked about boys who didn’t even know that we existed
I remember crying in the bathroom with you because people were brutal and we weren’t good enough
Our moms worried about us and how distant we were becoming
Thirteen years old was a sad age
Highschool is another story
You were put in the hospital for a month
I was left at school alone
I had to find more friends
I found most of them were fake
So I ate my lunch in a bathroom stall
Reading all the swear words that were carved in the wall
You were really sick and we grew apart
We were always close
We will always love each other
You tried to save me from myself
But I didn’t let you
Seventeen was an important age
Now we are at different colleges
I tried to **** myself while you were getting an A on your anatomy test
It’s sad
We don’t swing under the big willow tree or fight dragons anymore
Our moms hardly talk
You are a success
and I am a failure
We don’t really mesh
I miss you every day
I’m sorry I can’t be good enough for you
We were princesses who lived three doors down, we saved the kingdom.
I love you
I’m sorry this has faded
Just like everything else
Nineteen years old is a dying age.
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 4:23 AM UTC
i have not spoken to you in
four or six years but
the hex code for the color of your eyes
i could determine from:
strawberry-kiwi juice, thumb tacks
CD rainbows
softball (
and kickball, hours of it)
chicago in 2007, white pebbles like teeth, and converse shoes—
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:04 PM UTC
My mom
Tells me I'm a gift.
She says love
Is what keeps the atoms
In you and I
Is the moment
She caught my
Father's eye
Is the day
My grandfather died
With a candy kiss on his cheek
She had never tasted something so sweet.
When we were little
We played kickball,
The ground is lava
And hide-and-go-seek.
As I grew I knew most days,
It was harder to find myself;
Let alone somebody else.
And I have been around
Enough center city playgrounds
To see the rich
Pump every bit of spare change
In their veins fighting
A cancer that they
Never learned to put in their past.
To see the poor
Wage wars with themselves
Trying to pick up
Way too much,
Way too fast;
Nobody really knows how to make love last.
So put your prism your heart
Beneath the moonlight.
Refract the wavelengths
Of your wonders
Into ROYGB-eautiful like the sea,
It took a lot of jellyfish to let
people see through me.
And even more mirrors
To find a place I was comfortable
Praying in.
Fraying in doorways
Where I learned hope,
Is looking both ways
On a one way street
Cause it can be so easy to thank God
While you still have bread to eat.
I have never prayed
So hard for a healthy meal
Than the days I remember
The heart is a muscle;
And sometimes the only
Thing we need
Is to "work it out."
And I know that some days,
My doubt hangs my
Smile like Jesus Christ
I never quite learned
How to bleed right.
But if there's one thing
I found from cleaning
The crosses out of the
Empty hallway of my character
Is that you haven't experienced loss
Until you've held two outstretched arms
For years waiting for your innocence to come back.
Nothing, weighs more than the guilt of your past
And nothing throws punches
Faster than the ghost of who you used to be.
And I know it's hard
To stop looking for yourself
Under every bed you
Left nightmares in
And I know it's hard
To be comfortable
In your own skin
But sometimes bars
Aren’t the only thing
That builds a cage
And sometimes
The only way to live
With yourself
Is to stop digging
Your own grave.
You can spend years
Listening to morticians
And never get grounded.
Surrounded by the
Square roots we all share,
By the same air,
We've all got to learn to let go.
To learn that
Holding your breath
Has never been how
Living things
Learn to
Grow
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 4:57 PM UTC
Slow and steady wins the race
so please be patient with my heart,
I'm back to notebooks filled up past
the brim with simple love poems
and an empty bed to preach them to,
She has done and filled me up,
Put light back in my smile and
remembered that blue is my favorite color.
So even with hearts beating fast
playing kickball inside my ribcage,
I will walk slow, remember that
slow and steady will win the race,
So hold my heart, and teach it patience
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 11:59 PM UTC
Helpful.
Holding Hands.
Chatting over email.
Have a lot of fun.
Always there for each other.
Go getting manicures with each other.
Playing soccer and kickball with my friends.
We got to the movies,mall,and restaurants together.
Bella, Jenna, Darla, Saanvi, Rebecca,
Caitlin, Isabella, Thalia, Laxmi, Sophia.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 6:39 PM UTC
A square, white, four bedroom, one bath country home
With fourteen kids, parents and much family love
We didn’t have abundance: fiscally poor
But we had each other: banked on our family
We shared our victories and or trying pain
We were a modest Scottish Catholic Clan
Isolated, we were not to our immediate clan
Our uncle’s lived within a trot, fifteen in his home
We kids worked and played on the farm without pain
It was an adventurous labor of extended family love
We worked, laughed, cried, and played as a family
In the early years, we young ones were anything but poor
However, in grammar school, we learned the meaning of poor
And materialism and envy, outside our cloistered clan
But together we lived and loved as a close nit family
Sure we had disagreements, not material goods, but a solid home
White paint peeled on the outside, yet inside was painted love
Still, there were poverty jokes, ridicule and masked pain
Every family has strife, baggage, and superfluous pain
Our parents didn’t drink; we had faith, yet fiscally poor
Ole Dad plumbed toilets; Mom slaved in the house, both with love
So we wouldn’t trade riches for our impoverished meager clan
Summer berries to pick, winter sledding, spring kites, and forever home
Kickball games, splashing in ponds, nature hikes and family
We were not taught to show emotions, hug, not an “I love you family,”
Albeit, an honest, polite, and proud Scottish Clan
The old house was eternally warm; it was our forever home
Until 1999. Dad passed from cancer still money poor
Yet rich in the knowledge of family and that his true pain
Was never saying that word; on his deathbed he whispered “Love”
Though our patriarch was laid to rest, we rose with the word “Love”
Eventually, the house was sold, but always one huge family
Mom spends her days in a retirement home remembering her clan
As time passes and memories fades, it lessens the pain
Of the loss of a noble father, economically poor
Yet with a strong work ethic, church, and love, built a home
Fourteen children now forged fourteen homes on love
Many, still, financially poor, but rich in forever family
Correcting mistakes that caused pain, while perpetuating our clan
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 3:23 PM UTC
If only I had a grandson like you
I'd have a more perky spirit
I'd go to football games
soccer games
and cheer you on like crazy!
If only I had a granddaughter like you
I'd have a more perky spirit
I'd go to the festivals
cheerleader tryouts
and root for my number one!
If only I had a grandson like you
I'd do things like ne'er before
I'd play some kickball
jump on trampolines
and scream out for pure joy!
You know something?
I do..
have you!!
And I wouldn't have it
any other way!
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
and so my life rushes by.
no more razor scooter afternoons,
Barbie jeep and a kickball marathon,
walking home from school in spring, swinging a Powerpuff Girls backpack.
jumping on hot black trampolines, burning our small feet,
running to the park to see if we were able to hold on to monkey bars.
no more alligator tag evenings, falling down in wood chips but brushing it off-
I have always been a tough cookie.
and I become an adult soon enough, a victim of my own past and a
culprit of my future, but nothing in between.
Honda Civic and a movie marathon,
liquored-up nights,
high as the midnight sky, staring up at stars as far as the atlantic.
Jul 17, 2011
Jul 17, 2011 at 4:40 PM UTC
life used to be so simple
wake up in the morning, have some cereal
walk to school all excited
you got to see your friends after all
recess was such a blessing
20 minutes of fresh air, playing tag or kickball
girls had cooties so you pretended you were too cool to hangout with them
and they giggled and pointed and teased you
but that meant they liked you, and it made you smile
after school you'd play in the yard
leaping from surface to surface, cause the ground was lava, and you couldn't fall
joy was so easy to come by
hardship was a runny nose, or wheat bread for your lunch
and the cuts on your arms were from crawling in a rose bush
chasing butterflies with a mindless passion
dinner was a time for family
you could talk about your day, spend time with dad
and after, maybe everyone would watch tv together
laughing and smiling
life was so simple back then
why'd it have to change?
now you don't wake up in the mornings
because you couldn't sleep last night
the demons didn't let you
breakfast?
you haven't had that in years; you never have the time
you still walk to school, but now its a slow, weary trudge
because you are dreading the hours you spend in a perfect hell
anxiety ridden, stress filled, insult filled torture
recess doesn't exist anymore
because when you are older, they decide you don't need it
now the guys you used to hangout with think they are too cool for you
they are off chasing girls, because that is what they;re supposed to do
and the girls? well, they still call you names
but somehow, ****** doesn't make you smile quite like "butthead" did
after school you trudge home and stare at a screen
killing time, trying to find anything to distract yourself
so you don't have to consider reality
because nowadays, the ground really is like lava
and if you walk in it wrong, all those ugly problems will rear their heads
being sick is normal; you have worse things to deal with
because dad sleeps on the couch, and mom's smiles never reach her eyes
and the cuts on your arms?
you tell people it was some rose bushes you stumbled in walking home
but in all honestly, you put them their yourself in the depths of the night
after another dinner you skipped, because being fat is a sin
and family time is gone, you spend the night alone
brooding and sobbing
a hopeless wreck, unable to find the joy you used to have
life used to be so simple
I guess all good things had to end
Mar 31, 2013
Mar 31, 2013 at 4:15 AM UTC
Grass stains
Growing pains
Tetherball
Kickball
New swear words
Detention
Girlfriends
Best friends
Pizza parties
Saying "No" to drugs
(Eventually saying "Yes")
Ketchup on the ceiling at lunch
Detention
Pencil stuck in the ceiling
Detention
Scraped knees
Snowball fights
Fist fights
Detention
Life's lessons
Early on
Dealing with bullies
Being a bully
Detention
Being stubborn
But growing up
Learning things the hard way
Detention
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 3:26 PM UTC
You are not the ocean because I do not know that well,
you are not a meadow nor a stroll around the park.
None of these things mean much to me, although
they're beautiful in and of themselves.
You are the scent of incense that used to attack my nose,
eventually I craved it, now the smoke in my room grows.
You are laying on my back in the middle of the road
a kickball flying over me, no worries in the world.
You are a caterpillar making it's way across the street,
climbing onto my open palm so that we may personally meet.
Suction cup feet, pipe in it's mouth a formal way of greeting me.
You tickle my taste buds like peta chips,
you're like sleeping through Christmas morning
(something I could never miss
on purpose,
but if I'm tired enough, I might accidentally oversleep.)
You are grass with ants on each blade
but I lay in you anyway
roll around
breathe
it in
laugh, think,
when did this begin?
When I stopped appreciating little things.
The freezing water of a pool in the shade,
baked beans and a fire place.
New York City vendors
selling handicrafts.
My town written down
tucked away with other maps.
You are
an apple all sliced up without the skin,
you are the worm inside it, too.
Where did this begin?
You are a tree,
now trace my roots,
later trace my skin.
But only when I've figured out
what's missing from within.
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 2:30 PM UTC
There will come a day
When all of the colors fade
to grey
When all of the flowers
In the garden start to wilt
When everyday is cloudy.
The headlines hold names
Of kids you grew up playing kickball with
Being killed by people who thought
That one more drink wouldn’t do any harm.
People who thought that a party
Was more important than
Everyone else on the road.
Now,
We have a four year old boy whose mama
Won’t see him graduate preschool
We have an eighteen year old girl whose daddy
Won’t see her graduate high school.
We have teachers
Who don’t know how to educate
To a classroom full of students
Who have so many questions.
But the legal limit isn’t taught in textbooks.
This isn’t whether or not you feel
That the law applies to you.
This is life or death.
This is Russian Roulette with a bottle.
This is driving blindfolded
With the music on too loud.
This is a four year old boy
Who still doesn’t understand
What Heaven is.
This is an eighteen year old girl
Who’s wearing her graduation dress
To her father’s funeral.
The dress that her father helped her pick out.
He said,
“You know, sweetheart, I always loved you in black.”
This is crying for someone
You never met.
This is military homecomings or
Babies smiling for the first time.
Except in reverse.
This is military homecomings in a box.
This is babies crying for a mother
Who cannot comfort them.
This is empty spaces in a poem
Where words should be.
This is “I just saw them yesterday.”
This is “I’m sorry for your loss.”
This is...
not knowing what the right thing to say is.
She still had clothes in the washing machine.
He had a T-Time for next Thursday.
We had a dinner reservation next Friday.
This is knowing that he will never have a birthday again.
This was not something I was expecting
I mean, who would?
Photographs can’t capture a lifetime.
They may be worth a thousand words,
But you my dear are worth so much more.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 9:43 PM UTC
Out of all the hysteria that unraveled
My sanity was the kickball lost in the neighbors garden
Too embarrassed to recover
One backpack strap over the shoulder made each step a dance
hips swaying trying to retain balance
as if that was something of a friend that i knew i would someday meet
Each stride- each left right glide didn't make trotting a positive feat
The sleet of sleep that rested on the bottoms of my eyes made me blind to the consciousness of others
It was not the cracks in the concrete that caused every trip
just legs struck out,just little "slips"
Another layer of confusion lamenting
My brain had disney stickers slapped onto every ridge and every gap
Nobody mentioned they were supposed to look like that
Underneath were throbbing aches
A hostile home versus what the media had shown
was school to become another danger zone
Yes.
I'll tell you now,years later some may try to atone
The slight dominance they had felt over you will be overthrown
Once you learn to make your own laughter the world will be your oyster
that will be your umbrella for every drop of moisture that falls
So trot through those doors,
soon will come the adolescence wars
right now though you're only five years old
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 6:39 AM UTC
You were hungry tonight at midnight
And woke me up out of a dead sleep
For the fifth time in a row,
But I got up and fed you,
And that’s okay,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
Today you started to walk
And thought I was crazy
Because I videoed you
And talked about how that
Big guy named Daddy,
Who’s been here since day one,
Wasn’t here to see.
And I was squealing
The whole time.
But that’s okay,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
Today you started to talk
And your first word was
“Ma-ma"
And I laughed and cried
But that’s okay,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
Then you learned how to ride a trike
And soon after that a bike.
You looked at me like I was nuts
After I said something about how
You were growing up too fast.
But that’s okay,
Because that’s what’s Mommies do.
When you are ten,
And you’re upset
Because you played kickball
And you were picked last,
I won’t tell you it’s no big deal,
Because Mommy knows just how you feel.
I’ll tell you it’s their loss,
But I know right now,
It feels like yours.
Then I’ll hug you and we’ll get icecream
And talk about how we’ve never liked kickball anyway,
And that’s okay,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
Today I told you
That’s it’s okay to be mad
And it’s okay to be sad.
But when you’re mad,
Count to ten and
When very mad one hundred,
Just like Jefferson said,
And don’t let anger
Get the best of you.
When you’re mad
And you don’t know what to do
And the mad you have makes you feel sad,
You can come sit in my lap, even when you’re twenty-two,
And we’ll try to talk it through,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
When you’re sixteen,
And you like someone
But you don’t want to,
Because it doesn’t fit the Five-year plan,
I’ll tell you how I had a Five-year plan
But I met Daddy in Year Two
And a week before Year Three,
I knew he was the one for me.
So before Year Three
Was halfway done,
Daddy and I
Had the same last name.
And by Year Five,
Daddy and I found out
Soon there would be
A little baby in our house.
I’ll tell you how sometimes your dreams change
From traveling to Greece,
To wiping tear-stained cheeks
And that’s okay,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
When you go off to college,
Or maybe to China,
Like your aunt did,
To take care
Of babies who
Don’t have mommies,
Or wind up in the army
To protect your country,
Like your uncle,
I’ll be waving goodbye
And crying
Because it feels like
Part of me is dying
But that’s okay,
Because that’s what Mommies do.
Jul 9, 2013
Jul 9, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
You left me like chocolate raindrops hitting a river of mud flowing through a Saint Valentine's Day wet dream.
You left me like the last surviving, half naked girl running through the forest, during a 1980's
Friday the 13th movie marathon.
You left me like the last piece of pizza, that no one eats, that remains in the open box, that sits on the coffee table all night, after a college kegger fest.
You left me like when your wife leaves her wedding ring on her nightstand, while she goes out to her best friend's Bachelorette party at a strip joint.
You left me like the only kid in your class that never got picked for a game of kickball during noon recess in elementary school.
You left me like the backwash in the bottom of soda can as you offer me a drink, knowing there were no more sodas left in the fridge.
You left me like you do all the crumbs you leave in a nearly empty, wrinkled bag of chips after you were playing World of Warcraft for 16 hours.
You left me like the last match in book of matches as we try to start a fire during a family camping trip, then it starts to rain.
You left me like you did your last boyfriend with a long text that was meant for me, but you actually sent it to my mom.
You left me like the last petal on a thorny rose bush that clinges onto it's last thread to the branch that holds it, during a severe thunderstorm.
You left me like ... one second.
(Scratching my head)
Pause, never mind.
Thank God, You are Gone!!
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 1:44 AM UTC
Perhaps it’s the chemicals
In the mulch
Or the heat of the sun
Or that it’s Friday
But I want to grip monkey bars,
Just once
Hovering over
freshly baked plastic
and burn my ***
Or scream that I’m it and
slap some chubby bully kid-
run like the cool wind
Thank gosh I am quick.
Impress Kylie with my
Kickball Kick
Or cry on the swings-
the playground’s gallows,
When I learn she is moving
come the fall.
Leaves roll in,
dragged in waves across pavement
Queens of the universe
speed by
late for classes in some far off world where there is no recess
But my time
is kept
by bright bells
The clanging of metal,
distant shrieks,
Tall red beams and
lines of dumb ducklings.
It begins with a voice
And ends with a sliding slam of
a Silver Chrysler door
It is sustained by light thunder
Of feet pounding woodchips
Leaving dust in the seams of jeans
My mother bought me at Kohl’s last week.
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 7:02 PM UTC
She is like children’s shampoo you had at age four.
“Tear free.”
But when in your eyes,
The tears still stream.
She is like scented markers from kindergarten classrooms.
Foreshadowing when you’ll be sniffing things that will make you lose yourself,
And maybe lose everyone else, too.
She is like sidewalk chalk you drew with in the first grade.
Entertaining for the weekend,
But easily washed off with the rain.
She is a 9/10 on a second grade spelling test.
So close, but not enough.
She is the inflated stomach you had in third grade,
When all the kids would call you names and picked you last for kickball.
She is the time you threw up in fourth grade,
Because being “Fatso” wasn’t who you were.
Or wanted to be.
She is the countless sleepless nights in fifth grade,
Wondering if you were running away, or running to something.
She is the blood stained sheets from sixth grade,
The time you named a razor after your ex-best friend,
Who left you for the blonde bombshells.
She is the time in seventh grade,
When suddenly the sleeping pills your mom took looked more like candy than meds
So you had a few,
And ended up in a hospital bed.
She is everything you wanted to forget.
And yet somehow,
She brings you solace after a life not well spent.
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 8:17 PM UTC
I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult, in order to accept the responsibilities of a 6-year-old.
The tax base is lower.
I want to be six again.
I want to go to McDonald's and think it's
the best place in the world to eat.
I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle
and make waves with rocks.
I want to think M&Ms; are better than money,
because you can eat them.
I want to play kickball during recess and stay up on Christmas Eve waiting to hear Santa and Rudolph on the roof.
I long for the days when life was simple.
When all you knew were your colors, the addition tables and simple nursery rhymes, but it didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know, and you didn't care.
I want to go to school and have snack time, recess, gym and field trips.
I want to be happy, because I don't know what should make me upset.
I want to think the world is fair and everyone in it is honest and good.
I want to believe that anything is possible.
Sometime, while I was maturing, I learned too much.
I learned of nuclear weapons, prejudice, starving and
abused kids, lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain and mortality.
I want to be six again.
I want to think that everyone, including myself,
will live forever, because I don't know the concept of death.
I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life and
be overly excited by the little things again.
I want television to be something I watch for fun,
not something used for escape from the things I should be doing.
I want to live knowing the little things that I find exciting
will always make me as happy as when I first learned them.
I want to be six again.
I remember not seeing the world as a whole, but rather
being aware of only the things that directly concerned me.
I want to be naive enough to think that if I'm happy, so is everyone else.
I want to walk down the beach and think only of the sand beneath my feet
and the possibility of finding that blue piece of sea glass I'm looking for.
I want to spend my afternoons climbing trees and riding my bike, letting
the grownups worry about time, the dentist and how to find the money to fix the car.
I want to wonder what I'll do when I grow up and what I'll be,
who I'll be and not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out.
I want that time back.
I want to use it now as an escape, so that when my computer crashes,
or I have a mountain of paperwork, or two depressed friends, or a fight
with my spouse, or bittersweet memories of times gone by, or second thoughts about so many things, I can travel back and build a snowman, without thinking about anything except whether the snow sticks together
and what I can possibly use for the snowman's mouth.
I want to be six again.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 3:47 AM UTC
When I was little,
We would play kickball
In the cul-de-sac.
You would scold me
While I was in the outfield,
Told me not to puppy-guard
The bases.
I told you to run faster.
Last night,
You wouldn’t let me
Leave, wouldn’t let
Me sleep alone.
I told you not to puppy guard
My heart,
To have faith in yourself,
In me, in us.
I told you not to puppy guard my heart.
You told me to love faster.
I told you I couldn’t.
You seemed broken, frozen.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 7:30 PM UTC
I walk down Dillon street,
sun baking cement
and aging wooden doors.
No grass grows in this
mania of row homes
and crowded restaurants
save the few brave weeds
peeking out of cracks
in the sidewalk.
Father Kolbe School:
stands as a rose growing
in the midst of this barren
bar-studded desert.
Dozens of children play
kickball in its roped off intersection:
theirs for thirty minutes a day;
laughter of future senators
and junkies clad in clean
pressed blouses and plaid jackets.
In these moments
they can shriek and relax,
so few years before they sweat
over non-sufficient funds and
that shaky feeling that comes
from the ache of more;
more money more coffee
more time.
I should know, my forehead
is often soaked to the bone.
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 9:46 AM UTC
I was born little, and I grew up a little.
In a small house in Boston,
where I grew up with a mouth full of Skittles
in a town where it was so simple to get lost in.
9 New Whitney Street, constructed of brick and knee scrapes.
We grew and we learned how to say hello to each other without ever actually speaking.
We played hide-and-seek with our knee high socks,
because we found pleasure by slipping and falling to our favorite hiding spots.
It was an average life.
We danced through the streets to our favorite parks,
Each containing a strong color that we would each label through our child-like dialogue
Red park—Monkey bars & pull up contests
Yellow park—Tire swings & puke-infested children slides
Green Park—Two hour kickball series & poison ivy ankle blisters.
When they'd come home from work,
my mom would always come to my room to check that I was there,
and not out collecting memories in these colorful parks.
My dad would slam his face onto our couch pillow,
his frail body parallel to the sofa,
With an unopened Heineken in his palm and his eyes glared on Larry King.
They said hello to each other without ever opening to their mouths.
And on nights, when it would drop below freezing,
my mother would wrap the plants she made earlier that day into blankets,
and drag the tall ones inside.
On those freezing nights, my father would wrap the pipes with tape,
and allow them to drip throughout the night,
it was an average life.
Nothing more or less special than the families we were surrounded by.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 5:27 PM UTC
Scabby fixes on brick trinities
Nouveau riche social climbers
empty holes
rubbled interims' morning glories
rats jovial
Someone's been killing the cats
Three half squares broken open
Shorn wallpaper on each
Large machinery
downing old world's new world
Kickball is
only legend to internet urchins
Sitting on stoops
punching thumbs on cellular
apparatus for the ages
Doohickey haves
Doohickey have-nots
If there must be urban renewal
leave me cherry Italian water ice
at a buck a pop
I don't much care for
Cold Stone Creameries'
Green Tea and Lychee Martinis
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 2:34 PM UTC
The clouds were laying flat on the rooftops and the mountains, smelling toxic and too clean, roses and lemons. The tears streaming down my face dripped in time with the math metal kick drum and fast crashes. It wasn't snowing, it was just nuclear fallout laying, staining the mountain tops. We opened the drawers and water rushed out, flooding the office, the whole **** apartment. I waded through the waist deep, ink stained memories now rushing over my legs. Disappearing.
The next day was sunny, and we snuck on the roof to read the numbers on the tops of city buses. Together, wearing each other's clothes, oddly discontent with our divestments. We saw the rain steam off the sidewalks from our designated spaces, perched above the crowds of swagger, staggering college students below. The blue and gold was overwhelming - we hid under blankets, curled against each other, kickball and four square on our minds.
I've been screaming for hours, pulling the acrylic off of my shortened fingernails, coming up with plots, ways to shut you up. The graphs are old and borrowed and coffee-stained, like the textbooks pulled so lovingly from the bottoms of boxes in attics and basements. I will continue to wait until the times you decided on, I will continue to wait.
My yawns were wasted on you, the subtleties of conversation breaking your kneecaps and knocking you over. Yellows and greens, parodies and satire, video games, hours spent in ***** beds. The chaos of a youth untamed. The chaos of a youth forgotten.
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 4:49 PM UTC
I’m afraid to die.
There, I said it.
My greatest fear is dying.
What the hell kind of fear is that,
it’s like being afraid of a sunrise,
or of black eyes,
Something that’s gonna happen,
and something that doesn’t hurt after.
For years I convinced myself it was gonna miss me,
but this ain’t kickball, and gettin chose last is the same as gettin chose.
"I could die right now, I could die while reading this."
It’s terrifying, don’t you think, that we could die at any time?
There my heart goes on its Zanzibar drum solo.
And it’s crippling too.
Because you can’t move past that fear and do something else,
what’s the **** point of even thinking of anything?
We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die.
What should I do now?
Doesn’t matter gonna die.
What about my dream?
Doesn’t matter gonna die.
Will I be remembered…
… doesn’t matter, still gonna be dead.
It makes every other fear bearable, no, romantic.
Living alone, being unloved, being unremembered: how the hell is that scary?
Each offers insight into character, the beautiful motivation of self reliance and self understanding is what led to that deep understanding of humanity, these thoughts drove
Thoreau,
dead
Whitmen,
dead
Dickenson,
dead.
dead dead dead dead dead dead dea.
they are all dead!
and what the hell did they do to deserve it—what will I do?
Nothing.
I'm still paralyzed.
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 7:25 AM UTC
I see my naked reflection painted on the glass as I look out upon the night sky
the delicate sparkles make me smile like a little girl, lost in a daydream
The pungent smell of farmland gone bad disrupts the serenity of my scene
But no bother
I will not let the grandeur be tainted
As I gaze out at the romantic splendor
The song in the background transports me to a time when I danced with reckless abandonment
when my main priority was a game of kickball or maybe a long bike ride where I got lost in myself til the fading light of day guided me home.
Youth is never lost on the young if you pay attention
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 12:18 PM UTC