if i could, i would
grow you a whole field of sunflowers
and take your hand
and run with you across the dirt
with our bare feet
and our hearts pumping
and our chests heaving
and if i could,
i would make sure that:
every one of your endings is a happily ever after

I was chicken
dropped only a half tab--a quarter before midnight  
and hurried back to my apartment
before the day changed    

from a Monday
to a ruby Tuesday  
where my walls melted
and music smelled like sassafras;
the flickering flares of light from two fat candles  
tasted like toasted almonds    

every eternal hour, or minute,
or so, I would try to tiptoe down the hall  
past the sleeping neighbors who were all dreaming
of me, skulking past their locked doors

but I never made it to the street
a feat that would have demanded
I stop giggling, and my heart stop thumping
for any pig or narc could have seen
my crimson machine pumping
ready to fly from my chest    

dawn did finally come--I was
coming down, down from the floor
on which I had lain from the minute
a ferocious fly dive bombed me
somewhere around three  

I walked to the corner grocery store
where I bought pan dulce, and was glad the clerk
spoke no English, for surely she would have asked me
to tell her how I survived such an aerial assault  
in peacetime

Stepping into another realm
where pain and sadness and happiness gladness
and regret bear no acceptance,
and are left at the door as I left at the door
my sanity, my humanity, my will to breathe.
Floating among shadows of past and of lives so far away.
Lives so forgotten and memories of childhood bliss
and content now become
droplets of terror
which form holes in time,
gaps in my life as the presence
which once existed in those gaps no longer exists in my world.
Walking among these shadows
and seeing the blankness in their eyes,
their hollowed shells rise and walk alongside me,
beckoning me.
Frivolous eyes of null draw the life from within me.
Life and organs and blood pumping
throughout a numbed body
as my organs transform before escaping.
Heart frosting over,
icicles forming,
further numbing my already numbed existence.
Veins like blackened highways of broken stone
crackle becoming dust
before seeping through my pores,
forever leaving my body.
The rest of me exits anyway it can
until I become a shell,
walking among shells,
casting shadows among shadows
and becoming a shade among shades.

I want to take 2am walks through towns so small,
that cops are sleeping instead of keeping watch,
and street lights glow only dimly because  no
respectable person would need their guidance at this hour.

I want to tell teachers that their textbooks make me tired,
challenge them to teach me every subject with the trunk of a stately oak tree.
One that has seen more than we could ever craft into notes or test questions,
and breathes out a life source healthier for us than the toxic tangents
lingering in this academic air space.

I want to take my romantic notions of life
and press them into the pages of a non-fiction book,
so that when you tell me I'm naive,
I can present you with the research
that keeps your cubicle heart pumping.

I want to cleanse your body of its lead paint logic,
and use my lips to tattoo all the natural beauty
you've missed behind classroom doors.

I want to show you the beauty of broken glass in small town alley ways.

"Turn back the pages of history,
and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs,
but they lived rather than existed,"
said Hunter S. Thompson
at age 17,

before he became The Duke,
and shaved off a leg in Doonsbury cartoons,
before he rapped the sharp corner of his shot glass,
so too many times,
on the inch thick enamel,
of the Woody Creek Tavern bar top,
and waited until closing time
to begin blowing lines,
out of the divets he'd made.

The people clapping,
the moon attacking,
the red bone blood of America pumping past his eyes.


After he died, everyone there had a Hunter story:

Hunter shot his hot girl assistant in the *** by mistake,
but he felt like **** about it.

Hunter had a dozen red cheeked lasses he skied with,
but he never messed with them.

Hunter showed up in a Cadillac convertible packed with
strippers dressed burlesque.

But it was hard to tell just exactly what he was up to with
the strippers, the peacocks,
or anything else.

Alot of the stories had ****** implications,
but what they mostly implied
was he was cool about it.
He didn't write any of those stories.

Despite all evidence to the contrary he liked his privacy,
and what peace he found in rare quiet.
And he made **** sure they'd shoot his ashes
out of a ******* canon when he died.

The canon is still there.
So are the peacocks.

on this day in 1969, Denton Cooley implemented the first artificial heart
into a human whose nature was slowly failing and falling apart
blood barely pumping under electric skin
fake skin pumping blues under rubber valves and tubes
it kept his breath for
64 hours.

I imagine his family watched the light leave his eyes
and not even love or divine intervention
could beat him back to equilibrium
wires surging through him
your body is not science project
it's a miracle
but I guess it's conditional
because some people see the light too soon
when not even artificial life
can keep you from dying

even with robotic models
clinking clanking
subconscious
pounding veins into submission
keep this miracle alive
revived
it's not cheating Mother Nature
it's not cheating your life
beating pressed against the odds
artificial body
artificial feelings
love
isn't even a feeling
it's a combination of chemicals
connected in your brain
but I wonder if that human felt his rubber heart breaking
when he saw the tears in the eyes of his family
these aren't emotions
imitation life can fake
even though not all of me is here,
I still feel like nothing ever left me
they didn't know
I would leave so soon
64 hours
I could wake up a robot
I could wake up a miracle
either way
I'll be gone in 32 more hours
when a brand new heart
infects my blood
you didn't finish the job
but you held me over
beating on my chest for me
blue blood pumping
but I guess I forgot how to do it on my own
when my own heart should have never even left me

Walking on a river’s bank
Looking inward
I pause with fear

Turning over rocks
May not
Soothe my heart

There may be mysteries and
Fears waiting
Amid joyous realizations
Waiting in the warmth
Of the ground

Sensing what is about me
Intaking all that is
Allowed to transform
Like I’m pumping
an accordion’s bellows

Breathing in and out while
Each of my senses
Alerts me to what
Surrounds me

I want to feel those things
That are pieces of me  
But do not define me

Have you ever felt sometimes that you were not alive - living a life that has no meaning. A life where the world has come to an end - the kind of ending where colors have disappeared.

Have you ever felt sometimes that you were loved but loneliness has suffocated you so much that you could not even feel the warmth of the loved ones anymore?

I've always felt like I needed to be strong - for the ones I loved but lately I've felt the strength leaving my bones.  I've felt like I could not give up on the people that surrounded me - but why does my life seems to be so empty?

Of all the goals I've achieved the past years - I should be tremendously proud  but the only time I felt really alive was when I took ecstasy.

Feeling the rush through my veins again - feeling the music pumping through my heart and soul - I felt like I could die. I felt like I could die of a delusional happiness.  What is happiness?

I almost forgot what it was when I met my first love - but when I came back to my senses - when I fell out of love I realized that loving was being able to cope with the solitude within myself. It is about loving yourself and being able to bare with the demons inside of you. I felt like I could go crazy - waking up with this unbearable pain inside of me. I do not know why or how I cannot stand the fact of being by myself - always searching for someone to warm the side of my bed and text me in the morning to feel like - I EXIST.  I AM HERE.  I AM SOMEONE.

Deep down I know I don't need someone to tell me who I am - I know I shouldn't find someone to make me feel alive - because it is my responsibility to find my own peace of mind.

It is my responsibility to bring myself happiness and joy - but I wish truly to find the strength to move on because I do not want to feel this way anymore. I do not want to feel this empty anymore. I do not want to feel lonely anymore. So please hurry up darling and love yourself already - life is so beautiful please don't give up now.

I will always be here for you even when you feel like there is no light, when you feel there is no hope - I will hold your hand.
Press it against your heart - feel the heartbeat - feel the life inside your chest.

You are here with me and I love you.

- Myself

An inch away you stood
You stared so deeply into the oceans in my eyes
so indefinitely into my soul
I'll never forget the way you smiled when you finally turned away
An entire minute of you indulging in my presence, of all things
You knew me in sixty seconds
And I never thought I would care for someone with the entirety of my being
The way I effortlessly cared for you in that instant
Everything viewed in black and white until I met you
Your persona so technicolour, the way you swayed in front of the sunset
Your fire burning heart, pumping the blood that keeps you alive just to let you stand in front of me
Taking long, smooth drags of your cigarette hoping for a quicker death, just to reincarnate all over again
And that hair, baby that hair
I could get lost in curls like those, and I didn't refrain from doing so
I shared words with you I thought I would never share with another living person
I always believed in not sharing things with anything with a tongue, but you were different
My lungs felt larger, as if they could expand to let in every bit of oxygen of the universe to let me breathe just to speak to you
Just to feed you knowledge, share with you everything you wanted to know, and refused to walk away without
I could listen to your voice for hours
Whether you spoke or sang, the serenity of words leaving your gentle lips kept me
Alive
We could drive for days in my car, we could get more lost than Alice in that maze in wonderland
But it would not matter because we were together
That is all that ever truly mattered
It was like an addiction
We needed each other to breathe
I found myself smoking your cigarettes when you weren't around to cloak me in your secondhand smoke
Or I'd search for your cologne tinged in ***** clothes from days I had been encompassed by you
I could look at the moon and know **** well you were doing the same
and thinking of me in the same moment as I was thinking of you
You left trash in my car for days and I wouldn't touch it
I left it there just to have a piece of you when there was no sign of you for weeks
How pathetic
Your energy resonated through my whole body and I longed to feel your warmth
I could hear you whisper every night as I rest my head to my pillow
and I dreamt of tracing your veins and kissing your collar bone all night long
The day we met, you intrigued me with transient sentences
Elusive, leaving me begging for more
You should come with a warning label
It would read; May cause trouble breathing. May tie knots in your stomach
Laugh might be addicting. Eyes might steal your soul in one minute
Just one minute
One inch
That's all I gave
You took a mile

Heart beats, pumping blood
Fluid, pulsating, giving life
Dark with the smell of iron
Sticky, heavy... Tasty
It has a price

Live just in the shadows
Alleys and cul-de-sacs
Always out of sight
Carefully, casting no reflections
Leaving no echoes in the night
Smelling it's deep taste
From far out of sight

When I press you
Close against my chest
For a moment, beats match mine
Tip back your pretty head
Give me your throat

Part your lips, hiss my name
Close your big doe eyes
Let your hair hang back
Reach back, wrap your arms around
Dig your fingers into my thigh
Flicking my tongue along
Tasting your beating pulse

Opening wide, closing my eyes
I can feel it's heat
Skin so thin
Along your
Neck...

Lost in the moment
A kiss, along the neck
You'll not feel a thing
Endorphins rushing
Dopamine levels rise
For you, but for me
You're lunch

I've never thought this way before
My cynliders are in another direction
I can feel my defection
To my older ways
Now I feel there must be change
To compensate for your well being
And that's a golden feeling
You're working wonders and you never expected it
I am more than happy
To go lovey dovey and sappy
That's who I was and who I will be
Way too much darkness encroaching upon us now
I just hope that you can keep my lights going
And my heart pumping clear oxygen
Your smile already makes me hate the situations I get put in, less.
You make my pain less
You reduce all the worst parts about me.
I think I'll become your dream when you already think I am.

I take the long way home
just desperate to feel
those butterflies
that I felt leaving your house
rushing to get home
before midnight would
break.

On the way home
my lips would continue
to tingle from each
breath rolling off yours
to seep into my lungs
because you'd give me
extra air to live longer
when only you knew
that I secretly wished
away my last breaths
so I could disappear.

On the way home,
I'd actually turn down
the radio so my mind
could trace over you body
on top of mine
and I would smile
as the moon cast light
through my car.

On the way home,
my chest would continue
to beat to the rhythm
of your blood pumping
because you were my
life support
feeding me breaths
and words that
made my cheeks flush
and my stomach rise
lifting my head too
because I was once buried.

Now, on the way home,
my lips quiver to dodge
myself from yelling out
your name.

Now, on the way home,
I make the radio scream
our melodies so my
mind cannot focus
to retrace the maze
of your body.

Now, on the way home,
my heart struggles
to remember how
to beat in unison
when it used to be pressed
against your chest
and being obsessed with
that force of pressure
keeping me compacted
together so I wouldn't
set fire to my lungs
and melt away forever.

Now, on the way home,
my head refuses to listen
to my stomach
and it turns to face
your house
and I hurt.

Now, on the way home,
my eyes mist
in the presence
of her car in
your driveway
parked where my car
use to sleep at night
when we'd become on
from dusk
till dawn.

Now, on the way home,
I remember back before you,
where I'd fight my breathing
to make it stop
so I could stop forever...
You saved me
from myself,
but now, on the way home,
I cannot turn into your
driveway anymore.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. By maya angelou

Scared, eyes are heavy.
Adrenaline pumping fast.
Horror excites me.

standing in a city that's constantly trying to abort its breath, we're looking at the sky

we might be defined to repeat fist-pumping anthems and tragic falls. all of them, no returns.

and you ask me, "don't you want to start over and look anywhere but at me?" that question again, and my answer is always no.

oh, baby boy, lift your headache head...

remnants of our past? oh they burn all right, fire roaring, smoke choking. they're just waiting for the next rain to put them to sleep

then they sleep, and it's morning. time to start again.

you'll be a stranger again and even though i'm choking on their ashes, i will not recognize you.

pump your fists. we'll fall again without a clue.

returning from a social meeting
lightly stepping on a deserted street
there is no streetlight to guide my feet

though bundled up tight for a cold night
my face feels the crispy wind is making the skin flake
as an intense blowing shear takes a bite
wasn't this the short cut i used to take
i tell myself there is nothing to fear
but my monkey mind is pumping hard
asking how i got here

a winged shadow appeared when i stopped
i nearly peed my pants doing a side step dance
but reason held out as it was just a concrete molding
in the moon's trance
from a building on the right - up top

i hear a single, solitary, solo drum in the distance
maybe someone to help identify my last mindless turn
lightly stepping on this deserted street
attention is paid to the increasing beat
is the brain asking for faster feet
then when i focus
it's my own **** heartbeat
i tell myself there is nothing to fear
but my monkey mind is amping and freaking
asking how i got here

a dislogded, free minded, loudly rolling can
rattled my lunch
breathe breathe breathe
follow that black and grey two toned cat
surely it has a hunch

three echoing shots
followed by a gut level scream
now i am completely locked in
is this a dream

to reconnect and find my way home
i vow to never ever again
forget my phone

it seems much colder
as i turn another corner
following the sounds of the sirens
i tell myself there is nothing to fear
but my monkey mind is hurting now
asking where are these environs

blood was everywhere
the street, the windows, the walls
first responders were in slow motion
but at least they answered the call
i tell myself there is nothing to fear
but my monkey mind is out of control
asking how i got here

One. Realize your heart has been broken
Take responsibility for the ***** inside of you
And how it's job of pumping blood into your lungs has gotten harder
It's okay to forget how to breathe as long as you're learning new things
Two. Learn new things
Pick up a book and read it to the very end
When you don’t feel like going to class, go anyways
Do not let the fatigue and agony keep you from gaining other important things
Three. Get very drunk
I know we are supposed to worry about getting stronger
But no one starts at the top of the ladder
Waiting in line is the world's most popular past time
Get sloppy and wild, let your inner goddess guide your heavily intoxicated nature
Forget their name right before you forget your own
Let someone else relinquish their fingerprints all over your frame
Cover up the old paint with new wallpaper
It's okay to remember all the things you once never thought to consider
Four. Write.
Write and then write some more
And even if all of it sounds the same do not fret
Because sometimes there are only so many ways to describe being defeated
Having the fire within you go out to its core
Let the smoke coming from your throat gain purpose by putting it on paper
Five. Make blueprints.
You cannot build something from scratch without planning ahead
You will probably not remember much of your life before them
So start a new, rebuild old friendships, revive old hobbies
The possibilities are endless with a blank sheet of paper
Accept your new reality without resentment.
Six. Start anew.
Fall out of love with them
With every gentle touch mimicking a lullaby putting you to sleep in their arms
Forget the laugh that filled every molecule of oxygen you ever breathed
Forget the weight of passion
Kiss as many people as you need to get the stamp of their lips off your brain
Seven. There is no way to manage heart break
It is consuming and clingy
It locks you up inside of its prison and you swear this will be a life sentence but don't let it
Heartbreak is not about trying to convince yourself that you don't miss it
It's about limiting the amount of things you would do to get it back
On some days you swear you would jump off of a building
And on others you wouldn't even take off your nail polish
It's not that this is supposed to be easy, it is only testing your endurance
Realize that you are in prison
And learn how to pick the lock

My burning blood is pumping
please don't drink me dry
but I love you biting me
your love macabre

My mistress of the night
I always want to kiss your ruby lips
I taste you in the wind
and I know you are within

Oh my dark love, my entry
my secrets of secrets
I have now become you
and you my love have become me

Together forever and a day
entwined to our sweet death
we are in a all out dying bid
then our lives end, love macabre


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

I will wear you until the threads begin twiddling into former ghosts of themselves.

The last wooly remnants still slightly smell like your woodsy scent and that’s why I don’t go camping anymore.

It’s not because I hate the thought of you but I’ve Always hated kicking someone down when they’re just beginning to get back up and the thought of you does that to me.

The memory of that truck doused in flames on the way to Washington remains in my overworked brain still. The smell of burnt, charcoaled tires and metal prominent in the chilly December air. I never feared fire until I put myself in the shoes of that lonesome truck driver and that was the night I wanted to try dying a little as an attempt to get closer to you.

You see it’s not death that paralyzes my emotions and sends me into a numb, fearful state. The thought of regrets and things left unsaid with people, that didn’t understand what I was going through at the time is what gets my anxiety pumping.
Oh, why do I wear this sweater despite the warmth outside? To thaw the frost surrounding my heart

i wished upon a star that fell at night we would eventually be together once and forever,
never fail, like a man, never fall, like a star that might burn out in one barren desert.

the rock drops, breaks the glass house and, if looking closely at what reflects,
something so obvious as this was something that we could never expect.
i knew i'd be bruised and some parts would be missing,
my heart still pumping, but something cold and empty.
my blood in the soil, watering the seeds of regret,
my pockets are empty, my life must be a lost bet,
or a ball of lint...

i have no excuse for what empty pictures i hold of myself up here, but
what can i expect when you are gone and i look at myself in the mirror?
i've already said empty three times...

i spend time on me, wondering why hyenas laugh, and if that's what makes them such terrible things and beasts.
if a rabbit is jumping because he's always running away, or if he has some places he urgently needs to be.

and i wonder if a deadbeat like me could ever make something that works, or write some words to encourage, to laugh like the beast,
but i know that he really ends up on the side of the road, that's where some things arrive and eventually will perish, much like a rabbit.
i know that she is saving me from my roadkill mentality,
but what would i have if i lose her? i lose her balance and stability.

if i'd lose her, i know i would always look for myself in a tall glass window,
seeing through but not in, she weakens me to a little bit of hope.
maybe we're really not all that far apart and lonely, a desperate feel of lonely.
maybe skylights in havana touch the stars the angels are holding... the beautiful angels are holding.

some place lovely like that with god's concern.
maybe i should watch for my wishful meteor,
in hope that when it finally does fall to earth
it lights my way back and lands right next to her.
a girl could one day make a woman, she can,
and if she does not forget me, we will have true romance.

i ask for things, in my dreams.
but it's always been that they don't come true,
and if i never find you, i can know at least that i have slept.

i hope i can measure myself by how much you've asked for,
how much i hope a vision of me, a thing you have dreamt.
don't ask for me, i'm not really anything that much,
and what you ask for may be a love that never lets up.
please, try not to dream of me,
i'll try to not dream of you, baby.
but i don't want to forget,
and in a dream i could live...

i dream i am a man who never failed, i dream what i am of anything, a lifetime stuck in the desert.
a girl is in my dream, my fantasy. and i hope it paid, i hope i hadn't spent all of my money on the parking meter,

so i could get us out of there. make it back from our dreams alive.
i'm the meteor and i can't get out of here,
i want to find her and i want to love her.
i want to look again in the mirror and see her in me.
don't leave me.

my poetry is empty
I need to fill these lines with the world around me. The snow melting in my hands, the rain racing down the sleeves of my jacket, the wind brushing my hair. I need to fill my poetry with the purest of things. I have been writing polluted poetry. Fake love, fake loss, fake feelings towards people who no longer exist. I have learned that the way I exist and the way I write are what will keep me alive on paper long after I am gone. Immortal poetry. Poetry that can't help but be unconfined. Poetry that can make you question if what you feel is what you feel and if the way you think of yourself is real and if any of this is even worth writing about, I don't know but I'm gonna do it anyways. My heart is pumping the keys of violins, my veins are filled with lyrics that I can't quite understand but I'll keep singing them.  There's something soft about listening, there's something soothing about the ending of a song. There's something about how I used to write poetry that seems so wrong and I'm not gonna erase it but I wish I could go back and make a couple of edits in the ways I talked about love as though it's something my heart has ever truly felt before. This poem isn't going to be about anyone else rather than myself. This poem is going to be that old book that sits on the book shelf that no one reads anymore, but everytime they see it they think "God I used to love that" and maybe one day they'll look back and miss the smell of the pages. This poem doesn't have any sort of secret message so stop dissecting the phrases. Stop wondering "why did the poet use the violin instead of another instrument?" Stop analyzing it and maybe you'll hear a song playing in your head as you read it. This poem is raw, it's what's seeping from the tips of my fingers and for that I think it's quite beautiful. When do we ever let anything spill for long enough to see that maybe the puddle could turn into art? Who had the audacity to call some plants flowers and others weeds? Who gave them the right to decide what was beautiful and what wasn't?  Don't try to tell me that this is how it's meant to be, because in poetry there's no guidelines. There's no wrong words and there's no wrong lines. There's just me - and you. And thoughts, and spills and weeds and flowers and love and things I've never felt and I hope one day as you pass by that book on the shelf, you pick it up and read it. I hope one day you remember why you always kept it. I hope the front cover feels glad to have felt your finger tips. I know I did.

He walked with pride as he always does;
Nobody dares to ask him where you go;
Even the lion can’t tell him away buzz;
He’s alone! He has neither a friend nor foe.

It’s He who knows the destination
To which this unyielding creature walks.
His eyes are sparkling with jubilation
As his echoing voice in the vacuum talks.

Today, there won’t be the daily tour;
Th’elephant is heading to the collective tomb
Where after being for long so poor
He will happily wait for his doom.

Among the decayed carcasses he sat;
There were only bones and ivory.
Decay devours the huge and the fat;
Yet, he calmly sat n’ didn’t worry.

Patiently, the elephant tried to breathe;
Angrily he hears his pumping heart.
Now and then, for the angel of death
He looks around. He is impatient to depart!

‘I didn’t know whether my life was long or short!
No matter; it was long and heinous.
This’s where I belong. This’s my resort:
The real sanctuary of the gracious.’

‘With no regrets, I am leaving.
Yes, I’m resolved to leave it all.
This is the time to stop my bleeding
Soul before in the mire I’d again fall.’

‘Huge and fearful wasn’t a privilege;
A mosquito would’ve made me suffer.
My sensitive skin I had to sacrilege
To protect by the stinky mud of the mire.’

‘In my tours, I was always hiding
From the merciless guns of the cruel hunters
Whose greed for my ivory is abiding.
Being big made of me an easy target.’

‘Welcome, my long waited for angel.
No, a second chance isn’t my desire.
I don’t accept’t. . . . Don’t that was a sample!
To the forest, I won’t return. Please, set the fire.

A difficult decision to make.
So what do we do?

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament
Such a simple solution could solve anything

“Who goes first?!” he calls,
  we all gather around to watch the first match
“Ohhh!!!”, a shout goes up a he loses the first game.

Blood pumping, I sit back and watch the winner as I realize I lost.
But I was ok with it, he won fair and square.

a balloon floats over a child’s birthday party that the fat girl wasn’t invited to.
the balloon is the art of maintenance.
let some air out, blow some in, until it’s just right, and then tie it off.

when i was born, i weighed ever so slightly more than six pounds.
that was the last time i’d be slight.
i grew big and grew bigger
years of eating, years of blowing hot air into a balloon hard and fast
with thick, humid inside filling and filling
no longer clear but cloudy and clotted and sick and bigger, and bigger, skin ripping, breaths uncaring, breaths unwavering—

my mother was terrified i’d pop.

i came close in high school, weighing in at two hundred and eight pounds
at the doctor, when i accidentally saw the chart that i was so afraid to see
that i hadn’t seen it in years
and now, here, i saw the weight that i was so afraid, all of this time, to know that i carried.

but i felt it qualitatively
not in the knees, where they tell you you’ll feel it
not in the tightening and narrowing of my overstuffed clothes and arteries
plaque lining them, hardening into tunnels that the blood
can’t find a way through in more than needle thin streams
little brooks in a body born with rivers

not in the heart pumping hard to keep up
not in the swollen, alien stomach that i am sure does not belong to Kate Moss
but i am unsure truly belongs to me.
it looks nothing like the plus size model’s tanned, toned, macro version of a micro Moss
flawless and shiny and glazed with the flecks of photoshopped light
i am a photographer myself, i know the tricks
i felt it in the way the world treated me.

and i know that woman, my designated sister in size who couldn’t fit in my pants and whose shirt I’d drown in, the predetermined champion of my cause,
my implied, targeted marketing role model gimmick and plea to the outraged girls with thick thighs to settle
for someone shopped, just like everyone else.
edited, audited for body parts like stretch marks and pale skin and lines of hair
called happy trails but are sad
that scream desperately for air and an ending when someone,
someone they call brave, runs his tongue along the clearing where they ripped out our flowers and called them weeds, a sad reminder
that i call him brave, too, because they told me he was.

they told me he was brave for adventuring my hills and valleys.
he is no explorer, most of the time.
he is simply a tourist.

they tell me to settle for a woman who still doesn’t look like me.
and they set me a new standard to aspire to—
“FINE, BE BIG, BE PLUS, BE CURVY! YOU CAN BE THEM, BUT YOU CANNOT BE FAT. YOU CANNOT BE FAT. HER FAT IS IN HER *******, IN HER HIPS, IN HER THIGHS… BUT YOUR FAT? YOUR FAT? YOU’RE JUST FAT!”

so i looked in the mirror, ****** it in, twisted, manipulated, tried on this bra and these underwear
and yes, my waist looked slim and yes, my hips had breadth and yes, my ******* were massive and yes, I looked like her.

but then, my mother screamed.

“you are going to die! this is so unhealthy! we have to do something!”
because my high school sent a letter home telling my mother that i was abominable based on three letters and three digits:
BMI- 37.1
WEI
GHT
203
i took off my control top *******.
i undid the latch on my push up, padded bra.
i deflated my stomach.
i deflated my pride.
i looked in the mirror in shock and horror like viewing an old time slasher flick in the back of a drive in in the middle of the night in the days where maybe there’d be a hook on the handle when he came to open my door.
i did not look like her.

i let out the air in slow and painful pinches.
and sometimes it swam, doing pirouettes in the bowl like a little dancer
a teaser of the kind of thin lean woman i am not unless these dinners keep spinning
clockwise down the toilet before i feel them weigh in my stomach
and i am wise to the clock – wait just 30 minutes and you take up half the calories.
do it now, now, now, you have to, you have to – and you’ll take up half the space.
Ana told me to and she is only looking out for me.
the numbers decline to 199 and i think 189 could be mine if i put in the time
and i’m wise to the clock so i start the countdown from 199 to 189 to 177 and i quit

because i let the air out, and for once in my life, when i left my house in two months’ time for the first time,
for once in my life, i wanted to let it in.

some days it leaks out of me.
one more laxative won’t hurt and i don’t care if the weight is fat, water, or ****, it still counts
155, 159, 163…161, 159, 155
and sometimes i still think
Ana is my friend.

but when i’m weak and jealous and out of my head
and angry at the explorer i’ve met who tells me he has so enjoyed his visit
that he’s decided to move in forever, enchanted with the landscape and the history and culture in the area, in the country i’ve built through disorder and plants and bread and loss and skin bunching and ribs you can feel and an *** you can grab so hard sometimes it hurts
sometimes i still think Ana is my friend.

but when i am deflated and counting and wearing out my plastic, and I think one way or another, I’m going to die
I’ll **** myself, with razor blades or Ativan or cancer from these ******* laxatives or these appetite suppressant menthol 100 cigarettes or maybe I’ll just jump like I wanted to
But any day, if I keep going, I’m going to pop—
I realize something about my friend Ana.
when i’m sickly and tired and ******* my brains out
and wishing i hadn’t hurt and built walls to keep out the man that filled the vacancy in my hotel heart who i promised to marry to keep in my country, the one built from feminist strength, brick and bone and stars and skin and roses and muscle and fat and beauty,

baby, take your visa back and let’s knock down these walls and we can tie me off.
Ana is not my friend.
She’s holding the pin.

DING **** MY KIDNAPPER IS DEAD, THAT IS WHY I ALLOWED TED BUNDY

TO TAKE ME YEAH, I WANTED TO KIDNAP MY KIDNAPPER

HOPING THE SPIRIT WORLD CAN **** MY KIDNAPPER, OH YEAH

I KNOW IT’S ****** HARD, CAUSE, THE SCHITZOPHRENIA, WAS GIVING ME THE ****** YRGE

I FOUND IT HARD TO RID THE URGE, SO I MADE TED BUNDY’S GHOST TIE ME UP

BUT THIS MADE ME FIGHT MY FATHER, AND FORCE ME ON MEDICATION

WHICH MADE THE NICEST MAN, BUT MY KIDNAPPER KEPT COMING BACK

DING **** I WANTED MY KIDNAPPER DEAD, I KNOW I ANNOYED A LOT OF PEOPLE

TRYING TO GRAB THEM OH YEAH

I GRABBED A FEW SCHOOL MATES, AND THAT IS WHY I WAS TREATED LIKE A YEAH MATE YEAH KID

I WANT TO GET REOFORMED, BUT A VOICE SAID, NO YOUR NOR REFORMED

AND I WORKED AT THE RAINBOW, HELPING THE MENTALLY ILL

AND I FELT LIKE A HAPPY CHIRPY COOL KID GOING TO THE BEACH AND BUSHWALKING

AND WORKING IN THE RAINBOW KITCHEN, AND NOBODY WANTED TO TEASE ME

CAUSE I HELPED TO GIVE THEM A MEAL, I WAS A COOL KID, AND VERY VERY CHIRPY

AND THEN IN 2002, I FELT REALLY CRAZY, THE PARANORMAL SHOVING VOICES IN MY HEAD

WHICH WAS, I WAS THE KID, KILLED BY THE ******, THE AMERICAN ****** KILLED A KID

BUT I SAID I DREAMT IN THE REAL WORLD, SAYING THE KID HE KILLED WAS ME

I STOOD MY LITTLE KIDNAPPING KID, OUT ON THE LONESOME, THE ****** KILLED MY CRAZY KIDNAPPER

I AM NOT GAY, I RESPECT GAYS, BUT I AM NOT GAY

I AM NOT A PHEDAPHILE, HAVING *** WITH KIDS IS REPULSIVE

I AM NOT A CUDDLING KOOMARRI MAN, CAUSE THEY GET KILLED, I LIKE TO SAY THAT AT LEAST GAYS, HAVE A REASON

THE KOOMARRIS, ARE TOTALLY GEEKY, AS THEY CUDDLE UP TO YA

I AM NOT GAY, HE SAID, I JUST LIKE TO CUDDLE MEN, NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH GAYS

I AM NOT GAY, I MADE MY CHOICE, TO BE A ******

LIKE A ******, WHO PARTIES ALL THE FUCKEN TIME, LIKE A ****** BABY YEAH

PARTY WITH ME, AND YOU AS WELL YO DUDE

BUT TED BUNDY, ISN’T HASSLING ME NO MORE, I AGREED TO **** MY HOOLIGAN WHO GRABS KIDS

AND IN JUP[ITER, I AM PREPARED TO SUFFER, FOR EVERY KID, AS CRONUS DOES DO

TED BUNDY NOW HAS ME ******* TO THE LAMP POST ON JUPITER

I PREFER THIS, RATHER THAN CUDDLING ******* KOOMARRI MEN

PRESUMING THAT I AM GAY, I AM STRAIGHT, MY PROBLEMS WERE WATCHING REALLY BAD KIDNAPPING ON TV

AND MY LAST TWO LIVES KIDNAPPED AND KILLED AT AGE 8 GREAME THORNE ANDS PATRICK DUNBAR

I HAVE KILLED MY KIDNAPPER AND LEFT MY LITTLE DADDY’S SHY BOY WITH DAD, ON CLOUD 9

SO I CAN ENJOY BATTLING THE YOU AND YOUR BROTHER AREN’T LIKE US VOICE

BY DRINKING A BOTTLE OF COKE, I AM A COMPUTER **** KID

I WANT TO LOSE PAT’S VOICE, BUT WE HAD FUN TOGETHER

I WANT TO LOSE HIS VOICE, BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THESE DELLUSIONS

OF HIM BEING A TEASING GAY MAN, CAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL TO TEASE NORMIES

THE WAY I USED TO TEASE THE MEN, WHETHER YOUR GAY OR NOT

PEOPLE PRESUME THAT YOUR GAY, AND PUNCH AND **** YOU

BULLYING LEADS TO KILLING, BRIAN ALLAN DOESN’T WANT TO BE KILLED

SO HE PREFERS TO GET RID OF HIS SHY BOY THE BRIAN ALLAN WAY

CAUSE I HATE, THE IDEA IN HINDSIGHT OF BEING A LITTLE YOUNG DUDE LIKE THAT

IT WAS ALRIGHT WHEN I WAS YOUNG, WELL CRAWLING THROUGH DRAINPIPES

AND RIDING OUR BIKES, AND PARTYING IN CLUBS WAS COOL

BUT THE KIDNAPPING OR THE GAY ACTIVITY, REALLY AIN’T FOR ME

I AM STILL DOING WHAT I USED TO DO, THE IMAGINATION BIT

ART AND DRAWING, I WANT TO KIL MY KIDNAPPER AND HAVE TED BUNDY TIE HIM UP ON JUPITER

AQND LEAVE MY DADDY’S LITTLE SHY BOY AS I SAID ON CLOUD 9 WITH DAD

WE HAVE TO STAND ON OUR OWN TWO FEET

OH YEAH MY, HEART IS A PUMPING, AND MY LEGS ARE FIT

I WANNA STAND ON MY OWN TWO FEET

I DON’T CARE WHAT MY VOICES SAY

I PREFER FOR MY VOICES TO SAY BE AN ARTIST, BE A WRITER, BE A YOUTUBE PARTNER, BE A BUDDHIST

I DON’T WANT TO HAVE ANY PART OF MY DADDY’S LITTLE SHY BOY IN ME, EVER AGAIN

MEDICATION, REINCARNATION, I AM COOL, HOW ABOUT A LITTLE CELEBRATION

STOP THE CALLING ME WOOSEY, IN MY HEAD, CAUSE, IT’S FUCKEN DOWNGRADING YOU BIG *******

I FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE AROUND GAYS, DOESN’T MEAN I HATE THEM, I HATE BEING TOLD I AM STILL GAY

******* ****, *******, I AM NOT GAY

DING **** MY KIDNAPPER IS DEAD AND MY LITTLE SHY BOY IS UP THERE WITH DEAR OLD DAD

I AM A MAN WHO ENJOYS PARTYING, YEAH MATE YEAH, I AM NO ****

Remove my body
From the
Wreckage
Tell all
The papers
Who I am
Let it be
Known
I won't
Be
Beaten
Down
Buried with
Black flowers
And doused
In rotten
Stenches
I am
Here
And not
There
I am one
With
The ways
Of the
Winds
I bind
Them to my body
And fly
Up
Down
Up and
Out
You can't win
I won't
Lose
I can't
For the wind
Does not permit
Such
Atrocities
It gives me no
Other choice
But to
Get
Up
And continue
On
Heart beating
Blood
Pumping
Eyes
Set
On the
Horizon

I listen to the pitter patter of pumping blood
like summer rain on a satin roof
my ear set to the perfect patch of flesh
made by your white v neck.
I can smell your twenty dollar perfume
warmed up and almost ran through its fragrance.
I'm flattered
you put it on just for me.
That K-mart bottle will be forever linked with you.
I let my breathe show the path of least resistance
as it follows the flow up your chest.
I don't want to draw blood
being a vampire is overrated by pop culture
and my teeth sketch lightly
dull skates on a frozen pond.
We both taste like whiskey.
I'll take you poured over two rocks
with a dash of coke.

(I seldom publish anyone else's poetry, but this one is so exceptional on so many levels, I had to reproduce it here. Hillary Clinton reposted it, so why not me?)

“Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
Is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” – Horace Mann, 1848.
At the time of his remarks I couldn’t read — couldn’t write.
Any attempt to do so, punishable by death.
For generations we have known of knowledge’s infinite power.
Yet somehow, we’ve never questioned the keeper of the keys —
The guardians of information.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen more dividing and conquering
In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality.
For some, the only difference between a classroom and a plantation is time.
How many times must we be made to feel like quotas —
Like tokens in coined phrases? —
“Diversity. Inclusion”
There are days I feel like one, like only —
A lonely blossom in a briar patch of broken promises.
But I’ve always been a thorn in the side of injustice.

Disruptive. Talkative. A distraction.
With a passion that transcends the confines of my consciousness —
Beyond your curriculum, beyond your standards.
I stand here, a manifestation of love and pain,
With veins pumping revolution.
I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree.
I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.
I am a movement – an amalgam of memories America would care to forget
My past, alone won’t allow me to sit still.
So my body, like the mind
Cannot be contained.

As educators, rather than raising your voices
Over the rustling of our chains,
Take them off. Un-cuff us.
Unencumbered by the lumbering weight
Of poverty and privilege,
Policy and ignorance.

I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.

To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.

I look each of my students in the eyes,
And see the same light that aligned Orion’s Belt
And the pyramids of Giza.
I see the same twinkle
That guided Harriet to freedom.
I see them. Beneath their masks and mischief,
Exists an authentic frustration;
An enslavement to your standardized assessments.

At the core, none of us were meant to be common.
We were born to be comets,
Darting across space and time —
Leaving our mark as we crash into everything.
A crater is a reminder that something amazing happened here —
An indelible impact that shook up the world.
Are we not astronomers — looking for the next shooting star?
I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships —
Tribulations into telescopes,
So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.
An injustice is telling them they are stars
Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.
Injustice is telling them education is the key
While you continue to change the locks.

Education is no equalizer —
Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream.
So wake up — wake up! Lift your voices
Until you’ve patched every hole in a child’s broken sky.
Wake up every child so they know of their celestial potential.
I’ve been a Black hole in the classroom for far too long;
Absorbing everything, without allowing my light escape.
But those days are done. I belong among the stars.
And so do you. And so do they.
Together, we can inspire galaxies of greatness
For generations to come.
No, sky is not the limit. It is only the beginning.
Lift off.

Donovan Livingston
Harvard Commencement 2016