They passed, I wanted
     to see Alaska's evenings,
and their hunting
   and a household of seven. No
                 one knows. The public
      never noticed how much disrespect
cut corners. I wasn't looking to replace it.
         If they only knew! I promised
    I would do that.
            "What team are you playing on?"
      the applicants' response was proof
positive that the devastation and loss,
            and retyped, Miscarriage. with
   a thin layer of Wite-Out meant
                   to follow the law.
         "You have a couple of choices
   about getting rid of it,
                 naturally." she said. We were bound
by our fierce determination to
        bring new players to the table working
  together, and ensuring a stable
      place of negotiating behind closed doors.
            Along with the five others, I asked,
                   "Want a cookie?"

all my teeth fell out the other day
and my tongue lost its taste
it was unsure how to handle itself
and grew numb and heavy
inside the remains of my mouth
speaking -- without much choice --
stopped being a priority
and my jaw hung loose
with the weight of words unsaid
i decided the best course of action
would be to become a writer
perhaps a poet
and maybe i could get the weight
out apart from conventional means
so i typed and typed
and deleted
and retyped -- such is the life of a
terrible writer, i'm sure you understand --
until i finally closed my eyes and knew
that i had found what i had always
needed to say
i wept tears of joy
for my discovery
and also ones of regret
for not being able to speak out
and preach to the world my sermon
i opened my eyes and peered into
the screen
mouth agape
overwhelmed with its own uselessness
i looked onto the screen
and found it blank
a mistake -- i knew --
had been made
clicking undo yielded no relief
there were no words
and it was then i realized the truth
the mistake was my own
words alone
do not carry weight
they are only conduits
through which emotion
translates itself from
the heart unto the brain
to give them power
is to take away from the act
men are scared of thunder
for it speaks a common language
but true fear lies in the lightning
i was a fool for becoming a writer
even more so a poet
but now, smiling -- toothless and swollen --
i will sit in silence

You told me you were suicidal
and I wanted to tell you how much it hurt to be a person
how my skin and bones ached to part of infinity a never ending spiral of never again having to say
“I’m sorry”
after coming out
You told me you were suicidal
and I wanted to tell you I wasn’t qualified to give advice on the matter of life and death
I have seen too many bare mattresses to understand
what home really is
am I just an ever changing notion of how a problem student might look like
some futuristic idea of the changing tides
being pushed and tormented by the moon
no I am not qualified to tell you to keep living
You told me you were suicidal
and I remembered the page in my ninth grade diary saying the same
followed by the words
“I don’t know what my name is,
not the one they gave me,
but the one I’m going to give myself
The one they won’t put on my grave,
but the one I’ll put on my heart,
the one God will call me in heaven
and the one mom will deny I have.
I don’t know our name,
and I think I want to die.”
You told me you were suicidal
and I typed and retyped messages,
playing in my head the ways you had already left
and didn’t want to make this one about me,so  I said
“Call a hotline”.
You told me you were suicidal
and my bones ached remembering the pain of what it is to be a person.

Paper and ink shall be my destiny for the following years
The world will stop and converse with me through once written and retyped word.

No fresh breeze of unknown zeal with encourage my soul
No foreign sun or forrest to stroke my spirit

Paper and ink
Paper and ink

Black ink is all that fills these streets
these streets I've walked the same for years
 For years I read and retyped this poem
this poem printed and erased with black ink
 Black ink which is all that fills these streets
these streets I've walked the same for years
 For years I read and retyped this poem
this poem printed and erased with black ink
 Black ink whose plight we've lit astray
astray we'll light your dark away
 Away we'll sing his blight from you
you don't see it yet but four lefts here take you somewhere new.

 Black ink is all that fills these streets
these streets I've walked the same for years
 For years I read and retyped this poem
this poem that has no repetition
 but either ascension
 or recession.