Note To The Reader: Attempting to read all of these would be ridiculous but I hope that you can scroll through and hopefully see something you can connect to.....

1. I am sad or unhappy a lot

2. I am happy sometimes though and so I try to make other people laugh then to make up for the times I make them cry

3. I love sunny days with a light breeze and alternately heavy rain and thunderstorms

4. I am a sucker for all things involving sugar in all its forms

5. I am an analyzer

6. I am a worrier

7. I am messy

8. I am opposed to people who aren't themselves and people who apologize for saying the truth

9. I am a terrible typer and speller

10. Fine is a word I use for almost everything

11. I dislike spending time with most of the people I know

12. I dont think the apocalypse would be a bad thing

13. Eight is my lucky number

14. I love books as they are my escape

15. I am in love

16. I want to be an artist

17. Music is my life and the reason I'm still alive  

18. I only watch really funny movies or really sad movies

19. I love making lists

20. I love buying new notebooks and pencils

21. I'm self conscious and stubborn

22. I'm mildly lazy and very direct

23. Obsessed with DIY

25. Im a freak about germs

26. I am and have been depressed from a very young age

27. My favorite colors are blue and brown

28. I believe in magic but not true love

the other day,
when you asked if you could take the coffee maker with you to Boston,
i told you
that i never make coffee
when we are not together.
you laughed.
you jokingly said,
“is it because you miss me when i’m not here?”
we both laughed.
but honestly,
yes.

about a year ago,
you told me,
“you are starting to sound like me!”
i have yet to receive a better compliment.

the day before i left to new york
you gave me a hat you knitted yourself.
i wore it every day.
(until i lost it on the subway.
i may or may not have cried. i will never say.)

we both know you are not the best speller.
but i love the way you spell love:
s-h-a-r-e,
g-i-v-e,
c-a-r-e.

sometimes i just--shut--my eyes
think of what could be
a brief instant of mixing--reality--
fantasy--
wings melting i crash--into the sand
the waves washing wet--over me

the sun is too--hot--hot hot
i can carry the fire--up
but i cannot put it out
in all my ice i cannot **** the sun
so i am building a castle--a sandcastle
with parapets and a gated moat--

i knock it down with a crash
destruction was my primer-book
cynicism my blue-backed speller
so i lock myself up--in my room
pretending to be named emily
in my flawless white dress

the old nickname e.d. is transformed
until i remember--myself--
i am not a doll
and i--am not--afraid
the world can be--irrelevant
i will not abandon life

****** half-hatched into reality--
lost in a foreign land unknown
a sojourner who has lost--the song
peregrine with a misplaced home
the repressed truth will arise--
i will find the beginning--in the end

i fly back up--fire in my pocket--
bid cheerful farewell to the sun
good day to the beach-grains
rebuilding the--castle--
it is only--sand--
and i let it stand

life is reality--what took so long
and life that is really happening
is better than supremacy unlived
and i get lost--in omniscience
looking--skyward--realizing
i am a--grain--of sand

Today I eschew all matters political
and examine a subject I consider quite critical.
The greatest invention in man’s history
is, IMHO, the apostrophe.
You must admit it’s quite impressive
even if sometimes it’s a tad possessive.
Suppose, if you will, you need to drop one small letter
(because somehow shorter is always better)
’tis the thing that shows any gal or feller
That you’re not just a miserable, terrible speller.
So go on, drop your letters with wild abandon
and know the apostrophe will be there to stand in.

Just one other thing before I call it quits–
concerning the fuss about its and it’s.
It’s an issue for some that is really quite raw
Because they think that possession’s nine tenths of the law.
But I tell you now without any deceptions
In life there will always be some small exceptions.
“It” owns an apostrophe, I hear some of you cry,
But its apostrophe’s useless unless it loses an I.

when i was ordained a journalist,
a halfwit wisdom-speller with i's too often after e's,
they mounted a valediction for me:

"goodbye, you crucible of culture and the end," they pomped.
"we wish you joy on your carpetbagging beats,
the inciting sins you write your things about—

"the ways in which we fall.
and glory to you, the one who settles truth
by shivering quotes in darkness

and flickering candles in caves.
for what would be the world without you?"

a better place, I'm told; a feast of fiends without wits.
and likely more bourbon
to go around.

system dysregulation is
uncomfortable to endure. However,

“life does not wait,”
a friend warned me once,

“Well, yes;” I still want to
go to class. To get meals. To gatherings. To meetings. To

spaces, catalysts for anxiety,
spaces that sometimes escape my comfort zone and lie

startling and dysregulating
what becomes my Flesh Prison.

Sometimes, they feel unsettling and unnaturally unsafe, and
Doubt spells doom on the walls of my guts:

“this is the end”, “turn back”, “you won’t make it,” yet
I always emerge from battle unscathed.

It’s part of what compels me to return to
those places, still at war in chains,

Even in fleeting, present moments, amidst the
phlegm, stomach flips and swells of fear,

I persist; it’s part of what compels
me to get to the places again, despite the fact that Nervous

system dysregulation is
uncomfortable to endure. Unfortunately,

life does not wait,
so said a friend to me once,

so I must still go to
class. To get meals. To gatherings. To meetings. To

spaces that sometimes lie
outside my comfort zone,

scaring and dysregulating me further.
Sometimes, they feel unsettling and unnaturally unsafe.

Doubt convinces me of doom;
“this is the end”, “turn back”, “you won’t make it,”

Yet I always come out okay.

Even in fleeting, present moments, amidst the
phlegm, stomach flips and swells of fear,

I persist; it’s part of what compels
me to get to the places again, despite the fact that Nervous

system dysregulation is
uncomfortable to endure. Unfortunately,

life does not wait,
so said a friend to me once,

so I must still go to
class. To get meals. To gatherings. To meetings. To

spaces that sometimes lie
outside my comfort zone,

scaring and dysregulating me further.
Sometimes, they feel unsettling and unnaturally unsafe.

Doubt convinces me of doom;
“this is the end”, “turn back”, “you won’t make it,”

Yet I always come out okay.

Even in fleeting, present moments, amidst the
phlegm, stomach flips and swells of fear,

I persist; it’s part of what compels
me to get to the places again, despite the fact that Nervous