You're scared, I know.
Or at least, you're unsure.
And everyone tells you you should
Be unsteady and insecure.

They say that it'll be hard.
They say it will change you forever.
And that there's no way of avoiding it
No matter how smart or clever.

But the thing about scare tactics
Is they just plain don't work
And the way you handle this thing
Isn't like him or her.

You've got your own struggle
And your own piece of cake.
So to handle it like they did,
Is a solution that's fake.

So maybe you need an extra hour
Of sleep.
Or maybe your test score relates to
How many friends you keep.

Maybe you work best
Under pressure.
Or maybe it's order
That gives you true pleasure.

The advice that I'll give you is just
To be true.
And to do whatever the Hell
Helps you be you.
To ask for help if needed
And sometimes to struggle through.
To learn to know yourself
Through and through.

So maybe Friday nights a party.
Or maybe it's a book.
De-stress with some TV
Or learn how to cook.
And never worry about when someone says
How long that assignment took.
Because for you it may be shorter
Or take a few extra looks.

And don't you worry about what THEY got
On that test.
So long as you're working hard
To do YOUR best.

Don't say "He did it."
Dont think "She seems ahead."
That type of thinking will just
Fester in your head.

Because you've got what it takes
Or you wouldn't be here.
Though we all joke about it,
A few things are clear:

You aren't just lucky.
You did a few things right.
You showed them your stuff,
Put up a **** good fight.

So you've earned your place.
And no one can take it.
And I have no doubts in my mind
That you ALL can make it.

So maybe it will be hard,
And you'll probably change.
But never expect it to be like us
Because nothing is ever quite the same.

And you get to decide what tests you
And what your biggest enemies are.
Because living someone else's life
Won't get you very far.

But we're here for a few things,
Only one is this advice.
The others are the hard days
And the endless nights.

We're here for the heartbreak
And the tears that may fall
Though remember that we're also
Here for the happy phone calls.

We want to help pick you up
When you think that you're beat.
Because once you stand back up,
There's no way you won't succeed.

So maybe these words
Have been little use.
And maybe my generalities
Are a little obtuse.

But keep in mind
That my ears don't speak in rhyme.
And I promise you they at least
Have always got time.

I'm a call or text away
And I'm not the only one.
You've already got a family here,
And you've only just begun.

When dinosaurs walked the land,
Africa and the Americas
Fit together like it was planned.
And, still, to this day,
It seems like you can tell,
They were built for each other,
They fit so well.

I think that’s a bit like you and me,
Though I’m not sure if there’s destiny.
Cause our fingers entwine,
And I hold your body next to mine,
It seems to me like we were perfectly aligned.
Like some tectonic force
Separated us long ago.
Only to unite, here,
For reasons we’ll never know.

But now I wonder,
Seeing how lonesome the lands seem
To be separated by such an impassible sea:
Whether we’ve already crossed ours,
Or whether an Atlantic Ocean
Still lies in the future
For you and me.

Trying to rip a paper down the middle,
Because I only need a half sheet.
And as I'm ripping it,
It does one of those little microtears by the hole punch,
Where it tears away from the line that I'm trying to rip it at.
You know, the thing where you're like,
"Paper can't you just follow directions?"
Picture it?
Okay.

It tore on either side of the hole punch.
And for a moment,
I reflected on how incredible that was.
How beautiful the forces that move things are.
You see, in trying to tear the paper along my little pre-folded line,
I put pressure on both sides of the paper.
Near the hole, that pressure became too much.
In an instant, one side of the hole punch began to tear a little,
And allowed for some of that pressure to be dissipated.
But it wasn't enough in that instant, so the other side tore.

By the time that both sides split,
The pressure was no longer too much
And it didn't tear any further.
Though the paper is non-living,
Let alone non-sentient,
It follows the same doctrine that living beings do:
Give a little so that you needn't give a lot.
It tore just enough
To no longer need to tear any further.

Perhaps this is not so brilliant.
Perhaps all things simply tear
Until the force exerted cannot tear them anymore.
Perhaps that is how we work too,
And we only ascribe some sort of meaning
To the fact that we stop tearing.
Perhaps the very nature of being able to tear
Includes within itself the inevitability
Of not tearing anymore.

Disheartening, maybe,
Because it means that we are not the arbitrators of our defense,
That resistance may be futile,
And we need only allow our own microtears
To dissipate the forces which barrage us
To stop their onslaught.
Empowering, maybe,
Because the paper did not give all of itself,
But only enough to allow itself to not be torn any more.
How indestructible may we be,
If we only drop our defenses a little?

And yet, perhaps not,
For it was only each half which succeeded.
We mustn't forget our dear friend the 11" by 8",
Which was torn asunder
Even as his fragments held true.

Some forces are just too strong.

I bet I'll miss the perfect girl
And before you tell me
She does not exist,
You and I both know:
It's all relative.
So there's someone as perfect
As perfect gets,
And she's loads better than
All the rest.

And to me, that's perfect.

I'll miss her cause she'll walk on by
When I'm taking a sip of coffee
And looking at my phone.
It won't even be perfect cup,
And there'll be nothing perfect
On my screen,
But she'll walk on by,
Perfectly.

Maybe she was born in Tibet
And has never left her town.
So we'll never have met,
She just won't be around.
And we'll both grow old
With whoever we may choose,
Never knowing
What we had to lose.

Or I'll meet her,
I just won't see
How incredible
She and I could be,
And I just won't like her.
Or maybe I will,
But maybe she just won't like me.



I bet I'll miss the perfect girl.
I bet I already did.

Lips find lips,
Eyes close.
For a kiss unseen
Is sweeter, she knows.

Bodies lock,
Fully intertwined.
Like the last puzzle piece
You hoped to find.

But this spark was
Far less expected.
And for that, leaves me
So much more affected.

There is a chemistry
That reacts with contact,
Somehow unbeknownst to me,
But now, volatile fact.

Breathe out, together,
Scarcely breathing in
Before returning to that small
Paradise where we've been.

There is no world there,
No one else exists.
We've made our own universe
Inside a stolen kiss.

There are moments with you
That I just close my eyes and time stops
There's only your heartbeat and my breathing,
Sometimes in sync,
Sometimes one falling hopelessly behind
In some race to infinity.
Senses fade to nothing,
Because I no longer even feel your body
The way you don't feel clothes once you put them on.
The smell of your skin becomes the way my world smells
And for that timeless moment,
The slight glisten of your eyes
Become my night sky
And I could stargaze into them forever.
I breathe in slowly, and even my air is you.

Your heart sprints forward suddenly,
Without waiting for the starting bell,
And my breathing takes second chair
To listen to your solo.
Then it fades again into the melody we weave.
There are these moments, which escape the past, present, and future
In favor of some other power.
And my world of only you stretches on
To the infinite places beyond time.

I threw a coin off the ledge and when it struck the ground
It was perfect
The sound was all worth it
Because I feel this beat of the Earth
It's like the beat of a drum
A steady pur um pum pum
Like the world is alive
Its playing its music live
And if you only take the time
You'll hear it's beat and it's rhyme

I threw my wallet off the ledge and when it struck the ground
It was perfect
I needed a louder sound
To join in with the planet
Sitting in the audience is something I can't stand
It's so much much better to join in with the band.
And my wallet it kept that steady beat
Louder than the tapping of my feet
After that fall, so much more sweet.

I threw my radio, my backpack, my spare tire
Off the ledge and when they each struck the ground
It was perfect
The song deserved this.
It was so loud with no one around to hear it.
But the steady beat went on.
The Earth in its constant drum
Pur um pum pum,
Pur um pum pum.
Nothing has such beauty as that constant hum.
But it can't be over yet, it can't be done.

I threw myself off the ledge, and when I struck the ground,
I was perfect.

Flicker.
Fluorescent lamp
Steals my attention
From this music which has too little hold on me to be worth a mention,
Flicker.
Without it I'd never notice
The light cast in the dim room
Which seems to somehow contribute to darkness,
Like you need some sort of visibility to perceive gloom.

Hollow
The eyes of a painting
Forget the reason I came here.
All there is now is the space an iris should be
A pupil seems more meaningful when surrounded by blue brown or green.
But what do you put inside a hollow eye?
Absence is simply presence waiting to be realized.
Too many choices
Flicker, in such a small size.
The freedom is paralyzing.
More can be held in empty spaces than I ever dreamed to find.
Hollow
Is more than meaningful.
It is possible.
Infinitely wonderful
Wonderfully infinite.
Flicker.

My eyes to
Smoke.
Rising from tea too hot.
You can see it better when you can't taste it.
Wasted,
This smoke, the side effect of the perfect
Cup of tea.
So quickly it flees
From the sea, beneath.
With a beauty that the liquid
Does not hold
When it is cold.
Never drink it,
Don't waste this moment
On the taste,
That can be replaced.
Smoke
Will never again rise the same.
Curl, twist, split,
Cannot be tamed,
Like so many beautiful things,
Which never remain.
Temporary,
They only
Flicker.

The clearest mirrors
Are the ones we cannot see
That lie within sadness, the loneliness,
And feed off of the pain
That we feel betwixt the scenes
That life plays out
For an audience which must be
Vindictive, cruel and mean
In order to clap
When the curtains drops at finale.

But we must all share something
With that ethereal audience of sadists
For it is in those moments of self-hatred
That we can most see the part
We play in this nightmarish ensemble.
It was the hunter Narcissus
That stared into the pool
And surely aroused a tumult
Of laughter,
But how sweet to be so enamored
With ourselves that we might see true
Without the mirrors of pain.
Perhaps that pool revealed to the hunter
The cosmic comedy's concealed quadrains
And in that moment he too applauded
The director's dark aims.

I too have looked into pools
Into clean metal and clear glass
And never have I had the epiphany
Of wonder that the hunter had.
But in those moments of deep despair,
Perhaps I have glimpsed
Some of myself in there.
For those without eyes keen enough to see,
The truth must be found most painfully.
And oft comes through with some of
The tomb it was buried in,
So that, knowing what is
Often makes us less comfortable
Within our own skin.

And the audience snickers
To know that in our clarity, we are still fools
And have only a tainted view of truth,
Destined to suffer on to the next miserable cue.

Lofty goals are good, I think,
For success.
But not so good, I think,
For happiness.

Because we have this idea
That if we reach,
Eventually we'll find
Where the grass is green.

But I've been reaching
For a long, long time.
And my goals have been set
Absurdly high.

And once I get there,
Which seems less than 4 years away,
I'll just stretch out my hands
To begin reaching again.

If my goals were about
Having something to feel,
Maybe one day
I wouldn't be reaching still.

I'd be holding.
I'd be keeping.

We don't need to set shorter goals.
We need to set different ones.

Ones that make us smile
Instead of yearn.
Ones that are more about learning
Than what we need to learn.

Change will come,
And we shouldn't forget our dreams,
But as life moves on,
We should remember what it means.

We need to do less of
Shooting for the stars,
And start feeling the beauty
Of standing where we are.

I'm the man women write poems about.
No, not the love poems.
Not the ones with a tear and a smile.
There're no daisies, or roses.
No dances in the moonlight
I'm not the Mr. Right,
And we never have the perfect love.

I'm also not the bad boy
That they knew was wrong.
The smile and the wink
That lead them to what they think
Was the greatest year of their life.
And the worst.
I'm not nearly that exciting,
Or simple.

That just leaves one more
That women rhyme about.
The one that seemed perfect,
The one who they thought
THEY would break.
The one that tricked them.

The one who fixed them,
For a time.
And got them to believe in something,
Again.
But that's just the beginning of the poem,
Prior to en media res.
The rest
Is about how they were SO wrong.

Somewhere I become the villain
Because I held their hand
Then let go.
It's not something I intend.
Just what continually seems
To happen.
I emerge unscathed.
THEY don't emerge.

Or if they do,
It's not the same.
Those poems are about being wrecked
By the guy they thought cared.
The guy they thought would stay.
The guy that came so close
And then just drifted away.

But the tragedy, for me,
Is that I believe
All of those things too.
I DO care.
I AM the right guy.
I guess the best way to fool someone
Is to fool yourself first.

My mom asks me what I'm studying,
And I say The heart.
Her interests peaks,
Because she's always seen
The body as a work of art.
She wants to know more,
So I give her the brief about pumps,
What makes it faster or slower,
But I don't want to talk about this,
In truth, I haven't told my parents much since I started to go here.

We've studied anatomy,
And how bleeding works,
Biochemistry,
And why swollen red skin
Seems to always hurt.
But the more I've taken in,
The less I've given out.
As if being an expert for only you
Is what becoming a doctor is all about.

I tell my friends my grades are good,
Though I definitely study less than I could.
And after saying school is fine,
I skip to some other line
Of thought,
Like I suddenly don't have the time
To include my friends in this new life
Of mine.
It's not that they wouldn't understand,
Because these pals are smart as hell
And it's not that they wouldn't want
More details than "I'm doing well."
And it's not that to learn,
You have to forget,
About the people who matter,
Who got you where you needed to get.

It's that this world is skull-crushingly,
Mind-numbingly full
And at the end of the day,
Escape seems the goal.
But creating two worlds
Makes it easy to leave one behind.
And I wouldn't want to lose the rhythm
Of my values
Just to learn more medical rhymes.

So I need to work harder
To tell my mom about the heart.
To make these two lives
A little less apart.
How there're really two pumps,
No, really there're four,
And in some people's hearts,
You can hear a dull roar
Of a valve slamming shut
Or opening at the wrong time.
And if you've got pulses in your feet,
You're doing just fine.
To tell my friends the truth,
Instead of sloughing it off,
That asthma and emphysema
May have a similar cough.
Or that there are really two systems
That your body uses to clot.
And platelets aren't the only
Thing that you got.

To become a good doctor,
I have to become a good man.
And I thought until now
That was a simple enough plan.
But it might not just be about
Good bedside manner and empathy.
It might be more about how I treat
Those important to me.
If I can give everyone Zach
Without a dodge or excuse,
I'll become a doctor in training,
AND a doctor in truth.

Denied
Pushed-aside
Objectified
The responsibility
For inequity
Lies upon my ancestry
And now comes down to me.
Because we've lived so long
Seeking to prolong
The ways of keeping others down
Because they have a different creed
Or because their skin is brown
And maybe now,
We've settled some scores,
But there are still more
That remain unresolved
And even more left in store.
Because we now judge those who's ideas we deem poor
And those who's love an ancient book abhors.
And we try to hide
And deride
And ostracize
Those who differ from our way of life
To the point
That some are driven to suicide.
It was long ago that someone first hated
And we've evolved,
But that issue is unabated.
And the calls of those hungry for
Change
Have not been satiated.
Because there won't be change until we ourselves make it.
And we can't fake it.
It has to be real.
Something that you cant just hear
But also feel.
Because hatred never wins a war
But only prolongs it with more
Bloodshed
More minds, bodies and souls dead.
And no one left unaffected.
Acceptance is what we need
And less reward for human greed.
Because the truly great are those who feed
The hungry sick and poor,
And change the minds of those who settle for inequality
It can be you or me
Who leads
Others to clarity,
With words or actions which broadcast unity.
And when others listen and understand,
We may create a land
Where people can finally, truly feel free.

As I walked along a path of grass,
Whistling merrily so time would pass,
I happened upon an emerald pear,
And I bit into it, right then and there.
The juice trailed happily down my chin,
And led to a most savory grin.
Then when my fruit was all but gone,
A distraught young man did come along.
He asked me with such true concern,
If of a pear he, from me, might learn.
For he, in haste, this gem had lost,
A fruit he had for worthy cause,
To give to a mother on her death bed,
For “a bite of pear” is all she said.
I, remnant core clutched in my fist,
Knew I had taken what would be missed.
I said no word, and on he went,
Bowed in sorrow, his form now bent.
And I then glanced upon my core,
Eat what’s not mine, I will no more.
So woefully slow, I walked along,
With no more life to whistle song,
Mourning my lack of natural care,
When I spied another emerald pear.

Sometimes there's a pain in your stomach
And you can't tell whether you ate too much
Or you're just missing her.
How could you have forgotten
For most of the day
That she was gone
Only to remember now.

I still remember the flashing lights of police.
Headlines at the bottom of the screen,
The officers interviewed on TV.

I still remember wondering why my mom wasn't home.
She had no reason to be at the school,
But on that day, none of us wanted to be alone.

And I remember being in a little wagon,
Pulled by crying parents on a dark night.
We were small and didn't want to walk.
But my parents knew we needed to see the sight.

Of candles, and so many people come together.
At a park that, honestly, had really never
Been special, until that day.
When we no longer had a right to say,
That we had never felt real pain.

But that's not how the story ends.
No, Littleton was stronger than that.
Those who lost had family and friends,
On who they knew they could depend.

And the city grew up,
The city grew closer.
Not defined by pain,
But by the love that was gained.

And we never forgot,
But we weren't caged,
Tragedy, we said,
Would not be our plague.

So here we are now,
Seems an age and yet a moment has passed.
Our heads again bow,
For those in our past.

And then our heads rise,
And look to the skies.
The tears dry,
And something new is in our eyes.

A determination,
A will to go on.
Through whatever the world throws,
We know that we're strong.

And never again,
Will we wait, scared, at home.
Because in Littleton, none of us
Is ever alone.

Yesterday, she thought she heard his voice.
Quiet but rough,
The way it sounds when someone shouts for help from rooms away.
She shuffled quickly enough
To find him
Thinking maybe she had made a mistake,
Maybe he was here,
And she had just dreamed him away
A nightmare that seemed real enough
For her to question everything.
But today, she would turn a corner,
And he’d be there,
Asking for a kiss from her,
Before he left for the day.
Or maybe he had forgotten where he put his keys again
Maybe it wasn’t all a dream,
And he was sick in bed,
And was calling to her because he needed an extra pillow for his head,
Or needed a drink of water
For chapped lips.
He was so weak,
He couldn’t do more than take a few sips.
Maybe he had fallen,
She hoped he had fallen,
She prayed that he had fallen,
And just hurt himself,
Even if it was bad,
It was something she could help.
She could lift him back to the bed.
She could call for a doctor,
Get a ride to the hospital from a friend.
She breathed in deep,
Breathes of desperate hope,
Against all odds.
She reached the door
That she remembered being shut,
For days, or maybe weeks,
And turned the ****.
The air was still,
Undisturbed by even sound,
He wasn’t there,
Lost,
And unfound
The silence of an untouched bed
Was inescapably loud.
She closed the door,
And wandered away,
Though she did not remember,
For the third time today.

He smokes cigarettes
But he doesn't even like them.
Knows they're awful
And likely will one day **** him.
Buts that's why he does it
In this world we never know
He takes a puff to feel
Some semblance of control.

He walks alone at night,
And as shadows pass,
Secretly hopes for a fight.
In truth, he wouldn't know
How to throw the first punch
And he'd be easy prey
For even the commonest ****.
But part of him secretly hopes
That if he took just the right hit
It might be the perfect thing
To make him forget.

He sends letters to her,
With the wrong address.
She's moved by now,
To escape this city and it's mess.
But the letters never return.
So someone reads them, he thinks.
Maybe it's that he only yearns
To be heard.
So he writes as if she reads,
And it helps him live on.
Still, a letter opened
Does not replace a heart, once gone.

I keep writing poems about you.
Because I don't want to post
Some dumb comment to your page.
That impersonation of you that exists
Only so that people who loved you
Can feel like you're there.
But you aren't.
And they're just posting because
It makes them feel better.
Like my poems.

I wish I could believe they were for you.
That you could read them,
Feel them,
Somewhere.
But I don't believe that.
They're for me.
Me, me, me.
In this moment, your death is about me.
The moment that my pen
Or my hands
Or my thumbs
Put my thoughts to words,
I embrace myself.
Because I can't embrace you anymore.

It's lonely.
This pattern, this cycle.
And maybe if I knew your friends
Would see my thoughts,
I might feel better.
But I can't do that.
I can't show them all that I'm selfish, too.
Even though I know I am.
Even though there's no other way to be.

I can't truly honor you
Except in accepting how broken
You left me.
And maybe that once I wasn't selfish,
Because of how selfish I am now.

We lose things,
People,
And then we go on
Until one day,
We're the ones that are lost.

There are moments, after the credits roll,
Lying next to you, keeping away the cold,
That the screen fades to black,
But we both still stare,
And I see you as if for the first time
Through the glare.
You're far more beautiful in the reflection
Than I can remember before.

When they say it was her fault,
They mean it like when you lock your keys in the car,
Or when you sleep through an important meeting,
Or when you forget the birthday of someone close.
Like a simple mistake of HERS could somehow explain what HE did.

They say it like they can understand it,
But she should have known better.
She should have checked her pockets for the keys, and set another alarm, checked the calendar one more time.
Like maybe then she wouldn’t have been there, maybe then she wouldn’t have seemed like she wanted it, maybe then he would have stopped.

But they, those people who NEVER lock their keys in the car, or sleep through an alarm,
They’ve never been on the other end of the phone.
You don’t need to see the tears
Because you can all but hear them strike the ground,
And you don’t need to see her face
Because no Greek chorus could ever portray fear the way breathless sobs do.
They’ve never had to say “It’s going to be okay”
Knowing full well it won’t.
That it may never be.
And they’ve never felt the type of hatred
That only comes from one thing:
Knowing, somehow, deep in your heart
That you would **** to stop this
From ever happening again.
Die, if it meant
That it wouldn’t have happened to her.

They sit back and blame,
Like they’re too afraid
Of what it would mean if it wasn’t
Some flaw in her that caused this,
But a flaw in him,
Maybe a flaw in themselves.

But if they knew what it was like
To be holding her
In arms that can’t possibly
Say safety enough
To make her believe it, again,
Wanting her world to be beautiful,
Like it was before.
Searching for words
Something, anything, to say.
Finding nothing.
If they knew what that silence was like,
They’d be silent now.

He stands with a weight in his hands,
Trying to show me he’s a man.
Asks if I work out,
I reply “Not much.”
Says he can tell I do sometimes,
Tells me he does too.
He wants to get really big,
Bigger than me, obviously,
More like some of the people he’s seen on TV.
He has a crooked tooth,
And a face that shows he’s still well within his youth.
And just began to see men who do
What he wants to do.
Men who lift weights
Because they don’t work all day,
Slaving away,
Building muscle because they have to be strong
To make a living wage.
But his goal seems somewhat unstable
Like he’s not sure if he’s able
To look like these new heroes.
Partly, he’s right.
He doesn’t look all too imposing
Built more for agility than might.
But in this new world, there is so much
One can be.
It seems unrealistic
To think realistically.
So he lifts the weight
And I’m sure he’ll grow strong as an ox.
He’s spent to long elsewhere
To not know what he’s got,
Here, among dumbbells and a bench,
Where men and women worry
About not being skinny enough.
Because, in the end, for most,
It’s not so tough to fill their stomachs up.
To complain about being too stuffed.
And to look to a television screen
And see the actors muscular and lean.
And think,
“That could be me.”
Our dreams are about better clothes and more money
And very rarely nightmarish memories
Of running and screaming.
Of fleeing our home countries
Barely understanding the reasons
To live somewhere else where people have the freedom
To be pigs,
To get big,
To be anything,
Or at least to stand,
Looking at the man on TV,
Lifting a weight,
And imagine how grand
It would be to be that way.


I sit at a desk.
This girl seems more on task than all the rest.
They filter through Facebook feeds,
And play online computer games,
Amazing, teenagers seem to all have the same needs.
But not her, with curly short hair.
She’s not there to simply stare
At a computer screen and pretend she doesn’t care
About her future.
She’s playing catch up
And the game is rigged against her.
And the problems on her paper
Are harder than I can ever remember math being.
So she and I sit at the desk and frown.
Computer games and status updates all around.
And a roar of laughter,
Yet the most deafening sound
Is the silence
Of not knowing what that equation meant.
So we skip that problem,
Try our hand at some others
To see if two minds can solve them.
It seems like a teenager
Should never have to do this complex math
But until she gets her grade up,
It’s all that lies in her path.
I realize, sitting there,
That I never had to work this hard.
She only understands
Every other word I say
Well enough to know how to make
Square roots and fractions
Do some unknown action
So that’s why it’s taking
So long.
She has to learn how to survive,
Live life,
Get by
In a world that is not her own.
And at the same time, somehow also grow
Into a young lady who knows
Complex arithmetic.
I wish I could just lift her up
Give her just a bit of the privilege
I grew up with.
A grandmother who taught me subtraction
When I could barely walk.
In a country where my parents talked
In the same language I heard
On the streets.
At the store.
In my school.
I want nothing more than to make it easier
For her to just be her.
Because she puts in more effort
Than I ever considered.
My success has never felt so undeserved.
But that’s what you realize among the underserved.
This isn’t fair,
For the girl with the short hair
Frowning next to me in her chair.


We both like to sit on the side of the room
And watch other people.
It’s just one of those things that you do
As you get older.
But, then again, that doesn’t explain her.
Because compared to me,
She’s at least a few years younger.
Still, we sit and we watch.
Me: because I don’t belong.
Her: because she does.
You see, I watch them sing and dance
Some of the older kids try their hand
At a bit of romance.
For me, it’s almost like a study.
It’s opening my eyes to a different way to be.
For her, long frizzy hair under a loose hat,
Of course, it’s just life.
It’s being in a strange place,
But finding somewhere
Where you belong.
People who know your dances and your songs.
Who don’t correct your words
In the fourth language you’ve learned,
Just because you got the tense wrong.
She watches because she sees
More than fun and games.
She sees her home.
She sees herself.
To join in would be
To become too much a part of it
To realize she’s a part of it.
To dance would be to quit being the dancer.
Sing, and she would not be the singer.
So we both sit at the side of the room.
Watching
Laughing
Knowing
That something more is happening here.
Something that, to a passerby,
Would never be clear.
There is brilliance in how freely they move,
Knowing that once they leave the room
There will be a part of them they lose.
They will return to their homes,
Sometimes alone,
To take care of a family of brothers and sisters
Mostly on their own.
Tomorrow, they will return to that scary place
Where they’re judged, not just for their race
But for being unique.
For being extraordinary.
Some may be ostracized,
Because difference in origin is not tolerated
In many high schoolers’ eyes.
But not here.
That’s not what we see.
Here, they are free.
And I know that it means something different to her
Than to me,
But it’s the reason we’ll always sit
On the side of the room
On our own,
Watching,
Smiling,
Knowing
That this place has truly become their home.

Indeed, punctuality
Wasn't her cup of tea, you see.
Nor would she choose to lead
If she could follow just as easily.
Some said restraint was her need,
But she seemed more caged than free, to me.

But in the last, she showed the greatest cordiality,
For she was profoundly early.
And there was no one to strike the path,
So she chose to lead.
She must have found the cage's key,
As she stepped off the feeble chair
Into thin air
And a rope spread her wings.

Her hands felt like waves
The way they seemed to tumble on endlessly
Wrinkles were like tide and wake
This was what he called beauty.

He used to run and jump and climb
To keep her gaze
Write verses and sonnets and rhymes
About her unblemished face.

His walk was now slow
And her eyes and cheeks showed
Countless travelled miles
So many years of smiles.
Made his heart run and jump
And write verses and sonnets
In the language of Love.

She walked away
I mean who can blame her
It's not like I gave her any reason to stay here.
We both knew that the night was bound to end.
Really what's the use of trying to pretend
Wait, but I'm not pretending.
Guess you get so used to the same ending.
With the same girl and the same late night,
The same morning gone at first light.
But not now, not this, not the same.
So used to playin that i couldn't tell when I lost the game.
And now it's like I've got some pieces missin'
Must have been that last kiss she gave me.

And now I can't get that dress outta my head,
Same one she was wearing last night when we met.
The one she left in without a word being said,
But a smile and a quick nod instead.
Usually that would be finality
Last scene, show ends, wake up, go back to sleep a different dream.

But I miss the feel of her clothes
Her sweet fragrance lingering in my nose
My feet are cold not entangled in her toes
Guess that's why they say without the thorns there ain't a rose.

Maybe she's not gone too far,
And if I run outside she'll be standing by her car.
And I'll tell her to wait and a few more moments, another day.
Never ever let this chance pass away.

Maybe I'll go back to the bar.
And she'll be sitting there, just the same.
Like some work of art.
The type that's almost better if you stay where you are,
And not try to think the scene needs another part.
But I'd walk up,
And maybe she'd see me as I came.
Maybe she'd have asked the bartender if he knew my name.
How often it was that I ever came.
She'd be looking at the door hoping that it'd be the same.

Maybe I'll go another two years,
Wishing more than anything that I could just see her.
And just when she almost skipped out of my mind,
There'd she be, on the street, passing the time.
Or waiting in some concert line.
Maybe she'd be at a party for a friend of mine.

She would know like me that this was a sign
And that these things don't just happen without some plan in mind.
It's not too often that two hearts beat in time,
That two lights have the same beem to shine.

But she left.
******* who can blame her.
Now I don't even have a last name to find her
All I've got is a memory remainder
Didn't leave anything to remind me of her.
For the most part it's just the same world.
Except the part of me that fell for a strange girl.
I'll walk outside, go back to the bar.
Walk street to street to street no matter how far.
Can't believe I let her cause such a stir,
Thought my armor was far too thick to get hurt.
But she stuck like glue to my mind,
Now I can't imagine this life unless I find,
Her.

They teach you wrong,
The way to piece things together.
Just like all things,
It's different when you get here.

"You start from the corners.
And you look at the box.
If you start from the middle,
You're bound to get lost."

En media res,
Is the choice of the author,
And not the character.
I haven't decided which she is,
But I began in the middle with her.

No box and no corners,
And the pieces change as they fall.
Maybe it's not the way they got wrong,
But the need to finish it at all.

Prime of my life
Priming my life
For some prime prize
Progress provides.

But if prime plans proved
Poorly placed,
And my priming went to waste
What would I have?
What good could a bunch of
“Should”s be,
If I ended up exactly,
Matter of factly
Where I once stood?
Primely dissatisfied
With time gone by.

What would I find,
If instead, I didn’t dread a step
On a path untread
Certainly unsure,
But with a bit more
For me to explore,
Now,
And less up ahead.

Sometimes I draw things.
Not much, not really.
But recently, I've tried people.
Because that's something real.
Like, take a tree, for instance:
Sure, it's alive, and beautiful.
But it's never going to tell me a story.
It won't teach me a lesson.
It can't bare its soul.
So when you draw it, it's just a tree.
But a person, see, that's different.
You draw a smile or a frown or a laugh,
And that's them, in that moment,
In that hour.
You draw eyes and there's something behind them.
And that's beyond beautiful.
And when you draw someone you already think is beautiful, well,
That's sublime.
It's beyond anything.
The moment isn't enough.
The hour isn't enough.
The drawing will never be enough.

Today I walked outside and it hit me.
I had just finished my last class in this city,
The last time I'd rush to the North Building,
The last lecture on philosophy.

This was the end of an age,
An era in this life.
Now it's on to the next stage.

I don't feel all too different.
Maybe that's just a sign that I shouldn't.
After all, it's just four down, four to go.
More to learn, more to know.

So much more ahead,
It almost seems like only the beginning is behind.
But my journey isn't new
Being a doctor has long been on my mind.

When you've wanted something since eighth grade,
It's not just about undergrad.
It's about the choices you've made.
It's about staying smart and staying safe.
It's about the life you live.
And how much time you give
To each thing in it.

It does feel like something.
It feels like a child learning to walk.
Who will one day run.
It feels like a plant growing taller
To reach a place with more sun.
It feels like more than 4 years,
Or a lot of undergraduate class.
It feels like the graduation
And the evolution
Of the Zach of the past.

So when you're here, leaving class.
There's so much to see, looking back.
I could sigh, thinking of all that's been.
I could lament for this era's end.
But I think I'll remember it all
And smile instead,
And know that nothing can compare
To what lies ahead.

A teddy bear hugs the dirt
Next to a dozen roses bouquetted in grass.
This is not the fate intended
By those who left these tokens of grace.
But the wind and the rain owe no mercy
To lonely headstones and their favors.
And gifts given soon whither and die
So true to their recipients they are.
Stone holds the more steady service,
Stands it's constant post,
Taking no heed of how many letters are read
Or how many tears join night sprinklers.
Choosing instead to hold vigil
Far past when the last teddy bear is left.

I never realized how warm my fingers were
Until they were pressed to my skull.
Never realized how they seem harder,
In some way, than even metal.
And believe me,
Right now, I would know.
I know I won’t feel the heat;
Not really. It’ll be too quick.
But I can feel each knuckle now,
Their sharpness should make me sick.
Because if I take them off my skin,
I know I’ll be doomed,
As long as they’re there,
My ambition is pointed at the roof.
Even if I do, I want them to be last
Of the things that my body feels.
Because, even as they stab into me,
I’ve never felt a peace this real.
The moment of calm, before the storm.
No sun has ever felt so warm.
Maybe that’s where it’s all gone.
My extremities stealing the fire
That began in my heart,
All along.
Maybe I’ll stay here forever,
Never moving my hand.
Never following through
With this most recent plan.
And maybe that will be enough.
My fingers are so warm,
Pressed to my skull.
I won’t take them off
Until they make me feel whole.

She laughed at all his jokes,
And looked at him when he spoke.
She knew his name
Right away
And cared about his goals.

His cheeks flushed hot,
He ignored the butterflies she brought,
Thinking that he
Would crazy be
To think she'd give him a second thought.

But when they embraced,
His mind chanced to change.
Her arms strong
Their touch prolonged
Ignited hope she felt the same.

For the girl who laughed at all his jokes
And looked at him when he spoke
Thought that she
Would crazy be
To think he'd have the same hope.

So, he took the risk
To chance a kiss.
His heartbeat quick
A sonnet he writ
In the creases of her lips.

There are few things so certain as uncertainty,
Or so perilous as truth.

Darlings of philosophy have fallen
Effortlessly into darkness,
Failing to find an argument
In favor of the absolute,
Not knowing that their fault lay in
Even seeking it in the first place.

If only more were to quit
Searching for answers,

They might find that it is
Only the question which is worthwhile.

Life does not exist to be known,
It exists to be created,
Made through the living of it,
Infinite, if only we have the courage
To will more than to wonder.

Just be you.
That's what they all say to do.
And anytime that you say
That you don't like something
That you find in the mirror,
They say that they don't wanna hear it.
But what if being you is ****?
What if you don't like what you find in your soul,
And you wanna change it?
Be happy with who you are
Is going too far.
Because we should be able to hear
When our gears
Don't tick with time.
And when our words don't rhyme,
We should stop.
And rewrite.
Recreate.
And never settle for the wrong
Until we find what's right.
Be who you are
Discounts the amount of power
We have over ourselves.
Because we are not the same
As when we were first given our name,
And we shouldn't try to be.
You and I should be free
To decide what it means to be you and me,
And not leave it all to destiny.
None of us is perfect,
So it's okay to reject
Those things we find suspect.
And find something a little
More worthy of our respect.

Your mind is like a meadow
And a cave.
There are moments you sit with me
Among flowers and soft grass
You feel the morning dew
And you breathe in fresh air
As the sun warms your fair skin.

Here, there is happiness.
Here, there is beauty.
Here, there is love.
You smile and laugh
And forget that there has ever been anything else,
Because your back is to the cave.

Then, something ****** your ear,
A cool, sinister breeze,
And you turn to glance for just a moment
Behind.
And when you turn back to me,
It is an apology
From the part of you that turned.
For the part of you that wishes you hadn't.

Then you stand and turn
And walk toward the cave,
Drawn by some unseen force.
Nothing I say can turn you.
Nothing I do can stop you.
From the depths comes a chill
That shivers through your bones
And makes you crave the sun,
But you walk forward still.
Some menace draws you
And I can feel it's power,
At once pulling you forward
And pushing me away.

Until you reach the precipice
Between our haven
And the depths ahead.
Perhaps the warmth now stirs you,
For you turn back, just once,
To look to me.
But your face is not your own anymore,
It is unthinking, unfeeling,
Your eyes empty pools,
Behind them, a mind surrendered,
And I know it is too late.

You walk under the cold rock ceiling
And into a darkness
So thick that all my shouts are swallowed whole
And the light from outside dwindles to a pinprick.
I cannot join you there.
I cannot fight the cold and the dark,
And the menace that lies in the depths.
I can only wait.
And hope you will escape it's hold
And come back here,
To me.

I want a girl who'll sit with me and stare at the sunset.
But not because it's pretty or colorful,
But just because she hasn't discovered yet
What it all must mean
For us to be looking at it when we all just seem
So insignificant. So small. So young and old,
And out of time.
But lost in time.
And one day, forgotten, with time.
I want a girl who stays up late.
Because she doesn't like that she can't control sleep.
But she'll get mad at me when I do the same.
Because she'll know that to have no dreams
Would be a shame.
And to never lose control
Would be like having no soul.

We reach and we try
To cage an infinite existence.
But what good is that?
Where do we grow,
When we sacrifice real beauty,
For a bit of control?
All of this, the girl I want will know.
And that's why, one day, I know she'll go.
I want a girl that is wonderful as a summer rain,
But just as fleeting.
She will come, sending shivers and leaving goosebumps.
Then she will go,
But not so quick as to forget the rainbow.
And the dew
And the scent that will linger
For much longer than the few
Moments that she was still here.
And later on, when my sun sets,
I will be, again, out of time.
And she lost in time.
Forgotten, with time.

Happy Birthday!
And what a special day it is!
Because of every birthday in your life,
This is the first you missed.

No one would come to the funeral for Earth
Or for Sol or the whole Milky Way,
So insignificant in the grand scheme.
It's easy to think that our worth
Is really not much to say.

I feel so small
Because I don't really matter.
It's the undeniable truth,
That we are all
Only loose collections of matter.

And we are but part of part
Of part of part of part
Of the universe as a whole.
And if we died right now,
There'd be no one else to know.

Or if they did, someone somewhere,
With galactic cable or pay-per-view,
Our series finale would not impress.
They'd watch Earth fade without a care.
The credits would leave out the extras,
Me and You.

Do I even like you?
What a ******* question.
But for some reason,
It seems relevant
To me on this occasion.
I can’t think of a thing you’ve done
Other than to run.
Seems the odds of whether
You’ll disappoint
Are worse than if I
Were to flip a coin.

So do I even like you?
It’s not rhetorical
When I ask the question,
I want the answer in full.
I can’t decide to whom I ask.
Except that I’d like the answer
Fast enough to make a difference,
Now that I wonder “Why?”
I let myself get this far in the rhyme.

A blade slices deftly through thin skin,
Not intentionally
Though then, it would have been much less surpising.
But caught unaware, now becoming all the more observant,
With the terrible dread of what's to come.
And, for a single, endless moment, there is no blood
Just a fleshy interruption
Of an otherwise unbroken landscape.
A seemless pattern of lines with almost imperceptible depth
Split by one harsh fissure.
By comparison, stretching deep into the world below.
Panic and wonder and excitement at the ****,
A new formation on the old plain
The possibility to make one different.
The skew of lines are unique,
But the marks formed by old pains
Have far more to say.
In another moment, the blood comes,
The brilliance passed
In the maroon tumult from the chasm.
Awe passes to action,
To stop the flow
Effort to restore the expanse to its uncut perfection,
Or better yet,
To skip straight to finding beauty again
In the resplendent scar.

Her smiles were all questions.
Her lips would part as if they weren't quite sure they should.
If she laughed, it was a cautious one,
Escaping out before it could be kept inside
For interrogation.
And there was still a twinkle in each eye,
Two radiant stars.
But their shine was so temporary,
Ready to be extinguished if they were found to not belong.

She smiled the way most people dip their foot into the water of a pool
That might be too hot or too cold.
Like whatever she thought was funny or cute or beautiful
Might not really be.
The world might be too hot or too cold.
And if her smile was a little too genuine,
A little too certain,
Maybe then SHE would be found
To not belong.

I think that when she loved me,
It was a question.
I think that there was still a twinkle,
But it was temporary.
I think she dipped her foot in,
And for once, it wasn't too hot or too cold.

But she couldn't trust that.
She couldn't trust her instincts,
Her feelings,
Her mind.
She couldn't trust that what she saw
Was reality,
Thinking, maybe, she was just caught in some strange dream of a strange world of strange people.
Or maybe, it wasn't a dream,
And everything and everyone were normal.
And she was strange.
She couldn't decide which would be worse.

So she smiled at me
A question.
And when I smiled back,
She had an answer.

When she loved me
A question.
I wish I would have given her an answer.

I hope you remember me as your favorite hour of your favorite season.

Maybe it's dawn of a spring day, the new morning light glistening through dew drops on green grass springing forth and flowers just beginning to bud.

Maybe it's a fall evening, a slight breeze arousing fresh fallen leaves, choreographing a dance that is at once bursting with life and also a solemn epitaph.

Maybe it's a winter day, soft snow brighter it seems than the sun itself, falling slowly and covering the world in a soft embrace, both cautious and beautiful.

Maybe it's a summer night, stars patiently emerging one by one through a clear sky, whispering of the humble vastness of all that is.

Do not let me be a face or a name, but a feeling, returning to you once again, each year.

She said the words.
*******, why?
Until that point we were
Doing just fine.
But she said those three words,
With a look in her eye
That showed me that
This was no lie.

Now we aren’t fine.
She crossed a line
I didn’t even know was there.
There was no sign stating “Beware,”
So how could I judge her forgoing there.
I guess for me,
It’s just so rare
That I feel that I actually care
Enough to share
Those three words,
That I just heard.

Now, I’ll admit I’m scared.
What if I don’t agree
And not just for the time being.
What if it’s just not in me?
I know that’s her fear.
That I’ll never repeat it back
That she’ll never get to hear
These words, for there is something I lack,
Some emptiness inside,
Some surplus of pride,
Some instinct to run and hide.

Maybe she’ll run first
To avoid the worst
So my heart has no chance
To break hers.

I hope that she won’t
I hope she hopes
There’s love enough for us both
In her
At least until I’m ready
To take my turn
Until I learn
To love in return.

I hope she won’t hide
Because I don’t know how hard I’ll seek
But I know that those three words
Were good for me.

Why?
Not because I’m that great of a guy.
But because as far as girls go,
She’s one of a kind.

There are moments when the world moves fast;
My heart beats out of my chest.
My brain runs, skips, jumps, will not quit,
And I can’t tell if I want out of it.
All things are here, all things are now.
I seem supremely aware without knowing how
To the sight of the trees
The sound of the leaves
The touch of inspiration
The taste of creation
I must have been complete before
But now I am something more.
Going forth with such power
Now is my hour!
But what torture if it lasts that long,
Because this clarity of which I am so fond
Can be so draining.
Even causing pain when
Leaving me again,
I become whole
But feel anything but full.

People have seemed so dull, lately.
My life not feeling quite full, lately.
Lonely, but surrounded by friends, lately.
Listening to your favorite songs again, lately.
It's been cold, then really hot, lately.
I've been missing you a lot, lately.

I've been remembering my dreams, lately.
Contemplating what that means, lately.
Wanting to visit you at school, lately.
Been feeling kind of like a fool, lately.
I feel like I've hit a wall, lately.
Wishing I could just call, lately.

I've been drinking like you did, lately.
Avoiding more than I'd like to admit, lately.
There's a piece missing in my life, lately.
No one seems to fit just right, lately.
Busy, you shouldn't be on my mind, lately.
But you're the only happiness I find, lately.
I wish I could lie next to you again, lately.
I wish I had been a better friend, lately.

Blue is calm.
It is cool.
It is quiet.
It is still.

Yellow is panic.
It is movement.
It is unknown.
It is change.

Blue is my past,
Where the nights were cool.
Where my mind was quiet.
Where my friendships were still.

My present is yellow,
Where all there is is movement.
Where my thoughts are unknown.
Where my fear is change.

I constantly try to get back to blue,
Though no one would believe me.
My yellow is something
Some dream of, hope for.
But it's not enough for me.
Or maybe it's too much.
The only solace is that today's yellow
Will be tomorrow's blue.

There are moments when the world spins slow;
My eyes droop, as if to lead my head,
And the most involving things
Seem distant instead.
I’m here, but I’m not
For part of me is removed.
Where it is, in time or in space,
I can’t begin to tell you.
Perhaps part of me leaves
To some intangible land.
My spirit learns what it needs,
Then returns to its host, the man.
Or perhaps, the mind can’t help but take a rest
Not afforded by dream or reverie.
So it escapes the world and its mess
To a nothingness far more clean.
Or, it could be for no reason at all
That I seem to lose half of my soul.
All I gain from it
Is appreciation of when I am whole.

There was a spotlight on her that night,
Submerging her in a glow that demanded attention.
All else faded to background scenery,
As she performed her unconscious solo piece.
No one had bought tickets,
But they all took their place in the seats,
And waited on baited breath
For what masterpiece she might conceive.

There must have been an orchestra too,
For my heart thrummed harmonies to her every move,
And every voice which spoke
Seemed to be the overture to the entrance of her own.

She conducted herself effortlessly
Composed, with depths hidden just enough
To make all in attendance
Burn to learn the lyrics to her subtle smile.

And when she exited stage right on time,
There was too much awe for ovation.
For no hand among them
Could conceive to thank her with naught but a clap.

But one such hand found solace enough
After such a haunting act.
My own,
Squeezed tightly around hers
As she closed the stage door shut.

A blue dress shirt
Serendipitously
Left on after a meeting.
Now again needed.
This happy coincidence
So much more forgettable
Than if I had worn jeans
To this event
Labeled "business casual."
How many blue dress shirts
Do we wear with
Sighs of relief,
Giving little thought
To happenstance
As we go about our day
Luckily avoiding
Consequence?

Two steps forwards, one step back,
Keep fighting your next self-attack.
And it’s not that I want you back,
Just want you in my life, to be exact.
I want you to know: I got your back.
If you want, we can leave it at that.