Don't be scared to sneeze in MATH105
Blow these numbers off the page, so I can finally have an excuse to
Blow off some time with you

I want to memorize what that sneeze sounds like, unique to the individual
Each sound varies upon sneezers voice,
allergies, voice box, larynx, even personality
If that's all true, I bet even you, sneeze as **** as a *******!

The only thing that I want more wet and slimey than the inside of your elbow,
Is the way we make love
"Oh baby, that's it!
Sneeze for me! Sneeze harder!
Sneezed like you've never sneezed
for a man before and then sneeze
harder!"

Don't EVER hold a sneeze back!
You're not only killing brain cells
But killing me as well!
I want to see what kind of tornados
you can throw when a dust storm
gets at you
What demons are you hiding,
not letting Christ expel

Don't be ashamed!
Are you scared that just you're sneeze
Will create tsunami waves of attention
If so! I'm buying a front row ticket wearing
nothing but arm floaties and a rain coat

If you get sick, kiss me with your breathe
And well get over this cold- feet together

I want to know your sneeze so when we
Are cooking dinner, you can be half way through inhale
And I'll have a tissue and the words
"Bless you"
Already trotting outta my mouth

I want to be the blessed one
To be within hearing distance
Be able to bless you back  
See you come outta your shell for .237 seconds
There to catch the science of your anatomy jumping off the cliff of your nose

I want to be in the bookstore,
Reading super hero graphic novels
And hear you in your boredom two floors up at Starbucks, sneeze,
And be able to say
"YES! THATS MY MAN!!"
You hear that one Peter Parker?
Try to dodge your spidey-sense around that one!
That's a sneeze that'd make the phone booth go inside Clark Kent!

We'll have two kids, named
Gesundheit and Salud
The cat's name will be Ah-Choo
Unless you're allergic to cats
Then scratch the kids, we'll have
A cat zoo! So I can hear the symphony
Of your nostrils on the daily

If you think this poem is gross
Wait tell you see the way I sneeze
When I'm thinking of you

There’s a bus station inside of me

My emotions are always on time

But my actions are arriving later than ever

I’m the punk kid in the corner of the 23

Trying to escape home

When really, 
I’m the elderly lady, nervously riding the 26

Trying to find her way back home.

Home.

We wander aimlessly around university boulevard

Pretending like we are college students

Knees shaking like my 3rd grade hands when 
Dad taught me how to play poker
Growing up is a gamble
Except you have nothing to bet,

But everything to lose

College is a card game,
but missing some of the 52’s

And the 21’s,
barely 18’s

The first time I got blindingly drunk

We were all just 18, just graduated

and we were drinking like it was 
going to be our last drinks
We said “I love you”

Like we were about to be sent to war

Society, war field

Knowledge, machine guns
We said “I love you” 

Like we were ghost

We never were so able

to see right through each other like we did that night
We grew up hearing the scary stories

Of our battered haunted houses

"Love."

It wasn’t the tequila talking

But courage we found in fear

Fear that our mother’s would 

**** us if she knew what we were doing
     *
growing up*

We stay up late in the dorms

spewing our dreams out of reality

I learned at a lecture once

That when galaxies form, 

Masses spew out of control 

Smashing into each other

until millions years later, 

They find their orbit

We’re becoming ourselves in the most

violent of ways

Smashing into things until 
we get it right

One time, I saw a toddler on the bus

Peeling off his own scab

In all his gore and glory

He held it up in pride, 
"Look ma!"
its amazing, that any age

We find new ways to make ourselves bleed

Just to make sure we’re still human

I write poems for kids
That too often get asked

“are you a boy, or a girl”

Because they are the only ones who
Will understand the physical rush
Of empowerment versus discouragement
In their guts

The question that verifies
You have finally broken gender norms
Unhuman.
Floating in unearthly genderless celestial bodies

“are you a boy, or a girl”

Only to hit the ground faster than falling stars
When told

“you better ******* start acting like it”

I write poems for kids
Who have a bird cage for ribs
And fish for a heart
Raised on its ability to fly

Look kid, you gotta learn how to swim away
Because you’ll be question by bird keepers
Until the day your veins are able to run upstream

You’ll leave the closet to only join the zoo
So enjoy the field trips
And the bears, and the otters
And learn to question the birds and the bees
It’s okay to only want birds on birds, bees on bees

It’s okay to want to try ****.
And it’s okay to want to stay as far away as possible
To think about *** at sixteen and keep that sweet composure

One day the reflection on the glass isn’t going to match
The second grade smile behind it

Frame yourself however you may choose
It’s okay to have purple hair
We all make mistakes
Don't feel guilty for being too scared to tell your mother

Your whole life, people have been trying to build you in the wrong direction
They aren’t going to understand what it feels like
To simply just wear
Eyeliner,
I understand, it’s war paint

Or the kind of questions you’ll get all afternoon
“are you a boy, or a girl”

Your identity is not polarized
Gender is a spectrum, not a just *****
There’s shades between the seven colors I fit in

Recognize you’ll be lonely eight days of the week
There’s no one like you at home or at school or work
So step out of frames,
Look at bigger pictures

Every hallway is your catwalk, every shoe
Can be your empire state stiletto
Every ****, ******, slur is compliment to the human anarchy inside your bones

Your human anatomy matched with the way your mind things
Is one of the greatest forms of activism
And if you ever go through an emo phase,
Be the baddest goth child you can be!

I write poems for kids
That fall between “boy and girl”
I write poems that I wish I heard as a kid
To tell kids to keep fighting
Even though the war is not yet won
There’s victory in every battle you tired

Liberation looks like teenagers mapping their voices in 10 minutes of silence
Liberation is being free from the day’s struggles and tying them down to paper
I’ve seen liberation happen
Ink flowing on paper like they were flowing blood from their fingertips

If you’re so angry
Write a poem
If you’ve ever been cheated out
Write a poem
If you’ve ever been lied to without the courtesy of it being done behind your back
Write a poem
Write every gut wrenching, self-deprecating, thought on paper
Perform self-surgery to remove the weight of world from the bones in your shoulders

By writing a poem

If they’ve never understood what is was like to go to school every day lacking self-worth
If they’ve never understood what it was like to go to school
Where adults didn’t trust you, officers looked down on you
“Get to class” – My only purpose in life was to get to class
“Sorry teacher.  I didn’t do my homework because being at home was too much work already.”
Then write a poem

For the broken desks and spirits
Crumbling ceilings and facades
Holes in the floor and education system
That our school forgets to brag about
Write a poem.

To correct every materialistic, tech savvy, online, suit and tie, next big thing,
Kind of ******* lie our school feeds us
Liberate yourself by writing a poem

For the principal that has no idea what happens in the classroom
Liberate him
For the students who don't know what doesn’t happen with administration
Liberate them

Write a poem
Because if you fail, then will anybody notice
Your silent shouts knocking on deaf ears




Write a (love) poem
About how this school became your four year long affair
Five days a week. Even though you had your battles
You’re going to miss this kind of relationship when it’s gone
Liberate this kind of community

Write a poem for the soles of the feet of boys and girls
Who dance on broken bottles
Copper glass shards
Exoskeletons of alcoholics
Scattered in a playground like tombstones in a graveyard
Write a poem for the broken bottles your community got used to
Liberate your community

If you’ve ever been inspired here then write a poem
To inspire others to loosen the wrinkles in the joints in their fingers
Crinkle out the cracks in their wrist
Get those palms to tell their own stories

Write a poem
That will make them raise their arms and shake
Chains of oppression off their lungs to get them o
Breathe
Liberate them

Write a poem that would make the roots of you ancestry shake their leaves
Liberate your roots

Liberate yourself – make them listen
Liberate them – make yourself listen

Liberate the 9th grade wannabe’s, drop out clichés, teenage mothers,
Clueless administrators, kids feeling tied down to Tucson,
Teachers lacking faith in change
Boys and girls thinking they are forever
Silenced
Liberate those you are forever
Silent

Liberate yourself
Write a poem

I’m always pen in hand to write the sins my lovers have committed
But I more than ever, shy away from paper
At the mention of the tragedies I’ve written
The hearts I have broken
The stories I’m ashamed to write

Some nights I spend sleeping
Other nights I’ll spend resting my head down on a keyboard
Drowning in updates and refreshing pages
Trying to find reasons for being up
so **** late
Lately, these nights that I worked a long eight hour shift
Waiting to escape retail in hopes
My friends aren’t busy, wanting to retell some stories
The nights my friends hop restaurant to restaurant

“We have no place to go"


We’ve been riding these desert streets for hours
Resurfacing our stories to heal our wounds
Or maybe our laughter only masks it
And we like to think it’s both

You can ride these streets as fast as you like, trying to forget,
but tonight,


we write
we ride
we eat
we share

tonight, the moon plays catch-up with us, it’s desert wonderers
the sun, tonight she’ll rest
tonight, the roadrunner
walked
crossed the street with a lizard in its mouth
looked me in the eye and swallowed it
The desert bird didn’t serve its name’s purpose
We’ve realized that sometimes, society, doesn’t serve it’s intentions


but when so
"we have no place to go"
We’ll turn parking lots into neighborhoods
Cars into homes, with kickbacks and house parties
Turn songs into poems
Become poetry ourselves
Become trilogies of our most battered loved lives
Find excuses for where the stars lie
And sometimes we’ll swear they lie in our ex’s eyes
And we’ll become what we don’t want to be in the dark

vulnerable


walking roadrunners


poets who don’t write

but in that moment, were just teenagers


"with no place to go"


We swear this summer is ours,
That growing up doesn’t have to be synonymous with change
That human beings aren’t equivalent to seasons
That poems actually can be never ending
if only we have the courage to
write the beginning

That Denny’s will always be a hotspot
Cafe’s are temporary
Dollar Menu’s are forever
We’re everything but hungry

Only starving
For inspiration in a wasteland
Unquenchable thirst for dreams of doing
something in empty parking lots
Trying to fill voids.

Tonight,
We replace our heartbreaks with these nights
The nights we walk across roads
Unknowing the other side, with lizards halfway down our throats

Tonight
We write, without looking both ways


~

I come from metallic bunk beds
from American Express debt
and Visa Master Card envelopes

I am from run down two bedroom apartments,
   trying to contain a higher number of people
   than it had walls

small. battered.
it felt like a field

I am from the palo verdé

From the hissing noises from cicadas outside
bronze screen door, they ring all summer long

summer never ends here

I am from large late night texas hold em games on Christmas night

from yelling, insecurities, laughter

from nostalgia

from teenager high school romances

Patrick. Susanne.

I am from divorce and cousins living airplanes away

I am from “don’t jump on that”
                “don’t touch that”
                “don’t run like that”
        from “I don’t feel like going to the hospital today”

I come from that awkward phase when my parents like country music
to when my dad tells me stories when he used to listen to Biggie

"are you okay laddie"

I come from Saturday Sabbath
I still don’t know what grandma believes in
but she believes in me

I come from Germany. My mother sailed oceans avoiding war.
I come from the land. My father witness oceans sailing to him start wars.

from sweet tea to bitter coffee

from the time I pulled out my brothers front teeth in a game of tug of war

from the only pictures hanging in the hallway outside of what used to be my room.
what was my room.

I am from Saturday night drive thrus

cruising south Tucson

creating a place worth coming from
where words drift off page, and family anchors it.

I dont know if it was because of the book you were reading
Or if it was because the curvature of your sloped spine
insinuated you were tired
Or maybe it was because you just looked lonely
But, you looked like you could write poetry
it could’ve been the pen marks on your fingers
Or the tan lines across your neck
But eyes like that don’t just sit down

Eyes like that start fires in my cheeks
And picket signs in my chest
And ******* legislators
But more importantly they make me want to write

I don’t know if it was the way your jaw clenched you
Or the way your tongue bit your teeth
But you looked like you could recite poetry

And even worse, I wanted to listen

I wanted to be your commitee, outreach, moral support
I wanted to be your pen, paper, microphone, clothes on your back
I wanted to be anything that touched your skin, touching me

You’re least favorite feeling is when your holding back tears and your face is about to explode
There’s reasons why the clouds look so heavy before falling
God can hold so much in

You said you don’t believe in luck, but you’re a firm believer in hope
That three leaf clovers weren’t done growing when they were plucked
That when a lady bug didn’t land on your hand,
A premature baby somewhere is using his grasp his mother’s finger
For the first time

I want to hear the poetry that you’ll write about the
spaces between your fingers
It will be the closest i’ll ever get to holding them

you were born an angry baby.
with tears in your eyes
But i use to poetry to say they weren’t angry.

just eyes dancing.

You were a tourist attraction
That I held in my hands
My fingers, constantly tracing the outline of your smile in photographs
A memory
A tourist attraction, is visited by thousands every year
But I, I knew you’re story
Where the bombs struck most
Where the guns left the most bulletholes
In your forgotten love life
I remember you like the Alamo
Broken, but still standing
You were the tourist attraction,
And I was the snow globe
in your gift shop
Shaken.
Stirred.
Removed.
But I still carried a part of you inside me
You were the Golden Gate Bridge
From hipster photographs
But I knew, your workings
Like how you keep your ropes loosen
To avoid constricting
Breaking
Throwing away
Tourist every day photograph your beauty but I,
I was the civilian
who framed you in my doorway
Statues are not freedom, they are committed to their solidarity
Unwillingness to move
The freedom is found in the boys eyes
Who walks away with the snow globe
Something new in his hands
An attraction.

The sun misses her west when she rises
Thinks about her east when she lays down
on her mountains of pillows
She misses her night time talks with the moon
Her skies long for his full being
He miss being a rounded person
"Sorry Darling,
I'm in my crescent phase"
Stars stir in her sleep
Orbit around her when she can't get out of bed
Indigo glow show reflections of the sky
Blue Valentine
Blue waves become discourage
Question where lovers stand
Wavering on the surface
Dancing when the wind blows
Listen to her stir
The sun
She is tired.

i want to be that boy's bible
he could explore my past like layers
pages
study me like proverbs
memorize me like proverbs
i want him to find out what men
i've written stories about
pray to my poetry
get on his knees and worship me
sing gospel hymns in the
pews of my limbs
i want him to see through my transparent
paper skin
read my freckles like typed words
God put each one there on purpose and
i would like someone to finally guess
why and embrace it
see through my exterior
teach a boy to never judge a book by it's leathery exterior
i want some to prove that my insides could flow like poems
using my tongue as his bookmark
i will hold his place between his lips and be his excuses
for things he cannot explain with science
i want to be this boy's bible, almost his religion
i'm not looking for a fully committed relationship
i only want to be there when he needs me
be one his coffee table late at night
on his one night stands
have him open my palest pages outward
bury his face in my middle
seeking comfort
explanation for his insecurities
tell him his sins aren't sins
what he's committed will be forgiven
i want to forgive him
for what this religion deems unholy
for what his church believes is not sanctuary
when he is lost, i want him to dig deep in his pride
talk to me
let me help him
find guidance
show him how to pray the pain away
teach him to dream
worship me in whispers before bed
i want to be
that boy's
bible

My English class got paired up with a class from the University.
While everyone's partners had the appearance of being "normal"
My partner sat in the back of the class wearing bright red ripped nylons
With cowboy boots with curly cotton candy hair
With a body language that spoke
    "*******"
She was only 23 and smelled like an old Denny's restaurant

Her breath was the stench of her smoker's only section
Battling against the stench of her caffeine addiction.
While I was asking her questions about life
And how everyone including the voice in the back of my head
Tells to get a conventional job
She poured out nicotine into a slip of paper
Like how I just poured out my questions on life outta my lips
She said through licking and concealing her hand built cigarette
"KID! Stop thinking what others think for you.
For your age, the best plan is not having one.
Now do you want to go outside with me while I smoke this?"

And I realized, ****, I don't have a plan.
So many kids my age are so quick to bash Tucson
They've already mapped out the quickest route outta here
Created a 5-year plan to get rich, and have been keeping
They're "*******'s and see ya later's" in their back pocket
Since they turned 18.
And I'm still hung up on the homework I forgot to do,
last week.

One of my friends told me a story how her mother
Followed her passion to be a hairdresser
How her mother tells her stories of the good old days
And used to be so happy. And that her mother gave it all up
For a better paying job in order to take care of her.
Now my friend wants to go to college and make lots of money
And be just like her mother -- unhappy.
I actually broke down and started crying at the lunch table
Because she so obviously didn't learn the lesson
She so obviously didn't notice how her mom sacrificed
Her passion in order for her to chase hers.
I told her she didn't get it.
She told me I didn't get the "real world."

So yeah, maybe I don't
Maybe I like to believe in real-passion
And the real-meaning and purpose of an education
Ya, maybe I don't know what I want to do with my life
Maybe I'm not done exploring Tucson
Or maybe I am immature
Because my plan of not having a plan
Is what excites me the most
I've planned for 18 years for what I'm going to do
To get me to that day I graduate
And I haven't even spent a good hour thinking
What I'm going to do every day after.
I don't need to keep a ******* in my back pocket
I'm not tying myself down to any plans
I'm rearranging the sentence, "F You Tucson"
And I'm just trying to say
"Tucson, I'm getting reading to finally meet you"

If Tucson molds me into the poetry loving
Preaching to kids, kinda hippie I already am
Or if I just become a waiter my whole life, trying to get people to buy my book
Or maybe college will make me even hate books
Maybe not having a plan is a mistake,
But maybe, if I make enough mistakes
One of those mistakes will be something really really great.
And I really, really can't wait.

Your hair is just like your feet.
It never knows which direction it's going in.
And the only thing bigger than your brown eyes,
Are your little arms when you hold them out to your sides
Reading "Pick me up!"
You can't talk yet, but I hear you say so many things.
We named you Faith.
Which is ironic because it's something
This family is lacking.
I swear all your brothers hate each other
I'm one ***** on the neck away from moving out
And your parents are one sigh away from saying
"Let's just call it quits."

You're not even one and we've cheated you out your childhood
Like when a man cheats on his wife
We didn't really know how much heartbreaking we were fixin' to do.
It's unfair.
It's unfair how you're the only one who still smiles in these hallways
In the hallway, there's this big gray smudge that covers the wall
From when my baby brother decorated it with Crayola's
And my mom spent a week trying to get it off
But she never could.

In my opinion, that's the best ******* family portrait we are ever going to paint!
It's proof history can never be erased, no matter how much try to get rid of it, or ignore it
It's a ******* to the perfect white walls of a "perfect" white family
The dark smudge on the walls is the writing my parents will never see
The fact that it's still there after three years is proof,
That you can never stifle a child's creativity.
It's the worse excuse for a family portrait
But this house sure as hell isn't perfect in the inside.

I rather come from a broken home than be in one.
I rather remember this house when it was at it's best and leave
Then live a day to day reminder that it's never going to be that way any more.

I swear the last time my brothers and I got along was when I was five
And we pretended they were my puppies and I would feed them scraps form the table
Kids do weird **** sometimes.
Or when we'd walk around in our underwear and bathrobes
Pretending to be jedi knights with toy lightsabers
Walking around the house like it was our planet to protect.
And pretty soon I'm getting on the first rocket off this planet I can find.

The only thing that holds me back is that I feel like
I'm cheating you out one less older brother.
Trading my sister for an education and a paycheck.
A reality check.
That I can't be a kid forever.

But promise me you will try.
Promise me that whenever I come home you always will
Still have your arms outstretched wide open
Promise me you'll make mistakes and draw on walls
And explore your own planets
And that you'll be okay exploring them without me.
Promise me that when you're old enough to understand this poem
You'll write me back.
Promise me you'll be patient with mom and dad
Even though they seem like they aren't
Trust me. They're trying.
Trust me.
We named you Faith for a reason.

She smelled like an old Denny's restaurant
Her breath was a battle of the stench of
Cigarettes reeking from her
Smoker's Only Section from the 80's
Against the stench of her addiction to caffeine
While I was trying to tell her that
My peers, my role models, and even
My voice in the back of my head
All tell me to become a teacher
Even though that is not my plan,
She said through licking a thin piece of paper
Over stuffed with nicotine that she just poured
Out like how I pour out questions on life
Through my lips

"Kid, stop thinking what others think for you.
For your age, the best plan is not having plan.
So you wanna go outside with me while I smoke this?"

One of my closest friends asked
If I was still obsessed with you.
My reply was
No.
I am over you.
I only used you to write a great poem.
But that's a lie.

The poem wasn't all that great.

I just finished texting you on December 31st
Sunday night, or maybe you consider that a Monday morning
and a country song just came on the radio
I couldn't help but to think about how much I hate country music
I hate the stereotypical voice the singer always sings,
the predictable pattern of strung guitar strings
So, at 2:24 am, on a December 31st, Sunday night/Monday morning

I started to wonder if you liked country music
Or believed too that it's tacky
I wonder if "tacky" even exist in your vocabulary
Where did you get your vocabulary?
Did your mom raise you to believe words would be your greatest ally
Was she raised with more than one language
I wonder what your ancestor's native language sounds like
And if it was ripped out of their tongues
Like culture in our history books
what stories were told from those tongues that history books could never tell
I wonder, what kind of stories you've carved in lover's mouths
with just your, tongue.

I wondered if you've ever lost someone
I wonder if you've ever lost yourself
If you did, where did you find yourself?
Did you find yourself in your palms over bent knees
That kissed the ground that at one time
kissed your feet.

I wonder when we'll meet
I wonder if I'll meet your best friend. If shell ever get scared
You'll replace her with me
And if I'll have to tell her, she's irreplaceable.
I wonder what's your favorite places you've been to
The places that made you smile to your human anatomy's most potential
And I wonder how much you know about your own human anatomy
I wonder if you know that an average heart beats 100,000 times a day
Pumping almost 2,000 gallons of blood through its chambers
Over a 70 year lifespan, that adds up to about 2.5 billion heartbeat
And sitting here, just wondering about you- you made me skip a few.

It's now 3:07 a.m.
And I'm wonderin' if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be loved by a poet
To have your body be put words and your words be put against my body
To have lips match figurative language to the figure of your body
And write love poems on your cheek
And I wonder if you even consider me a poet.

What are the events in your life you consider poetic?
If your life was a poem, what kind of poem would your
8th grade English teacher categorize it as?
If you were a curious child and if now
You're ever curious about me
If my mind ever wanders while I wonder about you
And if I could ever weaver it back

At 3:21 a.m., December 31st, Sunday night, Monday morning
I'm wondering if you're wondering about me.
Or if you ever wonder if I've ever lost myself, but more recently, lost my mind writing poetry

I wonder if you wonder if I consider myself a poet.
I wonder, if at 3:27 am, if you're awake too,
Wondering if I like country music.

I would understand the meaning culture if it wasn't presented in an electronic box
Maybe I would understand the Mexican culture if it wasn't taught in
Seven minute intervals by a middle aged Caucasian
Who has never been to Mexico.
Online Spanish dictionaries have gotten me no where
And only dig my job applications deeper in the pile of "to be considered"
After more than a year, I still need fluent Spanish speakers to take my test for me
I'm only cheating the system because being "Tech Savvy" means they're
Cheating my education.
The lesson on food told me to pronounce it
"case-ah-dil-lah"
Because we are in America and "that's how we say it"
Typing two r's in a row will not teach me how to roll them.

11/13/12*
I don't know what I would do if I lost her
I think I would start by retracing the steps she took to find herself
Get to revisit all the places that she's visited to build her character
Find myself in each place she found her calling
Calling back memories to the rims of her eyes
I want to see all the places she's seen
And try to outline them with my corneas
And dilate her thoughts with my pupils
Try to recollect every tear that was fallen and for what reason
In her palms, I want to find my self in the things she found in her palms
What psalms she grazed with her fingertips
Find out what fire sparked sparks in between her snapping fingertips
That tipped her closer to insanity
Find out who she found herself in hands held, but hearts closer than her fingertips
That tipped her closer to be sane
All to the first hand she ever held
Her mother’s.
If I ever lost her, I would find her mother.
And thank her for also giving me a life
Ask her what it feels like to have a daughter that’s the barren of
Laughter, sanctuary, and comfort.
Ask her what it feels like to have a daughter
Whose made so many connections
That brings strangers together with just her smile
Thank her mother for building a home for me too,
*** I never asked her too.
“I found myself in you.”
If I ever lost her…
I would lastly lose myself in her poetry.
Bury myself six feet deep in her journals
And cover myself with her words
Decipher her metaphors line by line
Be engulfed in her personifications
Allude myself to her smiles
Become caved in her hyperboles
And pump my veins with the ink she used to flood pages
I want to lose myself in her notebooks and become stranded in her
Poetry.
Her poetry is something to remember
To be retraced to find again and again.
If I ever lost her, I would find her again and again
In her poetry

I’m writing this poem at 2:21 am on December 31st
Sunday night, or maybe you consider that a Monday morning
And a country song just came on the radio
And I couldn’t help but to think about how much I hate country music
I hate the stereotypical voice the singer always sings,
And the predictable pattern of strung guitar strings
So at 2:24 am, on December 31st, Sunday night/Monday morning…

I started to wonder if you liked country music
I started to wonder if you owned a pair of cowboy boots or believed boots were tacky
I wonder what your definition of “tacky” is
If “tacky” even exist in you vocabulary
I wondered where you get your vocabulary
Did your mom raise you to believe that words would be your greatest ally
Was she raised with more than one language
I wonder what your ancestor’s native language was
And if it was ripped out of their tongues from history books
What stories were told from those tongues that history could never tell
I wonder what kind of stories you’ve carved in lover’s mouths with just your tongue.
I wonder if you’ll ever paintings carved into your skin at tattoo parlors
If you’d get something tacky or a portrait of a loved one
I wondered if you’ve ever lost someone
I wonder if you’ve ever lost yourself
If you did, where did you find yourself?
Did you find yourself in your palms over bent knees
That kissed the ground that at one time kissed your feet.

I wonder when the next we’ll meet.
I wonder when I’ll meet your best friend. What stories she will tell me.
If she ever gets scared you’ll replace her with me
And if I’ll ever have to tell her she’s irreplaceable
I wonder what’s your favorite places you’ve been to
The places that made you smile to our human anatomy’s upmost potential
I wonder how much you know about your own human anatomy
I wonder if you know that an average heartbeats 100,00 times a day
Pumping almost 2,000 gallons of blood through it’s chambers
Over a 70 year life span, that adds up to about 2.5 billion heartbeats
And sitting here, just wondering about you– you made me skip a few

It’s now 3:07 am
And I’m wonderin’ if you ever wondered what it would be like to be loved by a poet
To have your body be put to words and your words be put up against my body
And have lips match figurative language to the figure of your body
And write love poems on your cheek
And I wonder, if you even consider me a poet

What are the events in life that you consider poetic?
If your life was a poem, what kind of poem would your
8th grade English teacher categorize it as?
I wonder if you asked her a lot of questions
I wonder if you were a curious child
If you’re ever curious about me
If you’ve ever wondered if I thought you were wonderful
If my mind ever wanders while I wonder about you
And if I could ever weaver it back

At 3:21 am, December 31st, Sunday night, Monday morning
I’m wondering if you’re wondering about me.
If I asked a lot of questions as a child
If I ever used poetry to make love
If I count my heartbeats in my sleep
Or wonder what kind of grades I got in my 11th grade human anatomy class
Or where my ancestors were lost in this world in history pages
Or if you ever wonder if I’ve ever lost myself, but more recently, if I’ve ever lost my mind

I wonder if you wonder if I consider myself a poet.
I wonder, if at 3:27 am, if you’re awake too,
Wondering if I like country music.

It’s kinda pointless
The purpose was clear as its intention
But still, it was kinda pointless
It was like when a kid lets go of his balloon.
The string slowly evaporates from his hand
As he covers his brow looking skyward to the horizon
He let go of his first lover because maybe that would make his wishes come true
Or maybe he let it go so a part of him could touch God.

It was kinda pointless.
Our on and off again two month relationship
Every two months or so I would create every insecurity that my poetic lips could fabricate
Twist and turn on my restless nights in one way street fashion
But those other every two months
Were magical
I could write a million poems about your body if only my hands weren’t too busy touching it
I would memorize the way your footsteps walked home incase I ever needed to find you
And every song on the radio was our love song
But for another two months I let you go officially
And I guess that was kinda pointless
*** now I pointlessly think aimlessly for why I did it
Maybe I just didn’t want to see you evaporate from my hands again
Or maybe it’s *** I thought if I let go of my first lover, my wishes would come true
Or maybe it’s because when I’m kissing you, I feel like I could touch God
And that just scared me

But when a kid lets go of a balloon,
He thinks he’s done with it, but he knows he’s never gonna get it back.
But God, damm it, I want it back.
I want a reason to smile and know I’m smiling for a reason
I want something to hold my wrist, to go on adventures with
Making love with you was never pointless, and no, I don’t regret it.
In fact, it was flawless.
And I’d be skipping for days, waiting to do it again
But the feeling was lost. We let it evaporate from our hands.
We let our emotions escalade and we lost it.
Sacrificed it to a summer’s day
Watched it float into one of God’s crevices
Letting go you, was like letting go of a balloon.
I’m forced to watch it drift away but I never, ever, really saw it pop.

When you let go of a balloon, it kisses the sky.
So I kissed you good-bye in hopes you will reach new heights.

Writing a love poem to you is like trying to send a postcard to you
But both sides are blank.
There’s no picture for “I don’t know where I’m at in life”
And I don’t even know what I would write
And there’s no address for the past. I can’t address a house that doesn’t exist any more
You like ghost town on this map. My roads just don’t run through you
If this love poem was a postcard, I wouldn’t know where to send it
When I lost you, my cardinal directions lost their reasoning
I wish I could still run my fingers through your North to your South
Measure the distance in your wingspan from East to West
When you would say “I love you this big”
And it wouldn’t get any bigger
You’re supposed to send postcards when you’re on a vacation
I may not know where I’m at but I know, baby, without you, it’s not paradise.
Maybe I’m too nostalgic. Maybe I’m too sensitive
But baby, that’s what you get for loving a poet
If I were to send you a postcard,
Maybe I’d write a poem on the back
Maybe I’d write our story
Or maybe I’d just write, “I’m sorry.”
If this poem were a postcard, it’d be one from a historical Monument
Not because those places are boring, but exciting with you
(But if you’d believe that, maybe I should jot that down too)
But because we have a history together.
I’d send one from Rome, because we weren’t built in a day
I’d send you one from the Golden Gate Bridge
So we could just get over this
Baby, I want to see you, even if you never wanted see me

Writing you a love poem to you is like sending
A postcard that’s blank on both sides
It means nothing to you.
Not that anything ever did, not that it meant nothing
When we were as close to each other that science and human anatomy would allow us to be
But that you still mean just as much to me now that we are miles apart
As far apart that faith, humanity, and God would allow us to be
It’s never really as far away as it seems
But we realized that too late and the postage service is closing

I think if I were to send you a postcard, I would leave both sides blank
So you could finally create a picture of yourself, wherever you want to be
Even if that picture didn’t include me
And I know it sounds cliché, but if I sent you a postcard,
All I would have the courage to say is,
“Wish You Were Here.”

teamara

As in the nub of the remains of crayola crayon that’s been used to color in so many smiling cartoon suns on a piece of paper-
Her favorite color is yellow.
And I don’t mean a wimpy *** pastel yellow or sometimes a pale yellow
I mean her favorite color is bright *** yellow.
Like Pikachu yellow.
Like she’s almost nineteen but she’s still willing to play Gameboy Pokemon yellow.
There’s something innocent yet corny kind of yellow about her.
She’s beautiful like yellow jirasol petals
She’s intricate as yellow thread woven in a Rasta Dom
She’s yellow like gold and Africa
She’s sweet like pineapples and delicate like daffodils
I still don’t know why her favorite color is yellow
Maybe it has to do with her fascination of Asian men…
I mean! ...with the continent of Asia
She thinks she’s more like pink Japanese cherry blossom trees in the summer
But I know she’s truly yellow petals on Paolo Verde trees blowing in the wind spreading around Tucson
A metaphor for her love
She’s yellow like the color in the middle of my pride rainbow- She supports me
She’s yellow like the big painted sun at the hospital with a big grin
I wonder why nobody smiles at hospitals
The place where life is easily given as taken
Where we are reminded that our health is sometimes taken for granted
Other than that great big yellow sun
She is the only that radiates yellow and smiles
In waiting rooms, she seems like she’s the calmest
Even though she’s the only one going through surgery
She’s so beautiful on the inside her body can’t even take it
She doesn’t deserve scions or scalpels to even be considered touching her bronze skin
I wish instead they would strip down the color yellow from my life
And give it to her to make her smile so bright that even word “cancer” would cease to exist
But still. Even through pain and hardships
She still smiles. Not only is she yellow when she’s happy
She tends to radiate yellow even when she’s gloomy
When I’m upset, her aura has way of rubbing off on mine
And I get insight to why her favorite color is yellow
‘*** she’s the kind of yellow that represents strength
She’s yellow like tall forts made from gold bars
She’s yellow like flames that roll of her tongue when she spits fire
She’s yellow like a crayola-crayon… except she can’t be broken
From her, I’m learning
That even when you’re hurting
You can still shine bright like your favorite color.

I've come to the utmost conclustion that
I, a teenager, am completely and utterly
Obsessed with, boys.
Boys.
bOys.
boYs.
boyS.
But only the good looking and charming,
BOYS.
Don't judge,
It takes one to know one.

It was about this time last year I lost you
It was also about this time last year that the weather
Was under 70 degrees.
But here I am, nearly December
And it's almost reaching 80 degrees
I have no reason to be wearing your old sweater

Before I die, I want to write the greatest poem ever written
I want to perform it at my last slam
I want to be remembered as making words come to life
Giving stanza's room to breath, and syllables a chance to dance.
I want to lose myself on a mic stand to be the cause of death
I want to leave earth knowing I was heard knowing that I listened
Knowing I inspired an audience
When I die, do not write me a eulogy
Don't write a poem about death,
Because people are sick about hearing them
And also, my soul can not die.
When you visit my grave do not cry.
Unless they are products of laughter from remember our goofy conversations
Do not sob, instead recite the greatest poem ever
Unless it's not one of mine, then don't do it.
And laugh some more and do it any ways.
When I'm dead, don't leave me flowers, leave me haikus.
Write somebody a love poem, tell a stranger they are beautiful, and crack a joke once in a while.
When I die, I want you to write the greatest poem ever written.
And I want you to know I would of loved it.
I want you to get 8.9's and laugh '*** you know I would of given you a 10.
When I die, I want you to keep writing.
Allow me to live on through you.
Let my ghost tip toe across your poetry
And memories find refuge in your words
When I die, write a poem better than any one of mine,
And don't admit that to any one but yourself.
Take time to look at stars because you learned from me
That they are the only thing out of this world that is
beautiful
except for our poetry.
When I'm died remember the words, "I love you" and their affect
I love you can give someone the momentum to get out of bed in the morning
I love you can put one foot in front of another
I love you, before I die, I will tell you
I love you, I love you, I love you
Before I die, I love you
Don't remember the fragility of life
But the perseverance of the human spirit
I love you
There's a reason why you carried on after I'm gone
I love you.
I'm sorry, I didn't get a chance to say
I love you
Before I die.

My Sunglasses

I’ve got all of Tucson trapped behind my sunglasses
I’ve framed mountain ranges in the frames of my Raybands
I’ve got reflections of saguaro’s stranding still in front of my eyes
I have sunny days taking refuge underneath my shades
I’ve domesticated the giant star that rides blues skies into walking the edge of my brow
I use black plastic as onyx shields
So Tucson, I see you.
There’s an art revolution beating at your horizon
I’ve seen it skirting around these wastelands
They tell us we’re wasting our time
Telling the roadrunner to run back home
When its nest was here since the beginning of time
Tucson.
I’ve seen folklorico and mariachi pay tribute to your origins on the hottest of days
I’ve seen in the shadows in underground art forms
Graffetti. There’s a protest in there somewhere.
I’ve even witnessed it in pen to paper
In lips to mics. In cafés in your desert nights for your desert nighttime audiences.
Tucson, your culture and artistic value shines too bright for others to see.
Your artistic worth shines too bright for others to broadcast
They tend to only record your overdoses and murders
Seems like our televised story tellers prefer to paint us in immoral reds
The only time they pay the south side attention is when the south side is aching
It doesn’t help that schools force you to choose business
Give you chance to study law all the while cut out your art programs
Fine art is required by universities but they don’t always expect you to get that far.
Tucson’s fine art is too fine and infinite to be recognized by those undeserving
Society wants to capture our southern brethren as outlaws not poets
We’re called the misfit of the desert. As if every spray can, paint stroke, choreographed twist,
Slam poem wasn’t something to take pride in.
I’m sorry they only pay your schools attention when ambulances are parked in your driveways
And administrators get caught in doing ***** deeds.
I see your talent wasted. Your talent shown.
To remind myself of your artistic significance, I’ve framed you
On walks home I photograph your murals.
Listen to the poets in the hallways.
Observe the dancers compose and the musicians choreograph
I’ve caught your reflection in my corneas’.
I’ve dilated my pupils thoughts behind my sunglasses.
Framed your mountain ranges in my frames.
Took cover in your shades.
Trained the artistic freedom and right to walk on my brow
Tucson
I see you.