Older, Yes

Each night when I go to sleep

I wake up a different person

Older, yes

Another unevident line in the

Corrugated line up of evidence

A new context of experiences

Different dreams

Than the night before

A fine balance faltered

Stability alchemized to risk

Hope cultivated, marinated

In the circumstance of moments

Folded to fit into my pocket

If I have room amongst

The other trinkets I cling to

Like unfloating life boats

Because stuff always sinks

And birds cannot fly

With backpacks

Clipped to their wings.

Searching

Searching We wake up Searching We reach for our devices Searching We scroll We click We process Picking and choosing Information A haphazard conglomeration of Cultivated lives Authenticity A bendable fading truth Real life It's somewhere out there Not in here.

This Is Where We Land

This is where we landOn the edge of today The cusp of Tomorrow Where hope crashes Against now And thoughts manifest In real time Along the map Of desire Latitudes of beginnings Longitudes of endings No finish line Only circles No score Only love When your feet ache Sit on the earth Let her hold you When you're hungry Eat Then eat again When you're sad Look up Drink something Sparkly When you're tired Sleep Say no Say yes Say Whatever You Damn Well Please; You are alive You can Dance Kiss Throw your arms Around the nearest Beating heart You won't live forever So live Now.

I See So Much Wrong

I see so much wrongWith us Does this make me A bad person? Why do I think We are supposed to be Good? What is good? What are we but Crazy Beautiful Infallible Endearing Predictable Operating to uphold Nonsensical beliefs Dismissing signs as Happy happenstances Forgetting the Light-filled person We were born to be Calcified by layers Of lies While the cure Lives within The tender truth Contained in the Seat of the soul Would we rather be Uncomfortable or Unhappy? Are we living Or are we Dying?

Let's Be Romantic

Let's be romanticLet's stay in bed all day And count countless Stars at night Let's see how much Of my skin Can touch Your skin Let's talk about All of the ways We are different We can tell New secrets And old stories In new ways We can draw Constellations By connecting The freckles Maps of future Lifetimes We can imagine All of the different Ways we will meet And fall in love Whether or not We will ascend Or go extinct We will talk about Everything Anything Except for one thing: What happens If we fall out of It.

Pretend

I don't pretendTo know Why my body Just broke out In chills

I don't pretend To hate myself Or love myself Or know myself And what I want

I don't pretend To be anything Less than perfect For I was born This way

I don't pretend The deluge of This human experience Does not break My heart daily

I don't pretend Mistakes don't happen Or light doesn't die Or envy doesn't Warp my thoughts

I don't pretend My thoughts Don't matter My addictions Don't count

I don't pretend I'm naturally Thin and I don't need Recognition for These years of work

I don't pretend My heart doesn't Hurt And I don't pretend To know why.

I want you to be more you

I want you to do what inspires youWhether it's "bad" like taking off your clothes Committing to wanderlust and only wanderlust Looking beautiful above feeling beautiful Numbing and filling and failing Or it's "good" like fighting for social justice Making babies and raising them closely Teaching yoga or meditation or The Truth Reading and writing and ruining and creating.

I want you to be who you are Wild hair pale skin smooth hair dark skin Sex lover sex avoider sex hater Careerist artist feminist philanthropist Competitive anxious selfish judgmental Gifted deep spiritual devoted Depressed happy introverted extroverted High low stubborn stuck Changeable mutable unpredictable

I want you to cast away shame I want you to love yourself I want you to have unshakable faith I want you to do what you want I want you to stop listening to them I want you to know your purpose I want you to enjoy yourself I want you to be more you As you are now, you are perfect.

Alone

AloneWeeping alone Sleeping alone Surrounded by alone

She did it to herself She made the space herself She carved it out with her fingernails Artificial red

Why? To weep? To smoke? To drink cheap wine & expensive cheese without anyone watching? When she's not alone She craves loneliness Her only constant companion

Blood on a page Words stamped in her brain She wants to matter to no one She wants no one to matter to her

She wears sunglasses and overcoats When she steps outside She prefers rain clouds To open skies

The potent sun that burns Her skin Too gauzy to protect her insides From the Evil

Some try to ignore it Until it strikes In the form of dishonest Devious

Heart-breakers As it always does So long as you are not Alone.

The Make-Up Artist (A Poem)

Her smile in a wordWas hopeful Baby fat Still clinging To apple cheeks Eyes bright and curled open Her face a daily masterpiece Only to be washed down the sink Come black skies. It wasn't beauty She sought But transformation A boundless identity Someone not herself. But she made a good living Because she wasn't alone In her need to erase the shadows And the lines Etched by fractured glass Filled with pools of red.

Ungrateful (A Poem)

I have two good legsI hardly notice them I love my husband I always want more from him I adore my kids Sometimes I don't like them They are the only reason I know for sure I matter Sometimes I get sick But I am strong And smart and beautiful And insecure I am wasted space A tangled mess of power Pushing without organization Working without focus Deficient of attention Pulling knots tighter Not looser I am angry And I am grateful Blessings Can be curses Hope can do nothing If we don't lean upon it We are trapped Between narrow perspectives Like a tiny ant Searching for sustenance In the middle of a football field Where all directions look the same And he runs Away from the food Away from the others Because he doesn't know. He doesn't know. I don't know either.

Why don't you go fall fly away Leave me on this island

While I drown beneath today

Information like storm clouds

Churning and burning cold

A ceiling between me and source

A cage thick as an eggshell

But strong as gold

Yearning for tomorrow and youth

At once

A paradox of impossibilities

They comes in flashes, the truth

We chip away at suffering

But all of this feels old--

Could we leave it behind

This yearning for our words to be sold?

Without condemning human kind

To a history that does not bear

The privilege of repeating

Nor believes

That a greater power does, in fact, care.

Inebriate

It's a creeping painA slow patient pain The layers thicken Before they flake

Her hiding place dissolves The past becomes now Her hands become putty Weakness cradled by pain

She is numb Held hostage by unconsciousness His want replaces love Her love replaces anger

An inebriate coupling A black mark on a porcelain surface Giving in giving up As hope melts to softness

She sleeps in the bosom of regret But upon awakening Her hands are strong again Recovered by night's forgiving embrace.

Summer's sticky pace

What is already open?

Heart.

Hunger.

Love an ever thickening pulse that directs every move.

Ambition an intravenous substance that keeps me moving

Even at summer's sticky pace.

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College

Here.

Where I spent time spent money

wasted time wasted money.

Four blurry years wandering.

Searching. Lost. Finding. Found.

Seven years ago I walked away with a degree

I hope I never use again

Friends I hope I have forever.

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You've Never Felt For Me

Take me by the hands

Let us intertwine our

fingers Like our ugly

lives and Overlapping

toes Like the city we

love to memorize Up

here on the roof

Kiss me with everything

You've never felt for me

Then shove me over the

edge Let me spill across

the sidewalk Somersault

Into another dimension

You will be forgiven I will

be forsaken No one will

be alive to know What

happened But for you

And your uncrying heart

Please spare me from

Yourself My knees are

purple from begging

You who've molded

my theories Like putty

and Taken the sparkle

from my eyes To keep

in your pocket Where

it will live Even after

I'm dead and gone.