"Spaces"- A Poem

(source)

for some reason i always thought 

an artist couldn't breathe without

loneliness 

but you appeared and 

it's not much but it's a lot

to take in 

like small sharp 

breaths of fresh mountain air

and late night fluorescent 

lightbulbs 

and spaces between people 

that are now closed

the sun has a feeling now (instead of a 

glow)

you've mended everything

that i never thought needed to be 

sewn back together 

"Futons & Ladders"- A Poem

(source)

the downstairs smells like burnt toast and

black, runny

eggs 

which means the day is already over

might as well leave my brain on the back porch 

to sunbathe 

and go for a walk halfway across the country

maybe I'll have lunch in a bar and 

instead of drinking i'll chew the shattered beer bottles

just so I can hear them inside me

making extensive amounts of noise without any repercussions 

then for the afternoon, i'll make a stranger teach me how to sew

patches unto my shorts, in a grungy way like in those sad movies

and i'll wear a humongous thimble the size of my body

only to protect me from being pricked by the outside world

when it gets dark i'll build a ladder large enough

to extend above the earth and while everyone is asleep

i'll eat a small bowl of raspberries and whipped cream

with a side of all the wishes made by young children while they 

doze off in their cloud-like, fairytale dreams

and the stars will form a nice glowing futon that will

cover my skin with a blanket of light 

as i sing myself to sleep

"Tender"- A Poem

(source)

and while my mother is bickering once again

about the clothes, the fabric, the anything she can find

I think about how everything is bigger and better

no one is ever less

making me feel like those ants I step on 

that I must now be forced to call my friends

the little worlds they pinch in and out of

in silence from the outside

in triumph from the inside 

I see the togetherness the world is lacking

I sit down on the ninety degree sidewalk

with my knees scraping the gritty surface

causing them to bleed

that day my blood was my tears 

and my mother still bickered in the background 

about the people, the morals, the society that's turned to dust

"I Used To Be Good At Analogies"- A Poem

(source)

you took my heart and didn't even know it

like when 

i guess i can't find an analogy 

because you are one 

why is all i want to ask, why?

because we both know

because

only we do

and unsaid words ought to be the most

painful things

worse than drowning, worst is over

now it's just waiting

and dying of hope

that's the worst way to die, i think,

of (hope)

"Debate"- A Poem

(source)

When my eyes are fluttering

and I can hear the highways through my window

that's when I say the things I believe most

the things that make me scared of my own being

my own soul

but I don't think you should be afraid of me

i won't harm you

that much is not exactly said for myself, though

and I try to make it work, make

sense

but nothing ever does.

nothing ever does sit nicely 

like worn history books on a shelf

things get thrown 

ruined, soiled

by other things

and these other things

are what keep me up when the moon is 

telling me secrets

and answers to my questions

I now realize that 

I'm playing a game of tug of war with my 

soul and

mind

god knows who will win.

Letter to His First Wife, Edie

(source)

“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born."

-Jack Kerouac 

"Massacre"- A Poem

(source)

And I don’t want to hear them talk about it

Anymore

They ruined Daisy

They took her pastel yellow dress and pearls

Flung them across the room and interrogated her

In the corner of her own house on a

Wednesday afternoon

Her blonde hair astray, wisps framing her golden eyes

A look of confusion on her face, crossed with tears

Settled in the crevices of her eyelids

Now they’re moving on to Gatsby

Tearing his tie to shreds

And destroying his gilded pocket watch

By smashing it with their hands, their voices

Which sound like the ear-piercing squeals of hundreds of

Strange houseguests outside on the freshly cut lawn

They lock him in his closet with his now soiled trousers

They’ve drenched with wine,

Not even the expensive kind

I sit in my chair quietly and I want to defend them,

Take their hands and help them up from the

Massacre that is these teenager’s assumptions

But the teacher, she’s already seen my face,

And realizes the damage is done.

"Buddhists"- A Poem

(source)

My stomach twists

Like a bendy straw in the 

Grasp of a little child

It churns when I think of how

Awful

I must be 

Maybe if I went to someone

Spoke my thoughts out loud

Maybe if I went for a seven day walk

Like a Buddhist would

Maybe if I became Buddhist

It would be easier

Because Buddhists can't kill things

It's against their faith

The thing is

I don't have any.

Moments

(source) 

“Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.”

-Anne Sexton

"Cat Lady Suicides"- A Poem

(source)

some study somewhere

claimed, ("said only" according to

my communications teacher)

Cat Lady Suicides

how tragic- how 

light

a rise in death in being alone

with windows

and lots of sleeping fur

but the need for your own blood

because of society

how cat-

astrophic

i had always liked them 

with their outdated moth clothes

and cracked smiles and

flyaway foggy-monday colored hair

they had always seemed

content

but these "studies"

would argue with statistics spitting

and facts flying

i never liked them.

"Punnett Squares"- A Poem

(source)

It was a dull day in February 

She told us how she had a student 

During blood tests 

(back when they were allowed)

But Mrs. Doe, why doesn't it match? 

And she told us how she looked at her and said

Maybe check your work,

you may be incorrect.

Avoid, avoid

She said the girl went home

Said 

Mom, why does it not match?

Said

Dad, it doesn't make any sense.

They said the unbelieved truth

And while she said this 

The class was quiet

We all were imagining

The girl walking home,

Her mind darting, breath quickening

Wondering why 

They never had any photo albums.

And how lying is such an easy skill

They should teach it in trade school.

"Lifedance" by Charles Bukowski

(source) 

the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience –
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.

"Aberrant"- A Poem

(source)

I try to explain

the words won't form

my mouth asks for help

like the air is dense with itself

so full of itself

and if it were winter 

things might be different

things might be better

but the clock just kept ticking

ticking

and i just kept thinking, considering

about how people need 

so much

people need each other

to cling to 

and for some aberrant 

reason 

I can't end things anymore

they just go on and on, 

then they start up again

like those roller-coasters 

you see at the amusement park

that I never ride.

"Pulse"- A Poem

(source)

I feel my pulse in my hand 

. . . .

I wish it was yours

Your fingers in the space between my fingers

I want it more than breathing, living

I want it for the future of my vision of humanity 

My stupid belief that everything can be okay

And will be okay

Even though we all know things change, everyday

Slowly the air forms between us, our bodies 

Becoming separate beings

Separate souls

For I always knew my soul couldn't combine with someone else's

My soul has holes, ripped like an old t-shirt

With rose paint and morning eyes

Vines like ivy, reaching

Clinging to spirits unknown and unheard of

My soul has rain puddles filled with tears

Of lost fantasies and expectations

On the sidewalk in front of an old furniture warehouse in the city

With "for lease" signs stuck on the dirty glass

It's spewing cities and late night phone calls and street lights and

Acoustic guitar sessions played in old bars that

Stranger visit to escape from other strangers

It has people and faces and names

Of doctors, lawyers, bankers

Of unhappy people and their black shoes

Walking onto buses at three in the afternoon

My soul has melodies, cigarette smoke

and a small trinket box housed up in a little girl's room

It's full of everything and nothing

the universe and space

and black holes

even though I've always been afraid that's how we'll all die someday

although I'm hoping the sun will explode

for I'd rather die in light than in

dark.

"Right Side Up"- A Poem

(source)

There's this lightness and it comes in waves

Like the world is right side up

Even the southern hemisphere

Those little village people

Bringing water from the river on their heads

Little do they know,

To get back home 

It's upside down

And for some reason

My world is right-side up 

For the first time

In ever

"Ten Years"- A Poem

(source)

My whole world

has been disrupted 

and things just aren't working

the gears aren't 

turning the right way 

anymore

and to think i haven't looked at the 

stars

it feels like ten years have passed

and my bones are brittle with

my greatest fears

Million Miles an Hour

 

(source) 

“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.” 

-Sylvia Plath

"Dust"- A Poem

(source) 

I have no words for you

And that is saying something

Every time I see you it’s just dust

The kind that you can’t ever

Seem to clean away

Or the kind that gets in your eyes

So you can’t see straight

Or even think straight for that matter.