I teach them,

I watch as they grow their stems,

I watch them bloom,

I watch as they hold their seeds.

As they were dancing I fail to watch; my time runs out,

Then my stem rots,

And I leave my last petal

To say goodbye. •

I lost your sight,

But I found myself back as I did.

I lost you,

But I found what freedom meant.

I lost you,

But I finished the puzzle of my broken heart back as I did.

I lost you,

But I found a way to make my petals flourish again.

I might have lost you,

But I got the spark of my eyes back again. •

The casket closed,
Her permanent cell.
She should be gone, never to be seen again,
But I see her everywhere.

I see her in the trees.
Each leaf is her as they dance in the wind.
Swaying to the breeze, I see her,
Dancing.

When I wake up, her face is looking at me
From the light pouring in through the window.
Her soft warmth is welcomed,
But it isn’t real.

The tears from the sky are her,
Falling down to drown us all.
I see her in the clouds dropping them,
A reminder that she’s trapped in her cell. •

(child)

Tink,
Tink,
Tink.
I heard it!
I think:
What could it be?
A friendly bat?
Or…
Maybe a not-so-smart birdie!
Tink,
Tink,
Tink.
It came again!
What a persistent birdie:
Maybe it’s a woodpecker,
Maybe it’s a huge bug.
Tink,
Tink,
Tink.
The tapper’s identity has endless options,
Maybe I’ll never know it! •

(middle school)

Tink,
Tink,
Tink.
I always hear it,
That weird knock at my window—
Maybe it’s just a branch,
Or somebody tapping the window.
It tormented me
Every. Single. Night.
Tink,
Tink,
Tink.
It had a grip on my brain.
What was out there?
Was it coming for me?
Sorting through my thoughts,
One came to mind:
Don’t look—
It’ll see you. •

The hands of the clock move faster than I can think.
The days pass away faster than I can blink.
The night leaves me every time the sun sets foot onto the Earth.
It seems as if everything I have come to love is running from me,
But when I try to chase my admirations,
My legs break into particles of dust,
And my tears soak
Into the ashes on the ground
Left behind from the world that my memories burned down.
As my legs continue to dissipate,
my knees hit the floor.
The wind blows my remaining memories
On the ground,
Into my eyes.
My pupils burn from the intake of dust.
The neurons in my head pound their hands against my scalp.
My eyebrows start to fall off,
And I am left to wonder
How every moment I have ever lived,
Every day I have survived,
Every smile I have ever given,
Every tear I have ever shed
Has led me to this moment.
I tried so hard,
So hard,
To keep it all together.
I did everything in my power to
Keep my world from falling apart.
I tore myself down
And changed my entire being to accommodate people’s words
Just to watch my life walk away from me.
I wished people well
And held the door for every person behind me.
I said thank you
And kept promises.
I made sure no secrets ever left my mouth,
And I protected my loved ones with my entire capacity
Just to have my life burned down in front of me.

I stare at the remains of what once was,
And I refuse to accept what my eyes are showing me.
I see you
Fleeing my memories
And tearing down my sanity.
I see you
Leaving me behind
For every tear that my eyes ever shed.
I see you
Walking away with
Every
Single
Person
I cried to you about •

Upon the thrones of wretchedness,
Beliefs were fashioned for our creed.
Crowns adorned and proudly worn,
Gemstone constructs of venomous greed.

Along once fresh and fertile fields,
We did spread like winded seed.
Peasants now grim and burdened,
Bearing bitter toils of dire need.

Marching as if in praise of death,
Armies drone on endlessly.
Storms of ideology mixed with power,
Kings of deceit all reign supreme.

Innocents hang their heads,
Too weary to even sing,
The hymn of their own contagion,
The plague mankind doth bring. •

A new pirate stood on the deck of a ship
With a seabird in her heart and a cutlass at her hip.
The crew came to hear her story on the deck of the ship
And asked, “Why are you with us? Why make that flip?”

She spread out her arms to the sky and the sea.
“I heard of this life, and knew it was for me.”

The captain laughed gruffly, for he’d heard this before;
After all, he’d once been a man of the shore,
Who spread out his arms to the sky and the sea,
For he’d yearned for his life to be wild and free.

This young pirate was big, and her old life was small.
“Being normal is dull; I was bored of it all!”

The captain considered the reason she came:
She was hunting adventure, and something untame.
“This life works for some, if you don’t change your mind.
There are things you might miss, things you just left behind.”

She raised up her new sword: “So I swear by my blade,
I won’t regret making this life I have made!”

She was meant for the sea, right down to her core,
And she’d sail the great exploits the waves held in store;
It seemed that only the captain couldn’t help but long for
The things that he missed, that he left on the shore. •

I’m physically in the present, but my mind is in the past:

Places where my essence was left,

Where my mind is still stuck,

Where my shadow was once,

Where my dreams were left,

Where my seeds were planted,

But none of them grew. •

You didn’t believe them,
Though they told you ahead of time,

And now you squint into the
dust blown by the wind,
Grit in your mouth
Scooped out of hope.

If you reach back,
Far behind you,
To when there was fruit,
To when there were seeds,
And it was not this dust bowl,

You can almost will your past
Into the present,
Juice of pears and peaches
Returning to parched lips
That have not tasted this sweetness in eons.

You sift the bone dry sand
Through your listless fingers.
You only carry the memory
Of trees, now,
Of youth, of the color green,
Healing and fresh.

You know, deeply,
There is no turning back.
You squint into the dust
Blown by the wind,
Waiting for The Maker. •

We say hello to the sky
As we sail the dreamland cloud sea:
White, pink, blue, frosting crests, sweet toothpaste tundra,
And those soft froth waves that lap
Like puppies at our silver heels.
I am an astronaut, weightless, above California,
Head over heels over lights that if you squint
Look just like galaxies, gorgeous nebulas, orbiting wonder-stars.
That city is Jupiter; that city is Mars.
I see a Dipper; I don’t know which one,
And it is beautiful.
Tide-beckoned, time-swept, swirling purple-gold skies rearrange
themselves, eventually, into grid cities,
Locked into straight sets of straight dots of straight lights,
Vast, vertexed circuit boards connecting the endless flow of information,
Wires twined through their long, bright neon shoelace highways
That thread themselves off what must be the edge of the world.
It is synthetic,
And it is beautiful.
We mirror the stars
In our ambition,
We little specks;
We demonize the anthills we build.
You might think that humanity
Isn’t as ugly as they tell you. •