cracked pavement
between the slabs of sidewalk
stands one brilliant bluebonnet
because it knows nothing new grows
gathers its gratitude to get stronger
stretches its stem sunward
does it know dead daisies are rooted?
risen once and regretting the fall
does it feel free fleeing its constraints?
coming out of the crack of the cold concrete
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october of eighteen
dissuade yourself from the thought
you don't have to be perfect
you don't have to be better than them
or him
all you are is enough
if all you are is you
then you are a garden of hope
a constellation of possibilities
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october of eighteen
dissuade yourself from the thought
you don't have to be perfect
you don't have to be better than them
or him
all you are is enough
if all you are is you
then you are a garden of hope
a constellation of possibilities
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Willow (the orchard)
I was born surrounded by dead and broken things
Death will not be all I become
Soft skin grows like ivy on bricks
The winter sun keeps me warm
I don't grow in cold places
I grow in fire and fields and air
I burn like ice
It's too warm to ice skate
So I know love won't skate on my still beating heart
I'm at that point in writing where I'm too old for love poems again
But I love to be loved
I want to make it easy to know how I feel
I don't know how to be in love without shaking
I am less a wall and more willow
A very small willow
I shake when the wind turns
I was born in the fall
The world supposedly died
I worked hard to love like I do
Because its worth the smile you give
The laughter in your heart
The willow thrives in fall
Because you have tended and tended
Let's bloom together,
An orchard of feelings
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radiance and birds
some nights i listen for the sounds of living
i worry if i go to bed when i first feel tired
i will never be awake
i worry if i go to sleep when i really fall asleep
i will never be awake
i worry, i worry, i worry
it builds up like birds
sharp beaks flying up and out of my pipes
tallons twitching inside my stomach
but when the birds keep still
using my intestines like a cable wire
i can feel it bouncing in the wind of my breath
radiance holds me in a way i have never known
you are radiance in the dark
i can feel the energy that bounces when i feel the world
you close around me so safe
limbs like foliage keeping the birds comfortable
i want to grow with you
i want to rise out of the ground
in places we have no business blooming
we are the grass in the cement
we are the fallout flowers
you be the sun, you shine
i’m fluid enough to be the rain
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Banjo
You make me feel like a mean banjo
Which is to say I feel like something that rarely works
But when it does everyone is in awe
You make me feel awe inspired
And that means something
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enough right now
i feel small and compact
but not like i’m being crushed
not anymore.
i literally cannot breathe deep
because my back feels like it’s
been needing to be popped forever
but it’s okay.
i’m okay.
not great
but i’m not as bad as i used to be.
and i find comfort in that
and comfort that i’m trying
to actively love life and love people
and be loved
and i’m so much more than a bullet shell now.
i’m alive with myself.
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emotional outpour
Every word is just a moment in a story
The problem is I ramble
I tell stories that are too long and sometimes
I tell them wrong
I make mountains and molehills and never the right way
I don’t know how to make sense to people
You don’t lie to me
You’ll be honest
“I don’t understand.”
And it’s really hard not to be understood
But I don’t have to guess with you
I can only tell you what’ll come next
Cassandra never knew what the intention was
I’m in tune with the way the world works
And massively out of tune with the way people work
I understand concepts, characters
But organisms don’t move like pen and paper
And I talk more than most
Let me try and say this plainly
Because I need you to understand
It only is fair I say this soft
You are so matter of fact with me
I’ve internalized my whole life
And I spend so much time curled in a ball
Trying to stop people from hurting me
I used to let people kick me so I’d feel any more than numb
And lately I’ve been bursting out
With more than the slime in my system
This is the first life I’ve wanted to live beyond 20 years
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i love blankets
i love feeling warm
it’s been a long time stitching
a blanket of miles
i made it from old tshirts
other people gave me
and stuffed it wth everything
else i had in me
it’s the first time in a long time
i’ve been warm
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Shaping
It’s not true, what I said
I mean it is true
It’s true that every time I open my hands
I’m still shocked they’re not a fist
I’m terrified of who I could become
It’s more I’m terrified of who I was
Of the shapes that have shaped me
If a rectangle had a square child
Is the kid still a rectangle?
I don’t want to define my entire life as a rectangle
I don’t even want to be a quadrangle
I want to be a star. Or the moon.
I want to see the world new and not be afraid of dropping it
This is not a story to be sad about
I know I’m a square
I know every time I take a step it’s on broken feet
When I walk outside I see people who’ve always looked at me
Like I’m the last person in their way on a twenty mile climb upwards
I know I ain’t shit to them
But I still mean something to me
For the first time in a long time
I’m a shape fully formed
Not by someone else
But with sides I made myself
Covering an area of only me
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friends.
We live in a tent we’ve spent so long building
It’s filled with a thousand closets
We put them there just so
We could make jokes when we get dressed in the morning
We have no room to put our skins anymore
So we wear them
We’ve got a flashlight hung from the top of our tent
All of us have taken our glasses off
We’re guiding each other and it’s dark
But this is the first time all of us have seen the stars together
We live so tightly compressed we don’t get to see the stars often
And they are so steadfast
This is not how I’ve always been
It’s been a thousand years being stuffed in a cardboard box
Smaller than any closet I supposedly came out of
I’ve spent my life tired and angry
A one person beehive always filled with buzzing
It’s nice to be brought out of the box
And to break the hive
It’s like for once I’m in a crowded room
And it’s so small and there’s not a lot of us
But I can breathe
And I’m not the loneliest guy here
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Sail Boat
It’s clunky and sticky
No we don’t ride a wave together
It’s not a wave at all
It’s pull of the stream
this is stupid
I’ve never written a love poem before now
No, that’s not true
I’ve written some love poems
I write poems when i’m sleeping
It’s just I never realized the sea was wet till I met you
And I like that
I didn’t realize I was a sailor
But I���ve dropped my anchor here
I’ve tried riding this wave
And there’s not a wave
There’s just a lapping at the deck
And it’s nice and good
Then there’s lightening
It didn’t come with thunder
It came specifically to ignite sparks
And there were sparks
There was so much that happened
Every time I thought the storm was over
There was more lightening
I don’t know how to describe this without sounding stupid
But you laugh when I sound stupid and don’t make me feel worse
You came out of the ocean as pure as Aphrodite
With the spirit of Poseidon
I’m enamored with the things you’ve led me to
I’ve never loved the sea like this
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You Told Me You Hate This Kind of Poem, I'd Already Written It
You are a piece of work
I don’t mean that to sound to sound like a warning
I could write about you for days and would never warn everything
Like how you tend to think you’re too much, even on your best day
Baby, I know I’m too much
I know I spend my smallest as big as a bus
It has nothing to do with you
I spent years telling people I was a sheet of paper
Blank and loose leaf, a place for people to force something out they see
It hasn’t been until recently I’ve let myself be the one to write the story
I wonder how long you spent wondering if I’m actually going to tell you
Everything I’ve told you I won’t tell you
I’m still opening up boxes I packed away
I’m still waking up in the middle of the night
Afraid I’ve screamed and woke you
I am just screaming inside my head
I spend a lot of time wondering if you’re going to ask me about this
About this hamster wheel that’s been turning in my head
Fueled by thoughts that I don’t tell anyone
Not even my therapist
You know I don’t have one
I’m not ready to put all my last life on display
Yes, I know that’s bullshit
I know this doesn’t make sense to you
I’m trying to find the words that do
This is not a trauma poem
It’s just to say, that one day I want to tell you a story
One you can digest with ease
In the story I won’t be a prince or a palace
Or the moon or the trees or a girl or a boy
I’ll just be a clear image
I won’t need to describe my metaphor with a less coherent metaphor
There won’t be a metaphor
Every word I say will make sense to you
I’ll make sense to you
I know I’m as transparent as cheap two way mirror glass in two well lit rooms
You’ve seen the surface looking back
You know someone is on the other side of all this
I want you to see me
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The Coat Poem
If someone else was wearing it
I'd call it what it was: ugly
But on me it looks okay
On anyone else purple fading to yellow
Just isn't in season
But this suits me
I'd let the others know it's not a find
No big steal
That this is something you pay for in more than money
Can't they see they're being robbed?
No, you're right, me too
I just know the manufacturer worked really hard
I can take the hit
This already fits in my fashion
And maybe I buy it because I know
I'm growing up on trend
I'm afraid I'm growing up to be just as ugly
So yeah, it looks okay on me
It doesn't really keep the chill out
But even a bad coat can remind you of a good one
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My Love Affair With the Sea
I am quantifiable
I wear my whole self on the outside
I am littered in b l o w s brought on by others
Coming at me too fast and too much
Yes, my lover too is carrying bile
My lover looks up at me so far away
I wonder if they know?
How often I look down at them
Longing to be able to reach out
And I try, I pull at them
I reach out and try to help them
All the way to the sky
Our time together is limited here
We only have eight hours, twelve if it’s cold
But the cold keeps them solid when I am unchanging
Unchanging is too strong as I am always changing
The wind might not blow but there is
Always something coming for me
Rocks, people who want to stick their flags
Where they do not belong
And you are so malleable
Every strong, ever withstanding
A nightmare to some, maybe
But you are the only thing that brings me peace
I am quantifiable
And you, infinite at times
And you keep me
The moon is only steadied by the pull of waves
And you have tried pulling me near you
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Peace of Night
The moon shines over the cornfield
Everything is silent but the rustling, the rustling, the rustling
The corn shakes as dainty, delicate feet from
A figure lightly dances down the field
Small delicate steps stride through
Down to the river running wild
The creature’s feet creep up the river’s run
“I’m back.” They whisper, wings wisping behind their lily white look
“I’ve been here all the time.” From the water
Always from the water the voice finds itself
Elegant and full the water gives way to what resides
Opening, parting, the water let’s a restless fish free
“Where have you been?” The sea thing asks
The winged one’s eyes turn up
To the endless bout of star and moonlight
“The sky called me.”
And there is quiet, only the water dares rustle
After all, it is the most dangerous
“The sea has always held me here.
How does the sky look?”
And the Faerie laughs
Shrill, sharp, a sound creatures hate
But it makes the water sprite’s heart hop
“The sky will not sacrifice for you
The sea envelopes you, keeps you safe
The sky haunts you when you’re restless
Then makes you keep up.”
The mermaid shakes their head and turns out
There must be so much they cannot see
The grass, the leaves, the sky
Everything the Faerie finds so endearing
“The horizon is the only place we can see the same.
I can see from where the river leads and no further”
The fae reached into the water
Tree bark skin rippling the river
“I can see where the river is
There is so much more of it than trees
I cannot fly forever, darling
My wings will only let me when they want”
And the river one lets out a sound
“I want to fly with you”
And the sky one takes their arms
Apologizes for their tree bark hands
And flies just above the sea
Low enough the scales still glide through the water
The cold air caresses the mermaid’s torso
The water redirects their moves
And the moonlight guides them
And there is peace for that night
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Weird (Tuba and French Horn)
I am weird
I don’t mean I’m so random lol
I mean that I will cry in a Buffalo Wild Wings over dinner
I mean you can talk about the corn monoculture in bed with me
I mean I will laugh about how I haven’t said anything stupid in bed
Then laugh so hard because the next phrase in my head is “take me to flavortown”
I will take you to flavortown (and yes, I am trying to be sexy by making fun of myself)
I will make fun of myself till I don’t know what to say
I am the kind of person who will throw back a bar full of whiskey
And hold the smallest flower on the sidewalk in my cupped hands
So no one steps on it
I believe in protecting the flowers, they’re so fragile
I believe in protecting myself, I am so fragile
Fragile like the glass jar you broke to get the lid off
I am the lid and the jar
I once spent a whole hour sitting in a tree
I thought it would make me taller
It just lifted me off the ground
And I think of myself like a radio tuned
I’m not talking my best game because I’m somewhere between two stations
But sometimes you here a word come out of the mangled mess of static
I want that word to be about love
Not being in love
I’m about as experienced at that as a tuba and a French horn,
I want to be known for keeping my arms up enough to let someone in
Being kind to flowers and being the person people want to speak at their funeral
I will not tell anyone how much we miss you at your funeral
I will tell them when we jumped in all three fountains on campus
Or when we got a flat tire and filmed it
I will tell them about the bonfire you almost fell in
And I will tell them about macaroni and cheese
Because without you then damn we wouldn’t be crying at your funerals
I will probably cry at your funerals
And I will hate it. I hate crying.
And the fun thing about being with a tuba and a French horn
You will hear music and know it was made for you
And you just bought me from the music store
Let me make music so new because
You know my mouthpiece hasn’t been played yet
Everything I have for you to hear is out
Yes this is about just you now
Just for a minute
I used to be too proud to post sappy poetry
And for a solid two years it was just about wanting to sink
And I don’t want to sink anymore and that’s not because of you
But you have been helping me float
No one holds me when I cry since I got grown
Since I got too proud to cry without fists clenched
But you did
And I am so weird
Because I was thinking about how movie screen it felt
And then I was done crying
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