A swingset on Homestead Road

June 8, 2011, 10:38 PM.

Up and down, I listen to T.I. and look at the

fifteen stars that are visible like teeth I hope to still smile with when I'm old

and gray. In the bushes I hear footsteps. I jump, half-cocked, from my seat

burying my knees into sod and sand.

I remember:

the skyline, the night, love, beauty,

these are not things that belong to me.

My frame is too monstrous to catch butterflies so I crush cocoons

and hold on to the technicolor wings

taking what I can get, I remember

people like me don't unfold, we burst.

I am not a star but the pile of dust it leaves when it implodes.

Rewind: dinner.

We are talking around the table about classes and theology

and the subject shifts to the subjects of my writing,

my love of superheroes and love stories without proper endings

I explain I write what I know.

The subject shifts to the reason why one of the guests

had been avoiding me for sixth months

and she explains she was just busy.

She was the fifth to say this;

I wonder which of my inadequacies did it this time.

The beatings I received at 6 years old

turn into a furrowed brow at 22.

The raised voices that played the violin strings of my childhood homes

turn to hushed tones on stage and in places where I can let go of my roar.

The jeers from when I was in grade school

are the weights that hunch my back quasimodo even now.

But that night, fifteen random stars smiled as my feet and the corners of my mouth

turned skyward.

I wanted to hold each one,

feel its warmth before it supernovas into memories

like I know we are wont to do at the most selfish moment

and name them,

stick them into a bottle like water and play them with my fingertips.

23. The issue of X-men where Beast's mutations furthers and he turns blue.

119. the first time I said "I hate you."

840. The night my best friend told me I'd always just be second to her.

912. 5 shots of tequila and a broken jaw.

17. God just makes some people different.

263. When you can calculate prime numbers over 100 in your head you're a nerd.

777. The ugly boy you could never love but who always rang the bell on time.

323. My last fight 8 years ago.

324. Bloods broke into my house. There was gunfire and I couldn't walk anymore.

613. You want to know how I got these scars? I weighed my mistakes in an iron maiden.

540. On one knee, hands pop-locked into prayer position; the last time I say "I hate you."

400. I loved you enough to let you go.

13. I'm diabetic and starve myself.

04. The shattered violet lantern ring and the empty bottle of gin beside it.

1,209 is so distant I'm afraid I'm making up its name.

It sounds like Daddy, are you proud of me now?

Did you see how high I swung?

How dark it was?

I promise I wasn't afraid.

Parthenon (original; not to be confused with the poem on my Tumblr)

From the highway,
the city always looks smaller.
At night all the comers and goers flying
down the street
look like fireflies waiting to burst
into a thousand rainbows and these
these are my first memories of holding your hand.
I want all nights to end this way,
watching the cars crash into pillow cases full of rose petals,
the light shining just so.
"Picturesque" should have met us before it defined itself.
I'm sure it would have had something to say about our feet,
bare and dangling over the infinite catwalk
that seduced us.
It would complain of our pulse being too loud,
too syncopated.
It would ask why we were a symphony of lips parting
then meeting
then parting
then ask why it must be just a word
dribbling off of a third grader's chin.

And I know nothing of either.

Some nights, I feel lost in a sea of love letters. They're addressed to all of my closest friends, but none of them are mine. I'm just the messenger. The waypoint. I give the people what they want and they thank me with hugs and "I love you"s; none of them feel as real as I need them to when I need them to.

I'm not the type to get angry, but if I were, I'd be infuriated by the feeling. As it stands, I'm not motivated enough to hold grudges. I don't cry as often as I need to, I'm too harsh on myself, and I still treat my scars as if they are something of which to be ashamed. There's no real point to this blog post. But writing it made me feel better.

In short, nothing, no matter how inane, is for nothing. I love you, person reading this. I hope you're having an amazing day or night :-)

Lost.

I.

She called me beautiful.

I don't think it's because she's in awe of me.

I think it's because she doesn't find me attractive

but refuses to hurt my feelings by saying so

so she sticks to a word that can be as ambiguous

as a deep breath before your first kiss.

II.

There used to be a graying tower

where their cottage by the sea sits now.

They're waiting for the day the ship finally comes in,

the tears tearing its hull to bit after it's realized

the crew's families stopped on them years ago.

III.

I used to love her,

but I learned a long time ago

that some things simply don't translate.

La Douleur Exquise

doesn't mean anything to her tongue but

I'm not good enough

is all I have

and it doesn't ever mean all that I need it to.

IV.

This language is beautiful,

but there are so many words confused in their meaning

and they're never what I need them to be

when I need them to be.

Some days, I wonder if I'll ever be good enough.

I'm going through changes. . .

The day I found out "<3" had been added to the Oxford

My grandmother used to tell me

"It's the little things that matter."

As I grew older

I became fascinated with the cracks in the sidewalks

and the lines in my palms,

the tick-tock of a clock or a revolver moving closer to midnight

and the click-clack of the woman's high heels on the street corner.

When I was 4, I was diagnosed with ADHD.

The doctor said I may never know words

and 20 years from now,

as I thumb through the dictionary with my own son

I'll have to say that the man who spent 10 years in school

and 10 becoming disillusioned

was right.

"<3 - noun; a sacrifice you weren't prepared for; an evolution you were not ready to face."

Natural selection doesn't happen in booms and snaps;

it's the tick-tocks,

the seconds you never notice until they've walked away from you,

that you cursed for moving too slowly,

leaving nothing in their wake but letters signed

<3

<3

xoxo

;)

I'm honestly not as bothered by this as the poem would make it sound. I am disturbed by it, yes (only because I can't help but compare it to the artist formerly known as Prince and that worries me greatly) but as a dear friend said "it's cool to see how language has changed over the course of history." Granted, neither < or 3 is a letter. On that grounds, I do wonder where the line will be drawn. But I'm interested to see how things will change.

What has been the strangest change you have seen in your lifetime? Anything at all, hit me! :)

Love.

Write more tomorrow.

A recurring theme in my life is trying to make sense of people, and my repeated failure to do so. This could simply be because I'm tackling something way too big for me, but it could be that I'm approaching it wrong.

Not that many people know, but I have kept a journal for years now. I stumbled upon an entry the other day that read:

"I'm not sure how it happened. But Everything changed tonight. Didn't win the iPod but this is just the beginning. I feel free. Write more tomorrow."

I did write tomorrow but it was largely irrelevant. The point I want to hone in on there is the first two sentences. Not sure how it happened: unsure of what it was about that night (my first slam and the first time I really started believing I was on the level of people in my current performance group, EROT) and unsure about my life after that point. Now I can't imagine it going any other way. It reminds me of this video (let's be real, you knew there'd be a video):





I like that the "write more tomorrow" sentiment applies for other people. This poem is so very relevant to where I am right now. Trying to find the biggest number I can think of, but certainly keeping in mind that no matter how big I can conceive, I am still capable of infinity. We all are.

Love.

I suppose the butterflies in my stomach
are yours now.
I'll give them to you
as soon as I binge on her photographs
purge until our smiles match
and they fly away, to resurrect in the eyes
of someone with a hope ever being that close to her.
Butterflies play in the sunflower's of royal gardens.
I'm meant for moths but they never live as long
and they hurt coming up but I smiled all the way through.
There is nothing logical about love.
It stutters when you look her in the face,
when she chats with you on Facebook about the guy she has eyes for.
I suppose this vocal tick
be
be
be
belongs to you now, too.

Chase

It is never too late
to learn how to run, new.
Broken legs be damned.

Dear God,

This is just to say thank you
for the $20 I found near the extra classes.
No one ever gives me money and the only time I can eat
is at free lunch.
Thanks for reminding me
even poor people
deserve 3 squares.

I wonder if you exist

in tonight

if double rainbows ever show up after

blizzards

or if the Aurora Borealis

is ever visible in Australia.

I wonder how many guitar strings

you'll have to pluck away like scabs

to find that all along

you

were

my

favorite

color.