Since those two lines,
I wondered if I would be good enough,
If I was too young,
Too naive,
Too impatient,
Too selfish.
Every day, I feel you grow
And wiggle and dance.
Now you can hear me!
What do you think?
Do you like what I feed you?
Do you feel my love for you?
Now I get ready for you,
Dream of you,
Play with you.
I think about you in everything I do.
I wonder who you might become,
What your favorite color will be,
The first word you would speak,
What you will be like.
Wherever life takes you,
I will be right by your side.
Form: Haiku
blood sugar. again.
BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
one day i will sleep.
Epistle:
Dear White Rat of 9th Grade Biology
You were there the day I first decided
what my future would hold.
What my passion was
What excites me the most
dissection of your organs
for 9th Grade Biology.
Absolutely fascinating
You were just meant to be snake food
Dissection day was I guess just
your plan B
Instead, I analyzed your kidneys
inflated your lungs
my introduction to anatomy
Writing of you for college applications
didn’t work out, but
That’s all for the best
because of you, I am studying somewhere else
Studying my passion
And a bit of poetry
Sonnet: Darlings and Fools
At twilight, darling, would you sit with me
Upon a rooftop right under the stars?
So high that you could reach for Mercury
And with that grasping hand you’d capture Mars?
If I can promise you the skies will clear,
That all suggestion of this rain will fade,
That all will be alright when I am near,
Then would you dance with me till we’re unmade
By slanted starlight falling on our brows?
We’d be such fools to crown ourselves with light–
Intangible, like heavy blade-sworn vows
Of kneeling knight to queen, like distant night,
A constellation made for memory.
Oh, darling, would you be a fool with me?
Form: Epistle
Title: Dearest,
My feet are firmly planted on the ground,
And you come along just to burn the whole forest down.
I am just trying to learn how to survive,
But breath only helps a fire revive.
And there you are just waiting to speak your piece,
Is it so wrong for me to not give you peace?
My heart is still healing from the burns,
And you’re too far gone to see I still yearn.
For the spark in your touch and the glint in your eye,
The lasting mark you leave reminds me I’m alive.
Form: Pantoum
Title: Stuck, Blush Pink
I found a letter you wrote me
The scratch of a pencil, a whisper:
You’re calling me pretty, begging.
I’m your wallpaper, pink and blushing.
The scratch of a pencil. I whisper
What the fuck does this mean?
I was your wallpaper, blush pink.
Why couldn’t you see me?
What the fuck does this mean?
After all this time, it’s just the same:
Why? Couldn’t you see me?
Of course you could, it doesn’t matter anyway.
After all this time, it’s just the same.
You still cross your t’s the same.
Of course you do, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Your letter is hollow, and I remember
You’re still cross, and your t’s are the same.
I found the letter you wrote me.
Your letter is hollow, and I remembered
How you called me pretty, begging.
Ode to Phineas Gage
Could you have walked away better?
Truly so lucky, truly so caught up
In the big bang,
A millionth of a millionth of a chance,
But now it is done.
Did it feel like God? Was it creation?
Did He mean to hit so hard?
He was awake, not sleeping for a second,
Just a hole in the eye, in that straight and narrow,
And now he can’t hold back the hit.
An ice pick in the eye
For all your troubles.
Cauterize the wound and it will stop,
But we haven’t stopped.
The mud and wood,
Are now separate.
The beasts in beams,
They keep it still for you.
But we still blow through them.
There must be more out there.
And now there’s a hole,
The dynamite set through the cavern,
And the beams are through the socket
And the men they pound away,
For families they must keep straight for,
For cracks in the faults they must not nurse,
For all that could be and will be and won’t.
For the millionth of a millionth of a chance we all are.
For the hole in the head we cradle,
That never should have been.
Form: Pantoum
Title: End of a Friendship
I always believed in Miracles.
So, the sky began to fall
And I was without a doubt certain
I would be a rare survivor.
So? The sky began to fall,
Where do we go from here?
I could be a rare survivor,
But alone I am weak and frail.
Where do we go from here,
Here, where dust has settled,
And alone, I am. Weak and frail
And unable to raise a sword.
Here, where dust is settled,
The sun is rocketing to join the sky.
And I, unable to raise a sword,
Wish that I had joined the crowd.
So the sky began to fall,
And the sun rocketed to join the sky,
And I was without a doubt certain
That I should have joined the crowd.
Form: Ghazal
Title: Ghazal of Unrequited Love
the back of your head: a guiding star that i chase —
you are always turned away from the requited.
your love smile, is not, never is, meant for me;
i have not her face, she who has the requited.
you let your gaze linger, do i dare to have hope?
silence stifles any trace of the requited.
though your blue eyes like the sea add salt to the wound,
i would welcome the sting to reach the requited.
i am forever a fisherman, bait in hand,
waiting on that elusive fish: the requited.
Form: Villanelle Title: Red in the Face
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
That could just be the taste of sweat
I want out of this cage
I feel like I’m performing but you set the stage
This is just what you wanted I bet
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
When I am screaming and crying but not acting my age
I give in to every threat
I want out of this cage
I try to ignore it, I just won’t engage
No matter how loud I yell there’s something you don’t get:
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
I think this is what it means to be in the years of teenage
And I watch you leave, you’ve become a silhouette
I want out of this cage
The only way I can stop screaming is by writing words on the page
Your words are not something I’ll forget
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
I want out of this cage
Form: Free Verse
Letter To My Unborn
Since those two lines,
I wondered if I would be good enough,
If I was too young,
Too naive,
Too impatient,
Too selfish.
Every day, I feel you grow
And wiggle and dance.
Now you can hear me!
What do you think?
Do you like what I feed you?
Do you feel my love for you?
Now I get ready for you,
Dream of you,
Play with you.
I think about you in everything I do.
I wonder who you might become,
What your favorite color will be,
The first word you would speak,
What you will be like.
Wherever life takes you,
I will be right by your side.
Form: Haiku
blood sugar. again.
BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
one day i will sleep.
Epistle:
Dear White Rat of 9th Grade Biology
You were there the day I first decided
what my future would hold.
What my passion was
What excites me the most
dissection of your organs
for 9th Grade Biology.
Absolutely fascinating
You were just meant to be snake food
Dissection day was I guess just
your plan B
Instead, I analyzed your kidneys
inflated your lungs
my introduction to anatomy
Writing of you for college applications
didn’t work out, but
That’s all for the best
because of you, I am studying somewhere else
Studying my passion
And a bit of poetry
Sonnet: Darlings and Fools
At twilight, darling, would you sit with me
Upon a rooftop right under the stars?
So high that you could reach for Mercury
And with that grasping hand you’d capture Mars?
If I can promise you the skies will clear,
That all suggestion of this rain will fade,
That all will be alright when I am near,
Then would you dance with me till we’re unmade
By slanted starlight falling on our brows?
We’d be such fools to crown ourselves with light–
Intangible, like heavy blade-sworn vows
Of kneeling knight to queen, like distant night,
A constellation made for memory.
Oh, darling, would you be a fool with me?
Form: Epistle
Title: Dearest,
My feet are firmly planted on the ground,
And you come along just to burn the whole forest down.
I am just trying to learn how to survive,
But breath only helps a fire revive.
And there you are just waiting to speak your piece,
Is it so wrong for me to not give you peace?
My heart is still healing from the burns,
And you’re too far gone to see I still yearn.
For the spark in your touch and the glint in your eye,
The lasting mark you leave reminds me I’m alive.
Form: Pantoum
Title: Stuck, Blush Pink
I found a letter you wrote me
The scratch of a pencil, a whisper:
You’re calling me pretty, begging.
I’m your wallpaper, pink and blushing.
The scratch of a pencil. I whisper
What the fuck does this mean?
I was your wallpaper, blush pink.
Why couldn’t you see me?
What the fuck does this mean?
After all this time, it’s just the same:
Why? Couldn’t you see me?
Of course you could, it doesn’t matter anyway.
After all this time, it’s just the same.
You still cross your t’s the same.
Of course you do, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Your letter is hollow, and I remember
You’re still cross, and your t’s are the same.
I found the letter you wrote me.
Your letter is hollow, and I remembered
How you called me pretty, begging.
Ode to Phineas Gage
Could you have walked away better?
Truly so lucky, truly so caught up
In the big bang,
A millionth of a millionth of a chance,
But now it is done.
Did it feel like God? Was it creation?
Did He mean to hit so hard?
He was awake, not sleeping for a second,
Just a hole in the eye, in that straight and narrow,
And now he can’t hold back the hit.
An ice pick in the eye
For all your troubles.
Cauterize the wound and it will stop,
But we haven’t stopped.
The mud and wood,
Are now separate.
The beasts in beams,
They keep it still for you.
But we still blow through them.
There must be more out there.
And now there’s a hole,
The dynamite set through the cavern,
And the beams are through the socket
And the men they pound away,
For families they must keep straight for,
For cracks in the faults they must not nurse,
For all that could be and will be and won’t.
For the millionth of a millionth of a chance we all are.
For the hole in the head we cradle,
That never should have been.
Form: Pantoum
Title: End of a Friendship
I always believed in Miracles.
So, the sky began to fall
And I was without a doubt certain
I would be a rare survivor.
So? The sky began to fall,
Where do we go from here?
I could be a rare survivor,
But alone I am weak and frail.
Where do we go from here,
Here, where dust has settled,
And alone, I am. Weak and frail
And unable to raise a sword.
Here, where dust is settled,
The sun is rocketing to join the sky.
And I, unable to raise a sword,
Wish that I had joined the crowd.
So the sky began to fall,
And the sun rocketed to join the sky,
And I was without a doubt certain
That I should have joined the crowd.
Form: Ghazal
Title: Ghazal of Unrequited Love
the back of your head: a guiding star that i chase —
you are always turned away from the requited.
your love smile, is not, never is, meant for me;
i have not her face, she who has the requited.
you let your gaze linger, do i dare to have hope?
silence stifles any trace of the requited.
though your blue eyes like the sea add salt to the wound,
i would welcome the sting to reach the requited.
i am forever a fisherman, bait in hand,
waiting on that elusive fish: the requited.
Form: Villanelle Title: Red in the Face
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
That could just be the taste of sweat
I want out of this cage
I feel like I’m performing but you set the stage
This is just what you wanted I bet
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
When I am screaming and crying but not acting my age
I give in to every threat
I want out of this cage
I try to ignore it, I just won’t engage
No matter how loud I yell there’s something you don’t get:
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
I think this is what it means to be in the years of teenage
And I watch you leave, you’ve become a silhouette
I want out of this cage
The only way I can stop screaming is by writing words on the page
Your words are not something I’ll forget
The taste of salt reminds me of rage
I want out of this cage