Thank you sir, for everything you have taught me in your honors algebra two class.
I do understand that it is important to learn these things
and memorize where each variable goes
and what to square
and what the equation of an ellipse is
and I am not being sarcastic
But I was hoping maybe you could also teach me the equation to mending things that have been broken?

When I was fourteen I learned to write
I learned to pour out my sorrow onto the pages
of an old notebook

When I was fourteen I learned to write for myself
Without stupid prompts
asking me what I was proud of

When I was fourteen I learned to write the truth
Never again did a meaningless sentence spill out of my pen
saying things that were opposite of what I felt

When I was fourteen I learned to write for everyone else
I said to those silent pages what I could not say to their faces
for fear of losing everything

When I was fourteen, I learned to write

I will not see your eyes in the lights of Paris
I won't remember your laugh when I'm wandering Dublin
The streets of Amsterdam won't conjure up memories of our Chicago
Summer in Sicily isn't going to remind me of us at the beach,
happy, warm, in love.

But baby don't you think for a minute that I'm going to forget you

You were my first adventure.

When she was born she had no blood
fresh seawater flowed through her veins
and her eyes were as ever changing as the oceans
And so they named her Galene
after the Greek goddess of calm seas.

She lived up to her name
Calmly wandering through life
looking at and through everyone
with her whirlpool eyes
Seemingly curious
But she never stopped to probe
because she already knew everything.

We knew she did not belong here
with her sandy hair tumbling down her back
and her soft voice
and her bare feet

And so no one was surprised
on a trip to the beach
when she walked straight into the waves
disappearing beneath the surface
and did not drift back up

In Mythology we learned of the passion of the pelican
How a mother would open herself and let her children drink her blood
When no other food was available.

I looked at you and I couldn't help but wonder…

*Who are you trying to feed?

Nine cells
Nine columns
by nine rows
Eighty one spaces
Numbered one through nine
I do love logic puzzles.

Too bad I hate odd numbers

The windows were down
My feet were on the dashboard
You asked me if Everything was okay
I lied

There's something about the sound of my father's records that fills me with solace
Putting the needle in the ridge
Hearing it catch the song
The dusty smell of age and sound
And finally the burst of a voice
of a long dead artist
filling the room with a haunted song

What?
Sorry.
I missed that.
I was thinking
about the lake and
the way it looks at night
and the way I smell of it
after an afternoon shore-side
and the way you kissed me in the waves
with your salty lips and warm, sandy skin.

*k.l.

When the leaves fell, they fell like bombs.
Crashing to the ground noiselessly
But he could feel the impact of each delicate leaf hitting the soft autumn ground
And when he looked up at the trees, stretching their bare branches towards the sky,
He saw young Vietnamese children, reaching out to their mothers
Who lay lifeless
Slumped against the walls of empty buildings
Once called home.
And when he closed his eyes to sleep at night
He was haunted by comrades
Who had fallen beside him
And left behind widows and children and lives
all in the name of democracy.

They say the wounds of war can never really heal.
I know yours didn't.
We won the war
But you lost yours
Were you contemplating surrender when you held that familiar friend in your hands?
A gun had once defended your life, but now it prepared to take it
Did you think about wives and children and sorrow?
Or were you simply thinking of the dead, autumn leaves falling from the branches?
You, too, died in autumn,
But you fell in spring.

I wonder who wrote their initials here
What were they thinking of as they absentmindedly dotted the i
and curled the final sweep of the e upwards
Was this the same person
who created the little garden of daisies on the desk in my English room?
Or maybe the curious mind who asked me who I was on the sandy surface of my physics desk
I find comfort in the wandering minds of others
Their notes are addressed to no one
but I like to think they're for me.

Isn't it ironic how
she painted her eyes dark
and cut her wrists
and kissed too many boys
and smoked things she shouldn't
and played photographer
just to be different
then she just ended up like everybody else?

He kissed my collarbone
and left seeds in the marrow
that in turn bloomed into myosotis of the bluest blue
When he was away
it was only their vines that
held my bones together

My
first
love was
too much for
me to hold in my
hands so I used my empty heart

It burned my mouth
when I sipped my mother's bourbon
It seared my throat
when I tried my father's cigar
But if the opportunity arises
I'll do both again
because a day will come when they will not be there
to gauge my reaction
and find amusement in my wrinkled nose
and in my quick exhale
And likely
one day I won't have these reactions at all

With time
I realized that the scars
I gave myself
in the deepest depths of my despair
Are merely shadows
across my skin
When compared to the scars I received
scraping my knee on the sidewalk
or
splitting my chin on a fence post
or cutting my arm
on a fallen bird feeder
in my backyard
when I ran too fast
with my childhood companions
in a state of blissful, happy, youth.

I think that before you fight for the rights of animals
the rights of humans must be secured.
So before spitting in my face for not crying about humans slaughtering animals
Maybe you could turn your attention to the humans slaughtering humans.

When my mother used to smoke cigarettes
we'd hide her carton of slim white smokes
and tape pictures of cancerous lungs all over the house
with dark frowning faces scribbled onto them
and my father, sister and I would laugh for hours until she found them and laughed with us
A decade after she quit
and we still laugh our ***** off at the memory
of those angry, angry lungs
and it just goes to show that sometimes
the things that seem horrible at the time
make for the best memories

Mama's hands were smooth and cool
When she pushed my hair back and told me not to worry
Because sometimes mommies and daddies fight, but that's okay.
My childhood stretched before me
A long dirt road where daddy's absence hung in the air like
The sour smell of whiskey
On his breath
When he tucked me in at night
He always had the same shade of lipstick smeared on his neck
I found it later in a Walgreens downtown
Revlon number seven, Not Your Mother's Mauve
How ironic, I thought.
Because Mama never did wear lipstick

I remember nights where she sat in the living room
Painted blue, she kept her anguish in a secret place
Where I am not, and daddy always will be
She kept him there
Suspended in a light
Not of scrutiny but of love
And I hated him for it
Because my mother's loss would tear her apart
And I was left behind a closed bedroom door
The grieve for my happy family.

When I hear him say my name
it's like he is speaking to another
It rolls off his tongue unnaturally
and rings in my ears like a strange, foreign language
Not bad, just unexpected
It does not upset me
to be called baby or sweetie
but I do wish he'd say my name more
because it is the only way I can remember who I am

It's strange to see her
here
on a beautiful night like tonight
in an ugly place like this.
She says it's her favorite place in the whole city
I'd ask her why,
but I already know
how much she loves the glow of the bars across the street
The laughter of drunken twenty something's drifting across Belmont
The way the neon signs hum and warm her face
Illuminating her in a pink glow
and the breath of the city
Steady
as her hand holding her lighter
Too tightly

Meet me here at midnight, is that too much to ask?
Meet me here at midnight is that too much to ask?
And you and I will explore the darkest corners of the universe
And you and I will explore the darkest corners of the universe

The universe is darkest at midnight.
Meet me here.
I will explore the corners of you
and you will ask too much.

You told me you were broken
When really you just wanted us to run to you
Armed with hot glue guns
Our eyes glued on you
Trying to find the cracks in your foundation
Staring at your selfish smile

Tell me what you want, baby—we're running out of time.

The walls are falling back and I have neither the strength nor will to hold this room together

I'm sorry it wasn't enough, I still breathe for you

But the oxygen is escaping and leaving my lungs useless and our love breathless and if you don't make up your ******* mind my chest will explode and my last words to you will escape.

And I'm not ready to hear them

Mama's hands were smooth and cool
When she pushed my hair back
and told me not to worry
Because sometimes mommies and daddies fight,     But that's okay
My childhood stretched before me
A long dirt road
where daddy's absence hung in the air
like
The sour smell of whiskey
On his breath
When he tucked me in
but that's okay.
at night he always had the same shade of lipstick smeared on his neck
I found it later
in a Walgreens downtown.
Revlon number seven,
"Not Your Mother's Mauve"
How ironic, I thought.
Because Mama never did wear lipstick
I remember nights
when she sat in the living room
Painted blue,
she kept her anguish
where I am not,
and daddy always will be
She kept him there
Suspended in a light
Not of scrutiny
but of love
And I hated him for it
Because my mother's loss would tear her apart
And I was left
behind a closed bedroom door
to grieve for
my
happy
family.

Her head was heavy
with thoughts and with doubts
Soon it became too heavy to lift
and she saw nothing but the ground
She forgot skyscrapers
and power lines
and her beloved stars
When he came along
she told him her weights
He took them away with a kiss
and she could finally lift her head once more
and she saw the stars

You have no voice
You have teeth
that gnaw at every part of my being
ripping my heart to shreds with the coldest of words

You have no voice
You have heat
that radiates through my body
with the most passionate of words

You have no voice
You have creatures
that swarm my insides
and fly around inside my stomach
and turn my knees to jelly
with the sweetest of words.

You have no voice
You have a microscopic turntable
that plays my favorite songs
and echoes them throughout my skull
with the most romantic of words

You have no voice
You have a power that allows you
to tear me apart
or put me together
or even make me love myself
with the simplest of words.

If I could, I'd write you a dictionary.
I'd fill it with all of the things I feel but cannot name.
The feeling of kissing you. The way my heart pumps in blood and pumps out hummingbirds.
What word can describe missing you? The ache, the longing for you when you're away?
How could I define the feeling I get when you hold my hand? When we are no longer just beings, existing separately in space.
That moment when we become linked, through a simple gesture;
I can feel thousands of universes unfolding inside of me, millions of little worlds revolving around you, because the one we're in now is not enough.
It doesn't have enough words

Sweetheart, what happened to you?
You're far too young to be so old.
Wipe that glitter off your face
and put down that cup
There's plenty of time for you to grow up

How unfortunate that we must wait lifetimes for the right one to come along.

The stars are dying tonight
I can see them fading away
They do not have the same light
The stars are dying tonight
I know they can't keep up this fight.
I root for them every night and day
The stars are dying tonight
I can see them fading away

I read somewhere that we may see different colors
but call them  by the same name.
I hope that this isn't true
because to think that we do not gaze at the same dark sky
or dream of the same clear oceans
or tremble with awe at the same ancient masterpieces
is a scary thing