protestors continue to deny that guns
were the problem. how many more shootings need to happen? the time
for us to have stopped was right after Sandy Hook high school. Parkland. Santa Fe.
twenty children, seventeen people, ten. a moment of silence, and then the “wonderful NRA.” dismissing calls. “extreme political agenda”
Dallas. Sutherland Spring. El Paso.
five people. twenty-six people. twenty-three people.
a church. a supermarket, a
rampage. protect our kids, not
guns. how many more of these need to happen? all I want is
reasonable gun control. reasonable background checks. eliminating
military-style weapons. we are an embarrassment. we cannot protect our children in our schools.
“this time will be different.”
every decent American is mourning twenty-one beautiful lives.
ruthlessly and indiscriminately extinguished.

the world: updated. we,
we chose tomorrow. you’re invited! 18K gold
handforged samurai swords
autographed memorabilia
floating kinetic
bonfires.
a new way to discover
how to get started.
(coming soon) we would like you to apply
an expert
weighs in on
zero gravity. get
the best, the most
prestigious bean
bag chairs, break
into the new
final hours, last call for
(up to)
80% off!
your invitation to apply is
waiting. what
do you need to get accepted? wait, don’t delete. get
the latest buzz.
make a
difference.

eyes

more like lies in disguise that cries every time

they dare open

so is it not better to keep them closed?

no,

instead i decided to ice them

with my prose

red as the rose

that fell apart as it grazed my cheek

and didn’t smell so sweet

anymore.

i miss

the kiss

of the sun

on my thumb

on hot winters day

march comes and goes away

without letting me say goodbye.

i’m lost

come find

come save

let in

only to find

there wasn’t a me to begin

with.

liquid oppression

define a suggestion

that brightens up the day

or night

you come without a single fight

reminding me of what time it is tonight

and might never be again

droopy suppression

causing infection

on the forefront of my brain

the pain

keeps me grasping at the insane

telling me to look into the darkness

whenever i need a mirror

what if i twisted further

for you, than anybody else ever  had

and what if i replied faster,

for you, when you talked to me feeling sad

what if i smiled and laughed

for you, did all the things to draw you in

and gave you what i said was love

when it was really just pain and sin.

green

is a color

of money and luck

of gambling and rambling

but saying all the wrong stuff

green is the color

of life’s unripe fruit

and what covers the world

after the flowers have bloomed

but green’s also the color

of envy and greed

of terrible torture

infections unseen

green is the color

we can’t live without

but the color that many

wish to be without.

love

is a fight against every humans sin nature

to do right for someone

at it’s core

it is proof

that humans

feel

pain.

young, deliberately sticking out my

tongue, at the creatures sitting by my window who’ve

sung, their last song because all

along, the crash was

wrong, the fears were

right, and now

tonight, we take up the

fight, against the

one, who knows all

and will always leave us behind.

love not love (lonely)

lust not lust (lonely)

pride not pride (lonely)

make every teenager’s phony heart cry

black not black (gray)

white not white (gray)

here not there (gray)

remember when colors didn’t feel so far away?

lonely gray horse

stands by the very edge of the fields

and reels in pain

against the fence posts trying to contain its brain

in shame

it crumbles, like the cookie

you’d think it was a rookie but

its seen this charade in far too many parades

so it stands there some more, a slave

to the lonely gray

that prays

to the silence

that surrounds it.

people always ask if she means me

but she is what I want to be

she is she who speaks to me

the person I am in my dreams who

it’d seem doesn’t quite have life figured out but

she tries her hardest and speaks her mind and finds the words that want to rhyme

she is me when I’m awake

she is me when I’m not fake and

away from the thoughts of society and culture as it swoops down on me like a deadly vulture and I

find myself different than she wants me to be

Sometimes I’m still unsure

Do I really feel what i see?

Or have i gotten so good at hiding that i don’t even

Know what’s still actually me

Sometimes I’m still uncertain

Am i hiding behind a curtain?

A melody of words and phrases

Devised to make you think I’m going places when

In reality I’m just sitting at home

Maybe doing work, maybe on my phone

maybe doing everything and nothing at the same time

By pretending that along the way i learned how to rhyme when

In reality i had to stop myself

Put the words back on their shelf

Or else they’ll manage to find their way out and

That would be disaster, without a doubt.

Sometimes i still wonder

Who will look between

Look between the words and see

That in reality

I’m really just me.

speaking speeches softly so

you’ll find you don’t quite hear me

because I’ll hide in a place that you can’t really see me

I’ll hide in your darkest memories

that you tried so hard to keep from the world

behind all your deepest secrets

everything that makes you cold

and icy, and bitter, and cruel

around this world I’ll rule with

am iron fist as you smile softly so I

softly tighten my grip on the soft innocence of your heart because

God knows what’ll happen if

I break it apart

so that makes two, me and you

except you don’t know anything apart

from what is blue and what’s not true

pain’s your only friend

so take a step and catch your breath

before they catch a clue.

I don’t trust myself

With speaking my mind

I’d rather close all the doors

Leave my lies locked inside

I’ll staple my tongue

To keep paragraphs out

So I can smile and laugh

Without having a doubt

But the tips of my fingers

They’re starting to bleed

With words that the world

Was never meant to see

And as I grabbed a sheet of paper

To mop them all up

All the stanzas and verses

Decide to interrupt

They begin to organize themselves on the page

Probably just playing

But I’m screaming in pain

Trying to stop their saying

Because now I have nowhere left to hide

Except for this insane brain of mine.

She opened her book

Slowly at first

Didn’t really like how it looked

But she gave it a verse

And inside her brain

Next to the secrets she’d hid

Was a place they say sane

Could never comfortably live

Driven out by the notions, implications of joy

When asked where it went, it only stood there annoyed

But back to the story

Her mind was in awe

Trapped in a web

Full of character flaws

But halfway through the book

It all screeched to a halt

The words stung and they burned

Like a wound full of salt

The pages all laughed

As paragraphs cut like knives

And she wanted to stop

But control had long left her mind

So she read until the final page was wet

Dripping with all her sorrows and regret

And she’d vowed to never make a mistake quite the same

But to be truly in love, sometimes mistakes must be made.

They’re built from the ashes

Of a world far away

We beg and we plead

They still refuse to stay

You can’t call them people, or pictures, or sounds

Not even the feeling

When the soul runs unbound

They’re not made of words

The human head hears

But rather compiled of the whispers

The human heart holds dear

And the words that you’ll find

They both equally fear.

Every day exactly the same

Nothing different

Simple and plain

Monotony seems to be the key

Living for all of eternity

But what is life without the chance?

Living in fear, stuck in a trance.

But in walks wonder

And she doesn’t like what she sees

Showing me colors, finally free.

I dance in the wind

My cares all behind me

But what I can’t see is consequence, creeping up behind me.

She was the dark during midnight

And the light before dawn

The deep breath before a secret

And the sigh after it’s gone

She was crashing ocean waves

As they came and breached the shore

And a tiny little river

Knowing it could be much more.

She was the smell of rain in the spring

And the ashes in the air

She was laughter at midnight

And the sound of deep despair

She was howling winds by the coast

As they swept throughout the beach

And a breath in winter weather

As you search for what you seek.

Her hair was made for windy days

Walking by the coast

As you sit and watch the summer waves

Play and breach and boast.

Her smile made the stars all stare

Shining extra bright

Wishing that they could keep it there

Even come the light.

Her eyes shimmered like dark stardust

Chocolate in the night

Such deep and brown and thoughtful depth

Ever full of delight.

We see the stars up in space

Marvel at their fate

And it seems we tend to forget

Our own endless chase.

It’s easy to forget, looking up at the night sky

The people who’ve wronged you, those who made you cry

And it’s easy to remember

How those you love are so close by.

But if you find yourself too often

Looking up above

Remember by the time their light reaches you

Already darkness they’ve become.

A fall of your breath, an ache in your chest

A desire to run, to jump, maybe jest

Hope abounds in you today

Gone are the troubles, the fear of yesterday

It watches you close

Keeps you near

But then, suddenly, enter the fear!

Will you quell the river? Or will it quell you?

They offer you a choice, but what can you do?

For even if you fell the river, you lose what is true

And gone will be those you considered close to you

But if you take the fall, is it not better for them all?

No worries for them, but misery for you.

Tell me please, what is there to do?

Nothing can be done, you and pain are now one

Watching through a broken lens

Aching inside, but happy friends

The world is good, the grass is green

The water’s clear, the air is clean

But the sun burns your skin

It hurts your eyes

The water heals your skin, but it breaks you inside.

The grass cuts your feet, every breath pains your lungs

And try as you might, they hurt too much to run

Then, you faintly hear them laugh, the occasional cheer

The blind can see! The deaf can hear!

But you cannot, perhaps the lighting is just bad here?

Every trouble of the world,

It all comes upon you,

The hate, the hurt,

It all slowly binds you

You fall from your beautiful place in the sky,

But no, no, they will not see you cry

And still they come, you turn away

And watch from the dark, far, far away

Trying to live in the past, and you miss the today.

Was it worth it?

They are happy, yes, it’s true

But was it worth the expense of you?

To know the joy, we must feel the sorrow

Break to the point where there’s no light from tomorrow

And then, slowly, a candle is clued.

Do you light it, or not?

It’s all up to you.

What do I want, what do I need?

What are these voices fighting inside of me?

Why can’t I just agree with myself,

Not torn between two sides,

The elf on the shelf.

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like not to be so stubborn

Both sides of my brain constantly bothering the other.

“But what about this?”

“What about that?”

Over and over till I’m about to snap

Going round and round in your head

Whispering as you go to bed

Then it’s yelling in your ear

Keep it down, please, there are people here

An entrancing melody as you fall asleep

Sometimes I even hear it weep

The only silence I’ve ever had

Is when I’m good and truly glad

And that’s when it retreats inside its cage

Waiting for my feelings to inevitably cave.

They stole her little pieces

The ones they thought she wouldn’t mind

Like her joy in the morning

When the sun came to shine

They took tiny things

Like how she’d look at the stars

Forever with wonder

Trying to pick out mars

They grabbed little moments

Like how she’d laugh until she’d cry

And how her voice rose

When she was telling a lie

They stripped her of these things

They thought she’d no longer need

What they didn’t know

Was they planted a seed

She now took for granted

Every time the sun would rise

And she’d only turn away

Annoyed, avert her eyes

She no longer found wonder

Searching through the stars

She was too old for such nonsense

Who cared about seeing mars?

She couldn’t remember how to laugh

It only wastes time

Life was moving too fast

For her to be caught in a crime

She’d made a mistake

Opening her doors

Now her pieces were scattered

All over the floor

And though she longed to collect them

She was simply too bored

Why is it all so silent?

from the time she was little she

longed to speak her minds in a way that speaking could never achieve,

why she signed up for choir, though her voice would always break

her mother was a poet, instilled in her a love for words

and she’d pour over the letters and trace them with her finger

though she didn’t know what they meant

the language barrier played with her ambition, but the words called to her all the same

and one day she picked up a pen and paper and

began to write her name as she also

began the difficult path of writing

the pain, she said, that writing gives me

makes me lie in bed

million thoughts in my head

as I cry, or smile, doesn’t matter I just lay there a while

and think about the words I said and spilled on the page

barring my soul to the unknown crowd of achievers and cheaters and all in-between

but it’s better than the silence of casting it aside, making me so sick I just lay down and my soul dies as

I can’t even find the energy to cry, or smile, or think about the world

I am selfish, insecure, and alone.

the art of procrastinating is also one I have mastered

in fact, you’ll never meet someone who can procrastinate faster

or harder, or better, or quicker than me

I have to be the best at everything I do, see you haven’t done work in days well

me in months and you haven’t been sleeping well lately well I can’t remember the last day that I did

be good at doing what you are or don’t do it all that’s what I tell myself as 3 am flashes on my clock because my

phone is on military time and it’s easier to just glance over then to

add and subtract and do math outside of school.

letting yourself go

is an art I have mastered

you stay in bed in the mornings with no will to get up or to

drink the dregs that remain in your cup and

every morning and night you wear the same thing as

you listen to the beautiful people sing

so clear, so pretty, they smile and you melt

as your souls berates itself for not being better than that because even though you’ve let go

you can’t ever forgive yourself for it so it’s a struggle

of messy rooms and

messy lives and

chaos all around you as

they all talk

and you listen

talk

and you listen

but it’s all meaningless in the end

you’re helping others when you should look inside your own head

there was a point where I was so good at lying, so good at crying and pleading my case and my

parents didn’t know but I was kinda a disgrace as I moaned and groaned about the headaches I had because my friends at school wouldn’t

pay attention otherwise and I wanted the attention that I couldn’t find anywhere else

so I changed the way I talked

and I changed the way I dressed and each day I

was less and less and less to the point I didn’t even know what I would do

it sounds very sad and guess what, it’s true or

is it just what I choose to tell you?

it’s funny how you can go from

nothing to ten in one day as you scribble the thoughts you don’t think you can say because the keyboard feels like it’s your real home and you wish you could just sink

into the words that your fingertips now roam and

the touch of your screen calms you more than chamomile on a cold crushing day and

alliteration is the equivalent of brightening up the way as imagery floods your view and

you’re not quite sure where you are even though you haven’t moved any other muscle in an hour of just constant writing, broken only by the occasional getting up but then the

words overtake you again and you’re forced to sit back down, a slave to the very thing that makes you truly happy.

she looked into the mirror

confused by what she saw

the darkness in her eyes

that made her look so raw

had left beside a sweet chocolate

nothing there to fear and she

stood there for a moment unsure what to think

scared to even blink as she remembered the days

she’d argue with her mom about the color that she saw and

she’d say they were black and her mother would saw naw and they’d go back and forth for hours staring into both her eyes that were

filling up with tears because

she just wanted to be different.

now that the whining was over

the true writing could begin

and she thought back to the time that’d she’d

first learned how to swim now

her friends said that it was hard but as they

dunked themselves into the pool she’d never felt more at home and she’d

beg to go to the ocean so she could say hello to what she loved and

nothing on earth could compare to when the sea gave her a hug as she ruled from her fathers shoulders, walking deeper into the waters.

the place she never wanted to leave but of course

plans change and things change and she found herself stranded

having to be content with tiny beaches where she’d look

wistfully at the horizon and her family would scoff and

call her a drama queen and

give the teenager her space but if they knew that every time she

looked out across the water at the sunset

she was so happy that she was sad

perhaps they’d just leave her alone and let her cry for reasons that she

didn’t quite know why

but the beach was the place that she learned to be happy as she

watched her brothers and their squeaky voices get scared of the waves and her

mother from the towel would laugh and tell stories and she’d

make sand castles with her dad who was smiling and now

life had come for them and was trying it’s hardest to

destroy her fondest memories with pain but she’d

never let it have the memories of the same thing that she’d let go by herself

a long time ago

to keep it safe

to keep it safe from the world and perhaps most importantly

safe from herself.

her secret ambition

that she’d never bared to a soul

could be summed up in one word: ballet.

almost more than she wanted to sing, though you couldn’t really compare the types of dream, she wanted to be a ballerina

of course when after so many years and she

still couldn’t do the splits or learn

how to move her hips she

gave up and

devoted her life to the sedentary pursuit of writing but

every so often when

she hears a piece from the nutcracker

her eyes go somewhere far away and she rises onto her toes and the one pose she remembers from her teacher Celeste

and she’d dream of the white tutus and the girls on the stage who’d fly about like they had wings while she

found ways to trip over the smallest of things

because I guess in life you want what you can’t have

even if at the moment you’re perfectly glad there’s still something

that you wish was different and it’s

sad but that’s human nature I guess.

quiet moontime madness

stealing sleep since o1

you left me silent in the sadness

my thoughts have nowhere left to run

but the gentle embrace of the light

it’s fragile, half-hearted smile

the darkness gives me a fright

but light tucks me away in a file

out of mind, out of sight

backwards sings the opposition

as I sit back in my chair

waiting to hear it’s proposition.

You saw me standing sideways

But wouldn’t help me up

Instead told me pretty stories

That didn’t help my luck

Sung me little lullabies

About what life was like up there

And when I wanted you to stop

Still you wouldn’t share

You stayed until you left

Got bored and said goodbye

You left and packed your bags

Hoping behind you I would cry

I just looked straight ahead

My own unique view on things

And finally decided

Not everything dialed should ring

You saw me standing sideways

But wouldn’t help me up

Instead used my own bad fortune

To further your good luck

And now you’re basking in betrayal

Behind the secrets you snuck

As I sit there in the sadness

Knowing I’ll never be enough

I’m no longer standing sideways

I can now breathe in the fresh air

And even though I feel so happy

Still you call from down there

There’s always something better

Something greater to achieve

So instead of standing sideways

Learn how to take a seat.

she told me about her nightmares, and daydreams, things that made her scared to close her eyes, made her want to weep.

but oh my child, what’s it like to still be able to sleep?

what’s it like to close your eyes and know you’ll wake up to the light and not

to just another fright in which you can move but you don’t because

the world around you is dark so you

hide your fingers

hide your toes

hide your face

protect your nose from

the lack of light that’s watching you

from all the way across the room and you

know its not real still you can’t help but feel that

you’ll never make it to tomorrow.

there are a million galaxies

tucked away in the skies

and as i sit here and write

i find i can’t describe

or find the words to do them justice

their face is etched into my brain

dear lord i can’t contain the pain

of being so close

yet feeling so far

the world plays with our feelings

like a guitar

humming and singing and plucking the string

letting themselves let their lies in

as i wait at the gate of the life i want to have

but still for some reason

first there’s pain to be had.

why are you silent when all is well

because you see, I’m afraid to be happy

and it’s not for reasons that seem so snappy it’s just

whenever you’re sad, people give you hugs

and when they’re hugging you, you can just feel the pity

oozing

and bruising you, but not on the skin where they can see no,

bruises deep inside of me

and then the hug’s over and some of them stay

but most of the time they just walk away and I’m left there all alone because now they’ve done their part and

all that’s left is for me to be happy

and I try and I smile and they say is that better and I go yeah, thank you, and it makes them happy to know that they made me happy and I’ve helped their day along

a moment of positivity in a world that’s so negative

but the truth is, if I told them what I was still feeling they’d internally die and feel inadequate and not enough

and then my sadness has spread to someone else

and all that’s left is for us to be happy

Then sometimes, when you confide in someone who you think is so strong, they look you in the eyes and say, “me too.”

and for a second you sit there, sharing your sadness because all along you’ve known it’s been true

and all that’s left is for you to be happy.

I can’t even cry

As I hear you weep

Buried under all

The secrets you keep

The voice in your head

That says you should be dead

Spilling out of you

At every seam

And as I put my arm around you

I hear its presumed peace persuade

Working in your brain saying

“All you do in life is fade

Fade away from crowds, away from sounds

Fade away from silence

As they’re buying out your violence

Humans were never made to be happy

So just give up now, please make it snappy as I

Burden your brain with images of pain that protrude out of modern society”

As it turns you into a proprietary

Owned by the choice

Death for a voice

As you sulk there in the sadness

That follows up the madness

That makes the rhyme rejoice.