Live On

9:57 AM Posted In , , Edit This 0 Comments »
While this isn't what I had in mind for my anti-suicide poem, it's what happened when my pen hit the page.

I.
Last night, my mother called me a coward.
She said I’d let myself be victimized.
But she never knew the ghosts
That used to haunt me.

She doesn’t know all the times I’ve
Wanted to tell her about my
Invisible battles with the past.

How my television tears weren’t
A sign of my sympathy
But the bond of unity.

She doesn’t know how many times
I’ve turned and touched my ghosts
And told them to stop haunting me
And how I’ve made them listen
And undid my status as their victim.

II.
Last night, I dreamt I was my mother
Discovering her older brother - dead.
I don’t know what Bobby looked liked,
But he was wearing a red flannel shirt.
I never knew the ghosts that haunted her.

I haven’t known how she carried her
Brother’s memory and how
My behavior kept bringing it up.

How all the times she
Saw me faltering and wanted
To take that pain herself.

I don’t know how many times
She's had to reach out and touch him
And tell herself it wasn’t her fault
And tell herself she did her best
And tell herself that she can move on.

III.
My mother mentioned Bobby once
In a letter to me, last year.
There was a line where the ink smudged
And the paper crinkled over some.
I think she must have been crying a little.

I stopped at that line.
I wanted to reach back in time
And say Don’t Do It, Uncle Bobby
Wanted to undo all the wrongs
That led him to this final turn
Don’t Do it, Uncle Bobby
Because forty years in the future
Your sister still weeps for you.

To My Poetry Workshop

9:01 AM Posted In , Edit This 2 Comments »
I want to write a happy poem and not be the only one doing it.

vent on.

I'm tired of a class where everyone comes in with their newly penned suicide. I want a poem that doesn't scream I want to die. I want a poem that screams, live! live! live! I don't want another poem about how your wrists are paintbrushes, all you need to do is cut them and let the masterpiece unfold. Let someone else find you in the bathroom your work unveiled. I want a poem about soccer games, singing in the rain, dinner parties and birthday cakes. The wish you made on your 7th birthday.

I want a poem that reminds you how much you want to live you forget you ever felt any pain. I am tired of reading your suicide notes. Your one night stands. You wrists cut like wedding bands the night after you find your husband cheating. I am tired of people saying I want out of this life. I'm tired of hearing that you want to die. Because so and so doesn't love you. I'm tired of the poems about drugs. I'm tired of the poems about sex. I'm tired of the poems with endings that leave me depressed. I want a poem to read that makes me feel inspired. Makes me freel on fire. Makes me want to go find a stranger and say, You should read this, It'll improve your day. I want a poem that doesn't scream I feel alone but scream here I am! Here I am! And we can all be together.

I want a poem that doesn't feel like a hundred days of shit weather. I want a day that feels like a volcano. Bursting forth with fire. I want to feel that alive when I read what's inside of your soul. I don't want the drum of your heart to be faintly pulsing, I want to hear it rushing. I'm tired of suicide. I'm tired of poems that are screaming for endings.

I want a poem written entirely with beginnings. I want poems that make me feel like I'm swimming inside of God. I want a poem that doesn't leave a stain on my heart but says, go on, do it, reach for the moon you'll find yourself there sooner or later but if you don't reach, you won't grab it.

I'm tired of suicides. I'm so tired of dead bodies lining up pages. I'm so tired of seeing your unashamed faces when you pen another one night stand. I'm so tired of seeing you feel so uninspired by the blood that's flowing through your veins.

So stop harping on sadness and start signing your name with hearts and stars. If that's what it takes to break your suicide streak than do it. Or sing yourself a song at the top of your lungs running down Columbus. I'm tired of living in a city of frowns.

I just want to see else somebody smile.
I'm tired of having to go back to the mirror and say,
Hey, put on your armor, put on your strong heart
Cause you have to go make ten thousands people day
Because they don't know how to do it themselves.

And yes, you may think that's selfish of me. But twist my words around and you'll see - all I really want is for you to be happy.

vent off.

Tea

8:43 AM Posted In , Edit This 0 Comments »
I, Hamlet

He talks because he can
Sits at the front and says
This is so and this is that

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

My eyes close in agitated remembrance
His paparazzi starts in
Asks stutters slurs then stops
Wants me to cave in to their questioning
But I'm content to be
Alone with my thoughts
Even I could never play the part
Of Hamlet


Listen Up!

4:59 AM Posted In , , , , Edit This 1 Comment »

Stop reading and start writing.
Start praying and stop fighting.

Go write your own Bible.
Because it's not enough to read,
you have to listen too.
To the divine spark dwelling inside of you.
Remember, you are a temple that houses God
So take off the facade
that would make you believe
you're worth any thing less.
Look at yourself! you're gorgeous!
The most Holy of Holies
How could you ever declare
That beauty unworthy

Again.

8:29 PM Posted In , , , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
I want to save the world.
I want to save the Earth.
I want to save the humans.
I want to save the animals.
I want to save the plants.
I want to save us all.

I want to be the light at the end of the tunnel.
Hold on, your almost at the exit.
Hold on, I'm coming to save you.

These days I feel like I've drifted from who I am. I want to fall back into myself, except this time, fall deeper. Think the thoughts that keep me from sleep, so I'm forced into day dreaming of all that I can become. I'm going to do things I'm afraid of doing.

I got a dog sledding job. And I am so incredibly pumped.
But the big question is, how can I use this to help the world.
The real question is, what can I do to change the world.

Tomorrow doesn't exist.
I need to act here and now.

But which call am I supposed to take up arms for?

Love. love. love.
And if love were the currency of the day we'd all be trilllionaires.

Love isn't a commodity.
Spread it all around.

I don't know you, but I love you.
I don't need this money, here go ahead and have it.

Put the guns down.
Enough.

7:32 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Circled. Again and again and again.

Looped

1:37 PM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »

Sometimes you have to loop around a time or two before you know where it is you are or where you're going. I'm on sleepy head thoughts. Haven't been awake all day, metaphorically speaking. Here's a rewrite. I'm revolving around something. Haven't nailed down my center yet.

Inside the Fish

People, places, and moments
Come and go from me.
One after another, after another,
Until the next comes then goes.

The smell of rosemary and ginger
(Always in the kitchen, always during winter),
The faces of strangers I remember from my youth,
The voice of the peddler out on Boylston Street,
The way I sign my name -- just
Like my sister.

Not knowing who I am or
Where to go. Whether or not
I should say hello
Or goodbye or
Nothing
At all.

My hair in my face,
The look my mother gave my father,
The way our dog barked and
The thumping of her tail on the cabinets.

My aunts and uncles and grandparents
And all those that came before and with and after.
And all those that you wanted to stay, but didn't.

The taste of fall in the morning.
The taste of toothpaste in the evening.
The taste of regret still staving off the snow.

The note he gave me, buried in my wallet.
The apology he skipped, still haunting onward.

That lack of finality. That empty coffin.
Not even a body left to cry over.
Not even bones left to hold.
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