8th Period
Myhand feels it should quiver
like my lips before a first kiss
as Poetryscreams at me
to speak her Truth.
I should stop my life
and succumb toHer,
with her eyes that see
the world through the heart
and a mouth thatlets
the pen do all the talking.
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Anymore
Shedyes her hair
and expects it to wash out
away with her dreams
away withher doubt
She goes further and further
into the dye
and covers eachcolor
with another lie
The cycle is endless
a whirling carousel
whereshe is now
none but she can tell
but she ...
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Back Burner
Do you remember me?
I'm your old favorite
Campbell's brand, the one whogot
the shaft when the new custom oven came.
Suddenly the casseroles, thefancy roasts,
the turkeys ...
They get all the time, the attention
andI'm shoved to the back burner.
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Cocoa Beach, Florida
Thefeeling of a
Summer week in February,
Escape from the snow into thesun.
Just one week, on a private beach.
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Diseased
Melancholyspreads like the plague.
You send me swarms of
Passionless hopesand
Valleys of emptiness.
Flounder in your own despair.
Don't cough yourmisery on me,
It's yours to keep.
I thought I was immune to thiscalamity.
I guess it comes in many forms.
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Dread
His hair is filled with sweetness I fear I'll never know
Tied in knots and dangling
Fallen branchesin the snow
He keeps it long to hide his face and shield him from thedark
And nothing rhymes or tastes so fine
When you're covered in birchbark
He sheds his skin of ...
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First Light
In the dim dark of the morning
Bad weather dissolves into the brighthorizon
Crooked fingers busy with the business
Eyes crisscrossing
Adodging heart growing small and smaller to the eye
Grief tumbles and spillsover and beyond
In the cage of the chest where ...
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futile
sometimes
i can't breathe.
air filled with holes that
suck me in
spit meout.
sometimes
i can't speak.
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Give us Peace, he shouted
Inthat gray gray room without any windows I asked,
"will they make him amartyr -
you know, write a song about him,
talk about him like somethingchanged because
something was bound to change anyway?"
You laughed butyour eyes shot
spears of something serious into ...
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Lady Darkness and her Black Blanket
Shetosses it over the sleeping,
the awake,
and the weeping.
Is she tryingto hide Day's mistakes?
or,
Night's noisy fuss?
Is she shielding us fromthe outside?
or,
Outsiders from us?
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Looking Down
My sneakers glide gently above the ground,
Beneath a sad and silentswing,
Beneath a sky from which Persephone was stolen.
Back and forth, backand forth,
Like the ebb and flow of tide.
Up and down, Up and down,
Butultimately down.
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Love
Laughterwinks
With a sparkling eye
Rose-petal lips
Whisper a kiss upon hercheek.
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Morning Vision
Screamsswirl like creamed coffee in the stale air of morning.
Lilies dangle from atiny jar of curdled milk wobbling on my violet couch.
The sunbeams smell ofblueberry pancakes and dandelions.
I lick the songs of bluebirds like thefirst winter icicle.
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Ode to my Blue Rising Sun Shirt
Stolenfrom the tile floor of Paul Rossi's
Home, only the slag
Sea gull saw me doit
He was wearing it the first time
I saw him
Singing a song on GriefStreet
With his guitar and black
Buckle shoes
There's a stain on thefront
Put there by the froth
Of his ...
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Past
I sift through my history,
scrawled down on
napkins,
snippets,
paperbags,
in notebooks
(still do).
I read what I've felt and sit in
hownaïve I once was
(still am).
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Perfection
You had to be perfect.
Youhad to be beautiful.
Good health and good friends
just weren'tadequate
You tried harder and harder, but honestly,
what matters whenperfection isn't perfect enough?
And where did you go
when the going gottough?
And of all people, you ...
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Smoke Break
They are the minority
They are the ones who stand
In cinder block corners
Andbare brick walls
They are the ones with dispirited lungs
They wantsomething more
On cool, bitter days not like today
They stand alone atcement dead ends
In the silence of cobalt ...
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Spring Breeze
Thegrass sways in time
To the melodies that play
Inside of your head
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Still Life
i can taste this
surreal
portrait of ecstasy
like champagne
slidesas easy as silk
down your throat
the way you feel
when the arms ofdawn
slide around you
and enfold you
and protect you
and hold you
when you are tangled in sheets
and arms ...
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Supernova Child
Handfulof sand
slowly trickles through my fingers -
a grain for every star Imiss
when I'm not looking up
This worthless sand -
a fist ofdiamonds
slowly being lost to me
The unforgiving tide of time
hasalways hated the stars.
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Swimmer
beneaththe sea I see myself
across the sand to the ocean's shelf
my mind brawlswith a violent tide
my eyes sea-stung and opened wide
the sky istantalizing as it floats above
the only thing I have left to love
beyond mymost hopeless dreams
something so beautiful, it ...
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Untitled
I made a wall of photos
ones of your hands,
your heart-shaped mouth
andyour moon-blue eyes
that blurred in the darkness
when you moved your headaway
I never knew this wall would collapse
I built a collage of yourbody
of my heart that I thought existed
when you ...
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Untitled
This selection can be found in Teen Ink: Written in theDirt, the sixth in the Teen Ink book series, comprised all of fiction andpoetry. All six books are available in bookstores nationwide and online.
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War
In the morning,
by themountainside
many uneasy soldiers paced onward nervously.
They wear courageyet feel fear.
They follow an unknown road,
to an unknown destination ofsorrow and hatred.
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When Wind is all that Lingers
A lone bird chirps to a gray sky
pulling me from the peaceful dreams ofsleep
yesterday, the air was scented with misery
and today doesn't appearany better;
out in the world, a pause to remember
my eyes fix on a gust ofwind,
meandering through the tallest of ...
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Where Ferns Unfurl
Iwould like to say that I am from the mountains
Deep in Appalachia,
Wherewild ferns unfurl at the
Banks of slow-flowing streams, and
Moss-coveredrocks
Lay a carpet
For tiny orange mushrooms and daddy longlegs,
Andstrange purple flowers with no name.
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Why I am Musical
Because rivers keep the beat
of rain sticks; whispering chishh,
while invisibleinsects crick
raindrop drips of sudden plips,
deep drum rolls of richthunder.
Because finches welcome April's song
whistling tea time withpink cherry trees.
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Why Passing out is Good
tolerant/blamingskin takes the 4 seasons of hatred repeatedly
as she crawls outside the sunhurts her hands
that shake and wipe the tears from her hurt eyes
her faceand heart and soul are hidden
afraid to come out of a safer place
forsurely they would be yelled at again
as ...
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