who are you
i don't know you anymore
you have grown too tall
and too thin
and your hair is too long
you need to get it cut
you need to get it cut.
you need
to get
it
cut

scissors

indecisive
that's what she says she is
decisively
her paper-cutting words
leaking out the side of her
mouth as if she is
rusty
and needs to be
oiled

      we want this to be true for all values, the poor, the
rich, the small, the tall,
     stepping stepping stepping

phosphate
is always
a 3-
charge
it's a fact of
life
like the way
my brother will
never be older
than me
and the way I'll
try to forget the ground (like Douglas
Adams) but never fly
without a plane

learn to play basketball
maybe that'll help

The Architect’s Daughter (our 100th post!!!!!!!)

She was the kind of girl who wouldn’t pick up the phone after seven rings because she wondered why she should bother anymore. Her nail polish was chipped and cracked and generally unkempt, and it was obvious to see from the bags under her eyes that she never slept. Not that she didn’t try. But the darkness was so slippery and her mind always so malleable, and her legs so long and her hair so dark. 

You understand, don’t you.

She would.

When she walked into the class in the morning her bag would drip from her arm and her sweater half-slip off her shoulder. Stumbling into the room pens and pencils would fly out of her fingernails and she was a walking hurricane with one sock high and one sock low and her lips a little too wide and her mascara leaking. But she’d struggle to her chair and release her baggage. 
     As if it was all only that easy. 
Huffing, yanking the straps of her bags over the back of her chair she'd pull out her hair, retracting into the curtain that she'd made behind the strands. Pulling out ink she would draw the world on her fingertips. And whenever the teacher tried to catch her off guard with a question

she’d always know the answer.

Funny, isn’t it?

Walking down the street is a running monologue. And everyone on the sidewalk was woven into her head and she fixed them in her stare; they were all she wanted to be, and all she hated, and all she loved, and all she dreaded, and all she feared. Laid about before her she saw it all behind her knock-off ray-bans the tint a little too dark so that sometimes she couldn’t actually see out of them, but it was okay because she did most of her seeing without her eyes.

How could that be?

You ask.

Pulling open the door she’d bound up stairs in two-step. “I wish I had that much energy, when I was young...” Ms. Peterson in apartment two would say and she’d smile and nod in her black jacket twirling left out of the old lady’s way. 
        twirling right just for fun.
On the subway sometimes she’d put in her earbuds but not play any music. She’d read the cheesy ads, and everyday look for lady liberty over the rips in her stockings and the tangles in her hair.

But you'd never look at her.

She’d always stare back.

 She thrived on empty space. An open room with brown paper rolled out across the floor. A thousand rolls. A hundred rolls. And a pencil in hand as she'd twirl around and she was her own compass and her protractor and she will protract you and spin around and around and around and around and

around.

Circling the answers and the wrongs and the suns in between her fingers. Amid the burns and scars and the scuffs, she’d circle the world.

classroom rage

why are you so stupid
aren't you
supposed
to be smart?
And yet you stand in
the front of the room
preaching to
us
when all I
want to do
is turn you
upside
down and
shake
shake
shake
you out

not necessarily
not all the time
you know i'm not
always like this

i have a question.
are you going to shut up
are you going to stop hogging attention
are you going to grow up
and pull your fingers from the mud
you have grown too dirty
and obsessed with the staring looks of others
they are what you feed on
in the paper thin light of your room
with the screens going
next to
the absent faces of your
friends
and you are plugged in
charging with your eyes closed
and your mind dazed
shivering with
the shock
the hesitation
the exhilaration of the wrong
i don't think you do anything for yourself
but for others
or rather
i don't think you do anything for others
but for yourself
its all become rather
compli
cate
d

what are
you yelling
at me for
it wasn't me who
hid your eyes
and took your lies
and put the monster under your bed and
the bats flying
at your head

can't you see
it was not me
it was not me
it was not me

the ants crawled across the floor
and each step they took cracked my skull
a little bit because
my head was
about to explode and no one
was there to pick up the shards and examine
them

she is not

here.

nor there.

and her gloved

fingers

tremble with

all the not-being

and all the not-touching

and all the not-

feeling

tell me my boiling point
the temperature at which
i will bubble up
and cease to be

the bitter b*tch

(and old poem--apologies for the cursing!)

i think the word
bitter was created just
for men who wanted to shun
girls and not be punished
(what a bitter b*tch)
they whisper that she is not
pretty enough
and she is not tall enough
that she wears too much makeup
or not enough
and they confuse her and trap her in their stares
until she is one of them and just as
self-conscious as them all
(what a bitter b*tch)
so when she offers herself up on a silver platter
when she turns herself into a paper for grading
and she is put at the bottom of the stack
she does not understand
though she knows
she does not understand
(what a bitter b*tch)
of course they will blame her
for letting herself get hurt
call her out
she's only saying that because
it hurt her
if it was otherwise her head wouldn't be full
of such ideas
(what a bitter b*tch)
and that is true
you cannot deny that
that is true
that she would keep her mouth clamped
shut
if it went her way
but she wonders
and she wonders
did they ever think
that she would not be able to
let herself get hurt
if they wouldn't
hurt
her
(what a bitter b*tch)

trooper (one word)

you’re a trooper bud
you try really hard
so hard
and everyone loves you for it
they give you affectionate glares
when you screw it up
and the highest high
fives
when you get things
right
but more often you get things wrong
like the time
you took out
all the lego
and threw it on the floor
screaming and crying
crying and screaming
because you didn't get your way

(sorry about the cursing if its offensive to anyway, and i usually try not to but when it just came out like this, and i feel in editing it out it might lose some flow)

who the fuck do you think you are
who the fuck do you think you are
can i repeat
who the fuck do you think
you
are

just because i give you permission
doesn't mean you should take it
you should know better
i knew i would get upset
i knew i would be like this
but i was counting on you
to be better than this
wow
you just couldn't resist the temptation could you
or worse than that
it wasn't even a temptation
it was less than that

just because i give you permission
doesn't mean you should take it
you should know whats wrong whats right
you should know whats black and white
but maybe you are reverse colorblind
maybe you only see red and you love it because
red will hug you and not let you see what
a
dick
you
are

some days
i spend stolen hours
trying to make myself into
something i'm not
they are my private delights
and i relish them
but despise the aftertaste

standing in front of the mirror
the light buzzes
and i rub and rub
the mascara cotton against my face
tirelessly
maybe if i press hard enough
i can wipe away my skin
bit by bit by bit
until there is nothing left
but the truth
throwing things where I'm not supposed
to
glaring and staring and watching

i'll wake up early to work

why is so much on your one
justification
when you withhold it
it makes me feel like i might be special

what a selfish way to look at the world.

at a point i became obsessive and it is odd
because what you are frightens me
and i do not like you
so i will hold you at an arms distance
and squeeze my eyes shut until i can see nothing but orange
and hear nothing but red
and i will crack my eyes open to slits and tone down to magenta
while your words weasel their way like wrenches
crawling across the floor up to my lips
because i am weak
and you can pin my heart up on the blackboard
(i will let you and you
will take the chance)
because it is all about power
and though i try to flick the switch
your hand catches me and all the while
you never know
i saw you for the first time today
and you saw me too and it
was odd because we do not speak
in the daytime
even my head can stretch its way around
that
my screws are loose
and they will easily
u
 n
  t
   i
    g
     h
      t
       e
        n.

do you know how frustrating it is to wait

i have no patience
do you hear me
i have no patience
and i will rip the numbers off the clock and each of the tiny tiny
minute lines that my brother forgets to count every time we sit at the
breakfast table and he practices for school
i will tear them out and my hair will fall out
not because i am old but because
i am tired
and i want to go home
and i want to know
do you hear me?
i want to know

bourbon (oneword)

bourbon
the heavy stench was on her lips
as she staggered down the stairs
and her brightly painted
toenails came
down and her
hair fell over
her drawn face
covering her now drunk
makeup that everyone in
the place
had already
tasted

wheelchair (one word)

there’s a girl in a wheelchair
and i see her everyday
rolling down the second floor hallways
slowly
as she stops at each doorway
to peer through the frame
to the buildings beyond
and the light shines
on her multicolored hair
until after a moment
she wheels around
and continues

this girl
she sits with her face
made up of rainbow shards
and her expression
beyond

she's being ridiculous

that's what they whisper
as she passes
with her glare
can't you see her outside is a thin screen
and she has withdrawn to the dim glow behind
can't you see her face is an empty glass
and the fog coated windows are not open

she's being irrational

they giggle
as she walks in silence and the waters part before
her
as if she were noah aboard her own ark but instead of his
two by two by two by two
she is just
one and one and one and one and
only
one

who are you
and where are you going
and what do you think of
when you are lying in bed
and each exhale you have sends your
breath
to the ceiling until your room is full
of ins and outs and thoughts that no one can
see and
no one can hear
and no one can feel

please tell me
i want to know

strangers can be such good people
just remember that
and maybe it can get
you through the day
knowing that
someone you've never even met
could be nice to you
it makes me believe people are inherently
good
and
not
inherently bad

how can losing things
make us feel so stupid
and so small
it makes me believe that
the hindus and
the buddhists
had something right when they
said not to attach emotion
to material things

brave
what does that even mean?
what constitutes courage
forgoes fear
hinders no hero
is it the girl who grabs her brothers hand
when he runs into the street
and pulls him back, though there are no
cars
in sight
is it the boy who pulls out an earbud and pats
the man on his shoulder, handing the bewildered
face the found wallet
the hooligan not a criminal
not a thief
is it the parent who walks out proudly
with a baby in their arms or the mother
who looks in her newborns eyes with disbelief
and joy
is it the second when eyes meet and you trust
the moments when you are alone and you cry
the words you write when your emotions are falling
out your fingers
and you need to pour yourself into a glass so you can see
is it the song you write and perform for an audience
when the blur becomes the stage and your eyes see nothing
and you cannot remember afterwards
is it that?
is it the leaf that falls and is caught
the kid who passes an old friend on the street and stops
and says hello
the one who doesn't keep walking in the blocks of grey
with his invisible chains and blinkers
is it him?
is it all of them?

the second before the subway door opens
where your bag is in place and you are ready to run
out
to start the race
and you rush up the stairs
with a montage in your mind
and the victory in your blood
but how can you win at life
i think everyone has lost
haven't we
i think everyone has tried
we all deserve honorable mentions
we all deserve bronze medals
we all deserve honorable mentions
we all deserve bronze medals
as we sprint down the sidewalks towards our homes