A person I used to know

Freshly shaved, sun-bronzed kneecaps touched each other

From opposite ends of pretzeled calves and thighs.

Toenails sparkled with fresh paint.

Your trail of salt slipped off a round, rosy cheek

Crashed onto my leg and fell in to the carpet –

A dark pink, almost red, plush that bore witness

To all we could only tell each other.

When I used to look in the mirror,

I would see your eyes – deep brown,

Eager to share the world they knew,

The world you knew.

I had your deep brown and you had my hazel.

I knew every inch of you, every outside and inside.

Even the unspokens had beds in my ears.

I was comfortable.

But now in that shiny glass,

I don’t know deep brown.

I can only find hazel.

I search my inside for your outside

But can only find the already spokens.

My kneecaps don’t know the touch of yours

And no ruler can remeasure the inches of you I’ve lost.

My outsides are itching from the screaming of my insides.

My eye-sockets don’t like hazel, they yearn for deep brown.

My hairs are standing –

My insides won’t stop churning, screaming, yearning.

They itch for deep brown, soft bronzed kneecaps, wet glimmering toenails

And that salty moisture right before it disappears into dark pink plush. 

Liberate

The knowledge I seek can’t be bought

I can’t find it in a textbook or my scribbled notes

My professors read from their lecture outlines

Their words rest on my ears, but quickly fly away.

I can’t be confined to these four walls

Studying, reading literary anthologies, writing English papers.

I want the freedom to be wrong,

Make bad decisions,

Know the right answer but never internalize its solidarity.

I want to question everything,

Every truth, theory, and thesis.

I want to question my own existence,

Cut my skin open to see if I bleed poetry

And when words don’t fall out of my wrists,

I want to smear canvases with my blood

And sell them as artwork on the streets.

I want to escape classrooms and assignments,

Fuck everything up and make it right again

Rearrange the circumstances I have no control over.

I want to run away to the Big Apple

Lose myself in a maze of skyscrapers,

Live in a shitty closet-sized apartment

And carry pepper spray for fear of being mugged.

I want this pen to save me from a life of normalcy.

I want to wrap myself in disappointment

And wait to breathe until right before suffocation

To prove that I am stronger;

Failure is not a reality.

I want to build a rocket out of memories

Ignite them and fly to the sun,

Feel the burn on every inch of my body

So I know I’m still alive.

I want to find the comforts that lie in sin

And disrupt them with the pain of forgiveness.

I want to uncover redemption and throw it in the ocean.

I’m not broken and I don’t need saving.

I want to be more than a test score and a graded paper.

I want to make myself something, anything.

I want to be more than a college degree.

Brown eyes, skater shoes

Skater shoes climbed in my window at night

And found a home next to my converses

Skater shoes watched me learn to dance,

Tried teaching me to run instead.

Skater shoes rested at night

Cozy, next to my bed

And bare feet touched mine while the moon rose and fell

But soon those shoes wore thin;

Too much dancing.

Too much running.

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too young

My converse learned the meaning of solitude.

Then all too easily, all too comfortably

Skater shoes were at my window again

Tracking their mud into my bed

Finding their old home next to my converses.

Bare feet danced together,

Bare feet warmed each other until the early morning.

Skater shoes stayed,

They laughed and loved.

Skater shoes were home next to my converse

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too fast

For soon those soles wore thin

And sock feet touched the blacktop as they ran

Skater shoes danced in the night

Skater shoes danced often

Danced without my converses

Danced alone.

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too far away

Alone, my converses quit dancing,

While skater shoes were grinded to a halt.

Desperation, necessity, and longing returned skater shoes to me.

My converses apologize.

Skater shoes promise to do better.

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too young, too fast, too far away

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we can learn to dance again.