generation me,
the selfie generation,
lazy,
selfish,
going nowhere,
mean,
reckless.

but what the 'great generation' and those who came before us don't understand,
is that we are a generation all our own,
akin to the hippies,
and radical youngsters in the 60s,
fighting against our parents in our own way.

we are owning ourselves and our bodies.
we are breaking free from their grasps
through our sexuality
our selfies
our words and our actions.

we are a generation who is owning ourselves and how we feel
we are revolutionary ourselves.

moss at sunset
embers of green -
a snowflake melts

my compassion keeps me
grounded, if I didn't have that
I don't know who I'd be.
I live my life through empathy,
through story and heart and
breath, I try my best to listen more
than I speak. but it's hard
sometimes, because there's so much
that I need to say.

if I could, I'd take with me
everyone who loves me, and
I'd bring there somewhere warm
where we'd all be safe. I forget
how strong I am, that my arms
can hold in all the worry and
desperation escaping from
someone I love.

my eyes can see past the superficial
and right down into the deepest secret
place. it helps me feel more human
to help others.

but sometimes I'm scared
I'll lose myself in them, feel myself melt
into someone else's world until
I can't find my own anymore.
I bring that quiet courage here
to you, to teach you how to love
so deeply that the other person
becomes an extension of yourself,
feeling what you feel and
laughing as you laugh. finding beauty
in others helps me find
the beauty in myself.

I had to travel a long way
before I got this far. I didn't fall
into a well of strength by accident,
I had to pull it out from within
me, from a place I didn't know existed.

if I had only one thing to say, it would be
to trust yourself beyond anything
you ever thought possible. believe
your own story and the things you've brought
from your hometown to here, wherever
you've settled. allow yourself
to be as scared as you feel, but step forward
anyway.

through telling my story, I hope
that every shy kid on this planet
finds their voice, and that every
courageous mouth finds the ears
to listen.

what i remember about summer
isn't quite sunshine, isn't beach and isn't
ice cream or flip flops or picnics

it's the way the sunlight touches your face
as it passes over the horizon, coloring you
yellow pink orange red and beautiful

it's the freedom of dry grass
and a field we could fall into,
sweaty palm to sweaty palm

in the freedom of brighter days
without responsibility to hold us down
leaving space for us to move together

i discovered you in summer, the outline
of your body came to me in light
where i could not ignore your shape

and i didn't try, where we swam together
through apartments and borrowed rooms
trying to find out who we were

only in the gap we call summer
could i find you bold and careless
waiting for me to touch you

For as long as I can remember,
I've been practicing safety drills.
school, home, the work place, even planes.

Everyone wants to be prepared
for those so-called natural disasters.
It's stunning how they never think to
prepare you for heart break.
It's so much more common.

You are the earthquake that has me
braced for an aftershock. I am hiding
under doorways, diving for the protection
of restaurant tables. My survival kit
is fresh out of healing, and my wounds are
growing agitated. Why wasn't I prepared for this?

Algebra and Grammar won't help me
get out of bed tomorrow morning.
Testing door handles to see if they are hot
will only keep me away from flesh wounds.
Zoology taught my to dissect a frog,
but your vital organs are so much harder to locate.

Is there even a heart inside your chest?

Some things exist behind curtains of experience.  

Those whose tongues have
tasted the holy fire know the touch
of something divine.

Those who have laid eyes on
their sleeping bodies, and walked
away to places unknown, can grasp
the idea of an inbetween.

Those who have groped in the darkness
for something to believe in again, who
have longingly looked over the cliff edge,
know that true despair does exist.

As for me,

I know that true fear can
come in the form of footsteps
behind you on the empty street.

The person at the bar who insists on
hollow compliments and free drinks.

Friends who scoff at your anger for
men who yell out their passenger side
windows about the treasures beneath
your clothes.

True fear can come in the middle
of the afternoon, as you face
off against the four floor staircase
to your apartment, when your steps
are echoed by the man in 2b who has
a wife, son, and a taste for resistance.

Don't tell me I'm overreacting,
when the single most terrifying thing
I can do is walk alone under the street lamps.

Don't tell me I'm too uptight just
because I've learned that flattery
can come with a horrifying price tag.

Don't tell me I'm wrong just
because you don't understand.

Look me in the eye when you have
waited until a security guard can walk you
to your car.  When you have held your
breath in a shared elevator.  When you have
lowered your eyes to the men who yell
obscenities at you, because standing up
for yourself could prove deadly.  

Look me in the eye when you have held back
the curtain of experience, and walked in the shoes
of someone who lives every moment knowing
this could be the day someone decides to steal
from me what is only mine to give.

Then look me in the eye when you tell
someone of your wound, and they reprimand
you for daring to walk this world as a woman.