I’ve learned my lessons
To live boldly
To love fiercely
To never miss a dose

To never leave my chap stick
In the car on a
Sunny day in Texas

To do my hair while its wet
To not trust them when they say
“you’re beautiful”

To be the only one who holds my heart
To laugh at anything funny
To get enough sleep
And not procrastinate

Then tell me
If I have my lessons learned
Why am I still here

With sadness in my lungs
A missed dosage in my brain

Awake in the early morning that
Still could be called night

If my lessons are learned
Why am I here doing this
Listening to the silence
As my chap-stick sits
Abandoned in the car
Awaiting its imminent
Demise when the Texas sun
Will surly rise

If my lessons are learned
Why haven’t I learned?

last night i was filled with poetry -
filled to the brim, and now i'm not.
last night i was filled with pain and life
and with the joy of knowing things,
and now i am ordinary.
last night i wrote,
"he taught me how to bruise
before i bleed,"
on a slip of paper.
i knew what to do with the words then but
now i don't.
i have no poem to slip them into and
no storyline to follow them and
i can't even turn them into a painting.
they sit and they stay
and they stare at me and remind me
that i am not a writer, because i don't write when i most need to.

I went to therapy
to feel human again
but now I find myself feeling
less alive
than before.