I've been told I'm a great writer
That I am talented
I've been told "never stop writing" and "Don't forget about me when you're famous"
I laughed at that last part
Me? Famous? I'll be lucky if anyone reads this.
I'm not ungrateful for the kind words
I just have a hard time believing them
I know the words I've written have been seen, read, cried over, even
I know how much power words have
I just have a hard time believing myself
A poem is never finished, even long after the poet has set down his pen
I believe that
I believe the voices in my head that tell me to go back and edit that one part in that one poem that I wrote ages ago
I guess I don't believe in leaving the past alone
I know that you'll forget about this poem within a matter of hours,
Days if it is good
I know that poetry brings feelings into your heart that will inevitably leave
Feelings that are, well
Temporary
I'm hesitant to believe certain things
But when I believe in something
I don't forget it
It's taken me quite some time
But I believe I am a poet
And to acknowledge my existence as a poet
Might have been the best feeling in the world
It wasn't temporary, either.

Last night I fell asleep to the sound of rain beating against my windowpanes
I felt safe in the storm's embrace
I knew I would be okay

I wonder if the Greats
Ever knew each other in their time
I know the Painters knew one another
I imagine the conversations they had
What gossip crept through the grapevine?
"Did you know that Van Gogh fellow cut off his ear for his mistress?"
"What a treacherous man"
"Poor soul"
"And that Monet's pictures always look so fuzzy"
"What an odd concept, indeed."
Would Dickinson and Poe be acquaintances or great friends?
Or Mr. Robert Frost and the great John Keats
Would e.e cummings be the laughing stock of the crowd or the hipster everyone else secretly admires?
Painters and Poets, creators alike
Would the two groups clash or join in joyful merrymaking?
Creators not destroyers
Artists and Masters of their work
Both disturbed
And slightly insane
I think
They would have gotten along great.

Airports
I never liked them
I never liked taking my shoes off to go through security
I never liked the crowded and sometimes cold atmosphere
I felt like a toy in a factory getting ready to get boxed and shipped out
Airports
But maybe I should
Like them
I'm sitting here in this terminal watching people rush past with their briefcases and screaming children
Where are you going?
Can I come too?
Where are you rushing off to and
Must you always rush?
Someone once said to try to find the quiet in an airport
I will try to find the quiet in an airport
Maybe I'll find it, maybe I won't
But quiet in an airport
What a concept
Airports
I'll find the quiet
Airports
Maybe I will like them

"The world? So confusing"
"Complicated."
"Messed up"
"Deceiving"
"Ever-changing"
"Not enough"
"Ridiculous"
"Black and white"
"Boring"
"Ugly"
"Mysterious"
"Disappointing"
"A page of out of a book of lies"
"I think the world is beautiful"

16
What's so great about growing up?
I want to live in Neverland forever
Forget about the stresses of every day life and college talk just stop
I'm counting down the hours til midnight and
The last hours I have of 15
Was it a good year?
Will 16 going on 17 Z be proud of this Z?
Memories flash and fade
15
Freshman in high school
I know who I am
Writing poetry day in and day out and
Finding solace in a community called Nerdfighteria
15
No friends in real life
But that's fine
Figuring out it is okay to be a listener in public instead of the talker
15
Reading books, breathing words
Content with life
and filling journals, too many to count
15
The fireworks boom
Smoke fills the air
Smiles on every face, lit up by the moon and colours radiating from the night sky
15
A blanket is wrapped around my shoulders
I'm trying to stay awake for the last minutes of
15
but my eyelids are heavy
Time glides swifter than the boats on Lake Washington
Cheers go up
16 will be great

She was the most beautiful angel
But not in the way that most think of angels
She was a fallen angel
Who kept on getting back up
Because she knew she belonged in the wide open skies
Soaring above the mountains, as well as deep between the trees
Sometimes she flew too low
Testing her strength, how close could she get to the ground without actually
falling?
She wanted to be human
She wanted to walk on solid ground
She wanted to know what it was like to live
freely
without strings tugging and choking her every time she made a faulty move
She wanted to know true suffering
But not for the reasons most want to know suffering
She wanted to face Death
So she’d have something to talk about with her friends
She wanted to know Pain
So she could tell her children about her Fight
She wanted to know Suffering
So she could learn about the Earth
She was a fallen angel
Who's hair glistened with every grey strand that sprouted from her head as wrinkles became carved into her blush-pink face
She was a fallen angel
Who fell asleep
on the Ground
Right where she belonged