Somebody once told me
no matter what you say -
if you believe it to be true -
speak it with volume
My junior year of high school
I interned for a week
teaching English to middle schoolers
they were working on the creative writing unit
classrooms covered in posters which read things like
no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader
and other good inspirational stuff
some of the kids wrote poems
others wrote short stories
others wrote I don’t know whats
but they all told a story which to them
was an essential truth of life
just waiting to be heard
and when they got up
to share in front of the class
from the shy girl in the soccer shoes
to the tall joker
they all spoke with volume
because some things
are impossible to ignore

The Sage will endure
the period of acquaintance,
despite how uncomfortable it is
for one to push one's comfort zone,
for the Sage will hold in Mind
that the potential that is found
away from one's current Self
is usually much greater than that
of the Fool, who wallows only
in what he has already done.

I love the way she pretends to buy my lies
love the way she smirks and nods her head along
to the beat of the stories
that I pull out of my ***
I love the way she pretends they smell like roses
I met you a while ago
but I'm a silent observer
so I pitched my tent from a distance
I like the way you are the anti to my venom
and when I walk through a field of snakes
you know how to make it all better
and we both love the line from that one favorite song I have
"love can make suicide seem so cool"
but you told me I'd have to **** you
because you would probably mess it up yourself
and the way you laughed when I said i couldn't do it
then there was that one time
where I didn't have the courage to tell you
that you make my depression
seem kinda alright
or that I would have followed you
wherever you went
if you just held a dog treat in your hand
and whistled,
"here boy!"
my tail wags when you walk through that door
and when you walk out that door
I'm sure it's going to be forever
and that scares the ever loving **** out of me
so don't be a stranger
because if you do
I'm probably going to **** on the carpet
and claw the leather off the reclining sofa

I first saw you walking down the street
I don’t know when you first saw me
maybe at home
in the mirror of your memory
maybe in the pages of the book
you were reading outside in the winter
at that cafe
You had me all smiles
and I had you
all similes
a pretty little thing
to stroke my pretty little thing against
You in your fashionista bombshell outfit
me in my childlike excitement
as I walked on past
and I wonder
if later that night
you were in your bedroom
which is just as messy as mine
I wonder if you thought to yourself
“well hot ****, that was one hot ****** guy”
if not that’s fine
my words are subjectively an object of your subject
Does that make sense?
I seem to do that a lot
rambling over myself and over myself
as if you caught me in a lie
I hadn’t yet told
I hold on to the belief
that You caught me in the corner of your eye
and decided to save me for later
It’s the only thing us passing strangers
have really got

The woodpecker wouldn't reveal,
          the secret kept closer to her chest,
but the telegraphic messages
          meant nothing else I gather it thus:
"Don't you give up midway
           slog, till you are fully satisfied,
that you've reached there
        where, what you are searching is found"

In wooden notes, she proclaimed thus,
          goes on pecking making,
the noise louder and louder,
         it's now more and more clear-
that in standards she'd never compromise,
        never would she lower her esteem
even if her sense of urgency sometimes
              creates some discordant notes
       that she accepts as her fault
and keeps her ears perked up for tone and tenor.