1.  Dust is constant. It is a symbol of time telling you that either something needs to be cleaned, or you need to take a picture.
There will never be complete cleanliness so when people say "cleanliness is close to Godliness" promptly hand over an invitation to have dinner at your dusty house. And then show those people where you pray. Notice that sacred space has dust.

2. Chairs are complicated. They can have 4 legs, 5 legs, no legs, wheels on their legs. Chairs are such a wild forever changing species that we don't really have a good concept of what a chair is. Which begs the question, what is true chairness? Plato believed that somewhere somehow there is a perfect concept of such things. Which begs the question, what is it to be truly human? From where I stand, we all wear skin, breathe air, and hate high school anyway.

3. Appreciate your couch. I realized this at a young age when I figured out that dying means, never seeing a couch again.

4. The bed is not sacred. It is not a stronghold or sanctuary. It is the place you go when you are either done or satisfied with the world.

5. Windows are the windows of your house. It doesn't sound as good as eyes being the window to your soul but my point still stands. The windows are beautiful. And snowflakes freezing on them is a captured moment of nature being transparent.

6. Take a painting class. Learn how to make art on a canvas and hang that **** up. Buy a painting for no other reason other than that it costs more than $50. Travel and bring back a print and frame it. Learn to cross-stitch and hang that up too. The walls may change colour from time to time, but at least hang something on them.

7. Look for imperfection. When I was a kid I took a pencil and wrote in jagged penmanship "The end" at the bottom of my staircase. My mother, of course, scolded me for writing on the house, but for whatever reason, she kept the phrase there. Maybe because I knew the end had to be somewhere and I might as well end in the home I started in.

8. Buy refrigerator magnets that teach kids the alphabet. Organize them so that reading a message in the morning makes breakfast seem a little more inviting. And as a firm believer that breakfast is not a necessary meal, I too, need something in the morning to make me feel less alone.

9. Fill one closet with cleaning supplies. We may never get to the end of many tasks, but we can clean this house. Clean the cupboards, wash the windows, sweep the floor, write on the walls, just so you can erase it. And when you finish cleaning, and you bring all of your supplies to that closet, organize your closet. Notice that there is a small amount of dust on the shelves of the closet.

10. Work around the house, big or small, is never completely over.

The similarities between me and you are the same.
So instead of trying or fighting with cries
Why don’t we quit playing this mind-numbing game.

I say we take off these masks and look
Each other in the eyes.
That way we can see all the truth
All the ******* truth. All the ******* lies.

Because lately I’ve been hearing this utterance.
Delivered in a soft voice.
Merely a peep.
But it seems to tell me I’m overthinking the variables.
It’s helping to remind me of the things I should keep.
And you… you’re at the top of that list.

And me… I’m trying to recall what I missed.

Eyelashes
Bubbles
Sunglasses
Puddles
A glass of wine
A drop of sunshine
A shower
A flower
A sprinkle
A twinkle
Crystals
And fistfulls of crayons

Day or night?
Video or audio?
Wake up or keep dreaming?
Move on or turn back?
Tomorrow or yesterday?
Now or never?
Too much or not enough?
Lifted up or put down?
Shut in or shut out?
Step forward or step back?
Forgive or forget?
Ahead or behind?
Real or fake?
Control or chaos?
In your head or in your heart?
Off beat or in sync?
Accept or deny?
Save or sacrifice?
Together or alone?
Yours or theirs?
Blood or water?
Everything or nothing?
Beginning or end?
Taken or given?
Live or die?
Your fault or mine?
Your choice or no choice?
Surrender or fight?
Different of the same?
Run back or run away?
Anxious days or sleepless nights?
Shining in the spotlight or hidden in the shadows?
Say something or stay silent?
Inner strength or outer strength?
Keep or abandon?
Bitter or sweet?
Cut off or connect?
Cooperate or compete?
Relief or risk?
Jump or fall?
Stay or go?
Preserve or burn?
Cold as ice or hot as flames?
Relaxed or on edge?
Listen or disregard?
Pride or concern?
Public or private?
Adventure or reward?
Save my life or leave me here?

1.    The condition I have scrawled across my face looks like a frown, it’s so red that I might as well be bleeding anyway.

2. School is where most of my family is.

3. My teachers are NOT like my parents.

4. When I say yes, I actually mean no.

5. When I say no, I actually mean yes.

6. When I say “I don’t know”, it actually does mean “I don’t know”

7. You can tell that I like confusing people.

8. A turtle’s spine and ribs are fused together with its shell so they are stuck together. I believe this is an accurate representation of the relationship I have with my bed.

9. Remind me to thank my English B class for introducing me to slam poetry

10. Remind me to thank the Button Poetry YouTube channel for countless hours of awesomeness

11. Ever since I got into slam poetry, I seem to really like the sound of snapping.

12. We interrupt this program to bring you an awkward silence…

13. That awkward silence was where you were supposed to snap.

14. The people who need to hear this poem will never hear this poem

15. I wrote more than 10 poems finished an unfinished. And yet I choose to tell this story.

16. I try to convince myself that I’m not a poet, only a musician. But us musicians just take poetry and add whatever music we have lying around our messy rooms.

17. Random acts of kindness don’t seem to be looking for me, and yet I still have hope for the future.

18. I put capitals in words that shouldn’t be capitalized, but this mostly happens when I type my lab reports for my science classes.

19. If my assignment is due on Monday morning, I will purposely wait until Sunday night just to see if I really can beat the clock.

20. When I don’t finish the assignment I purposefully procrastinated on, yes, I feel bad about it. Yes, I know I could’ve done better.

21. I shake in my sleep for no reason, is it really this hard to stay still?

22. I am the most impatient person I know. So after learning that true love doesn’t happen like it does in the movies, I decided to give up waiting and I just moved on.

23. I’d like to believe that time travel would benefit people, but for people like me, we realized that fixing the past doesn’t make up for the problems of the future.

24. My friends at school are the coolest people I know!

25. I’m trying to figure out the meaning of life as if it were a math problem.

26. The words “Thank you” Don’t seem like a long enough phrase to mean something, when you really want it to mean something.

27. My window is shining with the glow of the amber streetlight on this street corner, and I wonder if anyone will walk by my house.

28. The first time I read this poem, I will wonder why I wrote it.

29. The last time I read this poem, I won’t know it will be the last time

30. It’s not what I said, it’s how I said it. And if you applaud at the end, I’ll know I did something right.

I'm making a
Mental list.

It includes high-pitched noises
And dried up creek beds
A few gallons of orange juice
And an empty tube of toothpaste.

I'm bold enough to add some
Paper bags and that time in an
August rainstorm with you and
The moon when it's blood red.

Recently it's acquired a canister of
Powdered sugar, a slew of people I
Was too afraid to talk to and several
More who I wasn't.

The receptionist I smile at and
An empty bench where I sometimes sit
And the feeling of hands covered in
Acrylic paint.

I'm making a
Mental list.

But now I'm moving it
To paper, a list
Of things I never
Write poetry about.

The procession of the equinoxes
Antiquities dealer
The unspeakable beauty of the amethyst
Gods fingerprints

I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going.......... But that's Okay. Is that what surrendering is?

Blending, learning, adapting, evolving, individuation in spite of universal oneness. Being less proud.

Happiness. Cinnamon. Cookie cutters from the domain. Keep your herb garden alive. I'm -

A fox. El zorro. Le renard.
Daily rituals,
Water w lemon
Apple
Green tea face splash

A history of happiness

Chickens.   Color.    Collage.
Yoga.   Art. Cooking.
Lists. Recording foods.

Evelyn and Alice.
Vivid, lurid descriptions. High Gothic and almost steampunk. The weather. Things unspoken that leave huge impacts. Small tokens of love. Repressed emotions.
Hx of zodiac.

Constantly working for perfection
Inner outer

Nuts, lemon, lime

Keep fire of dreams alive
Read read write create read
Spells for finance and success
Altar space

You're alive
Preservation of breath
Realness if beauty, tranquility
Overcoming sorrow
Cyclical

<i>Les sorts</i> to make them mad, passionate...
Charms for living. Perfection. Attraction wealth abundance.

Clouds and sky and draping cloth, sandstone and quartz and onyx.

An incredible self confidence.
Don't waste a minute of you're life on unhappiness.

D.I.Y. smudge stick. Driftwood. Feathers. Gemstones.

Secrets of a style maniac. Blog. Hidden treasures.

Be my mercury, the wings on my feet.



Amidst the creaks of old trees and the fallen colored leaves.. I see half the future, gone, cherished and perished

The art of self love.
Devotion. Organization. Keep calm. Its ok to have secrets.

Stories and fables and illustrations to go along. Mix of collage, ink, pastel and watercolor

Refine your life like a black and white ink drawing, the fluttering of pen-lined pages like white feathers.


Floating on dreams, its fun to let your feet dangle into the blue warm water, be swept away into another world.


We try to avoid those moments in life. We plan ahead we keep our toes together and our hair ironed, but one can never totally abate the power of wanton embarrassment or other random outbursts...

'1. List of things that I can no longer be:
A Viking
A Sorceror
True

2. List of things that no longer taste as good:
Angel delight
Dip dab
You

3. List of things I still might do:
Stay
Leave
Get a tattoo

4. List of things I no longer build:
Rockets
Carts
Bridges

5. List of things I will no longer do:
Marry
Light fires
Tie shoelaces

6. List of things I will always know:
The scent of your sleeping
The lengths of our bodies
You and I, touching

i. You told me you wanted me,
but after several hours of chasing
you grew tired. All things are impossible,
but you are an exception.

ii. I had my chest stuffed
the other day with a bird, a feather
thing that beats faster than my
heart at the end of the day.

iii. My heart pulses to the hurricanes
on the other side of the planet and
you, when you heard my bones breaking
you told me to hush.

iv. I could care less about
the seasons or perfect planets. All I
see from this spot in the tower is
a meadow of many waters.

v. I misled you into thinking that
this poem would be about love and
instead now it is about birds that
chirp inside the hearts of weaklings.

vi. Pretend if you can that I am a
rhapsodic and warm human, with blushing
girl-flesh. I am not, though. Just
a hard-scaled arthropodic night terror.

vii. Yesterday we were an easy
bike ride to the corner store to buy
candy. Today Mother knows better than
to let me leave the house with you.

I.
i'm clingy.
you can't manage to love someone that always happens to stick onto you like fresh fallen snow on the bottom of your snowboots or pounding water that adheres to your skin in a shower. no one wants someone who they can't shake off and get away from a little. but with me, i will try my hardest not to let that happen. because i can't even fathom the thought of you walking out that door and never coming back.

II.
my brain is like spaghetti.
my thoughts are always messy and all over the place. it's extremely challenging to sort everything out so i don't even try anymore. everything just jumbles and mixes together and you can't really differentiate one strand from another. and my grandmother always told me that guys don't like messy girls.

III.
sometimes i'm just a really sad poem with feet.
i get into moods. moods where i think everything is wrong and that i'm useless. no one likes girls like that. boys like confidence, right?

IV.
i'll try to make a home out of you.
and you can't make homes out of people. but i don't think that'll ever get through my thick skull.

V.
you don't know how to love me.
no one does. no one has quite been able to figure it out.
and i think you're okay with that.