i told you "good night, i love you".
yet
i am not sleeping.

i am listening to the stars sing a song

a note
for every time i have thought of your fair, blush-drunk skin and
sweet, tender soul
melting and mixing with mine at the brush of fabric and shoulders and loud laughter in a space too public.
but i don't care.
i don't think you do either.

it might take four shots of ***** to feel that way again.
but
i only need to see you smile
and i know next morning i'll have a lovestruck hangover
and be changed for the next week.

this is the reason why
we should never, ever get married.
unless
this is simply what no one ever told me about real, raw, love
that hits you like a train
the cargo is sugar
bleeding red roses
and now i don't have to buy twelve at the store for nineteen ninety-nine.
first autumn chill freezing my toes inside my shoes while i wait after knocking at your front door
(we're going to the nice restaurant downtown.)
waking up to a tornado warning at five AM and my first thought is if you're okay,
opening the kitchen windows to the smell of fresh rain and you're texting me pictures of the rainbow.

falling asleep at long last

and at long last dreaming of you.


the stars are singing a song
and in my dream, curled up close next to you

i am singing too.

blank pages are intimidating.

there, now it's got something in it.

and nothing, nothing feels so scary anymore.

art is an interchangeable form.
what is poetry can be prose can be music can be art can be TV can be movies can be video games can be visual novels can be webcomics can be dance can be movement can be aesthetics can be a flash of inspiration hidden behind a street corner.

art is a connective process.
you forge new threads between yourself, others, and the world around you.
you realize the universe is so much bigger than yourself. and yet, you discover just how you can be a part of it, just how you can fit in.

through art we are not human, yet art is the most human form of being there is.
art motivates us not just to live, but to thrive. it shows us the evidence of why we should all still be alive.

and to appreciate art, is no less than to make it.
to create, is no lesser or greater than to be.

go feel art.
go make art.

go be art.

we are not all going to die.
a draft will never hit our home
the TV will always be on, but
we will never be alone.

i write to dress the aching wounds
of the impending fantasy of a wartime
or rather a sickening anxious nightmare
of what cause
of what cause is it for?
is it to tear all of our teens to shreds on a dusty battlefield
while those who stay work our fingers bare?
fighting for a piece of colored fabric and glory that was never there?

the war will only hurt this broken world
and they say we will die american deaths.
someone pulled the bathtub stopper for
the liquid love in our hearts is gone,
and yet
the TV is always on.

you, me
sunscreen lines
hot concrete
public pool
wasps clinging to hazy poles supporting scratched-up waterslides
that made us scream:
both the slides
and the wasps
but we always laughed it off
in the end.

when we sit down the sunset will follow.
i hope we do it all over again, tomorrow...
pretzel cup cheese-induced teenage chlorine dreams
the summer i turned fifteen
i thought you
i thought we
were everything

i am growing up
i do not like it but yet
i am growing up

I want to write
I want to write you a bouquet of all the words that are most beautiful
Even though they're not the ones I want to say.

I'd say you looked like the glitter of moonlight bathing a forest silver.
When you really reminded me of the glow of the reflection of a lava lamp on a storm-streaked Thursday afternoon school window
A little bit distant and a little bit normal
But still so close,
So special.

I can't tell if my face is hot, if my fingers are hot from you
Or if it's just my PC keyboard
Beginning to overheat and I'm just the same, normal me.
I can't tell if my heart is beating so so so so fast from you
Or if it's just the impending ringing of the school bell playing hopscotch or jump-rope with my adrenaline.

When will we know who we are? What will we do when we do?