I want to read a book
That's never been read
Hear a gentle word
That's never been said
I want to sit back
And close my eyes
When I open them up
Everything is alright

I want to ring a bell
That's never been rung
Sing along to a song
That's never been sung
Pull back the curtain
With all of my might
So I can expose
Everything is alright

I want to see
What has never been seen
Take a long walk
In the hands of a dream
Reach as far as I can
The highest of heights
And pull down to earth
Everything is alright

I want a spot
Where I feel I belong
Take all that I've got
Before it is gone
I want to shine
The brightest of lights
So I can find
Everything is alright

When does a poem first become a poem
The moments it's read
or the second it's born?
When it takes its first breath
on the page it adorns?
When does a poem first become a poem

When does a poem first become a poem
When it finds the right rhyme
no longer feeling alone?
When it sits on the porch
of the old poets home?
When does a poem first become a poem

When does a poem first become a poem
When it takes out the blade
and carves its message in stone?
Or tears the fabric of time
on the lesser known?
When does a poem first become a poem

My mother should be an author
She carves her soul into millions of pieces
Leaving it behind all of the family photos
When I see my mother
I see a woman
Who wants to hide her soul in a needle
Just so the screaming can stop in her mind,
These bottles are rattling in the living room
You see they have put shackles on her heart,
She can't love anymore
Without having ***** in her water bottle.

Where is she hiding her beer?
I feel like my mother is giving me a scavenger hunt
From the shards of glass that were left on the baseball fields
My mother used to take me to.

You know she always wasn't like this
She was strong minded and had a big heart
Tonight I will tell you the story of a woman
Who lost her soul to the Keystones to the Miller Lites
To the ****** Mary’s.
Let's rewind time
See ******* the soul in ten years

10- I look into my mother's eyes and I start to cry
Because I'm looking at a woman who I don't know anymore

9- I refused to bail her out of jail again
Because I'm afraid her kidney will fail if she drinks again

8- My mother staggered into the theater and disrupted the whole play,
My cast mates turned to me and asked, isn't that your mother?

7- I had to hold my mothers hand
Because she was throwing up the cocktail of drugs and alcohol

6- Daddy had to get mom out of jail she was drinking again

5- My mother throws the bottle across the room
And told me the reason why she drinks is because I'm Autistic

4- My mother overslept for my piano recital,
I didn't think it was a big deal
But I remember she spent the whole night crying
With a wine glass in her hand.

3- Mommy I didn't know your prescription came in a needle

2- Mommy the prescription say 2 pills a day
why are you taking 6?

1- My mother went to the doctor
Found out that she has Rheumatoid Arthritis
I don't know what that means,
But I know she will still be strong right?

0- She took me to a Dodger game for my birthday.
I remember Sammy Sosa hitting a home run that game
She told me that the only person that can **** your soul is yourself

I am writing this poem as a letter of reference for my uncultured heart,
Unedited and uncensored and
Unlike the affections I so willingly gave you.
You read me your poems
As if I were the first girl to receive them,
And boy,
Did I receive them.
I took them and their delicate lettering that traced
My name written boldly and profoundly in the center
As if the world was handing itself over to me.
To: Olivia
From: Jupiter
No return address.
I kept your smooth words and slipped them into my coffee,
Tucked them underneath my pillow case,
And folded them into a book I virginally scribbled in.
I found them scattered across the night's sky
And sewn into the shirt you loved on me.
I planted them in good soil waiting for spring.
My good, rich soil.
Untouched and unused.
I Watered them carefully and buried them with a warmth
That the sun itself couldn't radiate.
You lit me up and I was burning so wildly for you.
For you, Jupiter.
My garden was beautiful, full.
Plentiful.
Abundant.
Good, rich.
Untouched and unused.
And little white lilies began to sprout and dot the I's of your
I love yous,
I miss yous,
I was thinking about you,
I love you,
I miss you.
I was thinking about you.
I love you.

I miss you.

I was thinking about you, Jupi.

But drier than your recycled sentiments,
My soil
Became parched and emaciated
As more of your lilies grew.
My coffee became bitter,
My pillow case as soft as sand paper.
The small, black journal I carefully pressed flowers with
Now stained and sopping wet with Your cheap ink
That ran down my skin and into
Creases you left your finger prints.
Your lilies, though small and sweet,
Were deadlier than any poison ivy
I'd ever touched previously.
The little plot of earth I saved for myself
Was now a pile of your cigarette ash
And venomous weeds.
I burned so wildly for you,
But without you.
For you,
Not with you.
I was another one of your American Spirits,
Smoked, put out and
Tossed into the grave of another fruitless harvest.
Taken, left, and used.

allow your voice to venture out into the world
either consciously or unconsciously.
somewhere, someone is listening
to the words you speak —
when you mutter out the words
right before you write them,
or when you whisper out a familiar name
during your slumber.

let yourself be heard;
do not confine these treasures
under layers of nerves and blood vessels.
do not keep it armored in your heart.
these words all deserve
to make a hollow mind filled
such as mine.
i will listen to you, so long as you speak.