i often think of you.

waterford, virginia;

home

i miss you more than ever tonight.

i'm gone away.

but my heart is with you tonight

in your brilliance and in your innocence

you're my sense of place

either the intrinsic character of you, or the meaning of you, but, more accurately, both

you were the first thing i ever fell in love with

before my heart knew it could fall in love with souls

but the ache is the same

//

my paintbrushes are brittle and my sketchbook sits stiffly in my second drawer

i've avoided my composition notebook and my keys and blank computer screens at 2:35 am

because of the emotional charge that each of those entail

not because of writers block

and not because of intro to writing due dates

but because of nostalgia

because i'm growing older and my heroes are becoming more human right in front of me

because my soul still hasn't said goodbye even though my mouth did four months ago

because art tells tells us too much about the five year old we wish we could be again

and writing begs us to feel

and sometimes,

sometimes that's the last thing we're willing to do

i wish i knew what it felt like to be loved

but for now, i will continue waiting

and that will have to be enough

that will be enough

and i haven't found it yet. but i am aimlessly awaiting the meeting of our souls. i hope yours sees mine the first day.  but for now, i will try be the person i want to meet on a rainy tuesday afternoon.

i always wanted it to last forever

and i cried on the last day of first grade on the bus ride home
and every year after that
and pretty soon there weren't any more rows to move back to the next year

and they boxed up my little white farmhouse
they boxed up my artwork and my antique dresser
but they couldn't seem to box my nostalgia
we couldn't take it
but i wanted it to last forever

"someday someone won't be afraid of how much you love, darling";

awake her soul

I'm begging you

please never let her lose her sense of wonder

and love her in your most innocent form

she knows heaven is all around her

and she'll go anywhere with you

she'll look for metaphors

and she'll fall in the love with the freckled sky

she's vulnerable, so please don't steal her breath,

convince her to hand it over freely

ask her where she's from, and she'll tell you where she's going

go with her

tell her you'll go with her

//

and my senior year they kept saying "this is it"

and my mom tells me "college is the best time of your life"

and i disagree

this life is "it"

this life is the best time

so stop waiting for graduations and new phases and beginnings

stop with the count downs and the can't waits

because its a monday night

and monday nights are beautiful

lost library books.

because some of us are lost library books

desperately yearning to be found

that we'd be stripped of our plastic coverings and expiration date stickers

our reviews were much too harsh

and sometimes our bindings were the only thing keeping us intact

we were borrowed and used, but mostly used

no one wanted to read our seventeenth chapter out loud,

but neither did we

 we were checked out by reader's who didn't notice our figurative language

who found our metaphors to be merely minuscule,

when so anxiously our pages longed to be understood

and some of us are just lost library books

and maybe we'll be found on an antique store shelf in fifty years

and maybe then,
maybe then they will understand

but for now,

i'm gonna take this one on alone

i'm gonna be an explorer alone

of the world, of wandering, and of words

and i thought you'd be here for it

but i'm not gonna sit this one out

and maybe i'll be able to tell you about it someday

i sure as hell hope i'll tell you about it one day

but for now,

i'm gonna notice the stories going on around me

because your manuscript was lost months ago

and i can't afford to continue delicately rewriting it

when i'm the only one who'll ever flip through its passionate, pointless pages anyway

it was a privilege.

it was a privilege to have my heart broken by you

i let you because you loved me like you were gonna lose me

because hell, we both knew we were always meant to say goodbye

you know you love someone when you let them break you

and you don't hate them for  doing it because it was a privilege

it was a privilege

and that's just the problem

you don't hate them

so you keep checking the mailbox and your inbox

when really, you just need to detox and unbox

you still listen to that song eleven times and you still rap that line
and you pinned the polaroid in your new apartment on the blank white wall

you can't quite surrender your heart yet

because that's what it is really

goodbye

i'm not ready to say goodbye, because i'm not ready for a new hello

and i'm not quite sure i'll ever be

and that was the problem,

she slipped briskly into an intimacy

from which she never recovered

it was a privilege
//

pastels, picasso & a promise

My parents told me were moving away. i remember when i went to my art teacher of 10 years to tell him. i waited two weeks to tell him. i hate endings and i hate graduations and i hate farewells and byes. i clutched the door handle and then backed away and did this same thing a few times after. finally, i went in. mr grove. he was a tall man with reddish brown hair, a mustache, and a temper. but he was the passionate person who helped me discover art. who helped me discover something that made sense of everything else. with tears swelling in my eyes i told him i was moving across the country. he told me something that stays with me forever. he said with a broken voice "don't you ever stop creating art. you promise me that." he gave me the golden portfolio that year. i never felt golden or worthy of an award, but he gave that to me and i did that day. but more importantly he gave me an education and he gave me a love for a georgia o'keefe painting in the third grade and a love for blank canvases and pastels and picasso. and i'll never stop making art. i want to make art for the rest of my life.  whether its in the way i trace your face with my fingertips or make dumb love poems like this one- i promise you i will never-stop.

rollerblades.

it's a Monday night and you're rollerblading down neighborhood streets with your best friend. the sprinklers are on and the street lamps light up your dark brown eyes you've hated since you can remember. there's eighteen days left of Senior year and you just figured shit out. and that's okay. and maybe it's taken you the past three years to figure out that you aren't compatible with football players. that he's been there the whole time. that you won't find him under the Friday night lights. the Friday night lights that blared your vision. and that's okay. you waited eighteen days before graduation to dust off your rollerblades. but they were in the damn garage the whole time. you're almost to the end of the street and now your breaks are broken and you're a little too far away from Featherbed Lane. and the sun isn't slowing down for you to make it home before dark. and it feels really shitty. because you forgot how much you liked rollerblading. and painting with crayola watercolor sets with the contaminated yellow. and having a low key crush on the class clown. maybe it took you those three years to come to a higher, better understanding of the 2006 you. the one with the dark brown eyes that someone might love someday. the kid that was there the whole time. and still is, and will be. even if she was the yellow tainted by winters that lasted much too far into March and dropped AP classes. but you look ahead and although the end of the street is unfamiliar, there isn't a glaring rhombus screaming 'dead end' in your face. there are untraveled avenues and you realize you've got your old Crayola paint set and a little bit of understanding in your backpack.

i want to hear a poem
an i need poem
an i bleed poem
an i breathe poem
a what makes you breathe poem
a what makes you forget to breathe poem
a song from your bones


i want to hear a poem
a poem about infestations in your imaginations
about the taste theirs lips provide
about the taste their lips provided*


i want to hear a poem
about the moment you discovered something you'll die for
about your resilience
about your great fear of shallow living
about how you make space for dreams


about how you weren't brave enough to say goodbye
how you'll never be
about the french phrase "tu me manques"


about things that have such an emotional charge for you, that you avoid thinking about them.
about how you wish eyes saw souls instead of bodies.


about who made you smile again.
about a craving so deep the ocean would be jealous.
about being mad and passionate,
but extraordinary.
about who makes you laugh that embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laugh.


i want to hear a poem
about how your growing older, and your heroes are becoming more and more human right in front of you
about how now you understand why peter pan never wanted to grow up
about Neverland


i want to hear a poem about who you choose over and over and over
and over
who you keep choosing
i want to hear a poem


a poem about being homesick for heaven.
about the holes to heaven.
about how we're all just walking each other home.


i want to hear a poem
about how you're a work in progress,
and you think you like who you're becoming.


my poem is one without a rhyme
maybe even one without a rhythm
but one with a beat
a heart beat.