To the five boys who make every second of my life worth living. I love you.
**CT4**
When you were little I’d say, with a smirk and a grin, ‘all the girls are sure going to love you!’
You’d smile so wide and with the cutest of lisps, say “cause my eyes are so big and so blue!”
You’re older now but your eyes are the same, though they’ve already seen far too much.
You watched as your mama nearly b...
I met you on one of the worst days of my life,
But you didn’t know that yet.
I pretended to be busy when you walked by my desk,
So you wouldn’t see me upset.
But little did I know, you would soon save my soul,
One eye roll and sigh at a time.
When I needed a life vest, you jumped in instead,
Pushed me up when I couldn’t climb.
I was drowning in grief with so many unknowns,
Five kids hung in t...
My screams rent the night, curdling the air
My bellows shift the moon, my moans are a prayer
My pillowcase is stained from the blacks of my eyes
My bookshelves are filled with failed plans I’ve devised
My fingers are dyed red from the blood of my pens
My soul’s painted black from too few amens
My bones are alight with the promise of more
My skin crawls with hope stashed atop Life’s trap door
M...
I can never stop the what if’s,
The maybes, or the who knows -
His escapisms and justifications,
All his not-today-but-maybe-tomorrows.
I don’t know if I will ever be okay
I don’t know if he’ll ever truly be gone
I want to forget him, I want to kiss him —
An apt but much-loathed paragon.
Why can’t he ever just leave me alone?
Why does he text me every few weeks?
Does it bring him great pleas...
It was always a joke, but everyone knows, the best jokes are rooted in truth.
She would never stay put, she was too wanderlust, they mocked her even in youth.
She never stayed down, was precocious and bold, too stubborn ever to quit,
The bullies, they tried, but eventually stopped, when she just couldn’t be bothered with it.
She played four different sports, captained six different teams, brok...
The Star-Spangled Banner, a song we all know,
In a country we love or hope to help grow.
The line near the end that expresses the wonder,
At seeing our flag not ripped asunder,
But waving, still proud, over the battlements high,
A symbol of hope in that bleak, morning sky.
It calls to my heart, my memories, my soul,
My experience of war, and testaments told.
For once way back when, in my yo...
A smile for your witty joke, a ‘thank you’ for your praise,
I can keep this sick act up, could fool you all for days.
My bathroom mirror barks a laugh, my dresser rolls its eyes.
Because they know what you don’t know: my smile is my disguise.
I promised to come back someday, it’s a promise I regret.
This place may be a Romeo but I’m no Juliette.
Utopia is not for me, ‘idyllic’ and I clash
O...
“There was never an angry man who thought his anger was unjust.”**
And who can judge the circumstances into which the man was thrust?
Are his motivations pure or are they filled with ill contempt?
Does it matter if he’s young? Or if he’s old, is he exempt
From every social standard used to weigh man’s heart, bad or good?
Will you be the arbiter? The executioner ‘neath the hood?
Fools don’t suff...
We live in a land where the footprints of ghosts linger,
Where memories are grenades at the tips of our fingers.
His hollow heart cries and hers has gone cold,
Their time is all up, their future was sold.
He dresses her down and she makes his hate up,
Their love was far off but their loathing close up.
Perhaps in a better world they could have gone on,
Were she not an ox and he not a moron.
...
Abandoned to his fate, Xavier watched as his friends file, one by one, out of his house. Being the only boy in all of sixth grade with strict parents really sucked. Cinderella had nothing on Xavier.
“Do your jobs, Xavier!”
“Eat your vegetables, Xavier!”
“Finish your homework, Xavier!”
“Get good grades.”
“Have a life.”
“Invent time travel.”
“Jump to the moon.”
“Keep your room clean.”
Lamenting a...