walking along
late at night

If I squeeze my eyes shut
tight enough,
I can still remember being
five years old,
and the feeling of that
one
vicious
word
echoing
through my bones
for the first time;

When I look
into the
mirror,
it takes every
ounce
of restraint
not to
ram
my fist
through the
glass.

You want others
to love you
in all the ways
that you can’t
love yourself –

But why do we always
bring flowers to
the dead,
but never to
the living?

What if we dared
to look past all
that we think  
we are not,
And see who
we truly are?

You accuse me of
being an optimist –
as if that is
some horrible thing –

How many more mothers
will have to bury
their sons?

Watching golden rays
of light
melt their way into
the horizon,

Feeling is a luxury
when you’ve spent
your entire life
making sure that others
don’t feel
too much,

Words.
What are words?
Are words just sounds coming
out of our mouths,
barreling through our neurons,
fired like a shot
ringing through the air?

There is a trend these days,
in which people on the internet
have the propensity to
exalt the insane –
and demand that there is
beauty in the suffering
of others –

the wind has begun to whisper
the opening notes
of autumn’s hymn –

Every day begins by
cursing the fact
that you’ve lived to breathe
another day

We see you strutting around,
hips swaying to the beat of
the cheers of the imaginary
crowd your ego created in
your inflated head

“This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky”
                                                          - Billy Collins

I have spent hours staring
at an unnamed document,

Growing up,
my mother always spoon-fed me her
hopes and dreams swirled in like
brown sugar with the morning’s oatmeal

the people that
hold you
together

It started with flirting.

Exchange of phone numbers,

of smiles,

of pure possibility –