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By August•Jul 12
Maybe I'm not ready.
I'm still tired
of trying to understand myself.

Happy

By Gus•Jun 18
I want to shout but shouldn't
I want to smile but couldn't
I want to go but wouldn't
Now I'm stuck, silent, and frowning

The Sound of my Shoes

By August•May 26
I'm not careful enough
to know where I'm going
because I was surprised
by my place
when all was still.

No Helmet

By August•May 14
In Colorado,
I saw someone
crash their bike
and lose the dignity
of an old man.
He didn't want help.
But when people care,
they help.
And he wasn't wearing a helmet.
But when people love you,
they make you wear helmets.
So I don't know if he truly lived
with any room
for that sort of thing.

Lost right now

By August•May 3
The swelling past
casts a shadow
over everything
I'm trying to see
and I can't place myself.

My Dream Last Night

By August•Apr 15
I remembered,
In my dream last night,
how much I really loved you.
And I woke up in a pool of sweat.
It's hard when two opposites
are true at different times
of just one life.

Day Two

By August•Apr 7
I feel it
in the Tuesday habits
that are hard to quit.

Day One

By August•Apr 6
I saw
one
maybe thirteen
things today
that I wanted to share with you.

Day Zero

By August•Apr 5
fuck.

Kinda okay

By August•Mar 6
I'm not particularly interested
In who I am.
Maybe it's a sign
of coming change.

Somewhere else

By August•Sep 1
Moving.
Or, moving in.
I called my mom
from the new place.
“Celebrate that," she tells me.
“The last box—
it makes it fun."
She's been splitting
from Dad
for 30 years,
and so I listen.
When I was 19
she had the youngest
(who is 6 now)
and that day
was cold.
So cold
that while I was in class
my tire deflated,
and two strangers helped me
put on the spare.
It's all scratched down
in a notebook I almost threw away.
That notebook sat in closets
while life kept moving.
I moved out
after the youngest was born.
Then I lived alone,
and went to class,
to get a job.
All to keep moving—
out and in and on and up,
to come back for Thanksgiving,
and maybe Christmas,
so I can have
all that I have
and remember
all that I wanted
in all of these places
strangers will drive past
on their way to somewhere else.

December

By August•Dec 12
to be quiet.
to be cold.
miserable, for a moment.
and existing.
for nobody.
I forget myself
in all this
noise.

Forever and ever

By August•Dec 1
I'm here, unceremoniously,
off center of the middle,
holding all I've longed for
slipping further from myself.

AM Radio

By August•Nov 20
And there's something said in the static.
The vibrato of life speaks a foreign tongue,
textured hisses and pops.
The AM radio fades
in and out,
and I feel small
like God's watching the insignificant ways
we float
atop the ocean
and restless depths,
we feel
the ground sway
in the sum of life
in Tuesday afternoons
when there's nothing to say
and in early December mornings
when we can't speak
because we're watching
it all unfold.

Special

By August•Nov 9
I can't manufacture your story
as a mission that ends with me.

God always wins.

By August•Oct 29
We are the masters
of chaos.
We piece together
our stories.
God forbid the pain
was pointless,
someone else deserved
our good life.
But we all know God.
We are God.
Shaping narratives
from our life.
Forcing a lesson
from torture.
Recalling our good
when fitting.
Excusing ourselves
when we want.
Shaping and crafting
all we are,
the one who loves us:
our one love,
and we tell stories;
we struggle;
life, just off center;
becoming
the greatest heroes
of our lives
for the best reasons.
Something ends,
and then something starts,
but we win.
We win everything
we write down
before we recall
our stories.

My best art is behind me.

By August•Oct 18
Swallow myself
in invisible ways.
Eat my fill,
these heavy legs,
these starving eyes,
these dreams
of hating you
when I can't hate you.
The weight of my chest.
suffocates me.
I have no room
to want anymore.
And I'm happy
and lost
all at the same time.

Richness

By August•Oct 8
She had nothing
but a shopping cart,
and crumpled singles
for a street performer’s hat.