Chava

Fyedka
is not a creature,
Papa.
Fyedka
is a man.
He is not a fish
and I am not a bird
and we
are in love,
and we
can build a home.
Same lungs
inhale same air,
same lips
sing God's song,
same bodies
create new life.
Fyedka
is a man, Papa
and I
am a woman.

Advent

Shadows
reflected on cave wall
dancing amidst stalagmites
turning in caverns
waiting in darkness
trapped without light.
No thought given
to the existence
of the breath of the real
much less
to its fullness.

Coming
portrayed in narrative
long awaited
dreamed in hope
written on hearts
envisioned in life.
Yet you all
do not await,
do not observe,
do not respond,
save to shadows.

content
to just exist
among these shadows
in the desert
of the real.

Center

do thoughts
really need punctuation

or should the thinker
just balance thoughts
inklings
and empty spaces

until the thought looks right
the poem complete
everything
in its proper place

and then
stop


i wonder
if love is that way
too

does love need punctuation
or can it too just be
a carefully crafted compilation
of words
and spaces
and empty lines
like breaths
and kisses
in between fragments
of simple conversation
that last forever
until there are none

Poetry: two poems

I.
Breath
Whisper
Scream
Cry
Story
Free
Catharsis
Hope.

II.
Even the saddest words
have a glimmer of hope
because words
beget
more.
Stories continue,
lives go on.
Continuation.
Between us
lives a promise
of something yet to be
that might eventually
turn out okay.

Mask

Stable. That
should go in my file, Doctor.
Stable.

I wonder
if any of us
are really stable,
or if those of us
who appear so
only pretend?

Like a telegram

Is it possible
for me to take a break
from everything
and just, for a little while,
STOP?

Identity

You don't know me
(although you don't know that
and you'd swear you do)
and sometimes
I might wish you did.
But then
I remember
and I wish that I could say
I really knew myself.


Will I survive, who will give a damn, if no one knows who I am?

Home

"Not yet,"
they say.
"Not yet,
but it will."

But I wonder
if "not yet"
is just
a way of lying
being optimistic
pretending home will exist again.

Make me alive

There was a show
we used to watch as a family
every Sunday night.
Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye
about a deaf woman
who worked with the FBI.
And there was one episode
that I liked
an episode where
Tara was almost shot
and to catch the sniper
she used herself as bait
and he shot at her again
then they caught him.
It wasn't
until after the second time
that she could cry about it.

I feel like that sometimes?

I'd like something to happen
that will make me feel
and make me cry
and make me feel
more alive than I do now
in this lonely world
someone used to call home.

~~~

Somebody, hold me too close,
Somebody, hurt me too deep,
Somebody, sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware
Of being alive,
Being alive.

Conversation

M: "Can we start over?"
A: "Of course :)"
M: "That's not true.
It's never true."
A: "It can be."
M: "Not
It can't.
It never is.
Never."

I'm not really sure that A believed that starting over is never possible. But she's an optimist sometimes. Well, for other people. Not usually for herself, though.

~~~

I guess
that's true
and we can't ever start over,
not really.
Because once something happens
it becomes a part of you
and wherever you go from there
you still have that piece of things
inside
persistently refusing
to stop reminding you
of its existence
and its oh-so-constant presence.

So
then
what is a beginning?
Can you ever begin something
or are you really just adding on
to all that has happened
and to the experiences
of all who have
gone
before?

Introversion

true introversion
is not a state
of not talking to people
or disliking doing so,
but rather the tendency
to focus inward
and upon one's own self
and, as a result, neglect
the spoken words
and inner feelings
of others around.

loneliness
is not necessarily
having no one
to whom you can talk,
but rather
it is having no one
who will listen.

Mira

She makes the rounds to hug everyone
before she leaves to go home every Saturday
and we all look forward to it.

She told me about how she likes to write poetry
and has a notebook in which she writes them all.
She brought it and showed me.

She introduced me to her mom, who came to pick her up,
and while we were waiting I talked to her
about seventh grade and stuff.

She told me about her sister with a smile
because she was almost always smiling
even now.

Jasmine

Fingers grasp purple school notebook

filled with sketches and drawings
most would characterize as "modern art"

Purple is her favorite color

like it is mine

She said, "I don't play an instrument,"

when everyone else
said that they did

She told me about her boyfriend and school

with more to say about the first topic
than the latter

She always wears a thin black t-shirt

with the design of three strands of pearls
printed on like a necklace

She tries to be so old

and her eyes
don't look like those of an eighth grader
but of someone
who's seen much, much more

Skinny, like a toothpick

and really pretty
except the lines she hides on her arms
make me want to cry.

Taylor and Mattie looked at each other two weeks ago
before prayer. "We have a friend who's started cutting," Mattie said
and we offered our requests up to God.

Secret

I wonder
if anyone had told
the Wicked Witch of the East,
or Nessarose, rather
(Finally, for this one night,
I'm about to have a fun night),
that a house
was going to fall
on all of her except her feet,
and she was
going to
die,
would she have lived
any differently,
done things
any other way?
What would she have told people
and what would she have kept hidden,
knowing it would reside
in her grave of sorts
under the foundation
of a small,
cold
house?

Life support

At the end of the day
I'm another day older.
But I am tired
and so tired of that,
of living to survive.

I want to be
at peace with myself
and especially
as human as I can be,
as absolutely alive
as could ever be possible,
breathing in life
thriving undeniably
from its breath.

Unity

we all held hands tonight
and i felt close to you all
like i was part of something
part of you.

earlier, we had sat there and talked
five of us, while we were waiting to go on,
and i contributed
and laughed
and you liked that i was there.

i like
feeling the brush of your arms against mine
like the caresses
of your heart's friendship
the warmth
of knowing that you care

and i matter

and if i were to die tonight
you might notice i was gone.

Thought

I've told you
I will not be the girl in the sensible shoes
so stop shoving them onto my feet.
Please.

Serenity

Pretty dresses
drape simple slipper
guiding velvet tiptoe
soft on silver snow.
Bells tinkle,
hooves canter,
sleighs slide.
Breath freezes
like diamond clouds
in the wintry air.

Poets take up their pens,
Composers open their scores.
Memories, portrayed.
Beauty, ingrained.

Snowflakes flutter
and join the dance.
Treetops glisten
and trees
watch in silence.

Take me as I am

I sang tonight
as I walked up the stairwell
and they were in the bottom playing
so they couldn't hear me
but they were singing
and so did I.

Mom always read me those Harold books. I liked them.

i want to take a pretty purple crayon
and scribble my own story on the walls
and maybe it'll echo your grey line
or follow some of the curves and things
but it'll be my purple line all the same.

Jury

here
all of me out for you to see
naked
and i do not hide.

Finality

.
pressing. .

danger

. help! scared .

too much, too much .

. and never enough

. over . done death .

.dying .

dying .

dead

. pressing . danger

. help! .

scared.

Word association

heat
burn
red
fire
lava
molten
metal
cold
grey
hallow
death
darkness
alone
contact
sense
feel
grow
child
love
passion
ignite
fire
heat.

run-on sentence

you know that mood you get in
when you really want to write a poem
and you know exactly what emotions you want to express
(because you feel them and they're building and building inside of you
and if you don't write or cry or scream or something,
they'll build and build and build until they can't build any more
until something happens
and they finally burst-- )
but you can't manage to think of how to say it
and all you can do is stare at the screen
and type meaningless sentiments that fail in the end?

Yeah.

That's me.

Tiffany

We talked about all sorts of things.
Music.
Singing.
Majoring in voice.
Dreams.
Breathing.
Parents who suffocate that.
Rebelling.
Becoming my own person.
Losing virginity.

~~~

I kind of wish that I was still that girl who lived for the moments she spent singing with her conservatory-trained manager at Gymboree.

~~~

All I wanted
was to learn to sing.

~~~

It's funny
the way a dream can look so clear in your mind
and then it doesn't look quite the same as it's happening
you forget that this is what you dreamed about
for pretty much forever,
because it looks nothing like the picture you imagined before,
and you doubt that this is what you ever wanted
because your dream looked so perfect
and all of this is so... not.

Contemplation

Always
is a strange sort of word
because it means promises
and forever
and hope.

Never
is a promise, too
and it's forever,
or it tries to be.

But it doesn't hope.
Ever.