A letter to my 56 drafts:

They tell you its the sad stuff that everyone wants to pay attention to.
The brooding and the aching and the tears, that's the stuff that makes peoples hearts stop.
makes them feel their pulse in their ears and their fingertips. you remember the sad poems because they break your heart every time you read them.
But no one ever goes to a sad poem when they're looking for hope.
Everyone wants to read something that will make their heart cold.
well whats colder than a cold shoulder (whats cooler than being cool?)
They tell you its the sad stuff that everyone wants to pay attention to.
Because it's easier to write.
You can smack your cheating boyfriend in the face with your words
and everyone will snap at you
you can talk about how much you hate your dad hundreds of times
and everyone will get angry with you
you can talk about the ache in your chest every time you see him, with her.
but you can also high five and thumbs up and fall in love and with your words
if you play it right.
and everyone will laugh with you cry with you and feel real with you.
words can blow someones mind without blowing their heart out of their chest
write something you'd want one of your crying siblings to read.
and delete the rest.

why I failed anatomy - a self portrait

Every time I swallow I can feel Etta James in my throat.
In anatomy they tell you everything you ever need to know about yourself.
Like how we sneeze at 100 mph and how it's possible for your bones to self destruct at any minute
but they never tell you where it all came from.
Sure biology or history can tell you that too if you really want
But its too general. Too impersonal
They'll tell you that my smile and the smile of the boy who sits next to me came from the same place
and they'll be wrong/right
His smile comes from some place open and beautiful and cold but like, light jacket cold. Somewhere in the mountains maybe. I'm there too
My smile comes from some place warm and familiar and there is a good couch to take a nap on. Maybe in a cabin somewhere in the mountains. He'll  be there too
My smile came from him, my ears from Aaron Carter
and my guts came from a movie I saw in high school.
I've got the knees of bees'
and the eyes of artists' because I can see the bigger picture
My cheekbones came from all the knock knock jokes
and my heart came from God.
I've got the feet of a 100 meter sprinter just before the gunshots
and the hands of someone who spent too much time on the monkey bars
My elbows and and my brain are actually made from the same tissue because they both can't stop thinking about how funny everything is.
I got my eyebrows off the internet
but my tears are from you.
I've got my fathers phalanges and my mothers jawline
my wrinkly eyes belong to my grandpa
and my back belongs to my grandmother
and my bones belong to me.

I'll ask the questions around here

I've been looking under rocks and behind bleachers and in between pastry shops but I can't seem to find anything beautiful anywhere.
Where did all those metaphors go?
How did I find so many at the beginning and
What do I have to dig up to find more?
what happened to all the clues?
What happened to the tour guide?
I think I need him. sometimes I feel like a detective but most of the time I feel like a tourist.
That was a bad thing right? I can't remember anymore.
I can't remember how to do anything. I need someone to show me everything
I need prompts and video clips and comments and music.
 what happened to the music? and the rain and all the scenery and the other tourists and all the residents.
What happened to Paris?
I tried it. I thought I was tough enough
I thought I had enough of the right stuff
whatever it is.
But like everyone else it seems like this city has chewed me up.
The question is will it spit me out or swallow me whole?
Which would be worse?
Going back after everything you know. After seeing everything you could become.
Trying to make yourself forget. Become numb again.
Or staying. And knowing you might never become what you want to,
But that maybe you could.
Hope.
It's all anyone seems to need these days
and it can give you life and purpose
But boy can it kill you.
It really can.

other wordly

Sometimes I watch the news and I feel ashamed.
There are people who say the natural man is an evil
and there are people who say love yourself flaws and all.
so which is it?
There are people talking about "how the war on terror could
impact your vacation"
There are people talking about missing planes and missing sons
There are people talking about who deserves what and how the boy didn't derserve
to die but the man who killed him doesn't deserve to go on trial.
There are people talking about celebrities who went outside without make up on
There are people talking about children dying for education
There are children dying.
Sometimes I think that the world has made us hard.
But was it not Cain who slayed Abel?
We have been like this since the beginning
There has always been fire inside of all of us
and the earth grieves because of it.
it avalanches and howls and trembles.
It quakes with sorrow.
But I know the world is not always this way.
For it was Cain who slayed Abel
and not two brother who slayed each other.
and where there is terrible and awful
there is also good.
I call my apartment in Logan home and my bedroom in Highland home.
and isn't it comforting?
to know its possible the same person in more than one place?
isn't comforting?
to know that we can become good again?
That we can become who we once were