White Wall

If I could hang one thing on a
white wall,
it wouldn't be a painting, a photograph,
a memory.

A spiral bound notebook, turned to a
blank page
with a
black pen
hanging along beside it.

I would write. When I walked
backwards,
I would read.
And when it was filled,
I would just be another one of the few thousand years of poets,
weaving a tapestry of sound and beats,

Begin again,
because white is the cheapest
paint color.

The Ocean Isn't The Only Deep Thing Around Here

I'm deeper than I seem.

No, I promise: this isn't just melodramatics. Not another take on Hamlet or Macbeth, but just a coincidental combination of icicles melting, splatting on gravel and pen ink smearing across faint blue lines that my mind calls home. I don't know if this makes sense, no idea where I started, no idea where I will end. I'm lost but I don't care. I'm still but I don't mind. For once I allow myself to feel what has been bogged down underneath Huck Finn's raft and let it out. It's not readable. It's hidden in the ink and then chord structure, the rhythm of the the night, the beat of the dawn. And, just like the day, I continue to burn at both ends...

I'm deeper than I seem.

A Narrative

And so, I let emotions pour out of my head; turn their energy into a sprawling expanse of language and letters, felt the pen meld with my mind as I made friends with uncertainty and loquaciousness, imagined how it would be upon a star.
With that, I let the clouded new moon shine onto my windowsill, inviting me to sit for a while and discuss the transient quality of the sweet, silent rose, the brevity of words when so many are needed; all the while I dusted off the fatigue-enshrouded library that fills my mind.
Why? He said when I described my issue- this issue of penmanship, a love for words so deep that my pen becomes a knife, a saber, a sword, cutting my soul into small bits, finding the dwellings underneath, but stitching together a world of entirely new making; words come faster and faster, too quickly for just a pen in hand and somehow, I get buried blissfully underneath syllables and ideas and ink smears and possibilities until I realize suddenly, I'm not breathing air. I'm breathing life.

#20

So tell me,
do you think the world would spin faster,
if we stayed here,
happily ever after?
Can't you see me waiting here?
Is it me you want forever?

Save me from this haunting daylight.
The ghosts- they come to fight.

A

If the sun rises on one side of the world, it sets on the other.
So tell me this.
In our own lives,
if a sun sets,
doesn't it still have to be there,
coming up on the other side?

#19

I want to be free of mental
chains of silly string
of child's play of
shaking sinistry of
myself.
To lose is not so bad
when you lose
something
you will not miss

#18

The rain pounds on the sidewalk,

my heart pounds with it,

like a beating drum in

South Africa,

and a butterfly flaps it's wings,

flying by the drummers and singers,

going north to unrest and to

all the violence,

and then the butterfly will settle down in a bed and

make love to a squirell and

they will have babies in a tree,

then the squirell will go to Europe,

tour the Eiffell tower,

and make love to a lady bug,

they have babies on a flower,

then the lady bug will go to China,

see the Great Wall,

make love to a silk worm,

they have babies wherever little silk worms go.

#17

Wearing green,

two by two,

line.

laughing, walking, talking.

Wearing grey,

one by me,

last.

looking through the glass.

Laughing not feeling,

walking not being,

talking not hearing.

Keep Breathing; Keep Humming

She said,
the stars are a perfect example of
the completeness of infinity
as she gazed upwards
, a dark car in daylight.

I guess she makes sense unless
you think of stars as projections
of some far off form of
combustion or God playing
with matches and candles.

So one day, I sat down
at noon
against a warm oak tree and
looked at the stars through a crowded room.

They sang like millions of filled notebooks,
they wept like millions of battle torn mothers,
they were the millions of poets
just trying to find a voice in
this
completeness of infinity we call home.

Shine so bright but nobody will see
you.
Be so beautiful that nobody will care.
Shine so bright, nobody can see you.
Nobody cares.

Nobody cares about the millions of poets
with their notebooks made of flesh, the ink of blood.
Nobody cares because they died
seven years ago and the light
is just reaching us now.

Be so beautiful you get overlooked,
Do so good you don't matter,
These stars have a lot to say if
you'd only listen to the
hum.
HUM.

The completeness fo infinity.
F   E   W of us bother to stop to
see
and even fear stop to
feel.

It must be a form of poetry and it must rise
and fall with the moonlight tides
because
it seems at midnight the world is so
lost, lost in the infinity of my own making.

Keep breathing;
let your d e a d star shine
let it shine let it shine
make those forget to breathe;
we all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.

Happy 100th Post Day, Blog.

I normally don't do these non-poem posts, but this one had to be special.

HAPPY 100TH POST BLOG.

For this post, I'd like to think about how this blog has changed me.
I've always said It just doesn't take much to change a person. And that's true. It really doesn't take much at all. One little comment, one little smile, a phone call... all of those can change somebody's life. Well, this blog hasn't just changed me as a person; it has changed my life.
100 posts ago, armed with just a dozen filled notebooks, pens dry out of ink, and trembling fingers, I opened myself up to so much more than I ever have before. My innermost thoughts were on display for the entire internet. Sure, they wouldn't know who I was; maybe nobody would even see it. But, for me, it was a huge step in letting myself go.
This blog has taught me so much more than just how to improve my writing. It has taught me that it's okay to be who I am. I'm different. I know. Between cancer, caring more about school than parties, and liking just to be alone, I guess I'm your regular high school "freak." Whatever. None of that matters. This blog taught me that I don't have to hide behind my curly hair and notebooks. Sure, I'm not ready yet to scream my poems from rooftops like Andrea Gibson or get up in front of hundreds of people like Anis Mojgani, but hey. It's a start.
I'm posting to Facebook, finally declaring myself a poet, and breaking the news to my parents that hey Mom, Dad, maybe I don't want to be a doctor. Maybe I just want to write books. For the first time ever, I'm okay with that. 


So Happy 100th Post Day, Blog. So yeah, you needed me to write in you to get you to where you are today, but I've needed you more than you know. And, as always, you, my dear writing, have never failed me.

#16

As the rain beats down on my
windowsill I wonder if you are out
there.
I wonder if among this chaos of
life and death whether or not you are
happy.

I hope the sun is shining where you are.
I hope that you are shining and never
having to even think of the word

cancer

ever again.

I hope that you are happy.
I hope that you are happy.
And,
if in your spare time,
you think of
m e,
I guess that's okay too.

Crusade

Make this more than just another
day that sits heavy on us all, make
this more than just another shoreline
battered and beaten by the sea.

Let us rise above the events that
make us and
may the rest of us
define our situation.

Make this more than just another
star-sprinkled night, make
this more than just another 5am sunrise
spilling quickly over calm waters.

Let us rise above the events that
make us and
may the rest of us
define our situation.

All we are,
all we are,
just steel-toed combat boots
with worn-leather laces.
Splattered with mud,
head down.
fight your own damn battle.

#15

Splatter color on your hands so the
prints
reflect who you are.
Press your thumbs into my cheek
and leave a
mark on my heart.
If I had a penny for every moment
I wished to be you
I would be a fucking millionaire.

Irony

The sunny mornings are given to the cynics,
the clouds to the optimists,
half and half to the realists,
and dew to the dead.

Bright flowers are given to the cynics,
the blight to the optimists,
half and half to the realists,
and potatoes to the dead.

A guitar's sing is given to the cynics,
sharp discord to the optimists,
half and half to the realists,
and a symphony to the dead.

We all have r e a s o n s for who we a r e.

#14

If you always walk with your head held down,
always staring at concrete angels with beauty passing by,
when will that beauty fade to black?
and when will that beauty fade to black?
If beauty is a perception,
and nobody perceives,
when will beauty fade to black?

#13

If silence is louder than
gunshots
and looks are more piercing than
bullets,
then suck your god damn bullet
back into your gun
before somebody gets
k i l l e d
for real.

For once.

#12

If sea waves crash down
and wash out golden irises, please tell
me how on Earth blue nail polish
should cease to chip
and breadcrumbs cease to
fall and hearts
cease to break.
When love doesn't prevail, when the
oceans recede, when golden
irises rise up from the dust be
sure to grab
your coat as you leave behind because,
everybody knows
that to protect your heart
is to protect you home.

Name Game

When I was in the kindergarten,
my teacher asked me who I was.
I said, "I don't know."
Hannah.
This memory is fresh and bold in my mind the
way
that the first snowfall stands out
on the trees;
the way the chickadee cries
at dawn; the
way that the stars graze my golden cheeks
in the sunlight.
The flower that blooms in
the pit of my despair
blooms upon my countenance,
a clever masquerade
who I am.
who I am
Who am I.

Nothing seems so pure or quick than
the soft ticking of a wrist watch
as gentle drops of
moonlight weave her fingers
through my hair, spring
my curls,
my friend.
Nothing seems so true and real
than the
songs and hollers,
whoops and cries of the
crickets in the night as they
weave their melodies of kryptonite and bonfire.
Music runs through my mind as I listen to their voices,
every cell.
every note.

The hum of the universe mingles with
my thoughts,
an interrupted and violent whirlpool of
memories and facts,
could-haves and would-haves,
long division and multiplication,
(insignificant)
makes me placid
HUM there, on
and on.

They never hear the crickets.
They never see the drops of moonlight fall on black pavement.
They never feel a hum deep in their bones.
What I would do to lend you my glasses,
my ears,
my soul,
lending isn't feeling or experiencing
listening is only hearing when
you don't hear your own heartbeat
connected by an invisible string
to everything.

And so she asked,
"Who are you."
I don't know. She
never gave me a chance to
paint my canvas in more than
black and white; of
crickets and music notes, and
moonlight that
irrevocably
unchangeably,
what lies in you lies in me
what lies in me lies in you
But don't change any names just yet.

#11

When tears plummet from the
skies like it's never going to.
End.
and when rain drips from your
eyes like it's the ______First you've been
h u r t,
it's clear to the soul:
practicing ice and
beauty yields jealousy
that
creates cracks in our bones
and if
she imagines, all the things that everything could be,
the
world
could
do
the
same.