I Don't Mind if You Forget Me

Pressed solely on my looks,

never getting far with what I see.

Don’t take me for granted,

It’s not naive to be free.

I don’t mind if you forget me,

I never knew myself.

It’s okay to regret me,

since that’s all I have left.

I don’t blame you if you don’t understand me,

I’ve sunk myself for less.

Who am I to say what you should do?

We’re nothing but nature’s creation.

I don’t mind if you forget me,

I may never of existed.

I Hold This World

I hold this world,

in my palm accountable.

As much as I am at fault,

I am still just as human as when I woke up.

Made from this unswerving earth,

I pass the blame,

my species trait.

I say, this soil

which I will become,

formed my first breath;
a constant presence in my life.

I hold steady to a rotating body

as the wells of the ocean

splash and spill,
fulfilling my feeling of being,

waiting for what I am owed.

I am this world.

As much as others think
it was made for them,

it needs neither of us.

Perhaps,

I am only a temporary inhabitant,

meant to spend 70 years spinning;

trudging through give and take,

turning in a milky galaxy,
ignoring what’s on my plate,
forced to question myself

as more than just an ape.

Or, to keep humanity alive,

I lie to myself and say,

"The sun rises for me,
I’ll go about my day

as if all is summer.”

I am held trembling

in the dry hands of the world,

accountable. 

No more important than a snowflake

falling on the last day of winter.

I am only a lonely creature

born on a rock of circumstance,

clever enough to daydream,

too dumb to wake up.

How Can Sleep Conquer Me?

How can sleep conquer me?

I move, I think,

I breathe, I scream;

I stand on mountaintops and roar out soundly,

“I won’t let sleep take me!”

I rush past exhaustion,

ignoring yawns.

I trudge, I strain

I never submit to her smile,

I caress Death’s little sister with ease.

How can I resist a stretch at dawn?

My poor back, my fallen knees.

If I don’t vanquish now,

then drown me at sea;

but please, don’t let me waste my time asleep!

Holidays

On Earth Day I chopped down a tree

On New Year’s Eve I thought about old times

On Valentines Day I went out to break hearts

On Independence Day I contemplated anarchy

On April Fools’ Day I woke up

On Groundhog Day I went back to sleep

On Veterans’ Day I seceded the Union

On Flag Day I shot bottle rockets at Old Glory

On Memorial Day I walked on heroes’ graves

On Halloween I dressed as myself

On Thanksgiving I admired my Native American side

On Presidents’ Day I chiseled faces off a mountain

On Labor Day I worked my fingers raw

On Christmas Day I sent a gift to myself

On my birthday I forgot my age

On Easter I waited for the dead to rise

But today I celebrate more than ever.

I Thought About You

Per la mia sorella,

Outside, cold, under the broken stars with an open heart

Falling upward, through drops, I strove to make my wish spark.

It felt heavy, destined to doom from the start

I tried to reach the streaks of far-flung fires with my heart.

I made a wish because I thought about you

It was genuinely all I could do

I admit it won’t ever come true

So I sat silently in a horseshoed courtyard thinking about you.

As Miles swooned between us, I gave myself to this night,

Letting everything else disappear out of sight

So this roving memory would gain might.

Accepting finite certainty I gave up to this night.

I waited under the twinkling suns alone

Let it come true and be known

I don’t wish to glimpse etched stone.

I remained stranded in a yard all alone.

I sat starring, as the starry sky turned black

The thought emptied from my voice, as faith lacked

I wished maybe as a constellation you’d come back

Unanswered, my hope turned black.

Have Your Lips Ever Been Pressed?

Have your lips

ever been pressed against another’s

and felt the embrace of love

returned the same way it was given?

Do the cushions pushed together

help to remember

the reasons of conceiving hands

clenched in each others?

Has your lover

received your heart

the way it was intended?

Has your gut instincts reacted

to the suggestion

that his idea of love is perception?

His eyes glance at your lips

like obstacles to his intentions,

a loop to dance through, a hurdle to kiss.

Has his words lost there meaning; lost their bliss?

Words that are rehearsed

in the ears of so many.

Each of those many, lying down

to assume the chalk-lined imprint on a bed.

Have your lips ever felt the hold

of another who shares your vision of love?

Let lips fall on the same page,

with never needed worry,
wondering whether or not he would stop
if you asked him to.

Just lay next to me in bed;

with only eyes meeting on a pillow

knowing no physical touch.

No cares, no caress, no sound outside our hearts breathing.

Unity means so much more

when hearts kiss in the evening.

Forming a link that doesn’t care if it rusts.

Biting Words

I tried so hard to tell you off, but stumbled on my words. I could not outpour the hate I wanted so badly to say. Maybe out of good wisdom, I bit my tongue, or in recognition of my future crumbling, I wrestled with those words, I wanted so sourly to spew, but refrained. Either way, you never heard the honest truth of what I had stocked, buried cocked, with rejected memories, forever echoing silently. The vocabulary, burned in my throat and tiptoed behind my lips. The well-prepared syllables expressed completely, the person I hoped to never meet. I need you to stay at shouting space. Exactly, what I wanted to pronounce, when nothing but this odium of anger coursed in my thoughts. Increasing in distance from your ears, the monologue I swallowed is never explored, but was ready to explode. As I chose a higher ground, from such suggestions of inequality of human respect, these words, these sounds of utter detest, sat in lonesome squalor out of reach; finding themselves pressed to the roof of my mouth and dissolved to a bitter taste of defeat. My words, my poor heartbroken speech, in time will soon be forgotten letters I had in mind; wisely choose to never speak. Instead, I left you alone with your guilt and self-doubt, worse than any rotting discourse I could have spoke out. Tell yourself all the words I bring with my turning shoulder, happily alone without a sentence.