Mementos

As a kid I craved mentos.

While the generic fruit flavors were nice, mint was ideal.

I'd line them up along freezer shelves, balanced on top of ice cube trays,

only to forget them hours later.

But the best part was rediscovering them,

Unsticking their cold, smooth shells from the ice,

hesitating until my fingers went numb,

then finally tasting ice 

and that cold candy rush.

CO

Lying alone in my room with my iPod

Cord threaded up my arm, circling my throat

One phone in my ear, the other dangling off the bed

Spitting half of a song out into the stale air

The shapes dripping out, piling on the floor, unheard and forgotten.

All I see is the grey shadow cast by the fan on the ceiling,

Blades reaching out like crepuscular rays.

Crepuscular. That's your word of the day.

Look it up yourself. I don't feel like moving.

My apathy is too heavy,

Taking up too much space, 

Its chasms pushing against

Lungs barely expanding enough to allow new air inside.

Beneath the weight, deep in that dark, my heart is a canary,

Tiny ribcage gasping,

Lost in the black,

The song suffocated out of me.

Smoke and Mirrors

I'm so very grown up

Hair undone

Pumps on the table

Roll up lies between my fingers, and

Inhale, exhale.

"Don't you worry about me,

I'm fine,

Things just don't work out."

I can see the reflection of the smoke in your skeptic eyes

But you talk about the weather,

The neighbors,

The price of tea in China.

Inhale, exhale.

Sometimes I try to hold it in until my throat closes and my eyes water

and the sadness seeps from my skin.

'Cuz people don't want to breathe in that kind of secondhand smoke.

They'd much rather put me in glass boxes

And paint red X's over their doorways.

It's a social taboo,

Don't say a word,

Just hold your breath and smile.

My heart's beating too hard,

My lungs are breathing too loudly,

Rattling the tangled up sentences

Buried beneath an unfamiliar voice.

My smile is suffocating me.

But my lips are addicted

So who cares if the lipstick smudges?

Inhale, inhale, inhale

I need to get out,

I need to breathe,

I'm coughing up ash-stained memories that

Shake me,

Rip me,

Aching lungs sucking in unfamiliar air

Fingertips trembling as I light another match.

"Can't we just talk about it, baby?

Can't we figure this one out?"

You hand me another mask

And I breathe it in,

Inhale, exhale.

I watch the smoke reflected in your eyes.

Don't be so disappointed.

You tried even less than I did.

~effervescent laughter

Never forget

I twist the pieces of mirror in my hands, re-arranging them into different shapes 
I twist the memories in my mind, trying to paint them a different color
But you are always there,
You are always haunting the hallways
And tunnels
And locked up cupboards shoved between forbidden file cabinets
In the nightmarish mazes that twist upwards around my heart
And clench their fingers around my throat
Saying, “Never forget. Never forget.
You are nothing. You are forgotten.
I
Never forget.”
 
You know, you are different now
That you are gone.
You are thinner,
Lighter,
Like you could spread your wings and
Be blown away in the wind.
I try to catch you
To fly away
Wrapping the kite strings around my hands
Until my fingers turn blue.
“Never forget.”
The strings snap.
 
The world churns and rocks madly
Tossing the people inside it like waves
And we try to balance on the telephone wires
That cut our hands
And shock our feet.
I feel like my head is b r e a k i n g  o p e n
But everyone keeps walking and living and breathing.
They smile,
But all I see is your memory leering at me
Smirking your half grin
That once made my world make sense.

But when he smiles,

When he smiles,
You melt away

Forgotten

The fingers r e l e a s i n g
The voice gurgling and sputtering,
Until I can believe that
Maybe

I am worth something after all.

~effervescent laughter

Gandhi

When will we own ourselves completely?

Some say when we stop judging others and being judged.

I was one of them.

But then a wise friend told me that 

"Judging doesn't make you a uniquely horrible person; it matters instead if you act on your judgments."

So. I judge people.

                                                                                                              

I pay attention to their actions and expressions.

I see their good intentions.

I admire their determination.

I never get tired of seeing the intricacies of human life,

Of feeling the weight of their soul in my hands, admiring their sparkling hopes and their powerful wings laced with veins of emotion.

To see the expanse of their potential

Is exhilarating to me,

To understand that this beautiful soul is owned by itself and nothing else.

I admire their uniqueness.

I keep forgetting faults are a bad thing.

It shows growth,

It shows humanity,

It shows a need for love and something better.

I respect their faults.

I get lost in the beauty of other people so often that

I keep forgetting to own myself.

I think we will own ourselves completely when we understand

This beautiful thing called humanity,

When we aren’t afraid to judge without acting on our judgments,

When we aren’t afraid to hold those fluttering crystalline souls in our hands

And see the light in each other’s eyes.

And though you may judge me for it,

Tonight is not the last time I’ll see the light.

My Story

In a painted room

On the corner of a street

Under a yellow sunflower bed

There is a shoebox.

Pull it out.

Blow off the dust.

Inside, you’ll find

Me.

A blue stuffed elephant

A broken bracelet

A brown feather.

There is a weather damaged book from when I was seven.

I ran away from home, but never left the front yard.

I accidentally left the book in the rain after I went back inside.

You can still find the rust from the paperclip bookmark

On page 28.

There is a picture,

I am standing in the sun

With a paintbrush in one hand

And a popsicle in the other.

I bet you can figure out for yourself

How easily it is

For a four year old to get them mixed up.

There is a jade dragon.

Neck curved back

Claw stretched out

Teeth grinning.

My little brother’s hands were hot

When he placed this jade dragon

In my hands,

A birthday present

And he gave me

Everything.

In the shoebox

You’ll find me.

But you’ll find him too.

Listen

I hear you.  Your low voice, with its slight accent and rich vowels colliding with consonants.  Your voice, with its wide grin like a slit throat bleeding words into my hands.  You take my hands, point them toward life, toward whatever new thing you want me to see.  Your hands reach high, tracing the air as you leap across the trampoline, touching the black surface as you flip across it, too close to the edge.  I scream. 
But you can't hear me.


~ effervescent laughter