Poetry

The air tasted different here.

Too cold.

Too clean.

Like standing at the very top of a world that didn't want you in it.

He stood there, next to that... thing... that wore his face.

He'd always pick on me,

about a specific "lame traffic earring."

And he'd always be talking about dirty things, and then accuse me of thinking about them.

It used to really annoy me.

And now I miss it.

I miss him.

When a man is shot, bang in the neck

we do not

Discuss

Promise change

we do not tell our children that we will make this world better for them

we pray

Look, she's awake!

I pointed to daikon girl,

seeing her awakened on a bed in a cell we'd come into after a certain 

paintbrush showed us the way.

I want you to stay here with me.
Even if it's only in this world, I'm alive, you get to see me all the time! that's better than the real world, isn't it?
I want to stay with you.

Why?
Why would you want to stay here with a stranger?

I already knew the answer.

The same reason I hadn't jumped off the edge to fight his killer,

or screamed in that perfect classroom.

His voice was too light, when he said that.

His movements too easy,

his eyes held no shadows of a boy who had to agree to death,

just the annoyance of a teenager finding someone crying in his classroom.

No.

I can't do that.

I can't kill him.

I can't watch him die,

not again.

And this is him,

the real number 3.

it was barely audible 

yet soft and sure 

in the heat of the moment. 

what? 

I ask 

even though I know what you said. 

I know the weight 

Every day

I'm so used to getting ignored

I try to talk, but you talk over me

I'm at the point where I just stop talking...

The only thing you talk about is yourself

Today, I watched boys climbing a log stuck vertically in the sand

And girls kicking at leaves just for the fun of it,

And oh, when did our youth slip through the backdoor unnoticed,

mother! i cry, captive of the wind

carrying my voice for those to hear who

accept failure is not an option & instead pursue

the package of progress, the patch of promise

a battle cry to be heard,