Feeling my soft shoes 

Impacting the ground

My calves and my lungs,

Burning from effort 

But it feels so good

Because even though 

I’m confined to this 

One house, this one town

With the same people

I feel like I can 

Go places, or fly

With every step and

Push off the asphalt

I feel free, or calm.

So I guess, for me,

Being calm is not

A place or a thing,

But movement, and sports.

& it was the tensest last period class I've ever been in. Well, for me, at least,

and maybe only for me - when the announcement came on to secure

the school, no going outside, continue as normal,

the classroom erupted with noise, everyone joking

& faking scared like this wasn't the most awful moment of their life.

I sat there for another half hour, crossing my fingers

that we'd be able to go home on time. And there it was,

at dismissal the loudspeaker beeped and we were off

into the slow afternoon rain. At this point the rumors

were clustering around each other & nobody had really heard

the details anyways so everything was a jumble of confusion

as we scattered across the wet pavement to the buses;

I promised to text when I got home & waved goodbye to my friends.

The bus turned

the corner and I pressed my head to the window

coated with raindrops & washed in the blue light

of faraway sirens, and all the way home I prayed. I prayed for the safety

of my friends, of my family, of myself. I prayed the people involved

made it home alive. I prayed for the homeless man on the corner,

that he would go unnoticed by everyone wishing to harm.

I prayed for the children in detention centers, for their parents,

for the hopeful return of them to the world. I prayed

even for the soldiers in bulletproof vests,

holding guns,

so someday they could wipe the illusion from their eyes. I prayed

as I walked through the hastening drizzle. 

I prayed as I stepped through the door. I prayed

for the hope & the courage for a better world

because nobody should ever have to sit silently in a classroom

not knowing what's going to happen next. No child should ever have to walk

home in the rain praying for what was already promised.

No one should ever have to say out loud that nobody should live like this.

There's this random office building across the Cinemark downtown.
Sometimes, when I go there,
I'll watch a dumb movie at the theater,
Then tiptoe past glass windows of desk workers.
And if I'm with my friends, I might laugh at them,
Whiling away behind a screen
While we're over here, doing whatever the hell we want.
When I'm alone, though, I might sympathize with them---
I feel tired just looking at their rat-raced faces.

After we sneak past the office, we might go to the parking garage behind that.
Or I might, depending on the day.
Then, I climb up the creepy, cobweb-filled stairwell
Illuminated by the occasional yellowing lightbulb.
After sprinting up the stairs, our quads burning, panting,
We make it to the roof.

There's a random tennis court in the corner, but it's locked.
If I'm with my friends, we climb on top of the generator and hop the fence of the court,
Just for the thrill of it,
Even though none of us have tennis rackets,
Or have even played tennis before.

If I'm alone, I just hang my legs off the edge of the building,
Facing the highway and the office in front of it
Watching the hurried taillights of Hondas and Acuras on the I-10
Go somewhere no one will ever care about.

I'll probably breathe in the air, which is crisp when you're so high up.
Then, I'll look again at the office workers.
Back curled, staring soullessly into their computers,
Calculating stock or whatever it is adults do there.

My heart sort of twinges, then.
They've worked their whole lives to get to this point
Of mind-numbing slavery.

And I look at the Houston skyline
And foolishly, youthfully,
Am glad as hell that I'm not them.

I am a thinker.

I think about big problems in the world and how to fix them.

Like climate change, evolution, the state of humanity as of now.

I write stuff down, half-finished thoughts scribbled, or typed on the page.

I think of ways we can solve these problems. Then I feel small. I get questions stuck in my head.

Who cares? How could this paper make a difference? I'm 15 what can I do?

Then I think about all of the people who are already fighting for some of the things I am thinking about. 

And that gives me hope to keep going. 

To try to make a difference.

There’s a place I want to live

And someone I want to love

I want to live in a place

So full of joy

That it fills me too

So full of people

That I know there will be someone in my corner

Around the corner

I want to live in a place

Where thousands of stories get to unfold

And thousands of people get to call it their home

Each person on their own path

And each path gets to cross another

A place where you know deep down it’s your home

And people treat you like you are theirs

A place where dozens and dozens and dozens of people

Walk the same road each day

Every foot print a word in a novel

Telling a story even when you don’t know where it’s going

I want someone to love

Someone to call my own

Cradle their heart in my hands as they cradle mine

Knowing they won’t drop it

Knowing I won’t have to see the cracks form one by one

I want someone to love

A love so pure

That it reminds me of fresh flowers

And the morning sun

A love that spreads through my veins

Making each and every one glow

Someone to love

Whose hand fits in mine

And holds me tight

Keeping me from slipping away

Into the unknown

Someone to love

Who loves me right back

With such fierceness

And loyalty

I want someone to love

One day in the far far future

I hope I have a place where I can live

Filled with joy

And thousands of stories

I hope I have someone to love

Whose love reminds me of fresh flowers

And whose hand fits in mine

There’s a place I want to live

And someone I want to love

There’s a quiet beauty 
in the things you know won’t last 
moments already fading 
even while you’re inside them. 

Like a perfect cheeseburger 
and a good New York Knicks team on the TV, 
sitting beside your dad on the couch, 
both of you pretending the season might finally mean something, 
laughing at the same missed shots 
and talking during commercials 
about everything and nothing. 

Or a melting ice cream cone
on a burning summer afternoon,
sticky sweetness running down your hands
while you stand beside your nana
who wipes your fingers with a napkin
and tells you to slow down
even though the sun is already winning.

Or the wild splash of cannonballs
into a hotel pool on vacation
your cousins shouting,
water flying everywhere,
the future still wide open then,
before time and distance
quietly turned all of you
into strangers.

Or that last awkward conversation
with your great-grandmother
the one where you didn’t know what to say,
where the room felt too quiet
and her voice too fragile,
and you thought there would be
another visit,
another story,
another chance to listen.

There’s beauty in those moments
because they are already leaving.

Because the burger gets eaten,
the ice cream melts,
the pool empties,
the game ends,
the voices fade into memory.

And only later do you realize
the real sweetness of it all

that you were there
while it was happening,
holding something brief and ordinary
that time would never give back.

I am a poet. I take the words and I turn them on their heads until the juice runs out. It is red and sweet, like strawberries. I sit cross-legged on lilypads, watching meaning watercolor itself onto the pond. I rust like clockwork in the rain. I once held a staring contest with God. He won. I went home and searched for four-leaf clovers with a microscope. I do not get lucky. I write poems about the way the light hits the edges of a wineglass in August. I am a poet. I am the beating heart at the end of sentences. They put me there to keep me alive.

There was a man who worked on the corner of Bellevue and St. James six days a week, who only came out at dusk to have a smoke. I usually saw him from a distance, across from the park. He was weary, very weary. He always took off his dirtied blue apron and wiped it on his soaked brow. He always stared down at the steps he was sitting on as he took long drags on his cigarette. His guests would mutter among themselves as he squatted outside. But he never cared. It was his establishment, his house. 

Today was like any Friday, except that this particular sunset was casting an exceptionally fiery hue upon everything. Besides that, the street hummed with the normal sounds of evening commuters going home, or for the young people, going out. It was going to be a busy evening, he said to himself. He squinted at the park beyond the bustling street and gazed numbly at the fat red sun drowning under the park's horizon. 

The man took out a scarred leather notebook and a stick of crisp charcoal. He cut to a clean page, and began sketching, of what I did not know exactly. I always saw him drawing. I think it was only natural for him to have this ritual; he did it to alleviate his mind from the repetitiveness of his labor; he drew so he could stay in control. From his perspective on the steps I could only imagine the world being nothing but the same every day. Perhaps he was looking for, or imagining, a change in his monotone world, something different each day to sketch, something that contrasted with kitchen work and orders. Or perhaps I was overthinking it. 

The red sun was gone, and the white street lights flickered on. The man blew the excess charcoal off the pages and snapped shut the old leather covers of his notebook. He stood up and ground what remained of his cigarette underneath his heel. The sky was starting to turn purple. He straightened his apron, checked the street, and breathed one final breath of the fresh outdoor air. He opened the door, and resigned himself back into his old domain.