Graph Paper - 12/01/13

I've heard tale
of lives
that fit inside
of neat blue lines
on graph paper,
flowing like poems
that actually rhyme,
and, from time to time,
I tried to stay confined.
But I don't grow like
differentiable functions;
I grow like vines.
I grow intertwined
with other
not so tidy lives
that hopefully
aren't too eager
to leave mine. 

How Are You? - 11/26/13

If the sky is full of emptiness
is it really even full?
And if not,
can't you think of a better
description of its emptiness
than "full?"

"So focus on the stars!"
And the star dust?
That fraction of infinity?
That 5% of matter?
I am that star dust
and I want something more.

Feynman Diagram - 11/13/13

Color me potential.
Highlight paths
that sprawl away
from the interaction
of the present.
Shade each outcome;
cool colors for low days
and warm colors for low days
where I still have the momentum
to smile
and colorless confinement
for nights
when I fall on your floor,
close my eyes,
and interject parables
and physics equations
into your day-to-day life.

Sure,

there's some finite possibility,
but here's how I see it.

Covenant - 11/113/13

Pass me through
this bisected flesh,
this disjoint bone,
these severed arteries,
split infinitives,
bloodless muscle
over bloodied soil.
Bear these words
before mountain and sea,
before Heaven and Earth,
eternal to my
fleeting soul,
fleeting to the sky's
eternal emptiness,
and should I stray
from this oath,
cut a covenant from me.

Eigenvalue Equation 10/24/13

Your soul must contain
the Identity operator
because you're an
Eigenfunction
of every heart that's
ever operated on you:
you take something
but Remain unchanged.
I can know you
and anything else
to Arbitrary precision.

Degradation Ceremony - 10/23/13

Wipe away the smudged make-up
that I ruined
before I ever applied it;
cast aside
clinking jewelry
crafted from discarded mementos;
strip;
peel back flushed skin;
scoop away viscera,
my liver poured out on the ground;
knot veins,
burn bones,
break heart and lungs;
penetrate cells,
shake off electron shells,
split protons down
to the jeweled quarks and gluons.

Then put me all back together
with a poem
and your favorite song
and your anecdotes about
your cousin
and your repeated
adventure stories
and your bitter rants
and your blushed cheeks
and parables about
physics equations.

Consistent Field - 10/22/13

The effective energy
from your presence
perturbs this system
beyond analytic solution,
computational approximation,
any sort of tidy answer
that I can pluck
from this situation
and apply to another.
I've made estimations
based on every single
previous confrontation,
yet the next never
coheres to my models.

Bottom Quark - 10/21/13

Bare beauty
like the fields between people
blinking out of sight
in the cross hairs
of our gaze;

what particles
transmit our
conversations
and shared glances?

with what metals
would you sculpt
the solutions to their
transcendental equations?

Adiabatic - 10/20/13

Not a brush of skin,
not a hint of sin,
get nothing out,
put nothing in,
better begin
to retreat,
keep your seat:
there hasn't
been any
transfer of heat,
not the slightest
insight
to your condition,
no disturbance
to your momentum
or position.
Suppose it was
just a rehearsal,
but it still
ended up
irreversible.

There Have Been Times - 10/19/13

You should know
that there have been times
in my life
where I didn't want to
run and hide
when confronted with conflict,
when I haven't licked back tears
and kick back fears
to be calm and collect.
There have been times
when I have been loyal
but not to a fault,
when I have been polite
but not to a fault,
when I have been quiet
but not to a fault.
There have been times
when I have scream.
It's true,
I can be loud, too.
And I can laugh,
really laugh,
not
whatever way you described it,
"held back."
There have been times
when I couldn't contain my smile
and when I wouldn't
hide my glares.
There have been times
when I have been unapologetic.

I know there have.
I just can't remember when.

Digital Realism and Unfinished Business - 10/19/13

Spiders
and the
BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH
have a special place
in the part of my mind
that obsesses,
contrives conspiracy theories
and researches
how Facebook orders my chat list.

So I should stop drinking
quad-shot mochas
and staring at flickering screens
and checking my phone.
But I should also stop riding
bikes without brakes
and going for walks at night
and avoiding my friends.
And should stop watching stories
and start writing them
but I want to know your story.
I want to hear your song.
I want to watch her and her soul mate
make eyes at each other
and smile
and reminisce.
Give me the answers
but don't make me
ask the questions.

I won't open that chat bubble
no matter how long
that green light is on.
I promise.
I'm trying.

Even I - 10/14/13

Even I can't fall in love with the moon in the sky,
even if I try,
not matter how I try.
I can't pull the stars out every night,
not with all my might,
no, not with all my might.
I can't turn a scream into a lullaby,
that would make you sigh,
that would make you cry.
I've got nothing up my sleeve,
nothing up my sleeve,
anymore.
I've got no more parables
to keep you warm,
to keep me warm.
Even I can't fall in love with the moon in the sky,
even if I try,
even when I try,
no matter how I try.

4am - 10/14/13

Bridges I've never crossed,
streets I've never passed,
people I've never spoken to
or will never get the chance to,
movies I've never seen,
poems I never wrote,
dreams I can't remember,

and nightmares that won't
leave me alone.

Sulfur - 10/14/13

The lilac sky
around midnight
tricks me into thinking
it's a fair time of day
to run away,
so when the lime lightning strikes,
I'm out of sight,
out of mind,
out of the line of fire.

Yes, I'll be far enough away
to taste the sulfur rain
on Venus.

Ordinary Ghost - 09/15/13

Hey, little wisp of smoke,
Hey, little spirit,
Hey, little transcendental passerby
Won't you tell me why
you're in this creaking house, why
you're in this gloomy room?
Why, little ghoul, oh why?
Shouldn't you be haunting
all the small things?
Shouldn't you be with
the Pumpkin King?
Shouldn't you, little spirit?
Shouldn't you, little spirit?
Oh, shouldn't you buzz,
little fly?

But you're an ordinary ghost
in this damn dark world
and you've been left behind
by all the vampires
who don't care if you're alright

But you're a quiet, little ghoul
in this deafening world
who's nothing beside
all the banshees
shrieking tonight

They're gonna tell you that
"Good little ghosts
don't go no where,
cuz you're only as loud
and the screams you snare."

Who are you haunting tonight?
I say,
who are you haunting tonight?
Little ghoul,
who is on your mind?
Who do you wish
wasn't afraid of the night?

They're gonna tell you that
"Good little ghosts
don't go no where,
cuz you're only as loud
and the screams you snare.
Good little girls
had better beware
of the darkness
lurking everywhere."
And if you try to ask
when the darkness persists,
those monsters will try
to feed you some bullshit
about how shadows are caused
by your light,
when you're the only thing
even close
to right.

But you're an ordinary ghost
in this damn dark world
and you've been left behind
by all the vampires
who don't care if you're alright

But you're a quiet, little ghoul
in this deafening world
who's nothing beside
all the banshees
shrieking tonight

Oh, little ghoul,
I promise I care
Oh, little ghoul,
I know it's tough out there
And, baby, I swear
You are scary
Oh, who is haunting you tonight?

Meditations on Letting Go - 09/09/13

I:
But if you ask the same of me,
I'd say,
"Never have been,
never will be,
but learning to live
with the consequences
and find stability."
So, by pale yellow light
reflected off bronze
that I can't believe
doesn't move when I look away,
I guess I meditate
with aid of orange juice
God never returned
slipping through my fingers
and trapped lyrics
dripping from my lips.
Sprinkler systems sputter
into white noise
intermittently broken by
passing feet and chatter
and crickets and humming
and an occasional direct address,
drawing my thoughts away
from the cobweb down
Jesus' bronze back
and to an even more
unfamiliar face.
Because:
"No, it's fine,"
and
"Sure, I've got time,"
but
"Just let me check up
on one thing,"
to confirm my bias
and push my mind
to draw reaching palms
from grooves in
rusticated stone.

Still, I am sure
that if I glance away
Jesus will reach to me
and explain,
"God left to get some orange juice,
but that was years ago.
It's time to grow up
and buy your own,"
as if it's a lesson
that I don't know.


II:
I wonder if anyone goes home
to write a poem
about meeting a
strange girl
meditating
on a statue
way too late
at night.


III:
Wine glass full of
soon forgotten
memories and
streetlights raining
parametric down
conversion from
birefringent crystals
in your mind,
fast and slow
axes indistinguishable.

I No Longer Know What I'm Feeling Without The Music Playing - 09/01/13

There's no better remedy
For anything
Than a melody
That breaks you even more
Than you've already been
There's not better cure
For all that ails you
Than what ails you
In perfect harmony
On repeat again

This is it, I'm giving up
So leave me with the music up
Don't worry, I'm fantastic
Just as long as I can blast it
Louder than my brain can think
And louder than my soul can dream
And louder than my heart can scream
For anyone or anything
To scream these lyrics with

At least I got some new bands
With this heart ache
To juxtapose all the smiles
That I fake
At least I got an anthem
To shout out
As the sky crumbles
And the stars all
Fall down

This beat's the catalyst
For my happiness
This song's how
I'm going to be an optimist
About it
I've got a playlist
For everything that I'm not feeling
When the drum line's why
There's not point in breathing
The bass is why
I'm through grieving
And the chorus
Is a therapeutic chain of events

At least I got some new bands
With this heart ache
To juxtapose all the smiles
That I fake
At least I got an anthem
To shout out
As the sky crumbles
And the stars all
Fall down

It's all burning away - 08/31/13

and although we think of it

as a tragedy,

as death and destruction,

associated with pain,

endings, loss,

natural forces beyond our control

fire

is an indication of

life.

Hannah

The best people
are the ones with whom
you may sit in silence
and work
without questions,
gossip, or forced
conversation.

Midday Bus on Thursday

large, oblong rain drops

fell on the cherry blossoms,

and pulled the whole flower

down

straight and slow,

through cold, late April air

to the leather seat

of a red-bodied motorcycle

outside an organic coffee shop.

Maybe Death will stop for me

Maybe Death will stop for me and the two of us will marry.
I'm sure he has a poet's soul from all the grief he carries.
With the wisdom from his age, he must be fair at math.
Together, we could spend our days with Neruda and calculus.
Death will chase me, court me, follow where I roam,
until I concede at last and follow Death home.
With razor blades and sleeping pills will he kiss me goodnight
and so shall we fall asleep and never again see light.

Doors and Stairways

My life has been all
doors and stairways
today. There have been the
wheezing doors of buses,
leading to the short, steep stairs
into the belly of the machine.
Doors in and out of classrooms,
stairs up and down floors.
Another bus.
In one building and out the next.

And then they turned on me,
doors and stairways,
twisting into a maze,
trying to trap me like
a fly in a web.

One door says "stairs,"
so I twist down them
and find a floor too late
the plaque reads:
"Roof Access
No B1 Access"
So I twist up them.

Second door says "stairs,"
so I peak inside
and check the plaque
before venturing down.
The plaque reads:
"No Roof Access
B1 Access"
so I twist down them.

Room numbers count up,
count down.
Jump to thirty,
jump to eight,
jump to forty.
70, 71, 79.
But a lime green post-it
on the door reads:
"Room 161
Phy 212 only."
79, 71, 70.
Jump to forty,
jump to eight,
jump to thirty.

wait for the elevator?
No, my life is all
doors and stairways
today. I twist up,
I don't ride.
Doors and stairways.

And skybridges
back to whichever land
isn't a maze.

She Bruises Easily But Heals Quickly - 08/19/13

Before you worry
that she's gonna get hurt
remember:
she's been hurt before.
And, every time,
she picks herself up,
dusts herself off,
and climbs the same damn tree.
She believes that,
rather than finding another tree
that she can scale effortlessly,
she ought to get better
with what she's got
because she's been conditioned
to believe
that happiness doesn't come easily,
that's it's something to be fought for,
something to be earned,
something to be practiced,
something to be learned.
So before you rush in
to bandage her knees,
remember:
she may bruise easily,
but she heals quickly
and she's just going
to get back in that tree.

35 - 07/21/13

What's the point
of having a bus pass
if you never run away
from a Sunday afternoon
and ride a line,
end to end,
alone,
headphones in,
notebook out,
camera on,
emotions off?

Camera - 07/09/13

My momma's camera can't seems to see
the images that make my eyes gleam
now I know the real mystery
is that everything is what it seems to be
but I don't know how they ever convinced me
that that's any reason to believe

I turned right when I should have turned left
and ended up biking a mile uphill
only to come back down it
so by the time I found my way around it
the sun had set and the trail was closed
and the streetlights were telling me to go home
which I guess is for the best
because they don't allow bikes anyway
so I suppose I'll come back earlier another day

See, I only get lost following street signs
but if I walk out in the woods,
I'll make it home just fine,
I know that you'd rather stay inside
and not talk to me
which I guess is alright
but if you ever feel
like being dumb at night
I know the back roads
like the stars know the sky

I want to end up lost in the country side,
where there's about a mile between each street sign
and in the middle of the road, the yellow lines
are faint and faded in the star light

Because I want to take your picture,
on the hood of your car,
completely relaxed, staring up at the stars,
stunned into babbling
instead of being so reserved
and I want to take your picture in the city,
and I want to take your picture at the movies,
and I want to take your picture on a bridge over a river,
telling your best friend about the beauty
of some obscure folk punk song
that you've been muttering all day long

See, I only get lost up in my mind,
but if I don't pay attention,
I make it home just fine
I know that you'd rather stay inside
and not talk to me
which is more than alright
but if you ever feel like doing something dumb tonight
I got a brand new bike
and, for you, I'd ride 'til the stars leave the sky

Ghost Fields - 07/05/13

All I want
is to go to punk shows
and take math classes
and write poems
and do physics experiments
and listen to an album,
start to finish,
with my head against your chest

Willamette - 06/28/13

The western skies are green
and the clouds above are
artificial-grape-flavoring purple
and the air tastes like musky basements
but the wind

oh the wind

feels like song lyrics
and watermelon
and childhood bike rides.

You're seeing stars
and he's seeing skylines
and neither of you realize
you're looking at the same thing

which might just be
meant to be.

Second Degree Burns From The Sun - 06/09/13

I've been peeling away a layer of dead skin
That had turned blue from all the aloe I rubbed in
Hopping it would be okay
If I gave it another day
But the thing that I've learned
About burns
Is they take a few days to get worse
The things that I wish I had known
When I got it a week ago

When a month ago
I almost burned a hole
In something much more delicate
Than the skin between my shoulder blades
When a month ago
I almost burned one of
The five best things in my life away

If I hear one more song about the burning in your heart
I swear I'm gonna actually start a fire.
I wish I could start with your desire
But I can't
So I guess I'll aim a little higher

The lesson that I've learned
Is never ever go outside
And, seriously, try not to fall in love
Can you imagine what it'd be like
If I took my own advice?
I'd probably die of Vitamin D deficiency
So I guess fire's alright with me

So, if I'm going out in flames anyway

When they describe me, I hope they never say
"She has skin so fair, she gets second degree burns from the sun.
Her lips are chapped
And her glasses are cracked
And she doesn't know a thing about flirting or romance or love."
No, tell them about physics and the writing and the
...
Yeah, I guess that's the best of what I've got.
But tell them about my friends
and video games and poetry
and the hereditary madness I never caught.
And whatever you do,
Please don't give them the impression
That I'm the kind of girl who falls in love
With someone's musical obsessions.
I mean, I am
I just want you to think that I'm not.

But most of all
I just hope they never say
That I have green eyes

Goddammit,
My eyes are gray

a little bit louder now - 06/02/13

it's a big fat fucking lie
and i long for so much more

but am content
at only this

Soft Serenade - 06/02/13

Despite
ignited engines,
thumping speaks
in chilled chest cavities,
bombshells and butterflies
begging to be released,
roars resonating
in riveting rockets,

I long only to sit,
lips meeting in a gentle, silent smile,
and listen to you call
universes
into being with your words.

exorcism - 05/28/13

there's something about
the way he murmurs wisps of lyrics
and decrescendos of choruses
from songs I've never heard
that siphons anxieties
and mathematical conceptions of time
right out of my veins

14 Reasons I Shouldn't Own A Knife - 05/27/13

1.
While chopping plums for a smoothie,
I found a hard, sharp bit
of thumbnail
and paused for a long moment
wondering where it came from
before thinking to examine
my thumb.

2.
There was a red substance on the glass
and all I could think was
"Did I really just buy tainted glass?"
before noticing the red substance
spilling from my ring finger.

3.
Foam bubbles
on a beach,
the water washing out
and never coming in,
running and chasing
seaweed figures
until the return
that tried to swallow
all of me.
But I got some rainboots.
But Haylie doesn't like yellow.

4.
Heat wave in third grade,
but I was convinced
that I didn't need a sip of water
until the world started swaying
and I wound up
back in first grade
while my little brother's class
celebrated.

5.
I almost walked in to traffic
while reading.

6, 7.
Multiple times.

8.
My first worry
was the blood stains
on my favorite nightshirt.

9.
My second was that
my roommate might see them.

10.
2am is the best time
for a walk
and an adventure for ice cream,
at least in my opinion.

11.
Brakes on bikes
are unnecessary
if you're going downhill,
although I'll admit
that I should have brought
a helmet.

12.
Quiet hotel rooms
and walks in strange cities
at way too late in the evening
that start spirals
of too many bad things.

Like, 8 bad things.

13.
Everything those lead to,
each shudder,
each lie,
each safety pin
and broken plastic fork
and pair of sewing scissors
and fruit knife.

14.
Whatever is coming
tomorrow.

Umbrellaless - 05/23/13

The weather tricked us into thinking
early May was summer
when growing up here
I should have known it was a lie,
so we've been going through
avocados and orange juice
like they're crack and tootsie rolls
and we've been pretending
computer screens are sunlight
and movie marathons are picnics.
We need the artificial sunlight
to block out the bad vibes
that the pounding rain
and air conditioning
in the dead summer dorm
have been force-feeding us
all week.

This Fucking Ballpoint Pen - 05/21/13

Lamor precession
of whatever spin down
state I've collapsed into
with the same songs
same equations
same lines of code echoing
27, 28 times
over and over
asking

"Why must you do this
to yourself?"

RMS - 05/21/13

I have trust issues
with boys
who recommend
songs that slip into the bloodstream
and clot in my wrists.

Yelling - 05/20/13

1. When they tell you that you can do anything, you don't have to believe them.  You don't have to be strong.  You don't have to be confident.  You don't have to agree.  When they tell you that you can do anything, storm away shouting that you can't and you like it that way.

2.  When they tell you that you can do everything and you shrink back in fear, because anything is too much to handle and everything is everything times worse, don't let them smile about your modesty.

3. When they try to agree with you, that you can't do anything, that you can't be everything, turn the music up louder, shove your fingers in you ears, sing sad songs and mad songs and love songs and swear.

4. When they tell you something, tell them they're wrong.  It's science.

Blunt - 05/18/13

What's a poem ever going to say that you would want to hear, that you would perk up to, that you would wrap in a napkin and slip out of the restaurant to examine later, dainty words on satin or hasty verse on paper, on trash, on the back of a checklist of important things I ran from for fear of failure.  For fear of success?  Words I threw out the back of my mind because they could never be answered or threw out my lips because any more thoughts would only have made them worse.  Blunt words like broken plastic on soft flesh, startling, stinging, strange.  Yet I can't imagine why that metaphor must be the one to come to mind when, I swear, I'm health and happy and better, though even more so with you.  Because I don't need any more heart-broken albums on repeat, but I downloaded all the ones you sent me to, every song you said you loved, but not because you loved them, not because I loved them either, but because it worked out that we both did.  Because you listen to the songs I loved and heard the magic pluck of strings and tap of cymbals with the s's of the lyrics and the poetry lamented to dark symphonies.  Because each thought in your head is alone worthy of love and all of them woven together as your mind, as your soul, well, damn, where do I even begin to begin to beg each readers and listener to let their heart swell with each soft sentence that rambles from your lips and blush when they realize it's sly compliments that they should be scared they can't live up to but aren't because, hell, just because you wouldn't lie to them, now would you?  Because brainy is the new sexy and book recommendations are the new flirtation and song lyrics are monologues that fit my thoughts too perfectly to be sung.  Because you sing, little snip-its of old songs and sad songs and love songs.  Because you watch sad movies and I swear that I don't but I also swear that I'm Vulcan and I think you and I can both guess how much you can trust my swears but who cares?  Because in a few minutes I'll have thought of something a thousand times better to say, the right moves, the right song in the background, the right hand gestures and heaves of my shoulders.  Because it will be too late, so I might as well be blunt.

Because you make me want to write poems, which has never been a good thing before.

She Never Put Her Heels On - 04/26/13

The universe
has runs in her stockings
the origins of which
we have been trying
to describe
since Copernicus
first looked to
the skies.

Give It To Me Straight - 04/07/13

The Venn Diagram
of what I'm saying
and what I'm thinking
is two circles
separated by
several feet of





emptiness.

Second Things - 03/13/13

The second thing I think

when I pick up a pair of scissors

is what I'm going to do with them:

cut paper,

remove price tags,

free hair.

The second thing I think

when I look out over a bridge

is how beautiful the water is.

The second thing I think

when I see a piece of rope

Okay, that's not a good example.

I haven't seen any rope in some time

and I don't know what the second thing I'd think

would be if I did.

What do normal people think

when they see rope?

The second thing I think 

when I pick up my razor in the morning

is where I'll be shaving.

I'm waiting for the day

when the second things I think

will be the first things I think

and the first things I think

won't even cross my mind

because those scissors don't cross

my flesh anymore,

so why do those thoughts

still fall past my eyes

and drown heart beats

in nerves;

so why do those thoughts

still linger,

hung from the rafters

of old habits,

the way I still skip meals

not on purpose, 

but because I honestly forget,

patterns ingrained no longer in my veins

but parts of me

still think they are.

Still Don't Know Linear Algebra - 03/09/13

If meaning is a vector,
can I write poetry with tensors
with an invariant
that grapples at
some object truth
that I have turned away from?

The Ultraviolet Catastrophe - 03/04/13

I built a world
on observations of stars
running backwards,
missing pieces,
imaginary numbers,
and infinite energies
in all the wrong places.

So when the i's
fell into possibilities,
as probabilities somewhere,
as certainties some times,
gentle lines fell along data points
and familiar constants
marketed security as truth,
which I bought in
tera electron volts.

Calculators away,
pens down, papers over,
but left behind
were a pile of dots and squiggles
and my imagination
to build universes
from the scraps of broken lives.

Haylie Says Things And I Listen - 03/03/13

When she described me to her friends,
she said that I had eyes that looked very



far


away, but dressed like I knew
exactly where I was.

Photon - 02/01/13

I feel like a photon,
light:
massless,
unconstrained,
free.

Yet full:
infinite,
stable,
existing across all time
and no space,
everywhere and when.

I feel like a photon:
light and full.

As I wander,
I am going
nowhere and anywhere,
with all the time
in my frame.

If I could feel
each separate atom
I am comprised of,
would I feel
me?

But I do not feel
in Newtonian systems
but as strings of events:
a bend in the knuckle
to a wrinkle in the finger,
to a twitch in the forearm,
to a soreness in the shoulders,
to a stiffness in the neck,
to a freedom in the mind.

I feel me
all at once.
Like a photon.

Light and full.

Wish Granted - 01/30/13

Some  sensual, level woman,
leaning calmly against an aqua bus stop sign,
brilliant aubern hair contrasting,
taking a long, thoughtful look
at the twists and turns of the road,
looked at me
as I paused
and looked at her

and we both said,
"Hello."

Avidya - 01/18/13

Slowly, my child,

must you walk upon this Earth,

and slowly, my child,

you must look,

for your eyes see but

the tiny fraction of the spectrum

that the universe

could fit inside your book.

Slowly must you examine

all that lies before you,

slowly must you observe each turn,

slowly must you analyze

the illusion that you see,

slowly, my child, must you learn.

Slowly, my child,

must you listen to the waves

at frequencies

that say barely anything at all,

while the universe, my dear,

ranges far beyond your ears,

from the infinite to the infinitesimal.