When I Say That You're Stardust - 01/19/14

Don't let anyone tell you that you can be anything;
that if you dream it, you can be;
that you'll get anywhere wishing on stars.
This world was not built to grant your wishes,
nor mine,
and, someday, you'll find
that your blood is required to get very far.
I want you to know this going in.
I don't want you to know
that the world is mostly darkness;
I want you to know
that you're the world's only light.
I don't want you to know
that life is a battlefield;
I want you to know
when and how to fight.
I don't want you to know
your place;
I want you to know
how to scream,
I want you to know
what your words taste like
when they leave your mouth;
how to say "love" and mean it;
how to say "hate" and mean it;
what equality looks like,
what power feels like,
and how to have the parts
of both that you want and need
in order to breathe
a sigh of relief
in this eighty, ninety, hundred year struggle
of your life.

I want you to know
you'll never get anywhere wishing on stars.
I want you to know
you'll get exactly where you are
and you'll never be happy
if you aren't allowed
to watch comet trails in the night
and imagine a utopia
where you don't have to fight
for the right to be
exactly the way you were born.
I want you to know
that a star is more you
than a mirror and
I want you to know
that the same is true
for everyone you meet.
I don't want you to know
that you can be anything
because I want you to know
that you are everything.

Increased Police Activity on 82nd - 01/02/14

A healer handed me
a miracle stone
while we waited for the bus
outside of a bank
being robbed,
red and blue flashing lights
for a block in
every direction.
He said I was going to be
on a magazine
because I had vision.
He said to remember
that no matter how much
hate, racism, and evil
we encounter,
there is also and always
love.

2014 - 01/01/14

Capture the world in more words and memories
and less regrets and fantasies.
More tea, less coffee;
more coffee, less espresso shots;
more espresso shots, less procrastination;
more procrastination to look at the stars.
Look at the stars.
Look at the moon.
Ask friends to walk with me,
ask friends to dine with me,
watch movies with me,
laugh with me,
sit in silence and study with me.

Hannah

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

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.

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."

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - 11/28/12

(Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta!)

You say that you don't want to waste your time
On things you'll never use in life
Like me
And the equation that describes
The ratio between a hypotenuse
And its adjacent side

But I've derived another equation
To show that this relation
-ship ain't changing,
That our derivative is undefined
At every single point in time

So tell my electron orbitals
Exactly how inadmissible
Are Legendre and Bessel?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
You'll never know oh, oh, oh, oh
How far I'll go oh, oh, oh, oh
oh-oh-oh-oh, OH!
Because you're stuck on position
So momentum has gone missing
The only thing that you'll be kissing
Is my uncertainty goodbye

The electro-magnetic spectrum
Can account for your deflection
Einstein knows how to describe
The speed at which you're telling lies
Heisenberg wouldn't be concerned
With the indeterminism in every word
That's coming from your direction
At 333 meters per second

I don't care how you insist
Because you're a third derivative
So you can bet that you won't see me
As n approaches infinity
I'm rocking off to divergence
Unconstrained by your convergence
Your factorials just weren't worth it

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
You'll never know oh, oh, oh, oh
How far I'll go oh, oh, oh, oh
oh-oh-oh-oh, OH!
Because you made the wrong calculations
At every step of this derivation
And found only the equation
Of my velocity goodbye

I'm so done with this discontinuity
Gibbs phenomenon even at infinity
You're the zero in the denominator
Time-dependence in a Hamiltonian operator
But once the boundary condition's imposed
Out of my equations you'll go

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
You'll never know oh, oh, oh, oh
How far I'll go oh, oh, oh, oh
oh-oh-oh-oh, OH!
Because you're stuck on position
So momentum has gone missing
The only thing that you'll be kissing
Is my uncertainty goodbye

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
You'll never know oh, oh, oh, oh
How far I'll go oh, oh, oh, oh
oh-oh-oh-oh, OH!
Because you made the wrong calculations
At every step of this derivation
And found only the equation
Of my velocity goodbye

You'll never know
You'll never know
You'll never know, oh-oh-oh-oh, OH!

The Photoelectric Effect - 11/25/12

I cleaned out my idea books

to make room for textbooks,

set down my quantum books

to fiddle with computer programs,

rid my mind of poetry

to welcome in philosophy,

turned away from all I felt

until I thought no more.

But the stars don't care

how you interpret

quantum mechanics

or what images

you make with them

or how you came to be,

for they are

your creator,

the still image

of their past lives

making its way to you,

slowly.

I turn away and the light

cannot be said to shine.

When I do not write about them,

they do not wait,

yet are still where I left them

when I come to my senses,

turn back around

and see.

The city lights are star,

fallen on the ground,

and the path I take to see them,

a black hole's event horizon,

dangerous and dark,

Nine pm out on the bluff,

with cold stars of night air

burning my burnt fingers,

and stars of water molecules

rippling down below

and stars of thrilling melodies

ringing from the bell tower

and stars of my own,

palpable as I peak

from under a branch

and the city glitters into being,

stars of probability functions and many-worlds

collapsing in the existence of many-minds

but somehow always the way I see it,

and only when I see it.

Each scientist and poet

got their fame

by listening to the stars

and reporting what they heard.

No more or less

could ever be said

about anything in the world,

but stars and stars

is all we are,

little nuclear reactors of light

so bright

our after image spans the solar system,

pushing further everyday.

0.707 - 10/30/12

I feel like
one over the
square root of two
is following me
everywhere I go,
in each math problem,
physics equation,
chemistry example;
one number
is creeping
over my calculator's screen,
repeating eerily,

0.707.

I feel like
Pascal is following me
everywhere I go,
at each decision I make,
each hesitance,
each crossroad,
one flawed argument,
encroaching on all
my on-goings,
whispering,

"The reward outweighs
the cost."

I feel like
Robert Oppenheimer
has an apartment
in my brain,
a little one room studio
covered in books
and white boards
and equations
and bags of tea,
with Curie next door
on the right
and Bohr next door
on the left.
Joe Strummer,
Pablo Neruda, and
Langston Hughes
live a floor below.
Captain Picard,
Hamlet, and
Carl Sagan
live a floor above.
They all wander in and out
of the lobby
of my cerebellum,
chit chatting,
gossiping,
deriving equations,
mincing verse
and memorized lines,
yet all end up saying,

"Physics or Poetry?"

I feel like
OR
is following me
everywhere I go,
defining what I can
and can never
have, hold, be,
taunting aspirations,
burning lists of goals,
tearing down
carefully crafted towers
of fanciful futures
in harmonies of

"Position or momentum?
Emotion or structure?
Science or art?"

I feel like
the things I think of
too often
have warped my mind
around them
and the only path
to freedom is

AND.

West and Lance - 09/14/12

I wrote you a letter

And I sent it in the mail

And I hope that you get it soon

Because life is better

Though the world is frail

And I need you to know it too

The internet can't deliver

Butterscotch candies

You can't fill and email with glitter

It's enough

To keep in touch

But heartache requires so much

More to keep you from growing bitter

So I wrote it all down on paper

And shoved it all inside

An envelope no bigger
Than the words that I did write

I sealed it with a poem

I signed it with a sigh

I sent it off to no one

Who can't tell truth from lie

I wrote you a poem

And I sent it in the mail

And I hope that it finds its way home

Because despite the world's solemn

And despite the world's ail

I want you to know how I’ve grown

I’ve written 300 poems

About giving up

And only a dozen about trying

I’ve spent so much time

Keeping it all inside

From the actually tears

To the fear of crying

So, Hallelujah,

You can break me down

Any time that you like

Because though he's on the east coast

And she's within a day's bike ride,

It'll always be there names

Those cords bring to mind

So I wrote it all down on paper

And shoved it all inside

An envelope no bigger
Than the words that I did write

I sealed it with a poem

I signed it with a sigh

I sent it off to no one

Who can't tell truth from lie

I won't ever know

Whether it was just a phase

But I know that I never will care

Because each painful step

On each tortured leg

Are my stories to share

Are what got me from there to here

This is what I need to tell you

This is what you need to hear:

I love you, I miss you,

I'll never forget you,

Our friendship grows stronger each year,

You're brilliant, you're beautiful,

Hilarious and wonderful,

Steadfast and noble,

Insane and uncontrollable,

And you've given me the strength

And the hope and the brains

To continue without any fear

So I wrote it all down on paper

And shoved it all inside

An envelope no bigger
Than the words that I did write

I sealed it with a poem

I signed it with a sigh

I sent it off to no one

Who can't tell truth from lie

Una Taza de Corazón - 09/11/12

La cosa sobra

té con cafeína

es que lo tiene

cafeína pero

no tiene tan

mucho cafeína

como café.

Café me hace

saltar y correr

cuando quiero

escribir o estudiar.

Café me hace

dormir y descansar

cuando quiero

saltar o correr.

Café me hace

escribir y estudiar

cuando quiero

dormir o descansar.

La cosa sobra

té con cafeína

es que no lo

tiene tan mucho

cafeína como café.

Té me hace

calma y tranquila

cuando todo mi

trabajo me ha

rabiado.

Té me hace

escribir con fuerte

cuando mi estrés

ha robado mi

imaginación.

Té me hace

sonreír

donde café

me haga

querer llorar

con tema.

Café me da

dolor de mente.

Té destruye

mi pena.

Graffiti Poetry #7 - 09/07/12

The week always seems
to drag on infinitely,
then Friday arrives

Graffiti Poetry #5 - 09/06/12

Each human being
is burdened with
the seeds of creativity,
the building blocks
of beauty,
the framework of elegance,
the blueprints of perfection,

which we use to build bombs.

Can't you imagine
a world where those tools
are used for creation?

A Plant is Not an Individual - 09-01-12

One small church in North Portland

had an unfinished mural

in a basement that hasn't been used in six years,

and a Sunday School teacher

who wrote a lesson each week

for a class of only herself.

But we thought to fix it

because a plant is not an individual -

one blade of grass

connects to its kin -

as you can see by

hacking ivy to the ground

only to watch it refulrish,

the raspberry vines

clawing up from the dirt

only a few days later,

the rose rooted deep

in the cement.

Something more lurks

beyond berries,

beyond leaves,

beyond vines,

beyond what what we think of as a plant.

But a plant is not an individual;

it would not refer to itself as I,

but as we;

it will not whither when bits die,

does not bleed when leaves fall.

Yet even when

the hoe overturns the earth

and the ivy have been tugged

and the raspberry vines have been cut

and one persistent root has been extracted

from a its encasing of a chunk of cement,

all I find are hidden garlic clovers,

growing wild under the ivy.

Debate Guys - 02/18/12

Ladies, how many times in your life
have you opened a sentence with the line
“So, there's this guy . . .”
Well, pardon the cliché reality
of my presumed originality,
but I'd like to flip that phrase to say:
 
So, there's this carbon-based life form,
the product of 4 billion of evolution
compressed into 40 trillion cells,
the way Carl Sagan jammed it into 40 seconds
and flipped my perceptions around,
this boy flips my whole brain around.
 
He's hot like an exothermic reaction,
fly like the numerator in a fraction.
He's got more sex appeal than Richard Feynman,
so in a crowded room, it's not hard to find him.
 
Oh, and he looks damn fine in a suit.
And he's a debate guy, so it's not hard to find him in a suit.
There's something about those debate guys,
spouting statistics like I write rhymes,
with arrogant smirks and pick-up lines,
with confident voices and easily-rolled eyes.
Damn, those debate guys are fine.
 
And this boy, this carbon-based life form,
the product of thousands of years of genetic manipulation
ending in this culmination of human expectation,
is sassy and sexy and arrogant
and I like that.
Some girls don't, saying,
“Ew, get away.”
And I say, “Hey, baby, walk my way.”
 
He's smarter than Jimmy
Cooler than a neutron
Sweeter than glucose
Hotter than a bomb-omb
And on top of everything, he's a great debater.
 
He is everything nerdy little me could ask for,
so I summoned all my courage, and then some more,
and I asked him out, and he said,
“Maybe later.”
 
I broke down all barriers,
brought my heart on an aircraft carrier,
and I asked him out and he said,
“Maybe later.”
 
Because on top of all his admirable features
are also all the twists and detours,
the unavailability,
and the over commitment to everything.
So, maybe later.
 
But I'm finding it hard to accept,
because direct rejection is not what I met.
So I haven't quite given up yet,
believing your heart is still mine to get.
 
See, I'm a non-ohmic device:
a flash of your smile, and my resistance decreases.
Dear, you're like ozone in the troposphere:
when you're near, my respiration ceases.
Guys like you are more rare than Platinum,
so let's Fluorine Uranium Carbon Potassium!
(Periodic table joke. Look it up.)
 
I don't mean to be obsessive, creepy, or alarming,
but when I'm with you, I feel sparks.
And I know I'm strange, but you're so charming,
so together we could be second generation quarks.
 
You're the sunlight to my photosynthesis,
the conclusion to my Extended Essay's thesis.
(IB joke. Don't look that one up. It's terrifying.)
I think about you more than Euler did math.
I sure hope our vectors aren't skew,
so we can cross paths.
 
But I suppose it's not a matter of how you make me feel,
if so we would have sealed this deal.
It's the fact that you don't like me,
and I get it,
I can totally see.
I mean,
I'm like calling pink “anti-green,”
just weird.
But don't you know how explosive we'd be
if you were my anti-Tangereen?
 
So, go out with me.
Because I may be pretty far from perfectly flawless,
but I'm no where near perfectly flawed.
Because this confidence is why public nudity
had to be outlawed.
Because I am the arrogant, crazy girl
who wrote a slam to demand that you go out with her
even though I'm reasonably sure
you'll still say, “No way!”
I'm still here anyway.
Because I am the Alex Dang of poetry,
the Queen of IEs,
the quiet physics geek
waiting to be adorable and sweet,
for no other reason than because I can.
Because I am the warrior princess -
duchess -
maiden?-
 
Because I am the warrior girl
with gray eyes like daggers
and fingers curled,
ready to take on the world
or at least momentary discomfort
if it means the slightest chance at love.
Because I am the warriors girl
with a sword in her heart and a shield on her soul.
The wielder of words like fire
and a voice soft as snow.
Because I am the warrior girl,
strong and brave,
who doesn't care if her heart breaks,
willing to do whatever it takes,
to stay happy enough to continue to be strong and brave.
 
But that doesn't mean it's perfectly okay if you say no,
that I'll be alright, don't worry.
It means stop breaking my heart
before I give up completely.
So I'll ask one last time
before I'm forced to move on with me life:
Can I take you to lunch sometime?

The Thoughts I Cling To - 10/16/11

I am not as naive as you may think.
I know the reasons
why people talk to me
and they reasons
why they do not.
I know what you want from me
when you ask who my English teacher is
and I know the conversation
at that point
is nearing an end.
And although I do not appreciate it,
although it makes me sign,
although it makes me want to cry,
although I hate to let go,
I do, because I know the reasons
why people talk to me.

But for each rejected friendship,
each abusive overuse
of my accommodations,
each time I allow myself
and my patience
and my fragile, lonely heart
to be taken advantage of
for no reason other than that is the reason
why people talk to me,

but for all of this,
I can list ten better things
and lie so hard about how
they make me happy
that the lies become true and
I smile.

Tea and cookies
and kittens
and squeaky cat sneezes.
Math homework,
half-naked college boys,
400 level physics classes,
chocolate bars, and facebook notifications.
When the perfect, mood-fitting song
comes on shuffle.
Best friends,
watermelon,
snow,
and understanding Shakespeare.
Exclamation marks and video games
and poetry
and the thought that
you might someday find this poem
and apologize.

Synesthesia - 10/15/11

I had no desire
for anything to do with
your heart, your mind, your soul.
You were cute,
that was all that I wanted to think.
You were handsome,
that was all that I wanted
running  through my mind
when I blushed as you walked by.
I wanted a lobotomy,
a heart transplant,
and a computer with a sex drive for a soul.

And you stood up
with a binder full of poetry
and read.

There is magic
in the universe,
particles smaller that electrons,
dimensions I can’t see,
physics I can’t understand.
There is music in the cosmos,
vibrations of heart strings,
sighs at frequencies yet unimagined.
You read poetry
and I heard the space’s symphony.
You spoke art
and I saw sound,
colors replacing noise,
filling the room with swirls
of painted vapor.

So pardon me
if I flirt,
despite knowing your heart
belongs to another girl,
because I saw pixie dust descend
over a classroom
and I felt light enough to fly,
because I tasted music and poetry
and would have swallowed it whole,
given anything more than the aroma,
because it doesn’t matter
what comes of longing and looking,
only that I can enjoy the view,
because life is too long,
love is boring,
and although I cannot
control feeling good,
I can try my hardest not to care.

Tea High - 10/11/11

I sip smooth silk
from a sheep-shaped
tea cup,
mellowing green one round,
drowsy apple cinnamon chamomile
the next time I pour
smooth silk
to a sheep-shaped
tea cup.
Two small spoons of sugar,
a dash of half and half,
sip deeply,
drink kindly.
Eyes droop slightly,
the tea opening your soul.
All around, the family
snaps and clashes,
bordering on fights,
but all I can say is,
“Tea makes me happy.”
And how it does.
Smooth silk
warming frosty heart,
soothing sad insides,
relaxing the over-active,
ever-worrying,
constantly-running mind
with the sweet of sugar,
velvet of a dash of half and half,
and the chamomile goodness.
Glorious green tea needs a refill.
Set the rusty red kettle on the burner,
wait for the whistle
to answer your prayers
of the drink you
need to keep calm and happy.
Bring forth genuine joy
despite the devastating dirges
and boisterous bellowing
echoing in the tiny kitchen
for this smooth silk
from a sheep-shaped
tea cup
has brought onto my soul
a blanket of herbal drugs
that mellow each sharp word
so it hits my ears as cotton.

I should drink more tea.

September Chill - 09/26-11

Your empire spans the continents
Transverses seas
Engulfs the globe.

Mighty, strong, ever-present.
It see all,
Hears all
Consumes all

It is ever thirsty,
Ever lurking in the shadows
Behind the sphere,
On the edge of the umbra,
Waiting for the turn of the Earth
To feed it.

Your Empire of the Dead,
Your control over graveyards
Your legacy of corpses



The flower blooms,
Perfect petals release perfume
Designed to entrap and entreat
The scent smiles upon your soul
And caresses the deep aches
The smell is the closest thing
Your nose will feel
To the melancholy the ears dread and pray for
Of a Dewdrop Sonata
Elegantly crafted to strike tears within seconds
As if specific
Just for those ears


Heavy boots
Young men
Bold heart
Red hearts
Bleeding hearts
Exposed organs and brain matter
So pretty on the petals



The September chill has set in.
My bones chip of icicles each morning,
I yawn and shudder and keep moving.
The empire slows me not.