inverted circles - 04/25/14

i feel so goddamn hollow
like there's nothing left of me
but tired
like there's nothing left of me
but empty
like there's nothing left of me

no momentum 
no energy
no physics math or poetry

like i could pass
right through me
but i can't crease or tear

i feel so goddamn hollow

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.

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

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.

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?

Writer's Block - 11/25/12

The night could give
so much more inspiration
could my fingers bare
the cold.

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

My Best Pens - 09/11/12

The best pens

I’ve ever had

were stolen from

classroom floors

and Debate tournaments,

the ones no one

thought enough of

to remember

to bring home

became the ones

I panic over

misplacing

and use to scribble

poems in the margins.

I've Never Met Anyone as Creative as a Physicist - 09-04-12

I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist,

and I’ve met a lot of people

who called themselves artists.

I've met sculptors

who could recreate the figure of a man

in marble

and ones who could stimulate

the feel of the wind

in the folds of stone clothes

and ones who sparked chaos

in the hearts of viewers

with the combination of colored glass

spheres and spikes

on black marble,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

I've met poets

who could change childhood memories

into political allegories

and ones who made screams

sound like the lullabies

your mother never sang

and ones who made you taste

their potent lyrics,

some shoved down your throat

like medicine

and others slipped in your drink

when you weren't looking,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

I've met painters

who turned three pigments

into all the colors of the world

and ones who lathered brush strokes

so thick

you could see them come out of

the canvas

and feel the peaks and valleys

of the landscapes

and ones who gave a physical form

to the deepest feelings

I've never known how to put to words

in poetry or conversation,

the kind of feelings that when people ask,

“Are you alright?”

you just cannot answer,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

I've met musicians

who found the resonance frequency

of the human heart

and ones who could turn a melody

into a memory

without ever uttering a word

and ones who wove so many

different sounds together

to produce one simple harmony

that makes me shiver

every time

it flirts through my ears,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

The artists use that which we

see or touch or hear or smell or taste

to speak of all the things

that we can't

see or touch or hear or smell or taste.

They create new ways to

understand love

and life

and pain.

They create

that which we feel

in that which doesn't feel.

But a physicist

takes that which we can

see or touch or hear or smell or taste

and all that which we can't

and organizes it

in ways no one else has imagined,

no one else has fathomed,

no one else bothered to look for.

But a physicist

sees that which it is physically impossible to see,

touches that which has no mass,

hears frequencies over your ears' capabilities.

But a physicist

puts it all together.

But a physicist

creates everything

from the smallest particles

to the biggest galaxies

in equations,

turns patterns into predictions,

makes meaning from madness,

creates coherence in chaos.

But a physicist

fathoms all that is -

not limited to

that which their mind

or their heart

already knows -

and forms it such that

we all can comprehend it.

But a physicist

finds ways

to simplify the cosmos

while the artists

try to fill it up with

meaning.

I have never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

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?

She's Very Pretty From Far Away - 10/15/11

This has probably been said,
in a previous poem,
but on dreary nights
such as this,
when I return to old poems
with a gloomy music backdrop,
I relive those
feelings, those
thoughts, those
moments of futile sadness.
It is in those bleak moments
that I come to understand
why he wouldn’t want to talk to me,
the real reason I don’t care about prom,
the best course of action
in my social life.

Maybe I was meant to be
a scientific poet,
mixing physics equations
into verse
and observing love from
a cold neutron star
light years from the feelings.
Dead stars don’t care
if you’re awkward, or nervous,
or helplessly sad.
Dead stars don’t worry
and stand back when they see
your dark thoughts.
Dead stars don’t feel,
it’s as simple as that.
Dead stars don’t care,
can’t.

Should I accept that fate?
Should I step away from the scene,
float back to the star,
watch his movements
and never speak up?
Something keeps nagging
that I should,
telling me it’s best
but for once I can’t figure out
who it is.
Certainly not the heart.
And the mind is lonely
and bored
and overrun with hormones.
And the soul is
exasperated and sad.
The body’s voice is obvious,
if obnoxious.
So who is saying no?
Who bites my lip until it scars
and says “Never, never, never”?

There’s a part of me
that doesn’t want
to be happy.
I don’t write very well when I’m cheerful.
All my fantasies
are smeared with blood.
All my thoughts follow suit.
And my only dreams
are horror scenes.

I know that part,
wherever, whoever it is,
I know it is wrong.




So why do I listen?

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.

Free As A Word - 08/29/11

The wind in my hair
And the sun on my face
A beautiful smile
In the right place
Freedom of heart
Lightness of mind
On cloudy days
I now find sunshine

I've broken the chains on my heart
Free as bird, but where do I start?
Fly up north to the beautiful snow
Or down south for the sun's glow?
I could fly East to friendship
Or West to new love
Or I could stay where I am just because
I can

I tried feeling sorry
I tried regret
But I’ve decided
Each new day should be the best
I’ve finally kicked
Every tear from my eyes
Headed straight forward
No fear of goodbyes

I can’t be hurt
And I can’t be wronged
And I can’t be stopped
From singing every song
About how happy
I’ve made myself
By leaving your side
And jumping the shelf

I've broken the chains on my heart
Free as bird, but where do I start?
Fly up north to the beautiful snow
Or down south for the sun's glow?
I could fly East to friendship
Or West to new love
Or I could stay where I am just because
I can

I’ve no more worries
About what you’ll think
I’ll write what I want
And let your heart sink
I don’t give a damn
About the whole wide world
Call me a bitch if you want
But I’m just a happy girl
I’ll live my life for myself
From here on
Accepting and loving
Whoever comes along
With the sun on my hair
And the wind in my face
I’ve finally found
A peaceful, happy place

Unplug - 07-14-11

So turn off the LEDs
Smash in the computer screen
Pull these USBs from my veins
Tune out the suped up cars
Lock up all the movie stars
Cut the power line to my brain

Well, Ke$ha, you’ve got a pretty voice
So I wonder if you have any choice
Or if it’s the producers who let the computer sing
Beyoncé, you were the queen of pop
But three years without an album and it all stops?
Even the best of our singers turn out to be just a fling

All the punk rock’s
Fallen to cold pop
Under the terminal’s conquest
Between blind neutrality
And budding individuality?
End’s up being no contest

So turn off the LEDs
Smash in the computer screen
Pull these USBs from my veins
Tune out the suped up cars
Lock up all the movie stars
Cut the power line to my brain

Well I’d like to talk
To whoever’s at the top
Of the record companies deciding
Where the sellouts go
When appeal runs low
Thinking they’ll turn thunder back into lightning

I think there’s a ditch somewhere
Filled with forgotten artists and despair
That’s where Rebecca Black will stay
When she’s forgotten on Saturday
That’s where every modern singer will go
When their appeal finally runs low
That’s where current culture dies
With our music lost in an blinking of an eye
That’s what we’re all headed to
Fashion and cinema, art and science too
The screen has slowed our cognitive function
The video games make our ADD rambunctious

Yet the shooting stars
Are going far
On a beautiful summer evening
But good luck
Seeing them through the ceiling

So turn off the LEDs
Smash in the computer screen
Pull these USBs from my veins
Tune out the suped up cars
Lock up all the movie stars
Cut the power line to my brain

The Edge of the Universe - 06-07-11

Let me just try to explain
The changes in my brain
The shift in the synapses
The rearranging of the road

Sit alone,
On the edge of the universe,
Looking out.
What do you see?
Probably nothing,
You can’t see anything
Beyond what exists.
But I can.
I have found the right lens
The right glasses
The right perspective
That allows the images
That are just beyond the edge of the universe
To filter into my brain.

This used to be what drove me insane,
Trying to see what wasn’t there
Trying to image what I couldn’t fathom
Trying to hear smells,
Taste light,
See sound.

Mr. Meursault
Thought to kill a man
For the sun.
He shrugged at the guillotine,
His long face still unemotional,
The crowd cheering hate.
I held my tongue and waited.
Listened.
Sat still as Siddhartha on the river,
Listening to the trickle of rememory,
All the different generation blended
Into a single reflection,
Reflecting himself.
Patient in the countryside,
Clara sat at her desk and wrote,
And waited for the right time to speak,
To use her voice.
Patient in the plains,
Ida sat before the screen,
And kept her powerful story
For the end, the climax.
Patiently in the ice,
Shukov lived one more day.
I listened,
Patiently,
Quietly,
Hidden behind musty pages
And fictional titles.
Observing what was beyond
The edge of the universe.

Another Reason I Hate That Class - 03/10/11

It’s like delicate egg yolks
Wrapped in barbed wire
Shedding my insides
And it isn’t usually like that

Painful, sure
But not like this.
I shouldn’t be waking up
At 2 am,
Screaming and crying,
Because there is something wrong with that.

It supposedly stress,
Which I would deny,
But all my denial this week
Has been used too soon.
It was drawn like blood
When I held my arm to a heater
Until it went numb.
I wasn’t going to say anything
But apparently
That’s denial too,
Like cross bred plants
Still being organic.

In my history class,
We’re learning about all that,
And all the other things
Wrong with all of everything
In all of history.
I don’t understand
Why anyone would want to
Sit through an hour of pointless debate
Over events long passed,
Just steaming
Angry
Furious
As I hold my arm to the heater
And hope it burns and hurts,
But it just goes numb
And everyone is disappointed
When the bell rings.

I heard my English teacher,
While reciting a beautiful poem
That she had written,
Frightenedly mumble “fuck”
A wisp of what I’ve been told is
A powerful word.
Like someone was going to take offence,
Like a little anger would end everything,
Like if maybe someone got mad
And did something
Something might change
And like that was a bad thing.

You know what I think?
I think too much.
And I think all the time.
And I think in words,
And rhymes
With breaks in the lines
Like my whole life is just one poem
One depressing poem
That just doesn’t know when
To end.
And I think that I fall flat on my face
When there’s something I need to face
That I slip up
When I need to stick up.
That I pull out
When it’s time to put in.
That I can’t get angry
Except at myself,
And even that is slowly jerked into
The sadness of sticky red fingers.
That I want to bleed
But I’m afraid of blood.
That I do the worst
When I’m not paying attention
And then feel the best.
That you still don’t get
What I’m talking about.
That I really wish you did.
That I knew you wouldn’t
And thought that anyways,
Wrote this anyways,
So I could have another excuse to
Hate my poor, pitiful self.

So there should be some hope somewhere
And this is supposed to be the stanza
Where I add it,
But what do I know
About hope and love?
What do I know about happiness?
All I have is a heater
And the sharp point of a forgotten staple.

I Wish I Was a Whore - 02/23/11

Some skinny little skank,
leaning callously against a blue bus stop sign,
her fake red hair contrasting,
taking a long, brutal drag
off a bummed cigarette;
looked at me as I passed and said,
"You're wrong, girl."

I stopped, in my orange tennis shoes,
my fading jeans,
my tangled hair lazily assembled because what matter was
what was underneath it.
I stopped because she said I was wrong
and I was going to be a physics major,
and I was in the
amazing, stupendous, rigorous, monumental,
over-hyped IB,
and I was good at tests.

I stared at her seductive clothes,
clinging perfectly to her curved body,
like she was a store mannequin come to life,
like she was made to look good.
She used two painted nails
to throw the cigarette to the curb
and black, shiny heals
to stomp out the flame.
She exhaled smoke and perfume and said,
as she breathed,
"You're wrong, girl."

Buses come to that stop
with a irregularity
that makes my mechanical heart twitch
like it's organic.
But she stood there,
leaning,
breathing,
inky eyes cast down the street
with a carelessness
that must be what makes sex sound so good.

"You're wrong, girl,
because you know, but you don't understand.
You don't wait:
you jump in on the lab before you know how to do it.
You don't stop:
if it's written, it's written, and you're turning it in.
But you're wrong,
because you are good at taking tests,
but you've never been tested.
Because you're smart,
but you've never smarted.
Because you actually have,
and you won't admit it,
Because you're not a physics major,
you're a poet in denial."

If I Was a Poet - 02/20/11

If I was a poet the likes of
Pablo Neruda
who fills my teammates' memories,
quoting him like a deity
like Buddha
like all the words of all the languages,
were his
to mold and cradle with the tender kiss
of a mother,
then maybe I could find a way
to explain
the stars’ attraction,
pain’s satisfaction,
and why I feel the need to be needed,
want to be wanted,
and love being loved.

If I was a poet the likes of
Charles Bukowski
with his sarcasm,
his energy,
his honesty and lack of apology,
maybe I could then just tell you all
that it sucks
everything does
but you do it anyways.
just do it.
That you live and you live and then you die
and that is okay,
as long as you lived.

And if I was a poet the likes of
Mikel Jollett
then maybe I could serenade
the broken hearts with music
with rhythm
with chilling images
with pure emotion
with love and hate
mixed and mingled and torn
torn right down the middle and taped together

If I was a poet the likes of
Tori Amos
if I had a voice to yell my words
my words and my soul
to tell the world my soul
then maybe I could be free of paper and pencils
and trying to convey inflection
though line breaks.
Maybe I could make life make sense.

Summed Up in a Held Breath - 02/06/11

Do you know what “everything” means?
Do you understand “love”?
Do you know what “my whole world”
Is comprised of?

Little flashes of your smile,
Between sarcastic remarks
On my personal habits,
My sleep schedule,
My on and off anorexia,
My insanity.
That little eye roll.
Circular hand motions.
“Breathe” as a command,
Not a verb,
Not a word,
But my whole world
Summed up in a held breath
A skipped heart beat.
A gentle hug.
A quiet kiss.
Refusing to let me out of your arms.
Refusing to let my lips leave yours.
Jaws firm against each other.
Magnificence
In a scent
Captivating
Intoxicating
Stimulating.
Rocked in a sound wave
A perfect crest and trough
To sooth my pulsating mind.
Confidence flooding from it,
Intelligence raining from it.

Love,
To sum it up in a single breath,
Love and love and life and love and you.

And what more is there?
What more is there but sleeplessness?
What more is there but tears?
What more is there but holding
Clinging
Clawing into any sign of love there is
And hoping it doesn’t shake you free.
What more is there but wrapping
Coiling into life
Winding around it,
Devouring it,
And yourself
And the sun
And the moon
And the stars?
What more is there but hoping?
Hoping for love?
Hoping for life?
Hoping for understanding?
Hoping that today will not be the day you die?
Or that someone you know does?
Hoping that “sorry” will stop coming up
Because there is already so much
To be sorry for
And so much of it is worse
Than what you’re apologizing for?

Hoping for more hope.


A slight breath.
A sigh.
Silence.
Walking next to you,
Trying to match your pace,
Your strong legs.
Hoping the stars will fall and we will see beauty.

Your Voice - 01/12/11

They say
“Girl, open your mouth
Open your world
Open your words
Don’t shut it out”

Skills and stills
Pictures in my mind
Times New Roman
Running behind my eyes
Pulling and flowing
Stopping and going
Speeding and slowing
Letting go like glue
Flying like fantasies
Escaping reality
Seeing what I want to see
In the neon blue
Of perpetual insanity
It all blends
Quite neatly
Completely
Showing and going
With the flow
Until you know
Then break it
No more need to fake it
You’ve got it
The power
This hour
Rise up
Your greatest weapon
No question
Your attention
To word choice
It’s your voice
Now use it
Before you lose it