Raining Champagne - 12/07/16

It was raining champagne
and glitter,
bottles and papers
littering the ground,
precipitation pitter-pattering,
smoke intertwined in embraces,
my sense drowned in wine,
but all that chaos shattered
when you came around,
droplets pausing in the air
to applaud
your heart-stopping entrance,
haloed in the sunlight
you brought through the clouds.

And now,
seasons have passed
and a shroud of soured memories
covers each spec
of glimmering dust.

And now,
the heavens part for no one,
the taste grows dimmer,
and this pain has dulled
to a stiffness.

And now,
maybe my heart isn't broken,
but is still doesn't work the same
as it did when we first kissed while
it was raining champagne.

Supernova Skies - 08/17/16

No matter how far away
I accelerate,
this inverse-square potential
tries to pull me back
to that place,
tries to tell me I'm essential
to that space
of mind and time
is slowing down
with the weight
of these words around,
the pressure's burning
up the sun,
the vacuum's swallowing
every sound.
I'm paralyzed under
supernova skies,
keep your dreamy looks
and starry eyes
wrapped up in parting glances,
sucked into black hole romances
like your first slow dance is
gonna change your chances
of skipping out on goodbyes and
escaping the event horizon.

Rusalka - 06/10/16

Lament those poor sweet pixies
living in my veins,
kept captive in capillaries until
they made their stains;
who, one night, were downed in wine,
drowned in oxygen;
who found their release,
yet surfaced again.
Lament the gentle spirits who once
had only wanted
to nourish the fields, but
became the haunted.
Lament the loss, lament the night,
lament what remains:
lingering lines and loud lies
now plaguing my veins.

Sometimes I Wish - 06/04/16

Sometimes, "I Wish I Was A Girl" by Counting Crows plays and I'm never sure if it's okay for me to sing along or if that'll give someone the wrong impression, even if it's just me, singing alone in my bedroom.

Sometimes, I wish I was a boy so I didn't have an existential crisis every time I hear my high-pitched voice or want to bind or a store clerk tells me I'm welcome to use any changing room .... on the ladies' side.

Sometimes, I wish I was a girl so that I didn't have to explain what I "really" meant when I said, "I am so gay for Rey."

Sometimes, I wish I was a boy so that I could hate my curvy hips without feeling like I've disgraced the entire body positivity movement.

Sometimes, I wish I was a girl because my mother always wanted a daughter ad I can't help thinking, would it really be so tough to just suck it up and give her this? My honest existence and happiness aren't that important.

Sometime, I wish I was a boy so that I didn't feel guilty over the little hint of joy I get when anyone mistakes me for one or addresses me as "sir" on the bus.

Sometimes, I wish I was a girl so that no one could accuse me of not being a feminist or of forsaking all the joys of womanhood or of no longer being a suitable role model for young women in physics. Look, what the young people need to know is that they don't have to hide any aspect of themselves to succeed in science, that electrons have no bias against my gender identity, that mathematical proofs will still be as logical no matter who you choose to be, that experiments will work the same no matter who runs or analyses them, and any professor, adviser, or peer who says otherwise can come talk to me. I've got poems and rage set to burn pages and pages, whatever it takes to make them see.

Sometimes, I wish I was a boy so that you'd take me seriously.

Sometimes, "I wish I was a girl, so that you would believe me."

I thought we were - 06/04/16

a pair of binary stars
caught in each other's
gravity,

but the laws of physics
don't seem to apply to you,
just me:

spinning, spiraling
around you seemingly
endlessly

while you shine, shimmer, startle,
off in your own
galaxy.

Never Have I Ever - 05/31/16

Have you ever loved a distant star?
Have you ever loved a light so far
away that her warmth dissipates
before ever reaching the love that waits?
Have you ever loved a burning sun,
her beauty seen by everyone
so for lightyears in all directions,
all they speak of is her perfect?
No? Well, nor have I.
What I wouldn't give to try.

A Cold, Dead Place - 05/27/16

When all is said and done
what have I become

but a fragment of a human soul,
hardly indispensable,
hardly irreplaceable,
hardly unforgettable,
a shadow cast upon this world
by a glory unimaginable,
it left me shattered in this hole
with no hope of being fixed or whole.

I'm falling,
I'm kneeling,
reaching for stars on the ceiling,
screaming,

"Remember when I used to write?
Put pen to paper
and let words take flight?
Let worlds take flight,
bring worlds to life?"

But now I all have are funeral rites,
cascading chamomile trips through endless nights,
an exhausted homily
in eerie harmony,
begging to be set free from me,
be gone from me,
released from me
and this excessive misery
and the melodrama surrounding
every failed attempt at healing.

In each quiet moment,
these violent thoughts return,
berating:

"All you do is burn.
When are you gonna learn
that there is nothing in this world
undamaged by your flame,
no one who will be the same,
no memories left unchanged?
All you do is burn."

Tell me how to heal
and I will do it.
How many times
must I insist that
I am not a cold, dead place
before I believe it?
How many lines
must I erase
until I no longer
feel the guilt
of their creation?
Is there any penance
I could pay
to drive
the catastrophic thoughts away?
Is there any amount
of self sacrifice
that would suffice
to end this repetitive annihilation,
these oscillations
between "almost okay" and this?
I have tried to find
a villain I could blame this on,
a monster I could pin this on,
an enemy beyond my mind
that I could fight



but the only one out here trying to kill me
is me



and I have spent too much energy
tearing at my own flesh
and hating my own head
and destroying myself endlessly
and all it's gotten me
are scars
and fading Sharpie stars
where I have to see
and remember
exactly
how I betrayed me.

Cosmological Constant - 05/26/16

I have seen the universe in you and

you

are far more beautiful
than anything Hubble could have captured:
kindness permeating like dark matter,
love expanding and expanding faster
that has me humbled and enraptured,
leaving me to wonder how I stumbled
upon this shimmering collection
of particles and light
whose mere presence lifts and lights
the darkest night.

Her lips are nebula,
constellations blooming in each
soft word.
Her smile, I think
sparked the Big Bang.
At least, it did for me.
The blazing blue of her eyes
could only have come
from an O-type star.

Look how they shine.
Look how she shines.

And if her eyes are stars,
then each blink is a sunset.
O, Love, don’t go yet.
I haven’t loved you enough yet,
haven’t held you enough yet,
haven’t found the words to express what
I heard each held breath,
haven’t found the words to express what
I felt in each caress.
Haven’t simplified this stress tensor
or understood how our particles
interact together.
But these calculations could take forever
and simulation does little better
to stimulate all these songs I felt
but couldn’t recite without the help
of someone else’s chords
and keys
and melodies.
I suppose, now, it’s too late
to begin singing memories
that have drifted beyond the Kepler Belt.

But should this wandering comet
ever stray back into your orbit,
O, Love,
I hope I melt.

Asymptotic Freedom - 04/14/16

An abundance of antimatter
annihilating
each paired particle
bound by
ambiguous operators
until this
androgynous animation
is retrieved.
To the
agitprop artists
attracting catharsis,
I ask your assistance
in resistance
of the arbitrary axioms
appointed at birth
to restrict our creation
to a binary basis,
that spans just a fraction
of the human adventure.

I'll no longer abide
by this planar existence,
as intrinsic as
Euclid's Fifth.

I'm begging:
bomb this binary.

Dang - 02/08/16

I've been listening to
Alex Dang's
poetry all night
hoping his words
will inspire me
to write
the monster biting
bits of my soul away
into the light
and give my
quaking body
a fair fight
but this was all
the courage
I could find
in someone else's rhymes.
It's time that I
regained mine.

Blue Hour - 11/23/15

biting back screams
and burning up dreams
like if I just grit my teeth
until my skin comes clean,
falling off my bones
like melodies
falling off strings,
I'll find some zone
of stablity,
retracing butterfly arcs
that will step me
through anything

I can walk through fire

Resonance Frequency - 03/14/15

Just leave the pieces lying there.
I wouldn't want to hurt
a single hair
if you tried to rearrange
the splintered shards
that have disengaged
from this week
and began to seek
the state of lowest energy.
They've already sunk
too far into apathy
and won't be drawn out
by soliloquy.
But that's okay because
it doesn't take that much
to shatter me.
Apparently
I've got an all-too-common
resonance frequency.

NMR - 02/22/15

I could be dancing dancing dancing
like an unpaired proton precessing
I could be positive
I could be free
I could be singing singing singing
like the world itself is ringing
in perfect resonance with me
I could be decaying
into anything
but me

Hope Is The Hardest Thing To Kill - 02/22/15

Transparency
looks just fine on me
as just another thing
that you can't see

That light in my eyes
had better quickly die
so I can realize that
I'm the only one who thinks
that time is standing still
because hope is the hardest thing to kill

Maybe this skipping beat
will learn to retreat
after I face defeat
at the hands of my latest rejection
I'll pretend to sleep
and get through this week
after another failed connection

A passing smile
is all it takes
to make me wish
my ricochet heart
would learn to chill
but hope is the hardest thing to kill

Just tell me, tell me,
are you looking for me
or some cheaper thrill,
because hope is the hardest thing to kill

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

WhateverWhatever - 01/31/14

I've got no doubt
About my side of the bargain,
But darlin',
I wish I did.
I can be sure
That my part is pure,
But it's you
I doubt to to oblivion.

And, somewhere,
I know better.
And, somewhere,
I'm not here.
There has got to be
somewhere
I don't disappear.

Whatever, whatever
I still got the radio
And I won't give a fuck
As long as this song's on.
Whatever, whatever
There's still tomorrow
To let it all play out wrong.
Whatever, whatever.

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.

Ariel - 01/15/14

All the words caught in my throat
broke on the hope
they might be free
to sing and scream
are wondering
what it might be like
to hear themselves
through the air
but they don't dare
to stay beyond
the cage
their guard has made.
And, I swear,
it's to keep you safe
from the things that I would say.
You don't want to hear them,
anyway,
you're better off,
better stay aloft
on the winds of
all the things
I can't say.

Love Poem For H - 01/10/14

I sometimes wonder
what your heat break
tastes like
and if you lick
any wounds
when I retreat
from your life.
I wonder if
you're sleeping
any better
these nights.
I wonder
and I hope.
You can weave
a sunset
in your eyes
and fill me up
with pretty lies
that I believe
every time.
So I wonder
what I know of you.
I wonder if
I know you.
I wonder
and I hope.

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.