We hang our caps,

On the hooks of our past,

Sweet memories we long to cling to, relive,

Point forward,

Paper scrolls in hand,

Door to door,

Trying to show society,

We’re valueable.

Educated beggars,

Throwing dollar bills at loans,

And scraping up coins for bread.

Jobs.

Door to door for jobs.

A sea of you faces,

Throwing paper plane resumes,

At dots on the maps,

Whispering prayers over the wings,

Before they go.

Call backs, but no dice,

Because you didn’t kiss the right ass,

Shake the right hand,

Your network is too small,

Doesn’t reach the distance that you want to go,

So you’re stuck –

Working for Uncle Jimmy’s friend of a friend,

That does something somehow remotely related,

To what you wanted to do once.

But those loans breathe down your back,

You’re so used to being a poor college student that,

Being an under employed graduate,

 …

Is still a stinger stuck in your soul,

All that work, and the money,

You still owe …

To work for Uncle Jimmy’s friend of a friend,

That does something somehow remotely related,

To what you wanted to do once,

And you’re still paying in quarters.

The hand-me-down, pre-prescribed,

Way of life,

Right side of the tracks philosophy,

American Dream,

Where you work hard,

And you can be anything –

Theres something about it I just don’t believe,

Because here I’ve been, bleeding,

For a chance,

Working three job summers,

And sending my hopes and dreams after cover letters and phone interviews,

But it’s all …

Who you know.

I feel betrayed…

By the system that told me I could get what I wanted,

That hard work was all that was needed,

Dangling the carrot just out of reach .

He pressed life,

between two pieces of wax paper,

preserving it.

It still hangs on the wall,

where his mother put it.

Motion arrested,

untouched by the finger pricks of decomposition,

that start slow and bleed dry.

It’s hues,

against time,

sealed beneath,

plastic skin,

impenetrable by nature.

While she rots,

beneath a stone,

where men placed her,

the gods weeping fresh death,

over her each fall.

The house remembers her warmth,

the son remembers her touch,

the grave embraces her bones,

and the leaf remembers chlorophyll,

vibrant in it’s waxy tomb.

axeinpants:

You know how you get songs stuck in your head?

I get boys stuck in my head …

smiling

holding open doors

in my head they’re the gentlemen they never dreamed they’d be.

In my head they’re 

playful

serious

confident

In my head they’re themselves the way they’ve never seen them.

I have issues with word limits,

having to corrall a hundred free roaming ideas,

into an eight by eleven paddock.

Words screaming silently,

the unsaid - 

hand it in.

I have issues with poetry teachers -

poetry is a six headed hydra,

that slithers into your head around midnight,

biting with just enough venomous truth,

to get you high,

to stir the word centers

in your mind.

It doesn’t lend itself to,

structured, well-lit classrooms,

peer-review, deadlines … 

Poetry is like those snapshot view master toys,

from the 90s.

It gives you little bits of beauty,

still life images and moments frozen in time.

Grand canyon,

everest,

his smile,

HIS smile,

roses,

soldiers -

dress your words up for battle,

tear down the berlin walls,

around peoples’ minds.

I have issues with censorship,

have since,

I was a dark-haired little girl,

sticking swear words into my vocabulary,

with chewing gum,

and attitude.

Free speech is our greatest power,

our most important right,

and most dire responsibility.

I have issues with word counts,

and haikus … 

I have issues with a lot of things,

labels,

like sticking a size nine foot,

into a seven shoe.

A life like shoving an ocean into a cup,

no matter what you do it spills over and over and over …

You’d have to be the moon,

to hold the tides in your hands.

I have issues with boys telling me,

what to want.

And issues when I have no idea,

what it is that I want.

I fold onto the grass,

gaze at the stars,

and wonder.

Have your issues.

Don’t settle for a world that’s lying to you.

You have eyes to use,

search for truth.

Something to hold on to.

My tongue is where it should be,

     ripe inside my mouth.

Will people accept me,

     the better for it?

Or will I grow into,

     the cracks of the walls,

          simultaneously,

shatter bricks,

     and wither.