StarZ

He stared into perplexity as her eyelashes closed over the orbs of her eyes.

"This isn't it," he whispered thoughtlessly, "this isn't what we ever thought."
A feathered willow branch kissed her cheek as she drifted into dreams and 

while he talked she thought of the sound of his voice. 

Within his barrier there was a wall that covered more than his desires and 

all of his love. Somehow she could tear it down, with pleas or lies or

kisses planted atop his unbelief. Her fingernails grazed his rough knuckles

and he shivered with some unknown emotion that she wished with all her

heart that she could discover and capture within her, keep it forever in a

jar like an innocent firefly prisoner in an old, used plastic cup that she 

drank out of before it became a useful trap. His eyes were less than a river

and more of a black, all-seeing vortex that sucked in her thoughts without

a consent form to control her emotions and read her ideas to everyone in

the room before she could stop him. So she closed her eyes and he stared

at her transparent eyelids, waiting, wishing, hoping to glance that part of her

that he only could see and violate.

I keep looking for things

Where is the shock?

A flash of lightning, a spark of light and hope, a lingering feeling of tingles.

White light spreading through consciousness, erasing all doubt, fear, hopes, 

Doing spring-cleaning on your imagination and tap-dancing on your creativity.

It stops to stir your mind into a stew of mystery meats and lost words while

running ovals around the index of your memories. 

Leaving nothing but the mush which we call 

a brain.

Where is the excitement?

Racing faster than adrenaline through every muscle, tightening your grip,

leaving sweat on under your eyes and in every crack of your palm.

Your eyes search for something reasonable, but can only digest

COLOR
COLOR 

COLOR

Colors of flushed faces and crowded bodies, colors of sweat and 

anxiety and love.

Where is the expectation?

The hope of a butterfly hatching or the standards of every Mormon girl.

The yellow-gray muck of failure mixed with the navy-blue-brown of 

disappointment. Its nothing you thought it would be and everything you 

hoped it wouldn't. It finds the space between your heart and those

hairs in your nose that grant you smell and it cuts it into pieces so 

you are left with nothing but a nose and cold, wet veins.

You can find it here if you look hard enough, tucked beneath the 

lukewarm of my coat pocket, next to the old gum and bobby pins.

It's here, though silent, haunting a silent girl with nothing but reddish 

hair and a knack for the unusual. It's friends with the lice and fleas and 

likes to pester at one's skin and becomes a tapeworm digging into 

the flesh of you. 

Where is the cure?

I haven't thought about love for a while

whispers of broken dreams crawl into the cracking walls I call my heart.
I've tried to fill it with
                          red balloons
                          peanut butter
                          wind
                          touch
                          work
but the cement never holds.
I'm ever-turning towards your endless gaze like a sunflower that worships the sun and
I think you are burning me and I think it hurts.
Caress my wilted fingers between your palms and speak nothings onto my cheek,
carry me down the sloped hills we call adventure.
I've been consumed by love and fear and everything between and
I can't catch up with your rough, calloused soles.

The fireflies are the prettiest and they are the easiest to catch. I would imagine them quick, but they lumber on with the weight of a protective light. They are easily snatched from among the leaves of sleeping branches and caught between the chubby fingers of the little ones, captive until their dying days.

I'd tell you how to catch me if I knew how. I'd tell you how simple it is to hold my careless gaze and read my mind-waves washing onshore my face if I knew where to find you a snorkel. Smiles always frighten me but eyes tear me away from reality.

Really I would imagine running away from the world and all of its distractions into salty air with your calloused hands and soft eyes nightly, if my dreams would allow it.

Yours

A SLAM BY ME

Yesterday I looked in the mirror and remembered what I wasn't.  My face was tired and sunburned and different and not cool.

Because the cool is for the champions and the swag is for the the players

The pretty is for the blondes and the beautiful is for the rich brunettes who drive old cars with new speakers.

Sometimes the smart have a grasp on control and the techies have got a definite hold on the future.

The girls who keep knowledge in a little box on their bedside table always forget where the key is in the search for pretty, and

The boys who are lyrically gifted are endlessly searching for strength and recognition.

Yesterday I stared back at the mirror and tried hopelessly to look into both my eyes at the same time to see if they matched.

But I'm sure it doesn't matter what you have as long as you've got it, and it doesn't matter where you are going as long as you are moving, and the power of growth is more important than whether you're going straight up or not, and it doesn't matter if your eyes match as long as you can see the world around you. Find what you've got and write it on your nametag, tape it in your notebook, slap it on your car bumper.

wear it like a tattoo on your arm, 

Or your chest,

Or your face.

Definitely wear it on your face.

Use it to intimidate people and to scare away gangsters. Use it to expose yourself to love and life and living, because it is your ticket to ride the plane to the stars, where you are so enveloped in light that nobody can see anything but the intensity of your good. 

Hold its hand and don't let it stray or  get kidnapped or get hit by a car. Because your cool makes you a champion and your pretty is your own and your smart is your future. Your face belongs to you only and your hands are yours to use. So Forget about the mirror and see yourself in the reflection of your stars, untainted by the world and perfected in the white light in their corners. Think less about the skin and  more about the flesh, less of the body and more of the soul. Stop wishing for Nutella and find some money to buy it with. An idea is the stone, but the labor becomes the masterpiece. Shatter the mirror, break your mold, YOLO, senior year. Put it in your pocket and keep it safe because now it's yours.

SENIOR YEAR: