Pen to Paper
Isn’t ironic?
Writing about writing.
We are all someone else’s,
Entertainment.
As much as I crave praise,
I can’t handle it,
Because I don’t believe the words myself.
Some say writing under the influence,
Is cheating,
And maybe it is.
Maybe I have no real talent,
I guess I’ll never know.
I put a little bit of myself,
In each of my characters,
Does that make me conceited,
Or lack creativity?
I wish I could write about,
Exotic royalty,
Edgy motorcycle gangs,
Roaring twenties mafias,
Psychics and hippies,
And Native American tribes,
But I’m not creative,
Or knowledgeable enough,
To do or say what I want.
I will never measure up,
To Ellen Hopkins, Bukowski or Vonnegut,
But I’m damn sure,
Going to try.
I feel I’m destined to go,
From riches to rags,
The American nightmare.
But I will not let my dream,
Go to the cemetery of passed passions.
Artists who can no longer create,
Are dead because their voice,
Has been revoked.

My Knight in Shining Leather
We got cheap Mexican food and had sex,
Because a steak dinner wasn’t in our budget,
College date night struggles.
He looked like Hercules,
With an ego as bulging as his biceps,
That was big enough for the both of us,
My knight in shining leather.
He hated my cigarettes,
And when I sang along to Lana Del Rey songs.
I have dreams about him cradling my skull,
Pressing on my wounds and screaming my name,
I tried to freeze my feelings,
Because the frost in my arteries,
Won’t stop biting,
And I have run out of options.
I was never taught how to deal with this,
I only learned e=mc2,
But never how to stitch a ripped brain,
And tattered heart back together.
I never learned how to suture emotions,
Into a quilt of pain,
And those romance writers who pretend that love,
Is a fairytale with castles and dragons,
Are more tragic than romantic.
Those Nicolas Sparks movies and love songs,
Are nothing but torture,
I’m being water-boarded by my Niagara eyes,
And that birthmark on your neck,
That looks like a hickey,
Is all I can think about,
And not how I need to keep breathing.
I remember that Valentine’s Day card you got me,
That said whenever I was in a room with you,
I was the most beautiful girl in it.
I dread the day he says ‘I love you’,
Because it will be too much to say it back,
And the day will come when he can no longer,
Have the shoulder of his t-shirt soaked,
The day he doesn’t want to put his arms around me,
Will be the day that grey will cloud both our eyes.
And I’m sure he still finds strands of my hair on his bed,
And struggled for a time to get the stench,
Of my cheap perfume off of his bed,
So he could get to sleep with closed, tearless eyes.

Grade School Lies
They said if a boy pushed you and knocked you over,
That means he likes you,
But if he loved you, he would know,
That he shouldn’t touch you like that.
They said all you have to do is work hard and you’ll succeed,
But what if you work hard then get laid off,
Because employees get cut like they’re on a soccer team,
While others get paid to breathe.
They said pink is for girls and blue is for boys,
But what if the gender roles we’ve been assigned,
Don’t fit into the mold of who we are?
They said don’t talk to strangers,
But we were all strangers once.
They said that high school will be the best time of your life,
But then why are suicide rates the highest during those four years?
They said that Thanksgiving was a time of being grateful,
But surely the natives weren’t when they were being,
Consistently raped, slaughtered and infected by the white mans’ ways.
They said that marijuana kills,
But no one ever overdosed from smoking too many joints.
They said that we were only children,
When we’re eighteen and supposed to decide,
Who we want to be for the next sixty years,
And still needed permission to go to the bathroom.
They said you can be anything you want,
But you can’t be gay, transgender, an atheist, or an immigrant.
They said if you don’t perform well in school, then you’re unintelligent,
But standardized tests only measure three out of the nine intelligences.
They said we should never lie,
But why do they keep doing it to us?