My biggest inspiration

I pull my greatest amount of inspiration from one poet- out of many. Her name stands as very prominent in the poetry world and stands as one of the highest known activist/poetry writers. Andrea Gibson has a huge stance in my book of inspirations. Below, is one of my favorite pieces and one i read as a conclusion of my high school theater involvement. Last night I painted a purple tree on my bedroom wall I woke up this morning in a pile of leaves The color of a million different faces Thinking of that hand That planted the seed Of the family tree That grew us all And how each one of us Will one day fall back to the ground This morning I was listening to my heart pound Knowing with every single beat That a thousand other hearts Were falling asleep forever On a day they never thought they would And I know there are tribes of aborigines That decide how and when they’ll die After a hundred years or so They walk into the desert alone Offer up their breath And within two minutes Soar into a death As beautiful as their life And I was thinking I Will probably never be enlightened enough To decide how I want to die So this morning I decided how I want to live What I want to give What kind of song I want to sing Now I’m no longer Looking at my days like they’re a cup Calling them half empty or half full When they’ve always been enough They’ll always be enough To fill me up If I stop thinking so much And start drinking them up Until I get so drunk and high on my days I’ll be walking up to strangers and saying things like “Hey, I know Jesus was born in a manger But I woke at dawn today To watch the earth’s horizon Give birth to true rising sun of God And I can’t stop singing hallelujah” Can you believe we’re here? Can you believe there are gods somewhere praying to us? I want to be that nut on a bus Who’s really a prophet Telling everybody “Smoking is bad Stop it You might be an opera singer some day And how are you gonna hit the high notes?” I wanna live like those high notes That rise from the throats of old ladies When they see little babies Riding in shopping carts I wanna start somebody’s heart like that Taking ninety years back So you’ll have sworn You weren’t born Until you saw me Planting roses In all the sidewalk cracks So when you trip You’ll fall in love With someone you thought you hated And now look at what that love has created Look There’s a sky On her faded blue jeans With a flock of birds About to fly to my words And my next line’s Gonna rhyme with her eyes And she’ll wink And I’ll think I’m as beautiful as him I wanna live my life Like it’s a little league game I don’t care if I win Just wanna watch some little girl Get her very first hit Watch her father cheer so hard He spills his beer And decides to quit I wanna split some woman’s Tired eyes open Wake her with her own sunrise So she knows There’s reason to be hoping She’ll say “There are stingers in my heart But I’m sure that I’m a queen” And that night She’ll vow to swarm Until every angry car horn Is reborn a song Of let there be light Every angry war cry reborn A song of let there be life I wanna build the timid teenage boy A microphone that will Echo his rhymes The same way They echo in his shower When he’s home alone I wanna write poems In the tone Of your mother’s eyes When she whispered your name For the very first time Poems that will make you go home Pick up the phone And call her While I call mine to say “You know those lines On the kitchen wall Where I grew Taller and taller and taller Put a couple more there won’t you? Cause I’m growing up here” No longer looking at my days Like they’re a cup Calling them enough From now on They’ll be overflowing Since now I’m knowing It’s up to me To fill them up

Home- howd you ever say no

The problem never was going home.
 It was finding out where home really was all along.
 So I’ve got one knife in my heart and one in my hand and if you asked me to dance this last time
…well I wouldn’t say no, id just say that its dangerous
And I’d hoped you’d take the risk.
With every morning we’d spend sleeping past ten and pulling pages from the bible looking for some kind of answer we’d find that everything gets easier and clearer after a good cup of coffee.
 Then maybe you’d stop looking for answers all the time and let someone else be worked up over the biased news casting for once
. I’ve known too many kids with their fascinations and self diagnosed addictions to Aderall and late night reality TV to let you slip into that societal coma.
So if you get the chance, try to find your way back to home
even if what you thought would be waiting there all along isn’t.
 But maybe there’d be just an empty ashtray where you burned old love letters and a piece of birthday cake your mom made from scratch because you’ll never have those two things the same one day.
So if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this is that when you come home soaked in rain water and you can’t remember the last time something went at least ok, call your grandmother.
Or bake brownies and you probably will make it out alright.
 If a girl with a knife in her hand and a chip on her shoulder asks you to dance…well you take that dance and know that one day you’ll look back on it and wonder
 how you’d ever had said no.

Not rugged or Brave

I never wrote a poem for someone and id never write this for some boy.
 This is not about some boy.

 Its about the monsters under our beds we convinced that covers and hall lights would mark us invincible AGAINST As we learned that broken glass could split a home in two at least when it comes from things as valuable as grandmas china ware and your little sisters sippycup mentality.

 We learned its finding scattered bobbypins on his bathroom sink that do not belong to you…that split a home in two This is not about a boy. Not the boy your mother met in a new York bar not the boy you fell so hard for your scraped knees wont even forgive you for it. But if you asked me.

 I would stretch the world out before us tugging at the flesh of its entirety and say tell me where you’ve never been. And I will use every last ounce of energy I got to take you where you never had the courage to go alone. Even if you were everything ive always been afraid of. There are no longer monsters and bedtime ghost stories but the memory of you casting shadows on sidewalk drawings done up by childhood neighbor boys.
 The way it was “once summer “now it seems like we don’t know what summer feels like we haven’t been home in so long even the smell of cigarette smoke is enough to remind us what our mothers voice sounds like. This is not about a boy.
Even if it were it wouldn’t be about you because you remind me of my father. Not because your rugged or brave…its because nobody gets your humor and you embarrass me 9 out of 10 times at the grocery store. So if you asked me…to take your hand when we step off the rocks with a hundred feet to drop itd fall two steps faster just to be sure youd have something to land on.

But Id know to walk home alone when its over and done because ive watched two houses fall apart more fragile then origami paper wings. This is about the monsters that we thought went away when we turned 13. Nightlights do not protect you from your own demons dear.

 But if you had only one favor to ask and you asked it of me Id do just about anything to let you know where I stood

INSIDE

I really love when people turn themselves inside out so when you try to give them the words you held in your mouth way to long, they can’t do anything but feel like an open bowl you have no permission to pour back.

 I really love when you turn yourself inside out

 You’ve gotta story under there somewhere- but I swear I won’t dig for it.

 Maybe then when the guilt overwhelms your everything…we can press our ears to the wall and listen to one another breathe between two inches of oak and fiber glass.

We could wear each others armor like accidents where we piggyback ride our way through the proofreading when we were told “ you’re just not doing it right?

 And I imagine that we would end up being each others emergency contacts one day.

 Or maybe we’d be the each others hurt.

 Hoping wed fall into the quiet hideaways of parents no longer in love.

Or lovers..far too scared to run. And we’d laugh like jackals sleeping under desert moons there is nothing sad about disspearing when you’ve spent your whole life hiding.

Then We’d touch the lullabyes of our fingertips together and remind eachother of this.

 And how this day would be marked with the salt from each others skin.

 How our voices cracked like the spines of phone books when we tell each other to “ piss off” then make out to rap music.

There is dynamite in my cerebellum because of you and im window shopping for a day that matches the ones like that just to feel some kind of explosion.

 But mostly, I really love when you turn yourself inside out.

 Gives us a chance to see what your scratch-gaurd plastic bodies been trying to tell me all along.

Hands

The only thing I ever really knew about you was that your heart beat was always a few seconds off and your bloodstream looked exactly like cursive lettering.
 A little skewed.
 And at times that’s all we ever wanted to know,
 Because sometimes when you listen to good music 
your hands become iridescent and I can see your veins pulsating.
 There is love in the words you let in. 
The ones you let into your milky blue blood there is not much we are allowed to have here.
 But those words you sure never neglected to let push through.
 And its good.
 Good to know there are things that keep us grounded anchors and ex girlfriends 
We know its good like the good kinda vulgarity used in Italian films and the kinda language your mom uses when talking about her divorce.
 Simple…and a lot like trying to weed out the cursing.
 But its good in all the same ways its good we remember the first bite of pancakes you ever had and the way your front teeth felt when you got your braces off.
 Kinda weird And in the curse of growing up and giving up young well youll never forget your first kiss. 
The one you had under the stairwell with iridescent hands gleaming green with envy because you know if she were a rabbit well shed cut off her own paw and give it to you for good luck. 
Theres not enough of that kinda weirdness and love out there. 
And on these days? 
Yeah youll feel like the luckiest on these days.
 The ones where we recognize the beautiful weirdness as much as the unshakable nerves that it may not work out.
 The inside airplane take off of your heart KNOWING these fleeting memories may not make it till morning.
 And when its possible that they wont. well that’s whats lucky about it in the end. 
That maybe its not the hopes and prayers that shell come back to you, but the fact that you probably just need to get some more sleep.
 And maybe stop convincing yourself that one day youll bleed red like the rest. 
But for today,
 bleed blue while lyricists creep theyre way into your pulmonary arteries in days filled with good and weirdness,
 birch trees for stability and iridescent hands in case someone comes along with a need to see through.

Orthodox Moth

You are beautiful in what you are not what you believe Cherry girls bleed blue on pricked fingers spilling into one another like the words we never considered saying to our parents one day “You gave up too easy .” Pricked fingers pressed to pricked fingers like,” if I give you this, Its yours to keep”, sisters- brothers by association, guilty by relation. I do know, orthodox moth, That your eyes will tell the truth even when your mouth tells lies. The Broken non commercial praise scattered on porcelain sinks. We sat in wooded brush tucked quietly behind the trees knowing the sunrise would protect us soon enough, and there’s nothing scary about dying for a 14 year old. Orthodox moth, patterned by your mothers beliefs and stained by your fathers traditions. Leaking from the finger tips- marbled hopelessness to conform. A pact that wasn’t made on a Bible.