winter break woes part 3

here I am

again without the words

to describe what I'm feeling

John Mayer sings

a craftily created

pop soul song about something.

I can't hear

it while I am thinking of

suicide on Christmas Eve.

a thought worth remembering

I'm struggling to hold on

to the sense that there is something

worth writing.

The sky outside gives way

to snowflakes and breezes

while inside Mitchell screams

at the tv.

I sit in my room running

my hand repeatedly through the afro

I'm currently calling my hair.

shallow breaths and closed eyes

suggest something worth remembering:

this heart is heavy and light

worthless ramblings about worth over break

I sit in my room listening to poetry

thinking this could be my life

but what does it mean to be a receptor of poetry?

I know that I am

but I don't have misery to compare

to the black men living in the poor of their era.

I know that I am.

I am I am

I am alive

but is my story worth telling

in the makeup of this universe

WHO CARES

who cares about the struggles

of collegiate life

when my parents lived on the streets

on the run

I know that I am

but what does it mean to be Puerto Rican

when my mother and father lived strugglin harder

that I can imagine

I know that I am

but I am not a child solder in Nigeria

I am not starving in Indonesia

so does my story really matter?

I know that I am.

open doors and nights spent alone

Something tells me to leave the door open, although I'm unsure what I'm waiting for. I've been invited out twice already, and it isn't as if I'm being productive here. Yet, I stay. I stay in a room with the door open. Alone, but not quite closed off to the world.

I cried vodka last night.

He fidgets when he talks

to me. Like he has a million

other things to do, and I

am just a check-mark on his list.

I stare into eyes.

When I speak I want you to know

that my heart is in your hands

and that this moment could mean something to us.

I guess that means the ball is in your court,

and for that I'm sorry.

She's thin.

She eats whatever she wants,

whenever she wants

because she can. It's a

genetic trait that gives her

an advantage over us- over me.

I'm fat,

and not because I don't deny

myself the unhealthy things.

I'm stoic in that sense.

It's because my body stores

interactions in the most unsightly

of fashions. Her rejection of me

hides my six-pack. My broken

heart is a double chin.

Hey's gay,

in the sense that he likes men.

He's laying unhappily on that bench

and I get the feeling that somehow

this is my fault, as if

I gave cause to his obsession.

I'm straight

and not because I'm not unhappy.

I spend my hours reconciling who I am

with who I want to be.

I have a feeling I'm missing something

and for that, I cried vodka last night.

it starts with a remembrance of skin

It was a cold night-

Frost accompanied by fog.

But we stayed in.

Tim sat along the wall

explaining universes with paper.

I only wanted to discuss

the meaning of life-

a verb that is God.

That was Tim's answer

to a question I meant

to ask of stories-

each moment a frame

making the stop motion

that is life.

Heavy & Light

if this one goes out to

the fat girls and wimpy boys,

and everyone in between,

then this one goes out to you-

and... this one goes out to me.

He demands that we shake

the dust, and that is what

we do tonight. It is in

their energy that we can laugh,

and in their pain that we are silent.

Jamie apologizes for his awkward

title. I know in doing so

that we are not alone.

Because, we all worry about

paying the bills, and we

all want to fall in love when

the weather is just right.

We all want to scream the words

and stomp our feet. And that,

that we did tonight, when the

sky was heavy and our hearts were light.

it's like an angel dancing across my tongue

Jamie's eyes speak wonders to his heart-

I almost forget I'm not important

to his story. His history of broken friends

and ocean weekends.

When I remember where I am,

I know life should be a celebration.

But-- this fog I'm in

places me in Jack Mannequin's Dark Blue-

a place so deep not even Damion's Dreaming

could bring me to believe in love.

Happy New Years Mr. Taylor

if there is one thing I've learned of alcohol, it is that the consumption of it allows people to behave as if every action contains the importance of the end of the world.

well tonight is an end of a world of sorts. On this eve people count down from ten to one to the start of a new decade.

I'm not sure if this celebration is

1. useful


2. happy


3. necessary


4. time-honored


5. universal


6. intact


7. relevant


8. good


9. news


10. imaginative

but maybe I'm just backwards. Anyhow, Happy New Years, Daniel.