I have so much more to give

We sat on the computer until midnight making videos in an abandoned kitchen. Singing the wrong words to backstreet boys songs and pretending to know spanish and laughing.

and laughing.

and laughing.

the next morning came far too fast and i can't stop yawning even though it is the hottest day we've had so far. Job interview in a dimly lit resteraunt and I swear if you hire me I'll smile while I open that door and make their Friday nights beautiful. I'll charm them as I hand them their menus and steal their hearts while leading them to their table. I tried to make eye contact and sip my diet coke slow and classy and maybe I wasnt sophisticated but I was real. In the end, I think that's all that counts.

I read my poetry for a quiet classroom yesterday and the love notes they scribbled on ripped note cards take my breath away. They fill me with renewed inspiration and make my pen fly. They forgot their high school bull shit while I read about love and Paris and the non conformists they long to be. They listened to the music I was making even though my throat was sore from a chaotic weekend and nights of insomnia. They clapped when I sat down and now I remember why artists are so happy. Because they give something to the world. Because when they give, they get. I have so much more to give.

The more I read about these Jack Keroucs and Steppenwolves the more I long for escape. I taste freedom and oh I can not stop licking my lips. I have forgotten about promises and love and something I used to pray on. I am living now. This second. This moment. The universe won't wait for me to define my perfect romance so I'll simply take the beating hearts it passes over to me and be as gentle with them as I can. I'll savor the last Friday I will walk into that high school and surrender my restless hunger for adoration to a night of meditation. I'll find my "Om".

It Isn't Funny Anymore

Thunder crashed and he hugged me for the first time in months. The power’s out in a house full of a family that used to mean Chinese takeout and Joss Whedon on Tuesday nights. In the candle light I don’t even recognize them. They are warped by the faint flicker of flame between us and I want so badly to laugh at their jokes but that humor is bittersweet and it isn’t funny anymore.
He held me and cried into my sweat stained gym shirt but my body was limp under his desperate hands. I blinked and read Herman Hesse and promised myself that in an hour I would sit on a rain soaked patio in my pajamas and cry under an oversized umbrella and purple clouds. Smell the sweet storm that just raged over my summer fantasies and wave goodbye to the daughter he used to know. She is a phantom walking barefoot in circles around that mansion she used to call home. Promising love to strangers and swallowing her truth. Conforming to rules that would break her spirit and teach her to hate art. I refuse to be that girl.
Bald headed uncle flew back to Atlanta skies but I wish he was here to criticize mainstream music and smell Skyline with me. I wish he was here to go off on tangents about the details of life unseen by the residents of my world. He rants and raves and makes it beautiful. He sees me the way I wish everyone I ever loved did. As an individual. An artist. A beatnik sixteen year old sucking strength out of poetry. He is far too brilliant for this small town so he returns to his music filled house. To a house filled with cats that know all his secrets. To a manikin dressed in vintage clothes that watches him eat breakfast. But I don’t worry. He’ll be back.
Coffee in the morning with that springtime boy and finally I am a regular. I walk through a mahogany door and they know my face and my smell and my passion for caramel and expresso. It’s nice to be known.