We Are

they took it all
the ones with their faces everywhere
they took the magazine cover and they took
his home-screen and they
thought they took over everything.
All the other people in line were staring at her Vogue perfect face
but,
I'm too busy thinking about you
pray-thinking
about the way You pick me up the way You
say you've loved me forever and the way you
will love me always
we are the ones who forget it
i forget that You don't make things broken
You make fixing things
beautiful things
you make people and
they call you Creator.

I've tried that,
tried creating with my fingers on the keys and my foot on the pedal
and my heart somewhere up close to You
and my fingertips are telling you
thank you for grand pianos
my fingertips are hugging you so hard
on those keys that
perfection is closer to these sounds coming from my heart than
her lungs are to oxygen
we're all a part of this air of this something
You tell me we're a part of You
a part of together
parts that don't break
parts that you made perfect
but we forget sometimes.

Heaven made us right
Hurt made us strong
I'm making rhythm the way that she makes pavement fly beneath her feet The way that
you love
The way his hands make pictures
The way her voice believes, and believes in,
We are the scarred
The scared
The broken-burning-angry
You made perfect
souls so
Thank You.

I don't stare for beauty I search for your perfection
home-made
in a keyboard
in smiles with crooked teeth
the foot of this ADHD kid tapping time
for hopes that grow kindness
in flaws making us real
for details
working bodies
love

I'm thanking humanity for the broken ones
that give dreams and hope
she calls retouch perfect, well

we've got hearts not power cords
my memory card doesn't have a limit
we're alive
and that Vogue cover is not
these shoes never will be
these piano keys are breathing through my lungs not their own
breathing my life
because flawless is a state of being
a human condition
a side-effect of souls
and heartbeats.
Let's get used to imperfection
because we do it perfectly.
we are humanity
we are beauty
we are soul.
let's just
let ourselves
Be.

the artist

Slam Poetry

aren't sunsets lovely dear
just like my dreams lately and your freckles
lovely the way that wrinkled old man sits at the corner bench.
and the stars, i think that ones venus but
i've never taken the time to learn
the way your brother never took the time to smile.
i wished on a shooting star
and on every wishable time on the clock
and i never told you my wishes because
each wish was a prayer.
and the moon is dark.  a sliver of light and i think God drew it
there just for snowshoes at midnight,
just for the scientist to play with probes on
just so the cow had something to jump over
just for the cheesemakers.
the stars are lovely dear,
but it hurts to breathe.
this air froze with my fingertips and i'm breathing down too many icicles
but the breathing doesn't stop.
its a humanity problem
they're addicted to this thing called Life
and some of us wish we weren't,
because the problem with this addiction is that
it doesn't give you lung cancer.
it shows you beauty and it hurts. like the icicles in my lungs.

i was rocking out to the latino radio station
and so were you,
and it scares me that we're so alike.
you wonder if anyone cares enough to tear down these walls you've built up,

well Last week I dreamed about you five nights in a row
and I'm still afraid.

you're afraid of cake boxes and barbie dolls and a long list of other things
with a list of reasons to match
and you say you're afraid of cake boxes because you never know what its really gonna be like
and of barbie dolls because people act fake enough as it is

and we're caught in some kind of Limbo where no one can tell what's real and what not
Least of all you
and maybe if things felt more real you would be honest, but
you're still convinced the top never stopped spinning...

These are the things I understand.

I understand that you exist on a colorwheel, that you breathe color and even though your lungs
are drowning in them
color is all that keeps you alive,
and the paint inside your veins is all that keep you real.

But the reason I never showed you my soul is that
YOU SHOWED ME YOURS FIRST
and its still stained in acrylics
You thought that if you drew on enough hands and
etched your name into enough hearts
it would make up for all the plastic in the world and for
all the illusions we've penned onto our faces

but I think you've got some kind of color constricting your lungs because
you
CAN'T
KEEP
BREATH.
It slips out.
and your lungs are filling with
drowning with
the illusions of paint
and real life.

There are things I understand and things I don't.

I understand that blue is too many dreams to call a color but people do it anyway
I understand that pianos are black and white but
give me one and I'll create all the color you've never dreamed of
I understand that you've got a color connecting you to reality
because it has always been easier for you to pretend
until
maybe it had something to do with the starlight
but you
finally
exhaled
all the color you've kept in.

and because you've never really known what was real
you closed your eyes for seven seconds

and asked.

this day was lost

I'm just trying to connect the dots

I feel like I'm waiting for something
that isn't even there
and too many of my thoughts are dead-ends.

because, I don't want to think
but I'm stuck
on remembering
a little girl whose clothes are dirty and whose hands are dirtier,
and she wouldn't meet my eyes because her pride is stained darker than them both.
The bruises across her back hurt
but nothing like the welts on her innocence, so
she paces the house that is her cage with her head down and her eyes hanging even lower

and SHE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME

but my heart won't let me forget

There's a little boy who didn't walk at all
he just cried, on the floor with his back pressed against the wall like it would save him, like that wall was his father and nothing would separate them again.
because he is only 9 and Seventy is too many years of waiting to hug his Papi again.

And i couldn't even tell him I Care.

so I know its been said before, but

you've hurt too many people

and maybe your name is Death                                            but maybe that doesn't matter.

you've been known as Divorce, and She called you Abuse,

I know too many people who think you're a mirror telling them lies, 

but

we've all got a common problem.

our problem is you, its the fact that

YOU WALK LIKE YOU LIVE HERE

And you don't. You shouldn't.

We never let you in, we never gave you permission, we never gave you anything

let alone our souls.

and for some reason you exist

YOU ARE TRAGEDY

and pain and fear and hatred

the tragedy of people with hearts so Weighted down they're leaving footprints deeper than their souls

and i hate the fact that blaming her too-many-tears-to-cry on you changes nothing

so i guess i'm just asking
questions.
too many.

because Somehow the sky is still lovely
and my best friend still exists
but so do the heavy hearts.

And laughter is real,
just like saxophones and snowflakes

and somehow,

SHE GOT A HAPPY ENDING.

maybe this is just me
thinking things out
thinking about how things aren't perfect and they never will be
but
that little boy has a friend who loves him, and
that little girl learned how to draw.
and maybe we've got it better than we think because
I know a widow who started taking walks and
a Shell who picked up a pen,
it may suck but
orphans find God all the time
the depressed found a piano and lemonade
& the broken tend to pick up books

its not easy but survival isn't the issue
it never was
we're just looking for

hope.

i'm not dead yet

that first post needed more but i... was too anxious to be free

Everett mills is still alive.
she always was.

Did you know? I thought not.

I am not who you think i am,
I never have been.

i've been sick of fake laughs and noise since i first learned about masks.
about masks that lovely ladies wear with feathers
that wesley wore to save the princess bride
masks worn by hyperactive kids, either so they can practice wearing lies
or so their mothers can pretend for one night a year,
"oh, that one's not mine"
masks that hide your face but not your eyes,
that wrap those windows to the soul in someone else's skin and man it must grate your soul like heck but it leaves so little space for glimpses into the truth,

people say
"real men don't hide"
well real men don't exist.

the only people who've never hidden and never will and aren't wearing some kind of cover-up right now are
worse than dead
because you dreamed them up

and i've been sick of masks for too long.

my mom is loud.  my dad is quiet.
loud meant fake for a little blond girl
and so yes i smiled, and probably laughed too much
but i'm like my dad
and i like the truth.

if its possible to be shy and brave then i was, on and off, you may have caught me in a brave moment but overthinking stretched and filled every gap in action,
overthinking and doubt and shame and a sadness because so often
my quiet self was alone.
i overthought the mask
it took me so long to separate the truth from the lies--
so long to learn that
not all laughs are fake
that smiles are not inherently plastic
that lies are not the substance of life
that i can make jokes and talk
and not grit my teeth to keep the monsters from slipping into sight
Because there were no monsters but everyone else had them and what could i do but assume that
i couldn't smile like them and act beautiful without being a lie.
because thats what they were.

because even if mine was real
and their's were fake
it would look the same.
And I didn't want to be fake.

i never doubted myself.  i never doubted God and i never doubted that this world is good, and i never doubted that i can do anything
because i'm more than slightly idealistic,
but that didn't stop the voices in my head and it didn't stop the other voices fighting it and i
think
way too much.

so this is about what's been on my mind forever.  this is about truth because i value honesty and Everett Mills has always been alive. 
she just never had a name.
i've been finding my voice for years now,
and the person you see at school with my name is as real as the devil
and has always dreamed
and always wanted
and
took some time to find her voice.

(i was shy.  i hated it.)

"she doesn't talk much"
"i know you're quiet"

"oh I'll do that, I'll bet you'd rather not do that much talking"

"she's just shy"

I HATED IT

and i had thoughts and they were beautiful

and i wanted words for them

and i wanted to say them

and i wanted to give you a hug

to tell you

to speak up 

to dance 

to sing in front of crowds
i had music in me and the only words i had to say them were piano keys.
i've had it all.
forever.
all but courage.

I hate masks.
not their wearers,
but oh how I hate masks.

i went to forever trying to avoid them and somehow all i did was pin on one of my own, safety pinned it through the skin around my eyes and because i saw no blood i thought nothing of it,
but i've been drowning
bleeding internally
so badly that if i tilt too far to one side i'm afraid i would hear the blood sloshing within me, hear the blood-tide following the moon from within my lungs.
I am gasping for breath from the bad blood
thats still seeping from those safety-pin wounds
i painted a mask around my eyes, i thought the paint-can was labeled silence but really i was using blood
it was like the shell i never wanted
and it fit perfectly.
this mask felt less cruel to everyone but my soul.
to everyone but my heart,
punctured by paint brushes
and gagged with duct tape rougher than he is and heavier than the earsplitting silence of my shame
safer
to everyone but me.

I've always been real.
I've always been Everett Mills
but i haven't always been honest.
if i had a key i would toss it because
i'm not locking up again.

thank you for listening.
Anna Tasso

she

started writing

...real

hello world

I've counted and i have more posts in draft than I have published.
but here's to real talk and this is for all of us dreamers in Paris, I wish i spoke better french because I don't plan on leaving.

half of life is confidence, and if you really knew me you'd know
I'm a dreamer
I love summer but I'm becoming a ski bum
i think 10000 times more than what i say
I'm an obsessed pianist
when i play Clair de Lune on a grand its like I'm playing my dreams
and i crave that feeling
I wish i were slightly shorter
i like fruit and people
i'm scared of driving with my mom
i read too much
i'm slightly idealistic


thank you writers, you make Paris beautiful
my name is everett mills

I'm Anna Tasso

so you thought you forgot

when have i ever wanted to remember

I remember my dad's bedtime stories
i remember when they stopped.
the way mom's bedtime songs stopped
nap time stopped
i grew up too early
but not from a tragedy
from how things are rough and we're all different,

I remember the pink sweater mom's best friend gave me, I wore it for years and i saw it in a picture a few weeks ago and it was ugly and flowered
like a lot of things I had
and i loved it.

I remember clocks. roosters at farmhouses and windmills and grandfathers and i remember watches and alarms
tick- tock- ing and screaming
and i was always late
because i was always
with my mom.

I remember the first time I ran away,
I remember I sat on the hill and wondered if I would go back that day.
I remember my heart was more sizes too small than the grinch must have felt
because I Hated.
I remember wondering if my bag of trail mix would last me through the night,
I had taken extra on purpose.

I remember in 4th grade I drew an orange with pastels and it was tied for the best in the class.

I remember the room that my mom started swearing in.
it was my room and there was a bunk bed
and I remember my brother drew in lipstick on the metal bed frames
and it made me angry the way my mom swearing made me scared
like red lipstick
in clumps
on cold white steel
in a room plastered with pink flowered wallpaper.

I remember that room was cold
but it had the best view.

I remember trying to skip stones and giving up,
throwing handfuls instead because it was the only way I
could make two splashes in a row.

I remember throwing baseballs and then
maybe it was the broken windows
but i started throwing punches instead

I remember we stayed at the lake too long,
the way we stay at every lake too long.
I remember that my cousins fly-fished in the rain, and I remember wet knees and messy hair because we waited
for them in the grass
with a blanket over our heads.

I remember playing School in the little blue playhouse
the ivy-covered story-book playhouse
where we hid the box of dead killer bees,
where we hid ourselves and the grapes we picked too early,
there was a desk inside,
and I remember there was an attic with a ladder in the playhouse
and I remember the play house better than the real one.

I remember an iced driveway and a hammer, and a little girl who fell

a cat who chased itself up a tree

there must have been a dog

I remember slivers from the porch and tweezers in my parents' hands and laying down on the table while the tweezers dug through my toe
I remember I dislike doctors
and maybe I'm scared of surgery
because the sliver went deep.

I remember a walk to elephant seals
to California poppies
and tall grass
and bike rides
and the boardwalk,
I remember i was never cold,

I remember the stream we played in at Grandpa's funeral, although
i only remember Grandpa in his casket,

i remember apricots when I think of your house, cousins,
the apricots we never picked but wanted to,
they looked so sweet
like all of the things we talked about but never did.

I remember I'm still writing
and you're probably burnt out on my memories,
but I don't think I'm writing this for you


I remember too much,
but I'm writing because I'm afraid I'll forget.

those things I've forgotten I always want back

always

oh the things

oh the days you've forgotten.

everett mills.

we're looking suspiciously like a snow globe

The first time I rode a bicycle I became a stadium.  

                  A stadium with so many thousands of people that the cheering set of fireworks, and

                 the jumping up and down and smiling sent everyone home with hurting faces and sore feet,

      a stadium where the home team had just scored and the game was over and they had won.

I remember, because this was me until I hit the car.  

            And then the tombstones on either side and the starlight on the top side appeared, and 

            my kindergarten palms were bleeding and the thing plastered in stickers was on the ground 

and the only light to show it 

                                 was a lamp post and a bit of last-light from the west. 

Last night against my pillow I heard footsteps 

                    walking across my room

                                                                          at midnight

so loud in my ears that they walked through my heart, and my blood froze

and only then did it occur to me 

           that those footsteps were my heart. 

                                              

             and since then I've felt off, 
like I was jump-roping on my 6-feet-under and I can't shake that feeling...

The first time you rode an airplane you wrote your will 

              you were so sure your heart would give out that you settled your affairs and 

waited for the plane to crash, you probably wore your seat belt standing up and I'll bet you read every line in that airplane safety guide. 

I wonder when will life will get so cold that we can see our thoughts

             the way I saw my breath that night,  

surrounded by tombstones and shadows at dusk,

the way you saw yours fogging the airplane window 

before you closed it
because its hard to pretend your feet are on the ground when you're looking 20000 ft down at the Alps.                                                                                      

Your mother told you he is never coming back so you tried to never ride an airplane
                   because you knew you would do the same.

We're sitting in frozen chairs with desks attached,
and in frozen mountains and parks
in freezer-burnt towns that border farmhouses but there aren't any cities here. 

            We must have been frozen even before winter set in because I didn't noticed when the glass walls came over everything, I didn't notice the frozen sculpted falsity of this globe until last night, when I was tempted to knock and listen for the ring.
      but what stopped me was a stray thought asking
                                                                                               if this shell is a 2-way mirror.
We've been stapled and stuck together with hot-glue guns leaving transparent trails inside this snow globe that won't snow and 

                                                  we're stuck here in this silver that feels so cold

not because of temperature but because of the statues surrounding us.

The only question on my mind is why I can't see my breath. 

                                                                   

everett mills.