Palestine, a series: Sorrow

He talks about Palestine like people talk about their families

like I talk about my parents' divorce and my struggling little brothers

like Katie talked about her dad leaving

like I think about breaking up with Cyle

"Palestine..."

still its a beautiful word coming out of his mouth.
it makes him swallow a lot and he teaches with silence.

normally his words are hardened;
this is a fact of life.
"the Palestinians are losing hope."

Palestine, a series: Freedom

I'm holding the flowers.
She was beautiful
the thought of being equal
She did so much good to all around her,
always happy, and kind.
She will be missed.

Midnight:22

some thoughts, to a friend:

I hear you ever time i sigh.
I think we are breathing together.
Can you hear me?

When I'm thinking about the truck bed, can you hear me?
when I'm feeling the roof tiles under my feet,
when I'm tasting the blackberries
when I'm running in the dark neighborhood around my apartment, tilted up at the stars and lifting my arms to fly

I see you but
Can you hear me?
I know you can.

are we thinking the same thoughts?
when I want to lean against you and study 
when I'd like to hear you laugh
J U S T  B Y  E X I S T I N G 
I wade through parallels to you.

(can you hear me breathe?)

Its midnight and I had a midterm today and one tomorrow and I'm not ready for my test but I'm ready to write to you.
I'd like you to be tangible. Anything about you could be tangible.
As it is I'll sleep soon when I finish my laundry and then I'll wake up soon when I finish my dreams and then I'll be in class soon and 
it was nice to be in control of my life, 
I guess I'd like that back again. 

Time will tell. Might tell you, might tell me, she tends to whisper and I'd really like to hear but 

now the world seems loud.

Today we did cartwheels in the grass 

barefoot

and I remembered there's a moon.

Its like I jumped into a barrel of feeling:

I don't know which feeling, but I've got a new coat of paint

and I feel a little tripped up

like my skin is half dry and half stripy

and half camouflage

and a quarter sore from studying

and the other 80% is confused

this probably means I'm shifting into a new shape

or on my way to getting those big white wings. 

I know what I shouldn't say.

Meh

a world with him is a better world.

- I M  G R A T E F U L  I  S T I L L  L I V E  T H E R E -

Goodbye,
Everett Mills

Exodus

I've got 30 minutes to write but I've spent days falling short of poetry. 

Is the ink inside of me drying up?
What would well up in its place?


A collection of thoughts:
I'd like to collect poetry daily, like manna.
It would be refreshing in this desert of textbook reading.
"What is it?" said the children of Israel.
the taste is like honey, small flakes to turn into a variety of meals;
I'll examine poems like the Israelites.
"What is this?"
Words like honey.
Flakes I don't understand,
consumed daily.

We're grateful, the Israelites and I, at least for now.
A few years wandering may change that.
But words turn me into someone better, keep me growing, if poetry is manna
I won't just eat I'll give
I'll seek corners needing names and faces wanting recognition
--their stories untold--
Give away pieces of my heart wrapped in punctuation
until pieces of me are growing all over the world,
finding tropical breezes and blooming no matter the desert
my feet find themselves in.

a future

Palestine
I write from Israel.
turmoil mutters that something is missing from me.
futures
are unfurled
too slowly.

You and I
We float in an ocean of peach trees
the ocean breathes and our hearts bob, we are gulls on the waves
you touch me like salt and rain and
peach fuzz
our hearts have lifted into flight above us

we taste like
climbing trees at midnight
no lights
sap
barefoot skin finding peeling bark, hiking up the trunk sideways
hands grappling
hair in mouth
tangled
towards more oxygen.

we were two at the bottom
sitting underneath the world,
a world on top
distant,
hearing
there is a place colored with the sun's eye drops:
light. and cobalt blue
Rising
we swim upward the orchard
toward peaches and deep breathing and vision

hold me up to the light and tell me we are real. solid?
build me, shift, push me you've caught me enough times to last forever
I'd be safe thinking of how

i think God drew you with a crayon
outlined all your edges
carefully, filled you in with sand and seashells
I think he put you with me and fed you milk and honey
because he couldn't stand to see us cry.

sometimes I still taste the salt.
But in these treetops...
He gave you a garden and we climb it because
the future is waiting for us, we lift seashells to our ears and she calls
her breath is on our foreheads my eyes squinting before her light,
heart pounding--my skin just unlatched and my soul is open to the white storm of light beckoning hello love
we will be beautiful
we'll meet our future on the bottom or the top but
We'd rather feel like birds

we want to look her in the eyes.

Lists and hard facts

Define the future:
I can't.

Freckles:
Several along your jawline, the right side especially.
Three or four up your neck.

I like your eyes

this way

This is the way I feel.
I haven’t felt this since those high school funerals.
the way I feel. 

I haven’t felt this since goodbye last year.

(since)

I am leaving my country.

My heart is buried in this ground

One two three hacks with a shovel unearth my heart pry it out as this flight lifts up

This is the way I feel 

You are my country

This was different

We were new

Airplane windows have painted a landscape of fire 

Gold from the sun is reaching out to touch me with its fingers. His hands curl and are gentle, 

His fingers look like yours 

Wide broad brown soft kind strong 

I smell your touch and

I am warm even through airplane air-conditioning 

You are my country. 

This is the way I feel.