poem

Poem: Pools

POOLS

Leucadia

Lemon trees dance in the breeze

A bloom of suns

Hanging from the cyan sky

Backyard summers

Bare feet on warm concrete

I watched over us

As we grew older

In that Pool at the end of the street

Remember

When the Monarchs migrated through

our world like a vision and their orange

and black wings sailed on the Santa Ana’s

You tried to catch them with a butterfly net

You were always so optimistic, even then.

.

My squinting brown eyes

Adore a complicated sky

Spilled jars of cotton balls

                          on the cool blue floor

Wisps of delicate ice crystals

                        stretched by holy hands

Gorgeous gargantuan vessels

carrying charge

                         and rarest of all

                                          rain

Silky serene guardian angels

Passing by every time I need escape

Whisking me to someplace lovelier

Than my mind’s landscape

.

The ocean infatuates everyone

With that break-your-heart blue

Breeze carrying the salty smell

Hypnotic chorus of crashing waves

Overtakes all chaos in space

I’m alone with infinity

Swimming past the break

               I pray to the Water

     How can I ever be good enough

                   in a place like this?

The Water rocks me gently,

                                baptizing me over and over

San Jose

You thought the world was ending when I left

This was true but I was, as ever, strong for you

Concrete smothers this city

    Anywhere you can’t leave

                   Is a cage

Small Pools of solace

   Crimson rose bushes

   A dirt path under the freeway

   Soft sun on a quiet afternoon

The streets were not safe

For anyone with a beating heart

Midnight men weaponed with shadows

And all the wrong people loved me

.

I hid in my room

And felt myself burn

Mostly I screamed

But even then

No one ever felt

The hot in my head

Hundreds of thoughts simmering for hours

Watching the city reach infinitely

                         into the blurred hazel horizon

.

I prayed to the Fire

      Will I ever escape?

She opened her blue heart,

Like an oracle

And shared with me

Visions of friendly foothills

She said

             Don’t you know what happens after a fire?

                                                                    Bloom.

Fort Collins

Necks arched like early humans

Seven wishes before breakfast

In this sacred silent space

Before most monsters blink awake

Stars steal my soul

Into a Pool so deep above

I drink it in and fill my lungs

Drown in the mercy of the beloved

Devote my breath to reaching up

Really reaching in

Fingers touch blood

Wake up and try again

Hopeful people love the morning

Dew dries at pink light

Sun washes away night

The horizon bursts open

Oh, the drama of becoming

.

When you visited me

Awed by all I was building

You fainted with relief

It was no place for you

But everything I could need

.

The Earth remembers everyone

From past lives

Celebrating our return

With fields of delicate Columbine

Assured by ponderosa pine

I’ll be held until the time

Under their guard I soften completely

    I ask

Is it ok if I don’t know who to be?

The Earth’s chorus sings

You are known by a love beyond anything

Like how every weather

Is welcomed through these skies,

I howled with the Summer storms

Found Fall’s elegance in letting go

Winter’s wisdom humbled me slow

By Spring I woke up, gasping in the bloom

The Earth winked and asked me,

Isn’t this everything you’ve ever wanted?

To feel it all

And then burst through?

February 21, 2025

California, Colorado, creative writing, Encinitas, Fort Collins, Leucadia, love, magic, original writing, poem, Poetry
Poem: Heart of Gold

Any jewler can tell you

Gold is the softest metal

Heavy nontheless

I hold out my heart

The children take it

Bite so easily with their baby teeth

“I thought it would be sweet”

I am the opposite of cotton candy

Give me your neck

And I’ll weigh you down

but never turn you green

I can last forever

Even when you break me

It’s just two pieces

Of a shiny thing

October 28, 2023

creative writing, growth, kids, love, magic, poem, Poetry

Poem: Just Love Him

Just Love Him

Hiding under his desk
	Seven years old, slowest to grow in his whole class
				On a lucky day he shows why he’s so bored in math
				When others count on fingers, he’s breezing past
Gray eyes staring into nothing/everything
Does his mom know he needs a haircut
Unsafe at recess, everyday
Twisted shit, like titty twists
Pushing, pinching, choking
Melts in my lap like a baby, I forget he’s so small
Breathing slow, eyes closed
Heartbeat in the hollow of his neck
Stroke his forehead slicked with sweat
His teacher will try anything
On her knees like she’s praying
Sacrificing the momentum of the class
To coax a single student back to his desk
Doesn’t work, she calls support
Its me and the psychologist
She knew him back in kindergarten
When grandpa belted him to bruises
And twin sister scratched when no one was looking
Which was often, because it was apparent at the first conference
That his mother carried no sentiment.
School blamed it all on her apathy 
Condemned them to CPS and court ordered therapy 
I ask what I’m supposed to do with this kid
And the team says, “Just love him.”
.
Expert work avoider
One mistake and he’s in the corner
Worksheet crumpled on the floor
He can’t hear what we’re saying anymore
					Different kid soon as we’re outside
					Not much of a consequence 
					For his violent disruption
					It can’t hurt to let him have a good time		
Every reaction is a firecracker
No logic lizard brain
His teacher preaches patience
Out of the few ideas, this ones the best
As he does anything he can to escape
This classroom is his cage
I block the door
He punches and screams,
Tears up the room, comes apart at his seams
					He softens in the wake of his hurricane
Cleans up his mess without me saying a thing
Organizes the books he threw on the floor
When ready, he meets me quietly at the door.
.
Pushed over a desk, almost hit someone
				In the hall, he wants to hug everyone
Headbutted me in the hip in front of his class
                                 Kindergarten teacher’s sadness with him in her lap
Screamed so loud I almost cried
				We sit together in the hallway, silent and tired
Banged his head on his desk on the last day of school
                                  Gap toothed smile and eyes like pools
Threw a rock, it hit me in the head
Said he didn’t remember doing it
				We have to believe him, but he could be lying
				This is his primal key to surviving
All of it interpreted as a misunderstanding of right and wrong
Being abused by all the people you love can do that to someone
I know he’s special because to be so broken 
Requires an incredible depth of emotion
He doesn’t have words for the things he feels
Just the dark blue vein in his forehead
And a vacant look he wears like a shield
The school doesn’t know how to sustain him
They have to send him away
Despite it being necessary
My heart will break on his last day
Because I carved out a space
For a boy alone in the world
And at the same time, I was finally cured
Of this heart I carry around like a ball and chain
He gave it a home within his own pain 
All the grace I’ve been cultivating
Was relieved to a weary soul wholly deserving

June 1, 2023

creative writing, educator, elementary education, kids, original writing, poem, Poetry, special ed

Poem: No Love for the Wicked

No Love for the Wicked

Welcome to the heartbreakers club

Where you ruin lives

And they all know why

You got a broken heart you can’t return

Made of ice and cigarette burns

Made of decisions you wish were pretend

But now you’re condemned

To a life of owning it

Every day for the rest of your days

So now you’re ten feet tall

And some people breathe in the shadow of trees

But most are just going to try to

change you to something more useful

Like a book or a table

.

Welcome to the heartbreakers club.

They say your love is a drug

But you keep fucking up

Now everyone’s running

Cuz there’s a rumor you got that

Midas touch

And everyone wants to be looked at

But no one wants to pay the price

To be stiff as gold

Shit I’ve been doing that since I was

14 years old

Now everyone looks at me

Everyone loves me

But when they try to remold me

They scream and they cry

Because as hard as they try

You can’t remold gold

Without a little light

They don’t have a little light

.

Welcome to the heartbreakers club

Lay out your lists

Of love you lost

And love that lost you

Of the people who cried

And the people who threatened to die

List all the people who decided for you

How it was going to be

And when you told them no

They simply couldn’t fathom being happy

And now you’re responsible for all of their tragedies

List all the people who looked you in the eyes

And said that ‘it’s your fault this time

You’re choosing to be sad

You just have to change your pretty mind’

List every time they asked you to be a little less

It would really just be for the best

As if you hadn’t known all along

That you could choose to be yourself

Or choose to belong

And list every time the thought of

Being someone else

Made your heart choke you in your throat

Made your stomach squeeze inside itself

Made your eyes burn

Made your fingers tingle

Made your ears ring

Because getting here wasn’t easy

May 11, 2023

love, poem, Poetry
Poem: Spring

Spring

Growing is less like

Newborn leaves and flowering fruit

More like

Cutting off dead limbs

To protect houses from collapsing

And standing in shock

At your vulnerability

May 7, 2023

growth, poem, Poetry

Poem: Pools

Poem: Heart of Gold

Poem: Just Love Him

Poem: No Love for the Wicked

Poem: Spring