The clock strikes midnight,

The glasses are raised.

Lovers consume each other,

Amidst the confetti haze.

Here he comes now,

Eyes alight with hunger.

As if he's found a treasure chest,

His greedy mouth can plunder.

Time's not on his side,

And neither am I.

This minute isn't ours,

I don't think pigs can fly.

I'd rather have a love,

That surpasses 60 seconds.

I'd rather begin my new year,

Without a make-out session.

Farewell two-thousand fifteen,

Usher in the big one-six.

I'll kiss Jack Daniel himself,

And pray the minute hand ticks.

Old Man Rio, why such tears of sorrow?

Sorrow? What do you know of sorrow?

I have drunk from the inner ovens of your sun

and played on the feathery tendrils of midnight lightning

My song echoes distant among ghostly hypergiants

of the celestia

I twirl The Great Flat Earth on a single digit

while my warm breath spins a hurricane over the high seas

So I say again: What do you know of sorrow?

The tears I weep created the great Pacific pool 

in which I swim and dive and feast

Silver rivulets fall from my countenance and seed

the heavenly rivers and streams of the north and south

These tears of what you call sorrow run blood red

among the craggy masses of land so enriched with my iron

No, my young earthling, mine tears know no sorrow

Only the dreams and fantasies and promises of your tomorrow

lizten keed

y MUST

y HAFTAH b

y HAFTAH b O KAY

GOTsit bud

ohl pal oh myne

tayk dees CAPshools

swahlo dem eeryday

and YUHLL be pee chee

there's a street in my city

where the rich kids go get high

broken minds and scorched hearts

sometimes just teens without knowing why

they all meet over there

and strip their souls bare

you can find me among them

lost and blinded by the smoke

trying to forget all the pain

before coming back home

I think we all

have a skeleton

named Hope buried

in our backyards

next to our ex's

promises. We

shouldn't have

dangled it in

the clouds for

so long, of course

our arms got tired.

You say you'd catch a grenade for me? Say you'd put your head on a blade for me? That's funny. I'm busy dodging grenades that you're throwing at me. Skipping through fields of land mines, in hopes to find relief. Maybe you could take your head off the blade, and put your heart on your sleeve. Because, when we meet, my physique speaks "magnifique." That's why you chose to drop me, but my...friendship to keep. Sticking my heart in your pocket as you sit and watch me weep. Watch me weep. Watch me weep.

- If you think I'm over it you're terribly wrong. This is my self defence system. Hurts? Work harder.

- The way you act it's like nothing ever happened.

- Because it's easier. I spent a lot of time trying to make it go away. It didn't work so I started pretending it did and soon I got used to it. That's the scariest thing a human being can do... getting used to it.

- So you still miss him?

- Every night has his name on it. When my throat feels like it's closing up it's because I need that strenght he used to give me, especially now that everything's so fucked up.

- But then why didn't you reach for him?

- Because then I close my eyes and I picture him saying those things to me face to face... "Stupid girl... go to hell. Don't dare talk to me again." So I don't dare. Who knows how much his answer could hurt if I did...

- You don't need him.

- I never did. But yet I did. I never will. But yet I always will.

she walks into the middle

of a crowded room;

the room is silent for a moment

she begins to dance

to music only she can hear in her heart

her fiancé watches her body

glisten in the light

admiring how one girl can stop time

another man sees her too

he is watching her body for a

different reason

and when she is finished he follows her

and slips a small capsule

into her drink

twenty four hours later

in the hospital room

her fiancé is told she died

without any pain

her body rejected the poison

and she slipped into a coma

he weeps

for his fallen angel

he only wishes he would have

danced with her

on their wedding day

just one more time

"life is short" is not an excuse

to hurt others to get what you want.

[Dedicated to Jasmine, who died this weekend after being poisoned at a dance, and her fiancé, family and friends who love her very much]

It never happens the way you see it in movies- the long soliloquy of tumbling words followed by the quiet sobs.

No, it's more likely to be

words are cut off

with tears

choking

every syllable

words strangled

at the top of the throat

words stopped up

with crying jags

like cotton stuffing

in a soda pop bottle

that's been shaken

and nearly poured out.