Atlas' Shrugs Are not More Important Than Mine

I'm convinced that when Atlas finally shrugged
It was not because the world is so heavy
But because the days are so long
And if a Titan can't shoulder the weight of time dragging on
What does it say of me when they tell me to wait
Good things come to those who wait
I always thought that if I showed up late to things
Then I could pretend to have more patience
than I really did
But I fooled no one
Except myself
And there are few things sadder
Than watching someone laugh at a joke
That no one else gets
Moving to the beat of their own drum
It is so offbeat
And every one can tell
Every one can tell
When you're not doing well
But that doesn't mean they understand
When I was seven
I heard that planes had crashed into the twins
But I shrugged it off because they weren't related to me
And I had no obligation to country yet
So I didn't wonder if anyone I loved was dead or not
But I did wonder how Al-Qaeda was celebrating their success
Back on their black gold soil
While we were trying to drain the blood from ours
Good things come to those who hate
It would seem
Laughing to your own jokes
Can be so dangerous
This doesn't make sense
The important matters of man never do
At least not instinctively
But time still drags on
And how I thank him
How I thank him so
Before I shrug him off

Updatezzz

This is finally updated to the best of my knowledge.
School is hard; the struggles are real.

More Sun than Flower

When I die

Lay me down like Autumn

I wanna be as frank with my death bed sheets

As the fall is with the leaves

Reassure me that like bare trees I can’t hide anything

Tell me that the dark in my hide is brightened by the brilliance

Of a springtime mind

Give me spring when winter is too persistent

Break my snowflake gush

With rosebud bloom

Snatch my winter snow blanket

And give me a spring shower curtain

Cause when I wash myself in the change

That only equinox can bring

I don’t want it to splash out onto my

Summer seams stitched with sunlight

Stitched with lightning bugs

Caught in mason jars

That used to be moonshine jars

Till the moon found out we were stealing her glow

When the moon casts her glow on my face

For the last time

Plant me in Georgia soil

Pray that I become a giving tree

Pray that I can cultivate the empathy that knows

What a sunflower feels like when it loses its mind

Over the idea of having more sun than flower

Fertilize me with the irony that

I had to vegetate to learn that the meaning of selflessness

Is me dropping my leaves to the ground like fall does

Cause then I’ll know what it’s like

Not to hold on so tight

There was nothing I could do in the first place

And thank god

There was nothing I could do in the first place

And when my roots are transplanted to the second place

Trim me down to bonsai size

So I can know Zen when I look at a giant pecan tree

And think damn

There’s nothing I’ve wanted to be more than me

And the Earth is so much more than our casket

Than our dumping ground

Than our heat sink

When I die I want to go to heaven

And heaven is right here under our feet

Darkaholics Danonymous

I'm trying hard to believe that hope is like the color spectrum
Just because you can't observe all the different wavelengths of light
Doesn't mean it's not still there
Dancing just out of sight

Who am I kidding?
I have rejected holier things
for greater demons
With messages at the bottoms
of their bottles.
All saying the same things:

Nothing changes
Everything stays the same
Be baptize in this undertow
They say the truth sets you free
So why then do I always feel like I'm drowning?
In this everclear stretched out like an ocean
Vast as the feeling of longing
Biting as the sensation of want
Resigned as the motivation of never again

It is set in your bones
The way suffering is encased in your marrow
Like gravity in your brain
Like instructions to your genes
From greater demons with messages at
The bottoms of their bottles

All saying the same things:
Nothing changes
Everything stays the same

I'm trying hard to thinkthat the darkness is not as bad
as the romantics would have me believe
Because there are nights
When darkness is the only peace I believe in

Because it's too dark to see their messages at the bottom
of their bottles
Too dark to read into much of anything let alone
Some idea of inertia that
Nothing changes
Everything stays the same

And at least I am confident
That in the years of practice I've had in using my voice
That when the demons discover they can talk too
I'll be able to drown them out
Until I can write a response to their message
Simply saying

Nothing changes
Everything stays the same
Untill the time is right.

A/S/L

Hey, how are you?

I'm good how are you?

Fine, just chlling ASL?

19/m/usa

Cool I'm 18/m/usa

Nice are you white or black?

Black

-Logs off-

Hey, what's up?

Not much just hanging around.

Cool, ASL?

20/m/usa you?

18/m/usa. Gotta pic?

Yeah hold on. Sent. Do you?

Yeah, gimme a second. Sent.

I didn't know you were black.

Is that a problem?

-Logs off--

Hi.

Hey, ASL?

18/m/usa you?

22/m/usa what are you here for?

Whatever comes my way

Yeah?

Yeah.

Here's my pic.

Hot, here's mine.

-Logs off-

Logs back in

Looking for a masculine, young athletic preferablly white guy to talk to.

Message me...but please no dirty monkeys.

Are you starting to notice a trend?

That these seemingly isolated instances of events

Are nothing more than coincidences

Based on preferences bound up in different colors of skin

And as hard as it is not to sound like I'm complaining

And trying to wring some guilt out of the last vestiges of racism remaining

You can't help but notice a trend

AllAmericanBoy26's profile says I'm blocking more Chinese than the Great Wall.

TanDream18 says if another one of those black gays comes up to me on the dance floor

I might just have to lock myself up in a bathroom stall

And puke because there is nothing more unattractive than a black gay dude.

JockBro26 says don't even get me started on those Hispanics.

Don't even get me started on how they make me sick.

Are you starting to notice a trend?

A preference.

An affinity whatever you wanna call it.

It's pervasive and no matter how many ways you call it out

It shifts gears and reacclimates itself until it's as mundane as the weather and says I'm here to stay.

Just look at the It Gets Better campaign.

What faces do you see?

Because when I look I don't see many faces that look like me.

And you know it gets really scary when the subliminal message is

That it does indeed get better but only for a select few

Not for anyone who looks like you

43% of black gay youths have thought about committing suicide.

And how many have you actually heard about that did in this wide

Net of information that we call the media.

Because I could count for days the number of

Tyler Clementis, Jamie Hubleys, Ryan Halligans, Bobby Griffiths, and Jamey T. Rodemeyers

Who ended it because they felt mired in the unyielding hatred of a small number of small minds

But what about the Raymond S. Chases, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoovers, Jaheem Herreras, and Joseph Jeffersons

Whose stories were confined outside the limits of the mainstream

Who decided that their deaths weren't important enough to be screened.

Were they the same people who decided that my people's only role in their community

Was as a vector for HIV

For AIDS

Have you ever wanted to waive a birthright?

When those oh so subtle stares that

Say you don't belong here

Drive home the screws that reinforces

The locks that make

You feel locked in your own body

Bound in your skin like a book

No one has the time to read like you

Were penned by an author on the side who lost the war

Like instead of Mary Magdelene you were just some common whore

That Jesus laid his hands one once or twice

In the testament and if you ever try to testify

They'll silence you and every practiced line

That's the cultural atmosphere

The social environment

Plants are at an advantage when it comes to growing because when they are raised

In an incompatible environment they just die

But people are not so lucky

They find any way to grow

Even if its crooked

Even if its with their heart growing inside out on their sleeve

I'm sorry

I can't be another Raymond Chase, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, JAheem Herrera, or Joseph Jefferson

I can't be part of that 43

I have to try

Anyway I can

Pendulum Clock

I am just like everyone else
That's a truth I can't escape
On dark nights when the cliche clings so heavy to my bones
And I think I could have changed things if only I had known
I've always known where you were waiting for me to crawl back to you
Every time you made true on your promise to walk away
But I never wanted to go back to that place bright
With the knowing that today is the day
I wasn't ready to walk into the light
I see it every time I look into your eyes
And the way it reflects the way I'm revealed to you
When the pretense has faded
And I'm left naked in your gaze like a book opened for the first time
I don't know how to react to being read so easily
You know I recoil when you get too close
You're not supposed to know everything that goes on in the pages of my story just yet
I'm scared you'll use it against me when the ink of my secrets has been bled
Dry like your demeanor when I'm scared to laugh at your humor
But when your ribcage is made of glass you'd be scared to laugh too
I keep myself busy making room for the personality traits you'd find undesirable
Like seeing if my depressive tendencies and irrational anxieties could share closet space
But you walked in too soon for me to move the skeletons blocking the way
You know I won't take it personally if you drop me flat like a note you've been holding for too long
Footsteps banging on the ground like the hammers on piano keys
Hammering me into pieces so my eyes can't see you running
Like the window of opportunity is only as wide as a door lock
When my mood swings on the pendulum of that offbeat clock
I had locked away in my freezer
I was trying to freeze time to give me more time to accommodate your tastes
But time is not given and time is not taken
And people are never taken for granted as long as we need them to be
You keep walking in on the soliloquy I go over before I meet you on the stage
I've always been too scared to improve my improv
I'd like to think I perform better on page
I need a script for this
A relationship bible
Where every verse and chapter is full of the right things to say at the right time
Like when your uncle died and I thought it was your grandfather
That's the kind of awkward conversation I'd like maneuver around
Before my tongue crashes in the back of my throat and I can't make any coherent sounds
I can't always get into the swing of things so I always try to prepare
So all I'm asking from you, so that my chances will at least be fair
Are deep breaths, a little bit of space, and a lot of time
And maybe if you wait long enough a black hole will open up in front of us
I heard a black hole has the ability to freeze time better than a freezer ever could
And a romantic told me that that could be the best place to love someone
I'm too practical for that
I think it'd be the best place to place an offbeat pendeuum clock
Then I could have all the time I needed
I might even have time to actually talk

Timely

The greatest gift I can give to you

Is the skill of temporal mindfulness

Knowing that all that was, that is, and that will ever be

Can be navigated through with a flexible mind and perception of time

And I know if you can survive a day you can survive a month

And if you can survive a month you can survive a year

And years are makers of lifetimes so in your lifetime

I hope that I can help you realize that learning to live and accept

is as simple as constructing a time-frame

Because if change is the master of life then time is the master of change

And you are the master of them both and can barter the price of life

To a negligible cost

Week 1

The first week is always the closest to tragedy

In the way that a newborn is closest to its mother

What is newly born will cling to what gave it life

And its self-preservation will try to overshadow yours

You will know its battle cry as the sharpening keenness

Of the feelings of blame and shame

Your hearing will be more sensitive when walking among insensitive social circles

Encircled around the barren carcass of a still smoldering rumor

"Is that the girl who--"

"Bless her heart--"

"Sometimes bad things happen to good people--"

This week will be the hardest because the past knows how

Hard to hit you in your regret to make you feel like

You are at fault for the uncontrollable

The remedy for this is knowing that the past

Is like shitty music

It will be irrelevant

Before you even know it

So dance to the tune of your own heartbeat

Cause it will be all you have to remind you

That this is your body and no one else’s

The past goes for easy targets the way that men

Who do not know the meaning of the word stop

Go for easy targets until they put up a fight

So dance your sword dance

Dance your sword dance

Week 2

The second week will consist of constantly guarding your back

When you should be protecting your front

Because when the present----- presents itself it will do so

With the apathetic force that turns the gears of every clock

Wake up, brush your teeth, shower, get dressed, go to class,

go to work, flash a smile at the appropriate times for both

People will demand that you rebuild your social life

When you are trying to remember how to rebuild yourself

After  a stubborn hurricane

The cloth you use to restitch your social fabric will be soaked and tattered

The wood you use to rebuild your home and hearth will be splintered and wet

A fire will not burn hear for a long time

But people will beg for the warmth of your smile

To console themselves

With the flimsy assurance

that you are just fine

Even when you are not

Cause even if you can put up a haphazard shack of socially acceptable behavior to

Cover up the foundation of fear that has gripped your home

The stones you set in place will be moist and damp

Because fear is a slippery slope

The remedy for this is to treat the present as a present

This time is yours to do what you want with it

Because other people are guests of the future

Water eaten thread will not tie you to them reliably

Water eaten wood will not make for an inviting hearth or home

Slippery foundations will scare them away before they even get to the front door

Week 3

The third week will be taunting the way the light at the end of the tunnel always is

The smell of fresh air will be welcome but you will still be too scared to breathe too deeply

Handle this week with moderation with the same moderation with which you anticipate the future

Because the future's greatest weapon is temptation and temptation's most vulnerable targets

Are the hasty impulses that galvanize your bones when you want something so badly

You will want to feel normal so badly

You will want this ugly cemented in your bones

To not live so close to your heart’s home

But know that this ugly is not a resident here

It is an intruder and it has no alibi

You are not a walking crime scene

You are evidence of a soul looking forward

No matter how hard life has tried to pull you backwards

It is tried and true that time heals all wounds if you let it

And as much blood and tears as you have had to let

 to get to this week

You deserve to feel pretty again

To feel real, to not feel used up

The remedy to a daunting future

Is trusting yourself

Start little

Trust yourself the way you trust a chair not to give way when you sit

Trust yourself the way the rope wrapped around your neck trusts the blade when the knife hits

Trust me when I tell you that on your darkest days if you ever get into a kicking match

With a bucket I will always hope for the bucket to win

This week will be the tipping point

Week 4

The last week is crucial

It is the forgetting week

It is the remembering week

Yesterday will feel so long ago

But not too long ago

Fingerprints will leave their mark around your neck

Or maybe that was just a memory

People will continue to ask

But it will be easier to talk about

At least it will feel easier to talk about

Particularly in the day

Nights will be mourning periods

Grief will be a visitor who always overstays his welcome

But he is not visiting you

He is visiting the misery you harbor

And she knows when she's not welcome

And so does her company

Keep yourself in the company of people who believe in ghosts

They know how to deal with the past

Keep yourself in the company of ambitious children

They know how to deal with the present

Keep yourself in the company of the hurting wise

They know that the future has already happened before

Survive on a diet of Chinese fortune cookies

The ones that are actually from China

Because when it comes down to it they were on to something

For example

The Chinese word for crisis is a combination of two characters that mean

Tragedy and Opportunity

Agents of time

Who is the master of change

And you are the master of them all