Spud

He was a potato
spotted spud
straight out of the bag
raw
and heavy like kitchen baseball
unpeeled
and from the ground
normal
with all-American roots
like spaghetti curled around forks
on mom's homecooked Saturdays
a backyard
Babe Ruth potato
so right-brained
it's left
when I can't comprehend
how he sees colors sometimes
because he comes from crooked treehouses
and thanksgiving football
he comes from
jeans and t-shirts
and fingers rapidly alternating between x and y
to shoot spaceships
he is raw rooted potato
where everyone knows what they're getting
while he's holding the hips
something fresh
oven hot
sour cream and chives
cheese melting
golden sunrise
Paula Deen butter for days
rich with freedom and taste
I was a baked potato
from wheelchair childhoods
to canvas splattered Saturdays
roots created in royal purple
veins with treble and bass
roughing it up in aorta bedrooms
I am the buildingside paintings
of little girl letting go of red heart balloon
I am the loaded baked potato
too rich
next to others like me
because all I need is the norm
the brown paper bag boy
who comes to lunch with PB & J
next to my Bento Box
He's the calculus
to my yoga
the Chuck Norris to my Madonna
Because New York needs Broadway
like it needs Wall Street
like hands need holding
like opposites attracting makes cliches
easy
because we could be french fries
in pigeon bird beaks
we could be baked chips and curly fries
I'll be the barbeque to your pringles
and the gravy to your mash
because you look so good
you could be a salad
handcrafted for wedding receptions
through family recipe
I would gladly call you my sweet potato
despite your lack of orange
because I'm Au Gratin for you
wrapped up in foil fairytales
because I'm steaming under eccentricities
and sometimes, I just need
 a plain
potato. 

Call Me T-Swift

They call me the Taylor Swift of slam poetry

Like they know of every inkling in my writing

That I manufacture made-up manuscripts

Written for me by someone else

Because to them each word is a catchy line from the underworld that is pop radio

They begin to shed tears as it infects the veins in their hands

Turning bloodlines to map patterns

With blood racing with the roof down belting out Our Song

Until their fingers grip pens like a constant snap

Making rough love with old notebook paper

That still has its edges

And they find themselves trying to write like me

Steal the synergy

Of my cute and free soliloquoy

About the boys who’ve wronged me

They’re only pissed because it’s so damn catchy

Clinging to the hemangeomas of their peeling poems

Because I seem too mainstream

Too big of a dream

An underlying scheme

Because they try to find something fake about me

But themselves is the only fake they see

Everything big and fake like the 80’s

You can hide behind your Dolly Parton’s ladies

But I am as real as teardrops on my guitar

I am as real as a Red kind of love

I am as real as a state of grace

I am as real as three chords and the truth

World changing

So call me Taylor Swift

Don’t care if you think that shit fits

Cause much like your muffin top jeans

I am overflowing

With success you’ve never met

And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

So we are never getting back together like ever

Hide behind your coat, I’ll brave the stormy weather

Because I could go bowling for broken hearts

And strike

Because I knew he was trouble

He said forever and always

He was treacherous

And he turned my world sideways

It’s not wrong to write about love

Over and over again

When your heart’s still getting new stitches

Embracing what it sees in mirror each day

Someone else needs to know that I feel that way

Don’t let yourself hate

Just because everyone relates to a broken heart

Even you

So mad props T-swift

No matter how many guys you’ve been with

You always get back up

Show the world your scars like tattoos

And you’re not so bad off

Kissed a Kennedy and John Mayer

Wrote a song about ‘em later

Each time a heart breaks

I’ll use the Taylor Swift intake

Take memories to notebook lines

Make him he wish he didn’t screw up this time

Because when he hears this rhyme

He’ll know his name was on my mind

and he’ll watch me making my own life

 wish he’d been a love song instead

I’ll always write what’s in my head

Because I’m real like a broken heart

And you’re real like lies about how you don’t know every part

Because you sing along whether you want to or not

Because you know what it’s like when love’s got you strung up and shot

So call me T-swift

I’ll write your heartbreak

And let you hate on me

For saying what you can’t say***

Pan

I am the shadow girl

My selfless years have just begun

As I wrapped selfishness in juvenile signatures

And tucked picture books underneath me

Reminiscing in the tootsie pop lunchbox days

And lacing up ribbons on dancing shoes

Remembering

The lost boys always manage to find me

and love me like the mother they never had

In neverland

They worship me for mere cookies and milk

And I tell them they were owed this

They became lost with mama’s shouts down the hall

And plaid robe mornings

Where tears drew up panels of gone daddies

They became lost when the broken world

Cast off together and traded for separate

And untied constellations that connected wishes left on stars

And my heart beats for giving

When all they need is to be found

As they teach me comic books and taco bell

Church camp chants

At a middle school dance

We hold hands

Reminiscing what they thought was love

When they didn’t know what mutual meant

And girls left kisses on their doorstep

And hearts at home

Because they didn’t know the gravity of deep dreams

Of a young boy

And they thought eyes were backwards telescopes

And big things were small

And I love

Stitching their broken hearts

And standing where new beginnings start

Hours of grand theft auto and youtube karaoke

Dancing dorm room production numbers

Past quiet hours

Laughing and crying

And showing them that I never had to give birth

To be a mother

I am the shadow girl

Loving lost boys

Like brothers

And still searching for the most lost of them all

Because he never grew up

Or answered any of my phone calls

I believed in his flight since we were kids

When no one else did

I’ve always been his

I am Wendy

Searching broken tree-houses and basement boxes

Because Peter Pan

Is the only man who can fly me to

The second star to the right

Because he never grew up

He just disappeared

And I know he’s there

With my heart on his sleeve

He had the heart to leave

And I continually search shadows

Because without him I become the lost girl

And I love the lost boys

Being the mom they never had

But I’m a half-ass mom without a dad

And pan stole my heart

When he told me to believe

As he sprinkled out stars like maps

For tomorrows and yesterdays

We were born to sway clouds

And defy plans

Prayers to father time

To make adventures

Like rocketship raucous

His eyes are an atlas

Of worlds I’ve never traveled

And I’ve loved him from afar

As I kept wishing on his star

That he’d come back

And we could be a fisher price family

Kids playing grown ups

Wearing shoes too big for us

Just to walk like someone else

Because we are serendipitous wishes

And chances chosen by children

Free and brave

Watercolor emotions

On canvases of pictures I painted of him without looking

And I’ll paint them with a pinky promise

To stay lost until he finds me

Because our pact is one I can’t explain

As I build soup can telephones

For us to stay in touch

And fishing poles to cast

When we sit on cushions of the crescent moon

And remember forevers

When we were young***