DISCOVER part III (seeds of death: a metamorphosis)

i  a m the echo of rain
on cracked blacktop
and the cracked blacktop painted
over with middle school designs
in powdered chalk
all in a beautiful array of
sky blue   strawberry red   tangerine orange
hot pink  and white
and the cracks in the
chalk of hopscotch   foursquare  and
four fingered families on the playground
over at echo hills on
stow rd 

i  a m the silhouette of stretching shadows
in the eyes of God
and porn stars
the darkness of death in
every pink sunset and
p e r i p h e r a l   sunrise

cutting through the milky
cotton ball puffs like
the beauty of birth inside
every carcass in graveyard wombs 

they are wrapped in linen under six
feet of  f o r e v e r  providing
nutrients for the soil  and the worms  and
the dust from the dust
beneath the new roots of the grass and
the old roots of that ancient maple
over on 91 that stands guard
with the pearlescent moon
against the coyotes of the night

 i  a m the slaughtered pigs
crying in the puke of
the vegetarians  and i am the
smiling rose on the casket
and the moaning dogs of
sherwood acres
and i am the ghost of
that old slide that burned
down a few years ago
in sherwood acres park
only the dogs can hear
my cries

i  a m the decomposing deer
in the woods over in
sherwood acres park
staring through an empty
window  and i am
the gathering flies and the
animals that devour the
remnants of the deer

i  a m the first frost of winter
and the last leaf of fall
and i am the milk inside
every maternal breast
and the honey inside every hive

i  a m the life and death
between dreams and wake
discovering the world between
fiction and reality
and i am the ghost
of the robin hood over
on east main street
they say you can still hear
the hums of the local bar bands

in the wind

i  a m the thin strawberry
blonde girl with skinny jeans
and a plaid winter coat
purple lips curled in
an evasive smile
walking towards the 12 story
library in risman plaza

i  a m the smell of turkey
in the oven and the
image of the gray smoke pouring
out and curling as it hits
the ceiling

i  a m the beautiful girl chasing
the  o h i o  sunset
and the boy
watching the  o h i o  sunset
whose drawing pictures in
his mind's playground
caked with cracked chalk
of future sunsets

i  a m the smiling fat
cat in the photographs on
the wall  and the paw prints
unsmiling  and i am the
halt of the engine
at the stop light  and the
bench at fred fueller park
where the young man sits
listening  and the writhing
worms under the rock
and i am the black pen set in motion

i  a m the freckle on the fly
in the doorway of the
student center  and the cigarette
butt on the ground before
satterfield  and i am the stars
that twinkle in the vast horizon
of a poets eye swallowing
the depth of  o c e a n s  
and i am their mmms and ohs
intoxicated with the staggering
drunkenness of words
and none of that watered down shit

i  a m every song ever bled
and swallowed in and out of key
in green hymnals and white ipod buds and
static radio airwaves and marching bands
and i am the seed inside every blooming smile  and the smile
in every teardrop echoing against blacktop 
and i am the garden metamorphosing into every color
and i am the scarlet rose on the
mahogany casket in the garden my
soul has been reaping

DISCOVER part II (ode to the earth)

m u c h  like the silver moon
glimmers in the meadow
and the starry night
dances in twilight’s gleam
painting ancient pictures
on an ancient canvas
of heroes and myths

m u c h  like the golden sun
sets fire to the ocean
and the life with in
to the painted sky
and the ancient birds
dominions and kings of the clouds
all in reddish galore
an explosion of terrifically
beautiful color
and to those ancient birds
humming their ancient tunes
with the trees

m u c h  like the fuzzy bumble bee
pollinates from a golden sunflower
and collects the nectar for her young
and to that golden sunflower
that glimmers in the silver meadow
and catches fire under
the blooming sunrise
and as the winter approaches
begins to deteriorate and fall back
to her mother’s womb

like the sun every night
and the lifeless body of
every beautiful carcass
plant animal human

m u c h  like the drift of an autumn leaf
and the snow of a dandelion seed
soaring through the silver meadow
so is the discovery of life and death

DISCOVER part I (i was there)

i   w a s   t h e r e
when little 7 year-old jacob andrews
looked up to the esteemed, autumn sky

painted blue on a canvas

of the harvested earth

the sun a golden flame shimmering

with waves of red and orange

the emerald grass, blades cutting through

the cracks of the ancient design

the trees, mahogany tall and thick in their splendor

speaking in their ancient tongue

whispering fictitious tales to each other

he smiled at his old grandpa-pa

with his little lit-up 7 year-old piercing blue eyes

that made even the damnedest souls 

dance in spiritual galore

he smiled back with that half-smile

his old soul dancing in birth
and decay

they stood on solid ground

on the green grass that stretched

for miles on an empty field

the blades of grass weaving and waving

in patterns of puzzles: unsolved

discovering un-discovery 

i   w a s   t h e r e

when little jacob andrews and his

old grandpa-pa stood among

the old trees just listening 

they got down on their knees

and began to dig deep

little jacob andrews held in

his tiny hand a red acorn

and dropped it in the hole

planting a seed of discovery 

i   w a s   t h e r e

when little jacob andrews
watched the little red oak tree grow into 

something not-so-little 

something tremendous and alien

a monster of beauty in form

the branches like arms stretching

towards heaven

he saw his face in that tree
his aspirations, the branches

his heart, the roots

his soul, the autumn leaves

he watched those leaves for many moons

following the reddish-orange fires spread

and float all around the fields

the earth pulling them back towards her

back to the womb from where they came, 

their gravestones will read

he caught one in mid-drift making a wish, 

his eyes piercing into the decaying beauty:
the veins were like a map of the living 

and the dead, 

the wind was like a compass

for the souls

i   w a s   t h e r e
as the tree stood taller than

any tree for miles

in the fall as the furry brown squirrels
stole the red acorns and collected
them for the approaching winter

in the winter, when the white snow

buried the thick, tall oak 

in a blanket of crystalline white

making it look nothing extraordinary

just ordinary like every
snow-covered tree

in the spring when the hummingbird 

discovered the tree and when the 

dandelion seed heads sprouted
up around it, 

when jacob andrews pulled 

one from the ground and blew on it

watching the cotton-like fluff
spread the seeds of dandelion snow

near the big hill in the backyard

that overlooks the little lake

with a small, forested island in it

and a month later when 

the dandelions bloomed, 

jacob andrews uprooted one,
twisting the stem around his finger

pinching the flower with his thumb

and sang momma had a baby and its

head popped off and laughed
as the flower was de-headed by his

prepubescent humor
and when his grandpa-pa

yelled at him for uprooting 

the dandelions because they were 

mother nature’s reminder of

the beautiful mundane things this 

world has to offer

and in the summer jacob andrews

wanted to explore the forested island
so old grandpa-pa

and jacob andrews went on a little

hike carrying wood up that
dandelion-covered hill like jesus christ

carried his cross up mount calvary 

they carried it to that little lake
as little old grandpa-pa was heaving,

his joints aching, his gray hair balding,

with the little life in him,
he wanted to explore with jacob andrews

his brow was dripping with sweat

as he pounded and hammered away

starting a bridge

he stopped, looking at his 

grandson square in the eyes

piercing blue into  piercing

blue, and he told him that

they were selling 3/4ths of the land

that their home was to become

a graveyard

i  w a s  t h e r e 

when jacob andrews threw a fit
and when grandpa-pa smacked

him in the face
and kissed him where he smacked him

saying, “son, graves are homes for
our bodies, and bodies are vessels
for our souls…”
his voice was calm and collect
almost like a song in tune
with the world at this moment
as the sun was spotlighting him

he continued
“sometimes the world brings
gray clouds that turn to thunderstorms

and if you look at the world with gray eyes, 

you will only see it in
shades of gray and you’ll never
see the rainbow in the thunderstorm
because son, sometimes the rain
brings on the blooming”

i  w a s  t h e r e

when grandpa-pa, got up
leaving his work unfinished
and walked over to the tree
kneeling beside it
whispering to it

with his last breath

i  w a s  t h e r e 

when the ancestors and brothers
of the oak tree were dug up
and sacrificed
when the grass become not
just grass but “hair of graves”

and when that oak tree became
haunted with ghosts and lonely,
somber melodies hummed in the wind

i  w a s  t h e r e
when that unfinished bridge
became broken from years
of decay and rotting wood
when jacob andrews’s grandson
jacob andrew the III discovered the
lake, and the tree, and the grass,
and the dandelion

the tree housed many ghosts
that night, as jacob andrews the
I listened to it
but he, magnificent oak,
wasn’t screaming

wasn’t crying
he was laughing

and when jacob andrews
sat down against the tree
he watched it dance naked
under the harvest moon,
stripping red yellow and orange
he listened to him speak old-wives
tales about the dead

and even though jacob andrews
gray hair was sprouting out
of their grave and his eyes cold and
dead, they were still piercing
blue sapphires painting pictures
of a well-lived life

he whispered to the tree
like his grandpa-pa with his last
breath and a leaf unattached itself
like a detached soul soaring through
the stars and heavens and
i  w a s  t h e r e

he was buried at the base of the tree
his gravestone read
back to the womb from where he came

jacob andrews the III grew older,
like the tree,
his body ancient
and the graveyard became
over-crowded
and lively with death

they cut down the old oak tree
and jacob andrews the III and
his grandson bought the wood

i  w a s  t h e r e

when they carried the
wood stained with memories
over the hill to the lake
and built the bridge

that carried them to the other side

discovering un-discovery

Money (an ode to my cat)

Money

is my cat, golden brown,
white, and mahogany 

she walks through brown-carpeted halls

her kingdom, her terrain,

fat and looking for week-old crumbs

on the un-swept kitchen floor

too lazy to crawl downstairs
and consume her cat food 

Money slurps up the water

from the empty bathtub

she prowls around the house

chasing her shadow on walls

and sees me watching her,

she meows, meows and meows

until I walk over and give her

her everyday fifteen minutes of fame

Money is a beautiful, annoying beast
she tries to distract me when 

I watch T.V. and read and study

jumping up on my lap

her brown eyes beg me please

please pet me

when my door is cracked open 

while I sleep, Money knows

she must have some kind of

kevin’s-door-is-cracked-open-

must-go-wake-him-up radar

I let her jump into my arms

and I pet her before I let my dreams

seize me from my wake

she licks my face, and I kick her out

her clawless paws pound on the door

Money hurts her leg and

she prefers not to walk much

we move her food and water bowl

and litter box upstairs

her leg heals, and she goes about 

her business consuming crumbs
her fur clumpy, meowing at her domain
a paper box in a paper world

Money loses a lot of weight

our other cat, the skinny white one

becomes the fat one

Money stops meowing

and her decaying flesh

starts rotting inside of my heart

her eyes grow very tired and sad

Money, my cat, can barely walk

her back legs become paralyzed

my thoughts become paralyzed

hope becomes paralyzed as she

refuses to eat, my brother and I 

take turns holding her in our arms

and we march like a funeral parade

out of the door Friday, November 18th

Money looks so beautiful

cuddled into my arms

rain falling from my eyes

her rotting flesh, dirty fur,

painful eyes are so grotesque

in the most beautiful kind-of way

her brown eyes beg me please

please pet me

but I kiss her head and

don’t even hold her

I run for the empty house

not looking back, too afraid

everything will turn to salt

and dust gathers on the walls

that used to display shadows

of life, they crumble dead onto me

I leave my door cracked slightly open

but nothing wakes me

12 hours until I sell my soul to NaNoWriMo

Well folks, this is it. My end has finally approached near. I have approximately 12 hours left with you, but goodbyes are not necessary. Good riddance is not required. And for the love of God, please do not start singing so long, farewell. Auf Wiedersehen, adieu.

Dead? No. More like face down, bloody, burnt, and rotting from the inside out, 6 feet under the dirt in the depths of Hell. Is that how I should describe it? Nah, this next month is just going to be a very exciting, yet extremely challenging experience for me. It'll be heaven minus the eaven with a bunch of ell o-v-e. 

For those of you who are lost wandering the river Styx of this entry, I'm surprised you are with me so far. Starting the first day of November I am doing this thing called NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I don't want to enthrall you with the details, so here is my own personal brief synopsis of it. Nanowrimo is a nonprofit organization, where every year in the month of november you dedicate and dictate that month strictly for writing. You write about 2,000 words a day so by the end of the month you have 50,000 words. You accomplish this by doing no editing whatsoever. You just keep writing. And there's deadlines. The deadlines are what is going to kill me, you see. I am really bad at deadlines, and I've never been able to finish something I've started. So this will be a real challenge for me. I don't care if I don't win the competition, I'm basically doing this for myself so I can actually finish writing a novel. 

Details for nanowrimo: http://nanowrimo.org/ 

I guess you can wikipedia it as well. 

So for the next month, I am going to be balancing out school (studying, homework, etc) and work with writing 2,000 words a day--let's not mention the new band I am called Play Onwards where we have 2 shows in november and need a few originals by then. I feel like this is going to be really hard.

And let's not forget, I have to write poetry practically everyday. Now, I'm not saying that's a problem, I am just saying this is going to be a lot of writing. 

I'm extremely excited for this, despite all of the stress. Despite the lack of the sleep and the hours spent cooped away in my room, isolated from my friends. This will be a new thing for me. A challenge. I am really excited to stay up late hours of the night typing away on my computer (I wish it was a typewriter). 

My novel is a rather complicated one. I don't want to give away too much on here for fear someone might steal the idea, but I will give a very brief synopsis. 

Basically it's about these 3 friends who are attending this college. They are part of this bigger group of friends that always hangs out, go to concerts, study and eat together, until something happens that tears apart the group. The main three friends last together but watch as their friends fall apart. Until the main character falls off the deep end and starts hanging out with another girl who they've never met. Things happen, and the main character discovers something HUGE that changes the entire novel. Another thing happens, even bigger than before, that puts her in danger of her life. Something that unites the big group of friends back together. They discover secret journals that the main character kept hidden and have to figure out what they mean, who this other girl is, and what she discovered in order to save her life. 

So, there's...wow, now 11 hours and 20 minutes left until the writing begins. I'm ready for the coffee and the coffee stains, the notebooks filled with ideas, and the hours of literary abandon. Let's not forget the carpal tunnel I'll probably receive from this. Wish me luck!

Compass To My Heart

Follow the compass to my heart.

Will you get lost,

like I do everyday? Do you lack direction like

my feet that run and walk
and glide on roads
not even written in maps?

Some days we take the wrong
battered and beaten path,
dusty and worn or
clean and barren, and end

up in places we never intended

that were made for us, alone

Follow the footprints in

the sand on the shores of my soul

before the ocean swallows the

memories. 

Sometimes the miles

we travel over time

can never

compare to the

distance in each other's 

hearts

through uncharted waters, dark blue
and deep and damned in god-knows-what,

and burned bridges—black like the
ashen faces of every heart
we once loved—
follow into the depths

the golden compass to my poor heart

let the northern wind

guide you, and the southern

sea swallow you

and let the eastern sunrise

consume you

and the western sunset

take you home

because some men will never

stop to ask for directions,

but most women will 

Chapter 5

PRE-PRELUDE
* I hate poems about break ups *

PRELUDE
July 20^th:
The plot is thickening, like
my blood pumping in my veins, my
heart under siege. Milky flags fly up like 

clouds in my blue eyes that begin to 

overcast a 99% chance of scattered
showers. Have you looked outside,
yet? (I can hear them ask) It’s beautiful. 

But I can

barely see through these
clouds of gray.

I’ve sewn the seeds, reaped
for four months, now these
weeds have uprooted out of
nowhere, it seems.
Today I say what I’ve always
said, and thought I would always
say, but hours of silence I
have received.

Kevin, we need to talk

I swallow back vomit and the
thousand tears I thought
we’d share.

CHAPTER 1
March 12th:
Fingers interlocked, we
skip out during intermission

and speed home. I smile at the
sad smile in your eyes. Something
I figured I’d never be
able to fix, not that I
even wanted to. Some how

in the silence,

our lips lock for the first

time. Your eyes, brilliant brown,

avoid mine. I wonder why.
I notice your smile,

half-hearted, beautiful, the best.
I make a goal right there,
to make your hate of everything

disperse.

That night I change my relationship

status on Facebook.

March 16^th:

Celebrating for the 20^th
time, the day I came out

of my mother, crying, coated in
blood.
They say birth is a beautiful thing.

Those brown eyes, engaged
in their own world,
stare right through mine.

You follow the path to
my soul with such precision;

no one’s ever made it there before.

And you hand to me a home-made 

crafted cake, with a painted face
of my favorite band. Let’s face it, 

everyone knows you
can’t bake, but you

perfected it.

CHAPTER 2

April:

The days roll on, as
does our feelings. Our friends
have become friends, somehow, 

someway. By chance? By Fate? By 

God? My heart wants to rush

to say those forbidden words,

but as a hopeless romantic,

I know better. And you lecture me:

when the time is right, we will know.

We’ve slipped so many times on these 

slopes. Sometimes I just want to slide 

into the uncharted depths below to the 

center of your heart, and let
fate pull me down.
April 12^th:
I’ve come to respect the little
things in life: the bugs, the trees, the
wind, the days.
Happy one month.

CHAPTER 3
May:
Your brown eyes, brilliant, always
searching for meaning, I have
fallen in love with.
The way you write and word
everything with your witty remarks,
I love that. Your progressing novel.
It’s the way you say my
name, and smile when I kiss you.
It’s the way you grin when
you speak out of the side of your
mouth. I love that.
I want to say it. I am ready to say it.

Exams. We both are scared.
You have no reason to be. You’re 

brilliant.

May 12^th:
Happy Two Months, I love you.

CHAPTER 4
June:
Enjoying summer with you, everyday it 

seems. In a couple of weeks I
am taking summer classes at Kent.

My favorite time of day is

when you and I sit out

on your porch and read. Just read.

I love sneaking peaks over there,

you in your chair, stretched back,

your eyes pondering the pages, painting

profound pictures in your brilliant mind.

You are quite the artist, dear.

I love your family. Your brother. Your 

mother and father. We dance out under

the moonlight with our lack of

rhythm. You call me white. (You can
say that again.)

You take me to the lake in your 

neighborhood. I think it’s going to be 

some poetic place full of pretty scenery.

I stare at feces of geese floating on

murky water.

We talk about the future. You 

say your if’s, and I say my when’s.
I know what my heart wants.

June 12^th:
Happy Three Months, darling,
I love you. So much.

CHAPTER 5:

 July 4^th:

You seem so happy. Always smiling

with that disarming charm of yours.

We sit out in your half brothers back 

yard, watching the neighborhood

ignited in patterns and colors
from the house across the street.
We all sit in a circle, on those white, 

hard plastic chairs, sitting around a well-

lit fire. Staring up into the sky, watching 

the neighbors, as you guys do every 

year. You are holding my arm,

smiling. I’ve never seen you so happy.

In the company of your family, of your
lover. I smile because you are smiling.

July 12^th:
You invite me over. I give you
that hardcover copy of the Jonas 

Brothers On Tour since you are
so obsessed with them.
I take you out, despite you
begging me not to.

You give me a mint.

Happy Four Months, babe, I love you.

July 19^th:

Today is the first time

you get mad at me. I talk about how
I am sad to watch Borders go,

you say that I am too afraid of change

and “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Two attempts in, I’m

questioning your motives. Today
you are someone I’ve never
met before. What’s your name?
Attempt three.

My eyes are sleepy, my heart

heavy. I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow. (A cold chill
runs down my spine).

That night I choke back the
imagination of my mind

in liquid chapters. My eyes tell
the story through the storms

of gray, suffocating the blue.

July 20^th:

Good morning, I love you.

The morning is new, the heat 

unbearable. Beautiful blue skies,
puffy white clouds, I

smile waiting for your reply.

Hours later. Babe?

A plague of some sort begins to
spread through my blood

into my heart, poisoning

my perception. I can hear

the clock.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The story unfolds in the deafening
silence. Chapter after chapter,
scene by scene. I’m sipping on coffee,
trembling over thoughts that tear

through my heart.

Three hours.

This silence speaks for itself:
chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

Kevin, we need to talk

That night I sit in chills, while

people complain about the heat.

Silence. Darkness. Damnation.

Kevin Pees went from being in a 

relationship, to single.

EPILOGUE

August

September

I run into you on campus. Your 

complexion is godly, you smile, bringing
a thousand tears to my eyes. Those 

brown crystal bulbs still the same.
The gods call it paradise

I call it paradise lost

The Subject Of My Subtle Sorrow (lyrics)

I trace the memories with my fingers in the clouds

The faces of your heart, my heart fade to the ground

With your brown crystal bulbs, staring holes in the pavement

You can save it, your tongue-tied nots knitting my noose and

These leftover feelings left inside, burned to a core, a corpse

Where I hoard these past thoughts, that rot to the floor

A valentine, that could never be mine

A somber song, sober at the core, drunk in it's words

Blue turns to gray, and gray turns to black

These flowers I gave you, you will never give back

Shut off your TV, I can still hear the static

In the racket of our heart beats, you're so melodramatic

You flood to your past, the comfort of the arc

Of a crooked smile, that can break two hearts

There's no comfort in color when it's cold in the 50's

but these autumn leaves have never looked so pretty

In this city of scars and broken hearts so hurt, you

you can't say break up without the breakdown first

Blue turns to gray, and gray turns to black

These flowers I gave you, you will never give back

No matter how poetic, my tongue still stutters

When I say you and I, I know we could never be lovers

To hell, to hell with what you think

You sell your soul for all those cliques

And click they don't, you're on the brink

of a breakdown, so let's break it down

One more sunrise that our eyes can never offer

Two more hearts, buried in the slaughter

Three more tears drowning memories in the water

Four more weeks, and I still want her

So to hell, to hell with what you think

You sell your soul, to dreams in faded ink

The love you waive, you wave goodbye

So here's to all that could have been, has now died

Blue turns to gray, and gray turns to black

These flowers I gave you, you will never give back

No matter how poetic, my tongue still stutters

When I say you and I, I know we could never be lovers

To All Writers

Dear writers,

(Before I let you continue reading this, this is a very boring article about why you should write, how you should write, what you should write. It is poorly edited, and written in a time restraining span. This is just for writers, aspiring writers, and those who believe they are writers.)

"[About writing]...I've also struggled and felt like giving up. While the moments of magic happen, writing, for me, is hard work and at times incredibly frustrating" (http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/09/12/writing_reading_imprint?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews).
 So true. Every time I sit and listen in a writing workshop, I think, wow everyone here is better than me. I should probably just give up. Then I remember, these people are probably thinking the same exact thing. Listen, don't ever give up on your writing. Don't stop. Don't store it away. Keep writing, because someone somewhere out there wants to see your stuff. It may change their life, you never know.
  Just yesterday I sat in my poetry class listening to the poets utter life into theirs magical words that caught fire in my heart. I sat admiring, probably google-eyed, thinking to myself that I could never be half the writer that they are. That no one could EVER appreciate my work like theirs. I thought, wow, all the novels I want to write, they all are awful ideas. All my poetry, it's just a bunch of jumbled words on a paper. I am not a good poet nor a good writer. I should just give up. Crumble up my ideas and feed them to the sharks. Run away and never look back.
  But I didn't and I won't. I can't just give up. I have a long way to go. I am still a young writer, I have a lot to learn. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. My professor made a comment yesterday, though older in age he is, and wise beyond his years, he still learns to write every single day.
  I guess you can say that writing is a learning experience. You need to travel the worlds of literature, every sea of poetry, and all the galaxies of writing to be able to craft YOUR own style, your own voice. And even then you won't be able to master it. You are always learning, and I love that. I love learning.
  So writer's, I ask you this: why do some of you choose to not read? You say that reading is pretentious, yet all you've read is Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, George Orwell, and all your required reading. Have you honestly sat down to read something in your spare time? I swear you will learn something by feasting your eyes onto a modern day-and-age book, and digging yourself deep into the pages. You will experience worlds you've never dreamed about. You will be blown away by words you've never heard. And most importantly, you will learn. You will learn the different styles of writing, new words, the voice of different authors. And by doing that, you will find your own voice. Because your writing voice comes from what you've last read, I hate to spoil it for you. So right now, what you try and write, is all of your high school required reading. It's all the poetry of the poets you read. It's the lyrics of your favorite band. Go find your own voice. Be yourself.
  I have to admit, I call myself a poet but I barely read poetry. I read poetry when it is required, or when I run into it online. So I promise, if you promise, to read it. So read my friends, it is a beautiful learning experience!
 Also, you need to keep in mind a few things. When you write, don't always write for yourself. You need to have an audience in mind. Don't just write some self-indulgent text. People don't want to hear about how awful your life is. If you are going to write about that, it will soon disappear over time. Write about yourself, but have some ulterior motive in mind. If you choose to write about the weather, personify it to some degree and compare it to something that is important to you and the reader. Draw the reader in, be aware of their intentions.

Writing is hard. It is frustrating. It is annoying. And you almost always want to give up. But don't. Keep writing. Keep up the good work. Keep pursuing your dreams, friends.

Yours always,
      Kevin Pees

P.S. I really and disturbed by the fact that people call writers only those who earn money for doing so. Sense when does writing have to be JUST an occupation. Can't it be a hobby as well? A dream, an aspiration? What are your thoughts? What do you call a writer? I'd love to hear your ideas. 

blank page (a letter to my class)

to my classmates, my professor, my peers, my elders,

i write to you now, staring at a
blank page of porcelain:
my thoughts, pale like the
marvelous moon reflecting
from the soul in my eyes.

can you see it? the blue? the emptiness
inside these blank thoughts
behind these full frames
of dark?

i sit here, completely attune to
this woeful world, here
in this “silent” study-room

these people breathe like lions
roar. they chew on pencils
like prey, engraving
their murderous marks with their
pearly whites, stained with the remnants of
this morning’s coffee, this afternoon’s
tea. chomping. chomping. chomping.
they crumble on paper
piercing theirs nails into the
grooves of it’s flesh, twisting
their terrible fingers
crinkle. crunch. crack.

i stare at these “silent”
studiers, screaming SHUT-UP
in my head,
which, by the way, is engulfed
in furious flames of rage
and riot

and i am staring, still, at a
blank page

that girl in the corner, wearing
that faded gray hoodie, hiding
behind thick frames, is in texting galore
gallantly giggling in girly
high-pitched shrills, sending shivers
through my spine.
and not those cutsie-wootsie shivers,
it’s those ones that creep and crawl under your skin,
like devils of the damned
that make you scream in your sleep
into your puffy pillow.
and class, you can’t see it,
but my neck is bulging,
my eyes are narrowing

and that boy next to me, consumed
in british literature
is fondling his book, playing with
the pages. crinkling all the notebook paper,
bending back the covers
ruining the spine, folding the corners
into dog ears,
and my mind is playing
on repeat, me bending his back,
ruining his spine, folding
back his fingers. let’s see how
he likes it, because as we all know,
every book has feelings
every book has memories
every book has a soul

and i’m staring at a blank page

things that should have said,
hey class, music is my soul
and my soul is what i like to speak
and speaking is not my specialty so i sing
and singing i do with words on pages
and pages i paint with poetry
and poetry i read and write and love

but hate i do those who hate beautifully
structured sentences, seamed together
with brilliant design
unlike this blank page that has
consumed the blue behind these
crystals i stare through

so class i ask again, do
you see it? the blue? the emptiness
inside these blank thoughts
behind these full frames
of dark?