Spring tides ride high in these times,
when moon and sun stand in a line
Your uncompromising waves crash
upon my unwary shore;

I am but the mist of your deep rain



I want to be a teenaged girl
We would hang out at the mall
poking fun at passersby,
unsuspecting drones trapped in lives
of preordained dullness
We would buy smoothies and talk
of faraway places, undiscovered,
where we would travel together
in spaces of conversation so real
we would taste the cultures

I want to adopt you and bring you home
where we would go over your homework
with my wife, then join my daughter
and watch girlie movies, like Mean Girls
I would make popcorn and smile
as I hear giggles from the next room
I'd return and you would rewind
so I could see what I missed
We'd laugh guiltlessly at the part where Janus
says Damien is "almost too gay to function"



I am the fundamentalist
I am the extremist
I am the terrorist
You are Islam
You are peace



you are a raging storm of bliss
  ripping roofs off of houses
    revealing the contents within

exposing contradictions
  of li(v)es otherwise concealed
    filling them with the joy

of endless possibility
  absorbing the grief
    of such naked truth



sometimes you show up at my window
like a crazed canary
chirping away with undecipherable expressions;
notes so in tune, i can’t help but to sing along
(the canary takes up to 30 breaths per second;
sometimes you don’t seem to breathe at all)

other times you sit at my window in silence
or maybe, like a cowbird, your notes are so high
that they can’t be heard by human ears

often times i look for you
but all i see is a vast vacant sky
and all i hear is white noise —
these times leave me to face the fact
that birds have wings for a reason

how can i expect you
to keep appearing at my window
when your nest is so far away
and your wings give you access
to so much more
than what my grounded, flightless world has to offer?

so go ahead and soar, explore
all the wonders that you were born to find
i will keep my window in a crack
and listen for your song —
like that of a kakapo
it will carry to me from wherever you are

it is your time to fly



so fly