a poem

A dear friend wrote this for me about stuff that I was going through last semester. I wanted to share it with you because it really spoke to me.


Looking for the right angle, focal length, and composition
For the sentence I shoot,
Erase
And shoot again.

There's something wrong about the eyes--
They gleam too brightly
The hair isn't quite black enough,
And rigid, and fair.

But a picture can't feel
a spoken word can't relate
a poem can't explain
Anything.

Only hearts can feel, and
Ears
And arms that hold you.
Arms are open to enfold you
And thus release you.

Girl Blues

poetry by mush


To every girl who hides
Behind a sealed mouth and
Big headphones.

Who locks herself in her room and
Turns her music loud to
Drown the demons banging
At the door.

To the girl who thinks she's half-crazy.
Who closes up like a fist whenever the world leans in.
To every girl uncomfortable in a pair of shorts.
And sits alone every night in the dark drinking her tears to take up less space.
To every daughter afraid to admit she is just like her mom.

Purple bruises and rain
Blue of every flame
If you are hard to touch
This ones for you.

To the girl who bleeds underwater and finds
God’s face on her wrist-
It’s time you come up for air

Fucked up and fabulous,
Broken but mending,
Come here.
And I will stand on water with you, in fishnets
Waiting for the tide to rise.

So You Want to Be a Writer

by charles bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.