Self Portrait With Headphones

Eyes that reflect no light,
only notes. All sound is dissolved in a
water-color wash of brown and peach,
curls coiled around white wires.

A glimpse of a serene smile framed
in golden patterns, strokes of a brush
occasionally interrupted by the subtle
vibrations of thought and bass.

A deep blue background behind
this girl seeking solace in surrounding
silence, finding herself below her skin
as her eardrums rumble.

That serene smile gradually becomes
turbulent, remaining a smile only
to mask true emotions,
eclipsed in time on a canvas.

Manufactured

Spinning over again and again
like a ferris wheel in an abandoned amusement park,
emitting light, except this light is swallowed by the sky,
leaving only the familiar haunting jingle that creeps
across the desolate grounds and into a pocket in the back of my mind
that resembles those of my blue jeans; where my hand finds its way
as I fidget at the backs of long lines,
awaiting my turn to fall off of the conveyor belt
(where I've been carried along my whole life)
and into my pretty cardboard box with one word on the side reading
"Educated"...
and there are no cries of protest as I am carried along to my
"destiny," a hole that has no face.

Wax

"This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level."
- John Ashbery

Beneath me I feel anger lurking, this
recognizable pang that sets fire to me, so I write a poem.
My words ball up inside of me, a fist that is
constantly opening and closing, and I'm concerned
that if I release them with
the intensity they strike me with, will the language
burn the reader, too? I can't go on
with these words and thoughts scorching my mind, a
tiny tealight candle melting through the very
thoughts that lit it. Other than the inferno, my mind is plain,
infested with usual thoughts, the balance level.