HOME | DD

Description
1. help clean up the morning after the party.
(even if it wasn't you
who smashed tater tots into the carpet
or left crushed beer cans in the flowerbox.
it might as well have been, and
if you're lucky
next time, it will be.)

2. when your phone rings after midnight,
it's never the person you want it to be.
answer it anyway.
and when it's a boy who wants to read poetry and watch meteor showers,
understand that that's probably not all he wants,
and then hang up.
or don't hang up.
trade poems and stars and kisses,
and let it mean nothing or everything.

3. skipping class is never a good idea
unless you're with a friend you love
and you sneak along the railroad tracks to sit and smoke and watch trains pass
or unless you're alone,
and you need to walk and think and drink steaming coffee in the rain
or unless-
okay, fuck it, skipping class at least once is probably a good idea.

4. don't apologize for asking questions.

5. don't be afraid to disagree.

6. don't get caught.

7. everyone is lonely
and everyone is scared
and i know that telling you that won't make you any less lonely
or any less scared
but it's worth saying anyway.

8. just like it's worth saying that you should never make any decisions
when you're drunk or high or lonely.
even though i know that that's when all your real choices
your life-changing choices
your "holy shit this drunk text from last night might actually be the end of the world" choices
will be made.

9. never buy cheap sushi or expensive beer.

10. drugs are not as bad as they tell you they are.

11. drugs are not as good as they tell you they are.

12. people don't owe you shit for being nice to them.

13. there's no way to make someone hate you faster than
insulting their taste in music
or correcting their grammar.

14. and there's no way to make someone love you faster than-
okay, fine, i haven't figured that one out yet either.
because love is slower than hatred
and deeper
and more painful
but i know that recognizing the book the stranger's carrying
tucked under her arm like a secret
is as good a start as any.

15. nothing good will ever happen in a class
taught by a teacher who calls himself
"coach."

16. waffle house food will only ever taste good
at three o'clock in the morning
when you have blackberry brambles tangled in your hair
and poetry scratched across your hips.

17. whoever said that anger is negative energy lived a boring and placid life.
call the racist asshole in your second block out on his bullshit-
even if he's the teacher.
subservience is surrender.

18. when the cop kicks you out of the park for skipping school
to read french literature
telling him that he's a manifestation of the overbearing power of the bourgeoisie
is probably a bad idea.
say it anyway.

19. people are shitty.

20. people are wonderful.

21. people have worlds inside of them
infinite and still expanding
people are manifest energy
people are thought incarnate-

22. but that doesn't mean
that the asshole who calls people faggots in the hallway
deserves anything but a middle finger and an eye roll.

23. no matter how many times you see the sun filter through the clouds and realize
that you do believe in angels
there has never been any god but you.
and that's beautiful.
because that's real
that's rough and raw and genuine
(like the tremble in your fingers after the perfect first kiss-
or after a shitty first kiss.
after the kind of first kiss you were too high and too sad
to even remember properly
after that kind of first kiss)
because if there is a god, i know he wouldn't envy you
that kind of euphoric blasphemy.

24. you think you want to be a poet, but you really want to be a poem.

25. you're never as good a driver as you think you are.

26. you're never talking as quietly as you think you are.

27. you're never as empty as you think you are
there will always be something there,
curled in the birdcage of your ribs
or the hollows of your eyelids
call it a soul
or the ghost of a lifetime to be spent writing and reading and breathing and
surviving.

28. the only way to make good art
is to make a fuckton of bad art
and go from there.

29. some things are best left unsaid, but some poems are never best left unwritten. so

30. write.

31. keep writing.

32. improve.

33. keep improving so that

34. you can look back four years later and know you've improved because

35. that's what high school is about. so

36. grow.