The Songs I Learn While Silent

I travel by train and I look out

My window, my legs are too close to the grey-man beside me

Headphones in, power chords, progressions

I am progressing, and my knees

Need a shave; they catch on the silk of his suit.

Sponging on masks for my sisters

Deft hands and chipped nails

I know what I am doing; midnight taught me

To plaster art over the Nature of epithelium

Because youth should be beautiful and unblemished

Empathy is uncomfortable.

I grip metal handles that sap my warmth

Open doors for strangers

I should know them better, and I am ashamed

Good Morning

Makes up for words I don’t have

I always look away first.

There is power in being alone.

Loneliness lets you observe the music that

 We are all secretly harboring

I like to capture the hush-secret songs in

A worn black notebook that I keep in my

Left breast-pocket,

Which is a little too small

For this world, I think.