you don't need to stop

you don't need to stop

i who am so good with words
fail at giving you words
you don't need words,
sitting there on the floor.
all you need is your smile
and your hands.
your joy is obvious as they "flap."
you don't need to stop.
you don't need to stop.
it's who you are.
when you babble and shake your head
(in character, the only word in my language you know
is no.)
and sit, unwilling, unmoving,
you make your point.
words don't make points like that.
you don't need to stop.
you don't need to stop.
it's who you are.
you don't have a disease.
you aren't disabled.
you don't need to stop.
you don't need to stop.
it's who you are.
i expect from you what i expect from everyone.
and that's what's fair.
you are as capable as you can be.
you don't need to stop.
you don't need to stop.

(This is for my girl Danielle. She has Down's Syndrome and is on the autistic specturm. That's who she is. She is no less normal than I am. I love her for her sudden need to run and shake across the room. I love her for her crazy laughter on the ground in the student center at BYU. I love her for who she is. We are all strange and different and weird. Imagine how bizarre our talking and touching and hugging seems to her. She is beautiful.)

bad poetry is like bunnies but with less fur and shorter ears

i have spent all of one old,
distinguished benjamin franklin,
his eyes twinkling that founding light
beneath half-moons,
on books filled with poetry,
all poetry,
all lyrics and songsofthesoul
and i can not wait to lose myself,
forget my body, only words, my mind,
in their pages.

today my mother stood in the bed of our new truck,
dressed in a pink bathrobe,
my old work visor, still needs to be returned,
upside down on her head,
and her seeing cane in one hand,
a bowl filled with holy water in the other.
she poured it on the truck and we intoned its new name.
sunday afternoon car christening whimsy
is when i remember how much i love my mother.

let me write my bad poetry and you can't paint the world whatever color you want

when i read poetry,
feel the soul of another reaching out,
through the dead trees of history,
i remember what my goals are,
where i'm longing to go,
what i wish to become,
to have, to know,
and i realize:
my gosh, i am pathetic and i will never make it.
but then my ADD takes over and i run
to paint circles on my belly.

last night i took nyquil
and woke up in the dark
to find an alien had taken over my body
and i had six fingers on my right hand.
i fell back asleep, only to awaken again to find:
i'm insane and drugs don't help that.

i think i'm in like.
with you perhaps, or maybe you.
no, wait, that's it:
it's love.
the feeling down my spine,
the glow in my cheeks,
the wit on my tongue.
that's love, and i like it.
can you be in like with love?