1.) I led  him on
2.) if you saw us together you would think we were dating
3.) at one point I wanted to kiss him
4.) at another point I didn't
5.) we held hands the second day
6.) I remember shopping with him
7.) I also remember crying in his car
8.) I cried when I heard his voice
9.) he gives the best hugs I've ever had
10.) I'm scared of commitment
11.) he's now moved and I don't know how I feel
12.) I'm so torn emotionally
13.) this is turning into a jumble of sentences and words that mean nothing
14.) I've always hated attention
15.) this is the same year I've cried in front of more people than I have in my lifetime
16.) I can feel us growing apart
17.) but I will always love you, always

I'm afraid to look at the news anymore
2. All I know is that people are dying everyday and mothers and children and uncles and families
3. Taking sides isn't going to help when everyone is a victim
4. I lit a candle for all those 298 people that died in the Ukrainian flight
5. I'm agnostic and I still lit the candle
6. I'm supposed to be on vacation but so far all I've had are allergies and insults and vomiting and cramps
7. I feel like I'm ruining everyone else's time
8. I want to throw up every other minute
9. Two days ago I was so weak that I had to inhale deeply every time I wanted to talk
10. Every night she turns on the news and every night I use my phone

1.) I wanted things to work out between us
2.) Even though they didn't that doesn't mean I don't think about how soft your lips were the first time we kissed
3.) I tried to replace you but ended up getting hurt again
4.) I need to stop falling for rock n' roll loving nicotine addicts
5.) No matter how many knee high socks for confidence I wear I always seem to choose the wrong people
6.) I stopped being sure in my judgement a long, long time ago
7.) I could see myself falling so madly in love with you and your laugh, so in love with the way your hair looks in the morning
8.) My body remembers things far longer than my eyes ever will and no amount of touching will replace your fingers on my skin
9.) I've lost myself in an abyss of emotions that only come too fast and stay too long
10.) I want to say I'm learning but I feel like I'm stuck in the tar, covered in black and lifeless

sometimes i wish that photos didn't exist, and sometimes i wish that i could win you over with poetry, and sometimes i wish that i could write all the things i love about you and give it to you and have you understand what i see, and sometimes i wish memories didn't happen, and sometimes i wish emotions didn't exist, and sometimes i wish i didn't have to write in a single huge paragraph about how confused i feel, and sometimes i wish my heart didn't sink when i look back at those stupid pictures, and sometimes i wish that those **** memories would just go away, those memories of it all and the cold ground of a hall and the dark lights and the 3am and the tears, and sometimes i wish that i could rewrite my luck into stone, and sometimes i wish that you for one time wouldn't say her name when we talk, and sometimes i wish that ill wake up to a text from you telling me how you feel, and sometimes i wish that 11:11 wishes came true, and sometimes i wish that i could stop wishing for things, and sometimes i wish that i could forget and stop feeling the way i do, and sometimes i feel like im chipping away, and sometimes i think that you forgot it all, and sometimes you convince me you have, and sometimes you ask for my approval, and sometimes i want to shout at you and tell you it's all wrong, and sometimes i think about it, but i never do.

when it's late at night i want you; i crave you
and your beautiful smile and the way you joke
and how when you laugh your whole body moves
with it.

i crave those moments when you're most vulnerable
and sincere, the moments when it's so early in the
morning you can no longer pick out the ugly
thoughts from the pretty ones; the moment
when everything just gets thrown down onto
the screen like a huge pile of confusion and thoughts.

i crave those moments when you look at me for
a split second and seem to care about me more than
just as that person always there for you. the moments
when you look at me and seem to want me too, under
all the confusion and pain.

i crave those moments when you two are away, and
i don't have to be reminded that the moments we have are
mediocre in comparison. completely and utterly mediocre.

i crave those moments when i can go to sleep and enter my
own reality, where i can just forget it all and not have to pretend
any longer about anything.

i crave those moments when your eyes form gentle creases
on the side of your face when you finally are not smiling to
please, but because you are actually happy.

i crave those moments when i write and i am not forced
to cry; those moments when i can write about 1am and
almost 1am and talking to you and being happy, those
moments when i have hopes for the future.

but i also crave those moments when i cannot crave anymore,
because the pain seems to be too much for me to handle

caring too much and expecting to little and dreaming too big and feeling too small

My worth is not measured by my standardized test score number. My worth is not measured by the amount of AP classes I am taking. My worth is not measured by my GPA. My intelligence cannot be measured by how many pages of a review book I can do and get a 36 on the ACT, a 5 on the AP exam, an A in the class.

I am so much more than these numbers. I am so much more than a transcript.

Dear you,
I don't know when I'm going to burst but I hope when I make a mighty jump off of the hopeful building keeping me standing on edge with a dash of optimism that you will be there to catch me and comfort me. I need you to jump off of your building of cowardice, fear, and pride. I need you to jump into an ocean of emotion that you have never explored, and discover things you never have before. I need you to tell me it's all okay, that you feel a certain way but don't know how to portray it. Tell me I'll be alright. Tell me you've always been there in the shadows of your mind, and coming out into the sunshine of thought has made your life better. Please, tell me.

We are not bottles of beer that you can put your lips against once and then throw in a pile somewhere to rot away with all of the other garbage there. We are not so much of who you think we are. We are not just a fake smile and eyes too dark to see the sun even when it's the brightest it's ever been. We are not just objects you can use and leave after a great session of testosterone raising. We are most definitely not the love in your heart or the butterflies in your stomachs or the antidepressants you seem to need every night at the same time. We are human. We are us, we are broken and hurt and disheveled and confused and we have emotions too, don't ever confuse silence for acceptance and don't ever doubt that we don't care what you do. We're the silent kind, the kind that won't say much but will look at you and realize you've been through some ****. We're the observers from an ocean away, because you're so easy to read even computer pixels give you away. Don't you know news gets around?

don’t leave bits of your heart in the ones who find the blood you spill intriguing, don’t jump into them as if they’re the bottom of the cliff you’ve always wanted to jump off of, don’t hold on to them the way you wish you’d been held through the darkest parts of your depression, don’t let muscle memory remember places they call home, don’t don’t don’t let yourself drown in more disappointment

god i ******* miss it

i miss the hole in your jeans on your right thigh that always had your hair sticking out as if beneath the surface was some kind of animal

i miss the smell of cigarettes and the way you smoked like it was going out of fashion and the smell of your fancy cologne on nights when i was constantly close enough to taste every single cell in your body over and over again

i miss the way you would look at me with your eyes, a way that was filled with first desire, then hunger, then greed, and finally, love

i miss the unsaid things, the way you would call me beautiful because love is too hard of a word for you but you were okay with taking baby steps to slowly let down a guard that had been built since the day we started talking - the day she broke your heart the first time

i miss you, i miss the way my powder would stay on your black shirt after i hugged you so hard for so long that i was convinced i would break you, i miss the way you would grab my hand first slowly then more abrupt until finally you let the fear go and my timidness flee, i miss the way my cheeks would burn red hot when i saw you because i was shy, and i miss the way you would put your finger on the lighter and light that white candle you had because in a room full of sin we had to light innocence

If I tell myself I'm over you,
I know I don't mean it.

If I tell myself I don't love you,
I know I don't mean it.

If I tell myself I don't care,
I'm not fine.

If I tell myself that I can't hurt anymore,
I do anyway.

I **** up every single time.

when he tells you that he loves, tread carefully, because chances are he's saying it under exasperated breath drunk off the essence of nightlife

when he looks into your eyes and smiles, know that it is not because he cares more about you than anyone else - he just likes the view

when he tells you that you take priority over others, know that you shouldn't always believe him, because at the end of the day he's out partying and you aren't; he's drowning in liquor but you're drowning in tears

when he wants to be let in, make sure you have your lock secured, and make him find the **** key. no more handing it to him, no more thinking it'll be different this time, no more making excuses - this is your heart and you cannot just play around with it anymore, he needs to know that you are a forbidden fortress and in order to get inside he has to climb every **** brick that you have put up for him

make sure that he knows that this isn't a game and your heart is on the line - do not let him woo you back into this cycle of boom and depression because you were taught that's only for the economy and god knows you want to believe that

do not believe it when your heart tries to flutter out of your throat and do not let yourself write beautiful metaphors to him because he doesn't deserve it when all he's giving you is a stab wound in return

you can see the blood and you can feel the pain, do not believe it when he tells you it'll be okay

Lately, I've seen poems trending about how no one should fall in love with a poet, nor should they make a poet helplessly fall in love with them. However, something no one has mentioned yet is what occurs too often: stealing from a poet.

When a poet writes a poem, that poem is the perfect combination of metaphors and imagery created by them for you -- a compilation so beautifully intricate that you can get lost by reading merely a few words, overtaken by an empathetic tide that you did not think would come to the corners of your eyes when you sat down and opened your book or tab or paper.

This is the beauty of poems; they express words that many cannot say in any other variation of any way. Ask a poet to describe their emotions and they will beg you for paper and pen, a computer and a keyboard. And these poems eventually combine to become a part of the poet.

The poems a poet writes become a part of themselves.

That being said, it is not okay to take away from a poet what is rightfully theirs. You do not steal from a poet because you are searching for an idea, or because you would like to go trending. Stealing is not poetry. Stealing is not beautiful.

We are a community of people with a love more affable for poetry than for ourselves, and we should all respect all the pieces, because if we do then we are accepting and respecting each other.

So I ask you from the bottom of my heart, do not steal from a poet any longer if you have, or at all if you have not. Your pieces are your own raw emotions, not mine. My pieces are my own raw emotions, not yours.

there's something about the idea of sitting down with him and a glass of red wine that he cherishes so much that really appeals to you, something about listening to call it fate call it karma and joking about the irrelevancy of individual objects in this mass world that makes you want to message him immediately

the truth is, you need him because you need someone to save you when you have realised at about 3 am on your way to see him this morning that you are no longer a person to rely on to be there for you emotionally - you're your own bad influence, you're your own a.m. thoughts and bad decisions

the truth is, you wish you were still drunk enough to tell him that he should date you instead; you wish you were drunk enough to kiss him, drunk enough to play with his tie when he kept fidgeting with it, drunk enough to tell him that he's full of **** and you love it

you wish you were sober enough to forget about everything that has happened and get off that feeling knowing somebody told you that you'd be in their head, because your situations have never been perfect and this hurricane is making its way towards your heart faster than you anticipated and this time you don't want to drown in the raindrops of lost desire and empty words

there's something there, something about the two silver rings, one on each hand; something about the way his hair slicks back, about how he wears his glasses and how excited he gets to show you what he can play on piano; there's something there about the touch, about the electrifying feeling of holding his tired hands, and about the way you can tease him and he still takes it, about the way he assumes things but you do too and then you both admit your faults, about the way he tells you to smile more because a smile suits you and that thinking too much can be a serial killer

there's something there, but it's too far away to be understood - too far away to be felt, too far away to be loved

your drunken mind assumes it's utopia, but your sober mind concludes it's hell

sometimes we wake up and just dont know how to feel,
*and that's okay

we've spent approximately three months talking about authors and analyzing works and mentioning things like the author cannot give the audience closure because he doesn't have it himself and all i can think about is how i'm the one who needs comfort in a room full of students but i'm not going to get it

old habits die hard, and now i'm the one with the broken mouth and the burnt tongue, the person whose voice has been taken away because i cannot say things that are pictures anymore and i just wish you would realize how much of a constant struggle it is having to think about your memory at least once

thinking back to when you cared is something that i just can't put into a metaphor; i can't put any of this into a metaphor. if i tried it would go something like the way you made me feel was somewhere between two brick walls that were just continuously closing and i used all my weight to keep them open but i kept growing weaker and you kept growing forceful and the minute the summer days came into full bloom i was completely broken

sometimes i look out my window and i am convinced i need to get away because it will be good for me, but how can i build myself up against a world full of you? you're a drop in the water of *******, and for some reason i can't talk to anyone anymore without feeling like they're apart of your ocean

i'm waiting with all of my heart for thanksgiving -- waiting for the moment when i find out whether or not i can leave, and until them i'm stuck. maybe you remind me of colors and of snow, maybe he reminds me of white cars and hot chocolate, and maybe the other one reminds me of chlorine and equations, but maybe i can escape them all

english teachers will tell you that an author does things on purpose but i disagree. words fall onto the page as effortlessly as water flows through a mountain, and it's just because of this that the beauty of a novel comes about. i've been throwing my own ideas on paper for over a year, and now my own pages are finally soaked with the memories of you that i don't know how to apply the pen to a piece of paper without throwing that paper away. everything begins with a dot but it's time to start writing -- if it's therapy for certain great writes, it can be therapy for me too

i need to stop being afraid.

and I'm avoiding the shower all day because your scent lingers in my hair and I don't want it to stop

he tasted like all the memories of us that would never go away, etched in the crevices of every cavity and every bleeding gum, memories you crave the way you want candy or that chocolate bar, memories working their way to the nerve so they can hit you and leave you numb

have you ever taken a teabag out of water after its stayed there for a while, and it's drenched and soggy and not the same as the way you put it in? when I'm with you it's like that, it's like you're the water and I'm the teabag and I feel so full when I'm with you and I feel like everything I need is in front of me but when you leave I'm left with all the **** I carried to be with you and then some

when I look at the stars I realize that you're in the same city looking at the same ones too, and those were the same ones that were there when I cried and when we kissed and when I realized what it means for someone to find constellations on your body in places never before discovered, in a canvas of a sky that with every touch seems finger painted

god guys, love ******* *****, it's like a sour sweet candy but you taste the sour when you're away from them and the sweet when you're together and all the while you're wondering what candy they're having and if they ever turn back to sweet when you're apart or if they taste sour the whole way too and thoughts like that ****

it's like your old childhood blanket when you didn't want it to go in the washer and so your mom had to take it from you when you were asleep, but in this case it's a real tangible person who knows your secrets and the way to access all of you wholly completely and utterly and it's someone you can't handle being away from even when you see them hours before

they say that the affect of love on the body activates the same chemicals as ******* does and maybe that explains a lot about how I feel because addicted doesn't begin to describe it and i guess what I need is validation but I can't even validate my own actions let alone yours

I hope that I will see your lips, I hope we'll hug again, I hope you won't become a dream, and I hope that I'll learn to live even without you three miles away

god am i scared

but amidst the touches that linger longer and longer

and the butterflies in my stomach when i come up to kiss you

amidst the way that you say i love you and really mean it

and the way i rush back to you after every event like a butterfly to the light

i realise

that letting you love me

was the best decision i've ever made

He's the second one I've truly hurt and I realized now that I burn

I used to think that maybe it was them but it's really me who when touched charcoals their skin and makes them turn to ash

They don't want anything to do with me because I'm not like the others - I'm a light burning hotter than 98.7 and the shades of orange and blue and yellow fill my body so when they ask me to speak all that comes out is fire

My words sizzle on their skin and they turn away because no amount of water is going to spark out this flame

What makes a bird a bird is it's wings. Like a soul it's wings transport it to places it may have never dreamed of before, soaring through the clouds in sync with the dipping sunset. But not all birds can fly efficiently; some are fast and others are slow.

I like to consider myself a fast bird for most of my life, always determined with what I want and when I want it, whilst each flap of my wings accelerates me even more into the ever progressing pendulum of sky.

But lately things have changed and everyday the sunset gets longer and longer, the clouds thicker and thicker. It's as if I've flown towards a goal at full acceleration, pressured by the constant bickering of time, only to hit the wing of a man made airplane and fall.

But the fall didn't break me. I'm still alive. Standing up with my wings torn and mangled down, all the beauty seemingly gone from them, the feathers burnt and buried under dirt, feels terrible. It feels like everyday is a funeral for the mourning of a past life; one better and happier. It feels as though you look up in the sky and see the flocks of birds flying everywhere with their wings, laughing at you because you have broken them, while you have to force yourself to laugh with them. But although it feels like hell, I did it.

I got myself up again and I climbed back up to the tallest tree I could find, and I jumped. Again. But I did not fall; I kept levelled with the ground, slower than most (perhaps the slowest) but still in the air. And I can't tell you how that feels, to go through life while something is broken; something is not working. I can't tell you how it feels to laugh so hard you cry, when you use your laughter to hide your watery eyes from reality. I can't tell you how it feels to realize all the other birds keep on going, further and further, towards their food or eternal sky, while I'm stuck slowly making my way to the next tree where I can stop.

I have learned to fly with broken wings.

tell me

how do I become someone's home

when I am all sticks and stones and poor timing

clumsiness held together by suppressed trauma

held back by a dam

I am both the skilled architect and the drunk contractor of my body

my memory has neighbourhoods inside of it each designed to cater to every occasion

tell me

where do I find the house known as me for you

in what neighbourhood do I search

I can't remember the last time I have held onto something

as unfamiliar as being loved back

what I'm trying to say is that

I don't know if I can be a house

but I can be the warm light that somehow takes you through the darkest days

I can be the worn out blanket that holds its charm with a little help of softener

I can be the go-to mug, with spots from over-use and poor maintenance but volume big enough for a comfort drink

I don't know if I can be a house

but I will take my limbs, my bones, my skin

and one by one

become a safe space

i am always the i like you and never the i love you / always the i want you and never the i need you

I would have poured gasoline on myself and asked for your lighter while you lit your cigarette just to prove how much I loved you and it still wouldn’t have phased you as much as the nicotine would // now I laugh while you light your cigarette and when you ask me why I just tell you sunshine burns bright enough just fine without you anyway

I don't know whether I am full of emotion or just **numb

I think I'm finally ready to shed off my old skin

I think I'm ready to remove the bruises from my heart and the scars in my mind from the memories that were tattooed there almost permanently

I think I can finally look at a warm day and smile, because I don't have to see you every day

And I don't have to see any of my mistakes anymore, for they all have gone

I am ready to open my heart and marry the pavement outside my door, kissed by the lips of the sun that didn't shine during our harsh winter

I am ready to dedicate myself to a single airplane and fly far away from here, to divorce old feelings and date new ones

I am ready to stop sulking over any of them, because they do not sulk over me, and I'll be ****** if I let them ruin my summer.

Slowly she helps pick up the pieces that he left in front of her feet.*

He woke up later, went to sleep sooner, ate more, got rid of his old habits, found meaning in a sunset and saw life at every dawn, compared the necessary and the unnecessary and chose accordingly each time.

But as she fixed him, he was not fixing her

She was still filled with pain and regret and sadness and no matter how many pieces she leaves for him they just exponentially increase to infinity and eventually he gets tired of doing the work and decides when he is ready to leave her, alone and without love.

When it's late at night and you're at your desk trying to focus on each of the
words, size 12 font, printed on thin paper that gets heavier with each turn of the page,
do you ever think about me?

Do you ever wake up in the morning and get dressed, putting on your clothes so
sluggishly because of the weight of your thoughts, and have me cross your mind?

When you're walking down the hallway and you see me, someone who never speaks
anymore, who seems to have some kind of hidden infatuation you cannot quite grasp,
do you ever think of how I look?

There are so many hidden secrets within us all; so many hidden emotions. Do you ever feel any of them?

i get it* okay? i know that you're tired, and i know that you want to give up, and i know i'm not worth it, and i know i'm causing you pain, and i know that deep down you don't want to be involved with me at all

i get it
my voice is not angelic, and the echoes of midnight tears and heartbreaks reverberate every time i open my mouth to tell you that i'm not okay, and i know that when you look at my face you wonder why someone who sounds so normal can look so drained, how my eyes seem so hollow, how the skin under my eyes has finally began to bloat instead of just caving in because my eyes are tired to keep looking at this reality

i get it and now is not the time for you to act sentimental and tell me through words that are strained and teeth that are clenched, eyes that are empty and hearts that are not full by the love that i've been trying to give, that you're okay and i didn't affect you at all

i know that this is not what you thought it would be and it breaks my heart to know that but i cannot change
you can pull my hand and force me to obey you but i will only go so far, because the inner workings of my mind are too **** strong to ever give up on me even if i'm ruining myself, and you cannot convince me that you will always stay because i know it's not true, and i know i can't support you either

we lean on each other partially until eventually we fall together, confused and depressed, nostalgic about a past that makes five months seem so distant, desiring something more but constantly being unfulfilled, constantly meeting a wall, constantly looking down, constantly not relying on one another, constantly counting down to a memory that is so unstable it won't happen

*i get it, this is it

we're two matches burning together slowly

all i feel is warmth and light around me
even if i'm one day closer to dying