We leave parts of us in the words we write
For our present selves to live and believe in
For our future selves to wonder
For our past selves to be remembered

-- Isn't that beautiful?

Writing lines like conversations
That live on as long as they're read
Never washed away from the imprints of history
The greatest things left unsaid

Reading minds from long ago
A place no one else will know
But see, in writing you get to be
Yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever

-- A legacy.

she ran until she could run no more
screamed until she could scream no more
fought until she could fight no more—
yet to save her it was never enough.

she was forged with iron, wrought of steel.
bourne of fire, taught never to feel.
she was the daughter of life, mistress to night—
grace brought of blood, fallen being of light.

she is beauty, insanity— and all in-between.

as the final rays of sunlight disappear over the horizon
I look up to see my silhouette flush against the wall,
the dull colors accenting my lonesome shadow.
with eyes closed, I attempt to forget
how you intertwined my fingers with yours,
and how your breath danced against mine
under the low-dipping summer haze.
and with the same chapped lips
that uttered the words "goodbye"
you told me, gently,
"I love you."

i've kept every
sticky note,
letter,
mindless, simple gift
ever given to me by a friend.
every memory,
from valentine's day cards to ticket stubs.
i'm a hoarder, but of a very specific breed:
a scrapbook's worth of paper with no home and no purpose.
more akin to an archivist for no one.
i started crying yesterday
because i couldn't find my
memory box,
the shoebox i've stuffed all of my
sentimental nothing into.
i still can't find it.
i'm afraid someone threw it away.
(the box is full of letters and notes from my friends, starting from 8th grade. i go off to college in a week.)
but if that someone saw it as trash, they were probably right.
i have old letters from people i haven't talked to in years, that hate me now,
all crammed in this little shoebox
because i could never bring myself to throw them away.
my own personal museum of all the relationships i've let die of starvation,
hung taxidermic and pointless
within the walls of my heart and
cluttering the floors of my room.
exhibit a:
when i broke up with my first girlfriend,
i opened my memory box and burned the letters she'd given me.
but,
i went through them first
so i could keep the ones i couldn't bear to get rid of.
i'm a hoarder. i latch onto every crumb of affection i've ever been given and never throw it away.
wouldn't you?
exhibit b:
i was an angry child
i am an angry adult
i have spent my life roaming the desert of a lonely god,
and finding people willing to love me is a long and empty walk from one
oasis to another,
with nothing to show for it
but a shrine made up of
immortal-dead remnants of
every person i've ever known.
i have been alone before
and i never know if i'll be alone again.
experience hath granted me the wisdom
to hold onto, dig my claws into what is not guaranteed.
so yes, i am a hoarder,
and, exhibit c:
one day i will die alone
surrounded by garbage and words that some person out in the world doesn't even remember writing,
and i won't be able to bring it with me
into the black abyss of wherever else
and they will clean out my house
after i am dead
and throw it all away.
but for now
i'll keep looking for my memory box,
because it's gotta be around here somewhere.
i really do hope
it's around here somewhere.