When the fat vegan says she’s a vegan no one believes her
People offer her chocolate to see if she’ll crack
Fat and vegan aren’t words that coincide
It’s like a pancake covered in hot sauce
Unnatural

When the fat vegan walks into the grocery store to buy some produce people think good she needs it
But fat vegan doesn’t feel fat
She likes her shirt tucked in
Sleeves short
Shorts on
The fat vegan loves apple slices and kale salad long showers and a purple lipstick.

Fat vegan eats what she likes
She feels dainty and light
Finally small
Rightfully at home in a sweatshirt
Fat vegan floats through the world as the woman she longs to resemble
But on the inside
Reality creeps back in front of her only in a side glance in a window,
A judgment from a stranger.

Fat vegan has been taught to fit in not stretch out taking up more space is selfish being loud is obnoxious living a magnificent life is too loud
But fat vegan dreams of endless love and long walks  
She finally learns what love means
Being happy on the inside defiant of the world
She knows how strong she is so she continues to float through the world
A
fat
Happy
vegan

I stopped looking for you in the sun and the stars
you don’t belong there
you will never do them justice.
When I look up at the night sky absolutely mesmerized by the possibility of such beauty I no longer think of you.
You belong on earth, so grounded by your own rigidness that flight is impossible.

One pillow
Between my legs
I hold it there at night giving myself a false Sense of security and a curve to my spine That says I love you

Two pillow
Wrapped around my arms
The illusion of your sturdy chest
Heart beating
Your skin warm against my cheek
I am safe here with your arms around my hips  
Our legs tangled together like two Perfectly woven pieces of fabric
Heartbeats sync
Eyes slowly close
I love you’s whispered

Open your eyes

One pillow
Between my legs giving me a false sense of security and a strong stiff spine

Two pillow
I wrap my arms around it tight
Wishing you had a sturdy heart
Wishing you were here

But pillow thoughts are always hopeful for things that will never be.

I blame you for loving me.
I blame you for my hard head.
I blame you for my big heart.
I blame you for anxiety.
I blame you for expectations.
I blame you for baby fat.
I blame you for family.
I blame you for showing me what a strong woman looks like.
I blame you for telling me to never settle.

If you are going to blame someone blame them fully for everything they have done good or bad.

There’s a sign that hangs so far above my head my tunnel vision can’t locate it’s off switch
A glowing neon sign
OPEN 24/7
People are encouraged to
Come in
Get comfortable
Stay a while
Help yourself to whatever your claws can grasp
Leave when you want it’s nothing serious

the neon colours shine so bright I’m blinded

Can you help me they ask

I try until I’m undone

To be fantastically ordinary is to love yourself and to know you are enough
you are wanted on this earth
I want you here
A body is just a shell that holds your spirit like a mason jar holds wishes
love it like it’s your last
Love it like its fragile it can crack and break
Love it like its precious
Every inch of you is a masterpiece no mistakes were made
I hope you wake up one day look in the mirror with your messy hair and bad breath and say to yourself
I love you.
You are enough.

I want to leave who I was behind

Free from my solitary achievement
The only story you care about
The thing on your mind while you look me up and down
My pain is the object of your attention

I will never tell you all my secrets
You’ve never deserved to know and it’s far too late for you to change

I want the peace I am owed
I want the silence I crave
I want the freedom you’ve taken for granted


I want to leave who I was behind and step into a new chapter
A story known only to me
Unread by outsiders
Unedited by critics

I will never tell you all my secrets but I will tell you this
One day I will leave you behind

My solitary achievement.

I wait
Poised and ready for love
But love does not come
Not the safe kind anyways
Books and movies set such high standards people stop trying at all.
Boys speak pretty words when they want
something from you,
Girls scream when they want nothing at all.

They say love will find you when you stop looking
So I stop looking
5
10
20
minutes go by
I stop stopping.
Life is more beautiful looking through the eyes of a dreamer
When love is on the brain a smile is a hello and a thank you means see you soon

Love changes the way food tastes and alters perspectives entirely.
I choose to wait
To wait for love, and in the mean time I will view the world through these eyes of mine
Seeing kindness and hope in all things.

What do you do when you aren’t sure about a boy?
When your brain and body are telling two different sides of the same story?

Brain:
I like the way he talks “ ladies first” “I’d never lie to you”
He looks like a kind hug and a warm night.
Do you show him who you are or cut him off?
The unknown is such a dark and scary place
Stories of girls with broken hearts and boys with grudges.
What do I do?

Body:
Red alert a unknown boy is getting too close and I don’t know how to feel!
He
Want’s
To
See
Me
What do I do?
He
Want’s
To
Hold
Me
With his hands
His hands.
I want to run and hide.
I want to be in invisible again, the pressure of attention is too unknown. Too close. No boy has ever been this close.

Parents tell their little girls to trust their instincts
Is this fear of the unknown or a warning from within? How do you tell?
Does love feel like a risk of self security?
People describe it as a jump.
Mixed messages and signals all over my skin I don’t know if I hate it or love it.
Is
This
Love
Lust
Or
Loneliness?
He want’s to call me baby, do I want that too?
He want’s to read beside me, is he real?
He want’s to
See
Me
Me
Me.

He asked me what one thing is that I love about myself
I told him I didn’t have just one thing
I love all of myself
Yes even the parts I wish were different
Yes even the parts that have brought me nothing but anxiety
I learned long ago that I am enough of a woman to love myself without exception

I have grown tired of people telling me about my body
That these little Red lines that speckle my skin should never see the light of day

I have Grown tired of pulling shirts down and pants up
Applying remedies to the red hot blush of my shame

This body of mine
Blessed with the gift of life
Smothered with chemicals designed Tighten
Tone
Erase

For what?

When I come home and wash it all away
I am still left standing here with myself
Red
And
Raw

A girl who was told that to be beautiful and desirable
Little red lines can never be seen.

Like waves against the shore
Thoughts flood my mind filling it with  bitter salt and half truths.
I am not lovable
Not desirable
Not ready to be loved
These thoughts aren’t true but my heart believes them.

Wishful thinking about holding hands and long phone calls ending in i love you.
I see a lover in every pair of eyes that meet mine
The hunger my heart creates shoots through my veins spreading fire through my body
Only stoping when I look in the mirror,
I do not love myself
Not yet.

I am lonely until I see another fight between two lovers
I do not wish to be broken like that
I do not with to hurt like that

I am lonely... I think
Until I see myself and think
I
Am
Enough

A man I don’t know walks up to me at work and hands me a bible, says he’s been watching me, that I look like I could use some help and that I seem upset all the time.

Maybe I'm upset because

At work a man tells me getting high will relax me before *** that it will "make it easier"
A man calls me sugar **** while I walk  to the bathroom
A man follows me to the bus stop and asked for a smile
My uneasy eyes a neon invitation for a catcall
“A woman’s work is never done” whispered to me in the produce section of a grocery store
While I walk to go on my lunch break a man asks if I will f*ck his friend “ You can eat him!”
What’s your name?
I like your hair
What are you reading?
Can I sit here?
You got a boyfriend?
I can bang you straight
Do you need help with that?

I don’t need help from a man when a man is my biggest issue, not even god could fix this.

When I want to be seen
I want the world to turn it’s head and admire me all at once,
Bask in my glow and worship every inch of me.
I am sculpted from marble and ivory,
Every inch of my skin is precious
I shine in the sunlight like church windows on sunday.

When I want to be invisible every glance feels like a knife in my back,
eyes like daggers
ordinary bystanders morph into hallway critics
Clipboards out pens at the ready
A special page to circle my flaws
highlight my insecurities
underline my fears
I am all at once vulnerable in a place where vulnerability is a very dangerous thing to be.

A tailspin of chaos
I am always in motion
Heart
Mind
Sprit
Whirling so fast my bones leap and bound
I have no interest in stopping
One must be quick if one wants to expand like I do

I will stand on the beach with my feet buried in the cold sand, a few cuts never hurt anyone.
When I look out at the crashing waves my eyes fixed on the blue I start to walk
I walk until my legs are pins and needles until the clothes on my back washes away and I am nothing more that the sum of my parts,
A beating heart
Speckled skin
My tears turn to pearls.
I walk until water becomes air and suddenly the cold doesn’t bother me anymore.
I want to keep walking until water fills my brain and washes me away.
I think to myself today feels like a good day to cross the ocean,
Today feels like a good day to leave it all behind.

one day
i want to
drift
so far into space that i can no longer see my
home
i want to be so
lost
that no one remembers what i've done
in
the
cold
dark
nothingness
i want to experience                                                                                
                                                     Life.

Hey

I thought tonight would be a good time to tell you that I’m queer.
Maybe.
I’m not really sure quite yet but I’m sure about how I feel so that’s cool.
I’m telling you this because it’s been on my mind a lot,
hopefully this is all temporary because constantly turning around to find a new question makes me dizzy and you know I don’t fall gracefully.

I feel like I'm living life in the absolute middle.
Like seeing the life you dream of living from the backseat but not being sure how to take the wheel
You know what I mean?
Would I feel more alive without the heaviness that hangs off my chest or is life about staying weighted to the ground?

If I could see into the future I’d peek at who I am in a year.
I think that would be fun,
Maybe I would have things figured out then.

Do you remember asking me about who I’m attracted to that one time in the car?
I still can't answer that.
I can’t even figure out if I was born in the right body most of the time so how am I to know who I’m attracted to if I can’t even see what’s in the mirror?

How am I supposed to figure any of this out?
I feel like a walking question mark.

Anyways I'll be home in a bit
Call me back
I love you.

Sometimes,
my heart is so hungry I wonder if anyone will be enough to fill me up
It’s a hollow hunger that lingers in my dreams like coals that still burn long after a fire dies.

I hope you never read anything I’ve written.
Strangers reading my thoughts is one thing but you reading my heart is another,
Talking about you comes as easy to me as breathing.
That’s dangerous.
That scares me.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to say go away without you leaving.
I just need you out of my head for a little while.

I hope you don’t because if you do your last excuse just ran out,
If you see me how could you not help me?
I wear my heart on my forehead waiting to be read
Scrubbed clean of all agony.

If you can see my suffering but do nothing
To help then you are just as bad as the rest of the world
I
Would
Help
You
From across the sea I would fly
I would scoop you up into my arms and shelter you from harm
I would hold you close and tell you it will be okay
I would make it all okay
I would help you hold your sorrow.

It has been my honour to be loved by you

Today I am every sad lyric ever sung
My heart drums so slow I wonder if I am alive
Check one
Check two
I am so small I could fit into the palm of your hand without you ever noticing
I am lost CD’s you forgot you had  
People sing of summer and tender first loves
I am neither of those
I am soft whispers at midnight with lips so close I can taste your words
There is no need to sing from rooftops when right here is enough but you insist quiet loves aren't real
So I get smaller

Road trips in january
Running my hands through your hair on february 14th
Holding your hand in march
Surprising you on your birthday in april
Pancakes in bed all may
Reading in the grass on a hot day in june
Making the bed in july
Unmaking the bed in august
Sleeping in september
Haunted houses and horror movies all october
Crying all november
Coffee shops in december
Loving you always

Do not underestimate my loyalty
I will defend proudly
I will protect fiercely
I will love dearly
I will honour tenderly
I will cherish joyfully
I will appreciate always
I will hold tightly
I will listen carefully
I will care for
I will celebrate
myself

Do not underestimate these words

A quiet girl looks at herself in her bathroom mirror
She touches her lips wondering where her courage went as she stains them ruby red  
Quiet girl stands on the bus
Not at the back
Never at the back
She watches people stare out the foggy windows
making up stories about them
A doctor
A lawyer
A broken heart
She doesn’t want to be seen only see
Quiet girl stands in amazement at how so many quiet conversations make such a loud voice in her head
Stories of lost loves and newfound adventure make for much better entertainment than a phone screen
She sees a woman weeping not crying
Never crying
Quiet tears fall from her eyes like peaceful waterfalls
Her eyes speak to the girl
She understands
She names the weeping woman
Lucy
Lucy listens to sad music and likes to eat cherry pie
She is a woman of wonderings
A dreamer
She sits at the back of the bus
legs crossed
The girl watches small sounds escape lucy’s ruby red lips like morse code  
Faint cries for help
quiet girl watches Lucy curl herself smaller into her seat as the man next to her expands his hungry reach
Quiet girl watches lucy’s eyes scream so loud she can hear it
She offers her a glance of understanding of shared fear
But this is her stop and she’s late for school
She gets off the bus and watches lucy drive away
She should have known better the quiet girl thought
Never sit at the back of the bus

I
                            am
                              a
S
   H
      A
         P
           E
S
  H
     I
       F
         T
            E
               R
                
                                  My
Bones b e n d at my will
Today I will create the most powerful
Unstoppably brave truly wise creature the          world has ever had the privilege to gaze upon.
I will call it
                       T H E Y

Teach me how you move your lips so softly when you whisper sweet honey words in my ear
The sound of your voice so soft it takes my breath away
Tell me a story
Tell me about your day
Tell me you love me over and over again
With that sweet honey voice of yours I believe it everytime

When I see a woman read a menu like it’s a investigation report I get sad
They search for calorie content and carb counts
Is it gluten free?
Keto?
Paleo?
Elimination friendly?
I think of how unhappy they must be to put themselves through that
comatose your body to numb your mind
It breaks my heart to see little girls excited to go on diets
Boy’s only love skinny girls
That’s a fact
The hunger that rages in their hearts is too much to bar
No one wants to watch a live stream of a woman crying because she is starving herself
Screaming because she gained it all back
People don’t like pictures of women embracing their bodies
That kind of feminism isn’t welcome here
People want detox teas and cream’s that hide stretch marks
Apps for cheat days and tracking charts
Eliminate this to get that
Love is for the thin we all know it
Run this far to reach your dreams
They call it skinny love for a reason
It’s never enough
Just a taste

Once I wished I was was bird
Black and blue
I wanted to fly across the world and build a new life
I dreamt of letting the wind sweep me away carrying me wherever it wanted
In my dream I was wild and soft
My will was the only reason my feet ever touched the ground
The days were warm and I was free from worry

I still wish I was a bird sometimes, only now I want to fly to the tops of mountains and look out at the world in wonder.

It has taken me twenty years to come to the conclusion that
I am worthy of love
I don’t need to change the parts of me I wish were different to have a conversation
Kindness is a right not a privilege

I do not need to starve myself to deserve love
I do not owe you the skin off my back
I do not owe you size zero
After all this time I know now that I am worth the stars and anything less isn’t worthy
Shrinking isn’t nessacary
Plastic isn’t real
Dreams are true and stories must be cherished

It has taken me twenty years to see myself through eyes of kindness
To realize that care and attention are two very different things
Love and lust are twins most can’t separate
Romantics buy flowers not only when times are tough but when their hearts are full
Car rides at night soothe my soul
Love holds no bounds it’s forms are always different
Looking up can be the difference between living and watching
I am ready.

There she sat
Perfectly comfortable with her legs crossed and a cup of coffee beside her
The sunlight bounced through the frames of her glasses and onto the paper of the book she was reading
She was the image of peace
Blue jeans
Red shirt
Brown hair
Pink glasses

He makes me feel good,
When he comes to talk to me because he likes my stories and our secret handshake.
A twisted sadness lives in my belly, it ties itself tightly around my heart contracting my breathing making my face turn a rosy red
No matter how much I try to make it stop I can feel it burning my cheeks.  
I’ve never been anyone’s first priority
Never once have I sat across the table from someone and had them look at me and not my plate.
I am so happy you love someone the way you do
The way I’ve dreamt of forever
A thoughtful tender love that puts every sunset to shame
You love her the way I love you.

I am a girl lost inside herself

Drowning in my thoughts
held down by my worries
paralyzed by my fears

I am a girl who searches for life long connections in dark and cold places
a unbalanced combination of sugar and spice with a hint of anxiety and notes of don't touch Me I'm self conscious

I look for meaning in words left unsaid and misdirected affections which almost always leave me lonelier that before

My rare moments of bravery overshadowed by self proclaimed failures and regrets I am too tired to carry anymore

I am a girl lost inside herself found floating on the hopes of tomorrow
I am worried about the future and wonder if self exceptance is on the horizon
I wonder if I will have children and if I will raise them right
I wonder if one day I will feel pride in my body
I wonder if I will be okay on my own
I wonder what tomorrow holds

I am a girl who struggles with how much is enough and what is too much
Lost in my dreams and what it means to live a full life

Thoughts defining actions
Wishes defining thoughts
I am a girl lost inside herself

When the pin dropped in our little glass house, all the walls shattered around us spilling secrets.
The end came one step closer.

You were the pin
I was the house

I am shattered.

The end is one step closer

Hi, I’m a loud 19 year old self conscious mess who eats a little too much when I’m sad
When I tell you I don’t feel good I mean the storm clouds have rolled in and taken place up in my mind and the tides are washing up over the shore that is my eyes.

When I say don’t get to close it means that I’m too scared to tell you everything I’ve been through right now,
some of the darkness that lives inside of my heart is yet to be explored and tonight that expedition won’t go well.
I’m not sure you want to see all the shades of blue that I've become,
not sure if you’ll look at me the same when you hear the stories I have to tell
so please don’t get too close.

I get embarrassed when people talk too loud in public
don’t ask me why i can’t tell you
I’m a girl who sometimes would rather stay in the confinement of my own self doubt than take one step outside because the anxiety that washes over me when I make eye contact with a stranger makes me want to melt to the ground and sink back into the earth.

I like green tea
I like boys with long hair and  girls with soft smiles,
If I seem a little shy don’t worry that just the voice inside my head telling me how stupid I sound when I laugh

My name is baby in french and that’s pretty funny cause I have a tendency to feel too much
in fact when I cry my dad loves to point out that I’m not in acting class anymore. Well dad that’s a fun fact but I still feel like my heart is exploding so I’m gonna go disappear now.

I’m a 19 year old girl who has seen more panic attacks than flowers and feels more self doubt with my back to a stranger than looking  in the mirror
and Yes I probably feel too much but that's hardly a issue right now.

I already knew being a woman isn’t easy  
Walking home from swimming lessons was the first time I was catcalled
I didn’t have a phone
Parents should raise their little girls like warriors
To be a woman today means you know the risk you take everytime you leave your house
Be ready to defend why you wore black instead of blue
Smiled instead of running the other way
Even went out in the first place  
If you dare speak up you better have something original to say
When you tell your daughter about the birds and the bees tell her that sometimes the bees sting
Tell her to carry repellent to ward them off
Make sure she knows that when little boys pull little girls pigtails sometimes it is because they are cruel and not because they like them
Don’t confuse violence for love
Make sure she knows what’s ahead of her

Getting out of bed is brave
Choosing to open your blinds is brave
Eating is brave
Every little thing you choose to do is brave no matter how small it may seem
Choosing to do something will alway be brave