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

April smells like change
Leafs turn golden brown and the sunshine feels like a warm smile
April whispers sweet secrets to me
Her laugh is kind and makes me think of clouds
She wraps her arms around me and all at once I feel safe
Fall is coming and soon we will grow apart the way roots do
Tonight the skies will cry for us as we speak of the future
Tomorrow when you walk away I will say goodbye with a full heart

When I die
Scatter my ashes from the tops of great mountains
Watch me finally become a bird
Absolutely free
I will sit in meadows with the birds and the bees
I will become the sun and I will shine down on your sweet freckles and you will know that you are not alone

I am standing by a window when I say it
I
Can’t
Love
you
Anymore
It doesn’t hurt me like I thought it would.
When something is a long time coming the moment it arrives a strange relief comes with it.

You are not the same person you once were
The boy I loved is nowhere to be seen,
You
Became so angry with the world
you lost your way and yourself along with it.
I stood beside you seeing both black and white unable to see the cause of such sadness but when you told me it all made sense
A young boy with nothing became a man with much more
but the boy remained alone behind closed doors.
When I tell you I can’t love you
You walk away leaving me at the window looking out at the blue sky
I wish I was sad, a love like ours should be mourned.
Neither of us turn around, neither of us say goodbye
It is done.

When I wake
I wake to you and your ocean blue eyes staring at me, like always
My heart fills with joy you see you
My mind relieved to know it was all a dream

The space I take up isn’t yours to invade
I notice every time a pair of eyes crosses over my body I can feel it like a target on my chest
My heart races and my skin crawls
You can walk a little faster but what happens when those eyes follow you on to the bus
When they sit next to you
Brush past you
Ask you for a moment of your time
Everytime I get away there is another pair of eyes already fixed on me ready to take a bite

Perhaps
one of the saddest things of all is
knowing the love I’ve dreamt of forever
will never come to be
my heart clings to the idea of you more than my hands can hold.

The version of love only a young mind could create and a naive mind could hold onto
every make-believe date
every possible first kiss
every midnight conversation
Yet to come to life.

Maybe it never will.

Being alone
Cold summer showers
Clean shaven legs
Falling asleep
Feeling validated
Feeling loved
Finishing a good book
Feeling the cold wind run through your hair down your spine
Hot baths after a hard day
Silence
The warm sun on your skin
The smell of rain
The first sip of coffee
The sound of trees in the wind

It’s 2pm
I wish I was standing in the middle of a forest staring up at the sunshine peeking through the trees
Speckles of light shining on my face
I want to stand there barefoot with the grass between my toes and the earth beneath my feet
At 3pm I will lie down in the soft grass and watch the sun begin to set until all I can see are the stars
At 4pm I will fall asleep to the smell of flowers and the sound of the wind
until tomorrow

I saw you today.
I imagined walking up to you
I thought about what I might say
But I didn’t
I get nervous around you

So I’m telling you now

You hurt me
More than you know
You
Were
My
First
I thought the world of you
That the universe finally sent me someone to call home
Instead of giving me blessing it taught me a lesson
You
Never
Know
Who
Someone
Truly
Is

The boy I thought about for days on end
Talked to all the time
Imagined holding
Had a love already
But never said a thing
The happy butterflies that swarmed in my chest at the sight of you
Turned grey and faded to dust and with it
My
Love
For
You

Can you hear it?
that was the sound of all of the air leaving my chest,
The blood from my cheeks rushing to my toes.
I feel like I’m being crushed by some unseen force capable of separating my soul from my bones,
I will never be the same.

This vast distance between us leaves me feeling hollow and alone.
My mind thinks of nothing but you.
My ears don’t hear the warnings about you because my eyes are fixed on yours.
But my heart
The compass that guided me to you is
pounding in my chest telling me
Go
Run
Leave.
The pounding shoots pins and needles through my skin leaving doubt in my mind and a kind of ache that I can only describe as agony.
Do you love me?

All balance is off course.

The silence between us rips us apart as it pushes us away.
When I ask you again
Silence.
Please talk to me
Silence.
I know you are suffering
Silence.
Let me help you.
Let me in.
I know you want to shelter me,
Save me from your past.
But if love knows no bounds
I will endure.
Tonight is different
I need you to tell me to stay,
I don’t want to make this choice alone.
My heart is yours,
I am yours.
Just tell me to stay.

You stand there
Silent
Eyes locked with mine.
I turn away
Silent
I know you want me to stay.
I know you need me to go.
I know you love me enough let me leave.
We both know now is not our time but we still can’t let go.
I can’t let you go.

I wish you did something,
I wish I hated you.
But no love has been lost here, we just need time to grow.
I want to grow with you baby, but you are so quiet and I am so loud.
You need time to write your wrongs and the time is now.

Please listen to me when I tell you goodbye, it’s only for now not forever.
My heart is yours
I am yours and you are mine.
I will not stop loving you as fiercely as i always have.
Our eyes will meet again baby and when they do
Sparks
      Will
           Fly.

I am happy when the sun is on my face
I am happy if I see someone being kind
I am happy because having a good conversation is as good as magic
I am happy for those who are honest to themselves  
I am happy to help someone in need

Florence was right when she said happiness is an extremely uneventful subject.
No one ever told me being truly happy feels like you've reached the top

I have learned more from this world than to hide from the inevitable  
When the world goes red and the alarms blare their songs we listen

Maybe it’s hard to write about being happy because when it finally arrives at our door we’ve forgotten it’s journey,
After All it’s all about the destination right?
Or was it all just make believe
Like that time you said monsters didn’t exist.
Happiness is a ship built to wreck and most of us are to afraid to go down with it

I want to see what becomes of those crashing colours
Do they collide and make something greater?
Do the dog days really end?

One day you will wake up and you won’t be able to recognize yourself
All the years of worry will fall before your feet
You will be liberated from your fear
You will stand in front of a window and instead of worrying about who may look in you will see the beautiful world before your eyes
I hope when this day comes you are ready to embrace it for the opportunity that it is
A chance to start fresh no strings attached it can be whatever you need it to be.

Pull me apart until I am nothing but bone and stardust
Cut me with your words
10,000 little cuts
Hold be tightly in your arms and beg for me

There is no light here
In the wanting
It is dark and lonely
I am red and raw and angry
I hold my breath until I am just a memory
My bones are not yours
There is no place for you here
I will not catch you
I will not die here

The sound of music contorts by body in ways that are not weighed down by fear
I feel like the embodiment of joy

Pause
When the force of others assumption filled judgments stop you in your tracks
Telling you
What to wear
How to act
And
Who to love

Breathe
You are not the only one questioning the World right now the questions we have take time to answer but they will come


Repeat
These words
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I be free from inner and outer harm
May I care for myself joyfully

Take care of yourself

I remember sitting in a car looking at your wrist
White ribbon wrapped around it
When I asked you what happened the car went silent
All I could hear was that question racing through my mind
What happened?
We were sitting in a grocery store parking lot when I first found out you wanted to die
The sky was blue and we didn’t know what to have for supper
I can’t remember how it came to this
I don’t know why you feel so broken
But now I am broken too
I can still see the exact parking spot we sat in and cried
I avoid it like the plague
Mom was heartbroken
I am heartbroken
You were numb
I was in the back seat of a silver mini cooper the moment I truly found out what heartache feels like
My world crashed around me
At night when I hear you cry I feel like I’m back in that car asking
What happened
When I see the scar on your wrist I think of every sharp object in the house and I want to burn it all
I can’t see a band-aid without thinking about you
Can’t drive over a bridge without counting the times I almost lost you
I wish I could cradle your heart in my hands and make everything okay again
I still ask myself what happened sometimes but now the answer seems even farther away from me
I thank every god
Every leaf
Every tiny living creature that you are still with me
My dear sweet sister
I love you.

I like my empty bed
There is more space for me here than there ever was for your baggage
Rolling over is a gift and I am the lonesome recipient
Waking up with the sunshine peeking through the window and the robins singing I am reminded how beautiful stillness can be
Lonely does not equal sad
Alone does not equal lonely
That’s what you forgot when you left

Where I am now and where I want to be feel like they are oceans apart.
Going from lost to found seems easy, but what happens when found is a mystery and lost is the never ending doubt of identity and self worth.

My lost looks like a cycle:
Me finding a spark of inspiration
Chasing it relentlessly
Hitting a wall of self doubt and "reality"
And going back to bed because the weight of the world is too much today.

My lost feels like a collection of ups and downs
Up
what I have to offer the world and the skills that I have will help people.
Down
I am incapable of finding love in this body of mine
People don’t look for inner beauty the way they do in movies, The self worth I feel is a illusion I created for myself because I am alone.

My lost feels like a never ending stomach  ache that I am doomed to have forever.
The body becomes so used to pain it numbs the senses.
The pounding in my head tells me the choices I make will never amount to anything.
I wonder if anyone feels the same way I do
Finding a friend in the darkness sounds nice right now.

One thing you should know before you lead someone on
They will remember how they felt when you let them down
The way you feel before the roller coaster drops
Excitement
Hope
Fear
They fall until they hit bottom
It’s my fault
I’m stupid for trusting them
I thought they were sweet
When you play with someone’s heart it never goes away in their mind.
Remember that.

I am tired of hearing these thoughts of mine
Waiting for a miraculous change of body and soul driven by hope and nothing more

The sick feeling lying heavy deep in my chest never passes
It is always waiting for a opportunity to plant doubt and create more sadness    

My own personal enemy

What doesn’t **** you makes you stronger.
I hope I live long enough to feel stronger,
I hope this was all worth it,
That I truly am a better person for holding onto the hope that tomorrow will be better
Will be easier.

I hope to god it’s true.

You are not alone
They call us
*****
Intense
High strung
All because they can’t handle us

Our truth is too powerful for them
They tremble and fear our power
So much
That the only way for them to justify their Own insecurities is to put us down

The aggressive girls are the ones with so
Much truth in their hearts that it blinds People who stare with jealousy
The world can not push us into conformity So they try to put us down
Making half jokes so they don’t get in Trouble for what they said
“I was kidding”
“Don’t take everything so seriously”
“It was a joke”
People who hide behind fake laughter Always get put in their place

Remember
When they put you down
Pick at your wounds
Try to infect your mind
You are the one who is winning.

I hope you know I heard you

Every comment said at a hush tone
Every crooked look my way
You
The boy who would rather call the girl you love fat to all of your friends than admit you love her
Too afraid to be honest so you turn to cruelty
The pathetic way out

I don’t have time to wait for you too change
I am too tired to hold onto your insecurities for you so I’m setting them down

I’m putting all of my hurt feelings and doubts on a shelf and letting them sit there
In the morning I will throw them away along with every love letter written and flower gifted

I am going to step into the shower and wash away the feel of you off of my skin
Wash the sound of your voice out of my mind
Rinse the way you smile at me out of my hair
When I am done I will wrap myself in my own love and once again I will be enough
me
a beautiful fat girl standing all alone
But this time being alone won’t bother me