I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

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I count things in 5’s

one cat
two cat
three cat
hula hoop
tote bag

My notes are organized Cornell style
but it can’t fill the void you left.

Light switch
one slipper
two slippers
lotion
candle

I’ve got my life organized down to the the minutes
but you aren’t in any of them.

Long distance.
We’ll see.

There is a wishing well where I live,
filled with coins down the bottom,
some are shiny, some old, some rusting into the water.
Circles of copper, silver, aluminum and gold.
Here I will take a bet,
throw my first quarter into the pond,
There it falls with a bubbly thud.
Day by day I will sit by it, murmur a silent prayer,
Doing nothing as the sun set.
So when the dawn comes,
I will get exactly the opposite
of what I wished for,
My coin lost among the thousands,
In this miraculous wishing well.

I hope and pray every single elephant escapes
with their family, their ivory and their dignity
and each one of them live to see another day
and the poachers, well I hope they find a Job
One that treats them kind, and pays them well
So they will stop destroying beautiful creatures