when do we forget?
it isn’t two years from the time
someone took your breath away and
made you feel like something truly special,
only to vanish like smoke
and come creeping back
just when you thought it was gone.

it isn’t three years from the time
you woke up and realized that none of your real friends
seemed to have a problem with the man you were dating;
too old, too childish, too great a mistake
to ever forget.
quiet nights waiting for him to come home
from the bar after lessons because you aren’t
yet old enough to go with.
perhaps you were old enough to know better,
but no one ever told you it was time
to learn what a relationship really looks like.

it isn’t four years from the time
you felt like you were following a script,
doing what you thought was right or
expected of you, because you never knew
any better.
he was the first to ask,
and it’s okay that you were confused,
but that doesn’t mean you get to forget.

it isn’t five years from the time
before you understood the things
no one had ever explained to you,
that flirting doesn’t always mean infatuation,
that age does, in fact, mean something.
your first kiss had you feeling like you were
floating off the ground,
and you turned it into poetry
so you would never forget.

it isn’t six years from the time
you felt like someone wanted you
for the first time ever,
looked at you, liked you, appreciated you.
no one had explained that some men
do what they do to any woman who happens by,
that you aren’t special, just in the wrong place
at the right time
to be somebody else’s prey.

we never get to forget these things.
even when it feels like it’s gone,
when you finally get to breathe again,
to feel the touch of the man you love without
wanting to freeze up or suddenly
cross the room.
but eventually, it comes back.
in a name, in a place,
in a person who looks a little too much
like the ones who did this.
they always make sure we’ll never forget.

I never wanted to immortalize you.
I didn't want to write a poem
Or a song
And carve these memories into something more tangible.
So instead I will immortalize my hatred for you.

I never understood what it meant to be a teenager.
A seventeen-year-old giving ******* in backseats
Because that's what it's all about, right?

It's about making out on my bed that's
Barely big enough for me,
Because I live closer to work and we can fool around on our lunch breaks.
That's what it's all about, right?

It's about sitting on your lap crying,
Scared that you'll hate me if I say I never wanted this.
It's about you gently scooping me into your arms
When I show you a letter because I can't choke out the words,
And you say it's okay but all you took from my confession was that I was scared.
It's about going too fast and when I grasp for the emergency break you swat my hand then try to hold it as we crash and burn.

I never liked you.
You were nice to me.
You smiled.
You joked.
You flirted and you told me I was the world,
So I thought 'this is it.'

But I could never even bring myself to compliment you back,
Because deep down I knew all along that I never really liked you at all.
You bought me chocolates.
You made me laugh.
You made me feel nice.
For about three days.
And then I realized I was trying to live the life I missed in seven short days.

I ended it nicely, but you persisted.
At first it was cute.
I reminded you kindly, but you persisted.
At second it was sweet.
I told you again, but you put a finger to my lips and played with your lighter.
At third it was no longer a game.
I clarified what I meant, but you ignored my text.
At fourth it was "unread."
I made sure you knew, laid it out plain, but somehow you missed that one too.
At fifth I was ******.
I tried again.
At sixth I was done.
Do you still not get it?
At seventh you disgusted me.

Now I can't even look at you.
Hearing your voice makes my skin crawl,
And the smell that I used to wrap myself in
When I wore your shirt as a sweater
Makes me sick to my stomach.

You still try.
You still speak.
You still make jokes.
And it makes my blood boil.
Because I hate you and everything you have done to me.

I won't speak to you, or
Acknowledge your presence,
But somehow that doesn't matter to you.
Doesn't it make you mad?
How does it not make you mad?
I want to make you mad.

Maybe if you're angry I can finally say
All the things I never got to tell you.
Maybe your fuse will blow and I can finally
Cover your skin with bruises where kisses used to be.
Maybe I can finally scream.
Maybe I can finally admit what you did to me, and tell you to your face.
Do you even realize that you ***** me?

I hate that you have this kind of power over me.
I hate that it has been seven months and my
Lip still curls when I see you.
I hate that I blamed myself for so long,
And that I still rush to amend, "but he didn't **** me in a violent way."
"Well, by the legal definition of ****..."

**** is **** and it is time that I understand that.
What you did is inexcusable.
Sometimes I want to tell you, to scream it in your face,
Because if you don't know then maybe
Telling you will prevent it from happening again.
But then I remember what you said about getting angry,
How it's rare but violent.
I think of your fascination with blades,
Your collection.
I think of how we close together and how I have to
Walk across a dark parking lot alone with you.

I hate that you don't know.
I hate that no one understands why
I hate you as much as I do.

Start with the dirt.
And the blood.
And the stuff that’s caked beneath your fingernails.

Scrub, and rinse,
and scrub again,
because that’s all that’s coming off.

You’ll never be able to wash away those
fingerprints etched into your skin,
an ectoplasmic stain that no one else can see.

Let the bathroom fill with steam,
let your skin grow red beneath the scalding water,
let it show you the other things you can still feel.

Because five years from now,
maybe you catch a glimpse in the mirror,
that person you used to be looking back at you.

You can scrub, and rise,
and scrub again,
but you’ll never wash away
the things you wish you’d never felt.

one mistake
when you were too young
to know how to play by the rules,
when lines were blurred and
first times felt like finallys.

you had to tell him it was over
seven
separate
times,
had to endure each time
he passed too close to you at work.
until, mercifully,
you never saw him again.

two mistakes
still too young to understand right and wrong
but old enough to understand the spark
and the beat of the music.

you let him do the things
that made him keep one eye out
for anyone you knew,
because you thought you were special
until the night you realized you weren't.
all the times you left smelling like him
turned into a burning on your skin it took you years to wash away.

three mistakes
three strikes,
old enough, but not for him.
still too naive for the secret meetings that didn't feel wrong
until they did.

the first time there was lots of blood
and he wiped away your tears
while you hyperventilated on the bathroom floor.
he brought you water
and then kicked you out
and found new ways to do it all again
until you'd had enough.

back again
in those familiar recesses,
the dark parts of my thoughts
that used to be locked away.

i miss the feeling of my safety blanket,
its weight in my hand,
small enough to fit in my palm.
in a glint of silver,
it reminded me that i have control;
to always look but never touch.

the tight grip was satisfaction enough,
just a hint of what could be,
the flirtation of blood beneath skin begging to be let loose.

but it's different now.
there are no piano benches to be broken,
no dark pools beckoning me to their depths,
no promise of escape.

i know that it will never be done.
the blood will never spill,
the skin will never break over bruised and swollen knuckles.
i will keep existing between the days –
existing,
but never truly living

– and just how many times can i think i want to die

we've been here before, you and i.
it was raining outside.
i cried for a while and had cake for dinner.
it was the night i didn't drown.

the moments fall together in flipbook photos:
swollen knuckles,
pills in hand,
never enough blood.

i would hold a pocket knife just tight enough.
i would study it,
imagine the sharp kiss of metal against my skin.
and then i would put it away and cry myself to sleep.

we became wonderful dance partners, you and i.
we could rise and fall with the music;
i would lift myself up and wait for you to tear me back down.
i learned to adapt.
swell to crescendo, fancy yourself untouchable,
then fall
              fall
                   fall.

the steps became familiar.
i knew them by heart,
falling into step like it had become tradition.
find the space to release it all,
and watch as it slowly builds back up.

but they changed the rhythm on us.
for all the adapting we can do – you and i –
can we truly adapt to this?
it makes you wonder how far there is to fall,
and if we ever really fell before now.

perhaps some day we'll rise.
maybe this is just a hiccup, a misstep;
you lowered me into a dip and i am patiently waiting for the fall to end.

i can't wait to never hear this song again.

i'm watching from inside
a glass case,
the delicate pieces of time immemorial
arranged in displays around me,
layouts they memorize but never really notice.
when someone passes by
the pieces all quiver,
fragile ceramics in a chorus of jingles
trying to catch their attention.
but the sound becomes a part of the backdrop,
like the slightest groan of a floorboard beneath the rug
or the squeak of a cabinet door.
we rattle closer to the edge,
pressing our faces against the glass
to get a glimpse of home:
still-lifes done by a familiar hand,
worn wooden floors that don’t match the rest,
a room that hasn’t been painted in decades.
a few times each year
on special occasions
you open the cabinet door
and let us adorn the dinner table.
and then it’s back to our shelves,
watching from behind the glass,
waiting for a glimpse of home.

when we first came to this land,
blood was shed for our entitlement.
when we first came to this land,
we took the things that were never ours
and trampled its native growth.
when we first came to this land,
we instilled in it a sickness that may never be cured;
we tarnished sacred lands with greed we call virtue,
and when we did so, we stood on the throat of humanity.

there are some people who are doomed to repeat history.
there are some people who will trample native growth,
spread sickness,
and stand on the throats of our people.
with the heavy weight of six centuries upon our shoulders
we stand,
a hobbled nation no longer able to stride,
heads held high,
through this sea of blood without meeting challenge.

with six centuries passed, we commit genocide anew.
it is not the native growth that suffers,
but the very peddlers of greed who are infected
by the sickness of consequence.
but they alone will not suffer.
as we march through this new iteration of history
wearing death masks instead of cloth,
thousands of innocents lose their lives
in a battle of which they were never a part.

the single day that we dedicate to gratitude,
the one day of the year some remember
to give thanks in between passing heavy dishes,
is not a commemoration of discovery.
it is a commemoration of consequence and greed.
and six centuries later,
it is our own people who we will massacre with the cry of freedom.

the way i interact with people gives them bite-sized pieces –
a wince, a sigh, a rant about the last appointment.
i catch myself in surprise when i say i was at the doctor
and they ask if i’m okay, two question marks in their voice,
and i can’t help but laugh before i say yes.
i guess most people go to the doctor for physicals and check-ups,
maybe for strep throat or a sprain,
and not for half an answer,
weeks of waitlists,
waiting.
maybe they’ll even see me tired,
puffy-eyed and curled up on the couch like i came with it,
feeling like a drag when i shake my head and say i’ll stay while they go.
in little moments, if they’re looking, they’ll see me labor up the stairs,
an amused echo of ‘but you’re so young!’ flashing through my mind
as each step sends a sharp pain through my knees.
“you go first,” i insist, hanging back with a smile
before climbing in their wake.

I can’t help but think that I’m not the only one,
But wonder it so.
We can all wish for something we cannot have.
We can all chase our dreams,
in the dark,
grasping blindly at shooting stars and wishing wells.

I like to think that wishes on stars
really do come true.
I like to think that,
one day,
things will be different,
And I will find my way back to you.

perhaps it is true what they say,
that it’s better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all.
but the cruelest trick
is never to have loved what it is you lost,
but to hold it close to your heart
in a way that whispers of love.

but time is cruel and works faster than even the sharpest thinkers
when love is involved.
love, lust, like, loath – i never liked the assumptions of poetry.
in the end they’re all the same,
in the end they all end with disdain,
because even if i loved you and you loved me,
we would both grow old and only one would see
how time is cruel and works faster than our eyes
and faster than our hearts.

say my four-letter word is Like and not yet Love,
that the distance is two mere letters
so easily swayed by your silver tongue.
if i haven’t the courage to bring I to U
and let U change to O,
then i will rely on the second closest word:
a word i know to be Luck.

Luck, my fickle friend;
they draw you in and whisper that you are safe,
leaving you at the hands of Time
and making you tick like a clock that unwinds.
but who spoke ill of my best friend Luck,
the one who watches and holds me up?
because Luck is always kind of kind,
as long as you work to make them chime.

and so, with the face of a shattered clock,
i tried to convince myself that i'd had enough
because Like and Love may have two letters between,
but U and I will always be separated by S and H and E.

so i left my Luck and changed from Like to Lust,
decided it was better if my heart took a break,
because nothing in your smile could compare to the stars,
and nothing in your touch could only be ours.
but blood stays warm and eyes still look,
so how could i rob them of the one thing you never took
from me, my lust, my like, and luck?

and yet, four letters still remain,
all the unspoken thoughts we never say –
but the things that we do,
well, they will always remain untrue.

there is still a word where I remain,
its venom laced into every refrain,
because that is what i am forced to do:
refrain, restrain, and never convey
these thoughts i wish you could hear.

so i smile at her and i smile at you,
and as my teeth dig into my lip
these four letters drip down my chin.
they're bitter and stale, but it’s a familiar taste.
there is no U, no S, no H nor E.
I is left with only L and A and R.

my body is a symphony of sounds
like the
             snap
               —crackle—
                                               pop!
                                of my bones as i stretch and climb the stairs,
                                                         ­                                        the
                     ­                                                                 ­ thud.
                                                           ­              thud.
                                                           thud.
                of my heart, frantic in its rest.
                a shrill ringing underpins it all
        when my ears ***** to a phantom sound,
the
    \gasping\
                               |huffing|
            ­                                      sighing
                                                   ­                   keeps the beat of uncooperative lungs.

               my body, like an old house where teenagers throw a party,
                                 finding a way to keep it alive for one more night.

i dont want to sleep.
i want to keep chasing stardust on lips i'll never taste,
reaching for jupiter when she shines so brightly in the sky,
reminding me of all that could've been—
could still be.
never was.

god, these sleepless hours,
the way the stories chase themselves around my head,
louder than dreams too fleeting.

there's a silence here, in the night,
when everything is still.
a promise that everything could be okay.
could be.

and then the dawn puts stardust to bed,
and i'm left chasing something
i never even got a taste of.

the moment you enter my heart, you get my all.
every drop of blood, every inhalation,
is for you.
your tears are mine and your laughter echoes in my soul.
i do not go halfway.
when you fall,
i will break my bones to build you a staircase.
when you’re lost,
i will take the stars from my eyes and make the constellations that will lead you home.
when you are broken,
i will give you every piece of me that will make you whole.
and as i stand there, twisted and misshapen,
i will still smile with what teeth i have left.
the air that barely fills my lungs will be used to breathe words of encouragement into your ear.
the mangled heart that beats inside of me will still belong to you,
even though you never replace what you have taken.
i will never be 100% of you
as you are 100% of me.
but still, i keep on giving.

Paint me a scene
with fairy lights instead of memories,
where shadows were warm when we were cold
and the rain was just dewdrops on melodies

Devilish days do well to waste,
with blackout curtains and ink-stained hands,
waiting for sunset when time’s erased.

Those feeble floorboards you often paced,
will creak and moan ‘til you understand;
devilish days do well to waste.

Fight for the feelings that have been replaced,
fight to keep hold of those waning strands,
waiting for sunset when time’s erased.

The sun will set on all you’ve faced,
an eclipse which you cannot withstand;
devilish days do well to waste.

And *****-laced tear tracks chased
by broken glass that pours out sand,
waiting for sunset when time’s erased.

When your thoughts have been misplaced,
I’ll be there to take your hand.
Devilish days do well to waste,
waiting for sunset when time's erased.

stop thinking about him.
stop thinking about the scars from the blade
you put in his hand,
how pretty you would look
adorned in wreathes of white lines
wound across your skin like vines.
stop wondering how it would feel
for his arms to wrap around your waist
every time you collide in passing side-hugs.
stop wishing you could kiss him again as you stand outside,
the air humid and the streetlights flickering.
he's singing along to a song so full of emotion
and you’re so close.
stop thinking about the mistakes you made the first time.
stop wishing you could change things when change
is right at your fingertips.

breathe your fire, my love.
let him hear you roar.

I have this silly game that I play
where I test to see just how long
I can keep everything in.
Problems are thrown my way like dice
that always come up snake eyes
while I pretend they're smiling seven.

It’s just like roulette,
only there are no blanks,
the rounds are fired blindly,
and I wait to see when they will lodge themselves in my throat.

The odds aren’t fair.
I continue smiling as my body is used for target practice,
pretending not to feel a thing
until one day I can no longer contain this pool of blood.
My fingers claw at it, trying to drag it back,
but it’s no use.
I am exposed.
Either I will smile through red-tinted teeth
and laugh it off like a nasty paper cut,
or the reservoir will break and take us down with it.

I am afraid.
Every shot sends anxiety through my bones.
Bang.
I’ve only been pretending to like it because you do.
Bang.
I have so many questions I will never ask, because I’m scared that this isn’t real for you.
Bang.
I trust you – love you, maybe – but my past is lingering like ghosts in a cemetery.
Bang.
Why can’t I stop second guessing?
Bang.
Why can't I tell you?
Bang.
Do I want this because you want this?
Bang.
How do I…
Bang.
Where do I…
Bang.
Begin.

Ready,
    Set,
        Go.

There’s an IHOP off I-40
that makes me smile when I see it.
It reminds me of a run-down diner: “International **,”
red lights half burnt out,
a rainy night in Waukegan when you got the Mike’s
and I started drinking in the passenger’s seat
on the car ride back.

It’s my favorite story, the one I always tell.
Ridiculous, stupid, all the mistakes that I still pay for
when we broke our own rules.

The night passed in a haze of cranberry and lemon,
the Mike’s Harder spilling out onto pavement because
we both thought it was truly disgusting.
And you bought me snacks from the vending machine
in the lobby of your dorm.
I sat on the floor beside it,
giggling because you bought me something just ‘cause
I gasped when I saw it.
You tried to jam a Rice Krispy Treat into my mouth to make me eat something,
but I couldn’t stop laughing.

It’s euphoric, letting go of your troubles with your
best friend at your side.
It was one of the last big moments of You and I.

That’s not the part of the story I usually tell, though.
The real peak was the next morning
when I discovered I had blacked out –
the first and only time –
and my roommate woke to see me
vomiting gracelessly into the trashcan.
My breakfast was mostly blue Gatorade.

The tragic twist in this story wasn’t the
endless nausea, the stale taste in my mouth,
but my haircut appointment in the afternoon.
I could’ve walked to the train, but
you gave me a ride down the mercilessly
winding roads of Highland Park.
You told me I didn’t look so good, and I smile
when I remember how nervous you sounded
thinking I was going to ***** in your car.
I didn’t even make it out of my seat;
I was bent, elbow over knee,
depositing that blue Gatorade onto the pavement
of an apartment complex
while a military family and their dog passed by.

That’s my favorite story.
The one where we were just us, partners in crime,
making mistakes that brought enough laughter
to last us a lifetime.

There are many more, but that’s the last one I have,
the one before our friendship was eroded
by an unidentified toxin that stripped our bonds away.

I laugh, and I smile,
because they’re my memories too.
I just wish they were more than
memories of you.

It took me ages to learn how to separate we from I
and to finally see the person I suppose
Everyone else saw; the “I”
presented in peals of laughter and a love
too intense for either of us to bear. My
love, a hurricane, beautiful from a distance but riddled with scars.

I do it because
everyone needs a taste of unconditional. They
blister and spiral because they have
yet to learn…to know how it feels to have stayed.

It’s something that you learn to live with,
to always have a piece of “Me”
left behind, initials in a heart that no longer
knows that letter of the alphabet. I am missing more than
I should, but I have retained what is most
important. In a sea of capsized people,
There is one letter I will always have.
    - I

i want to leave this life and lose myself
in these poems that tell my story better than i ever could.
i want to end this life and
sprinkle the ashes between the pages,
put them in the paper and have those words
printed on my bones.

i never want to lose these feelings.
out there it’s cold,
and even the people you love can
leave scars behind.
inside this cracked spine
my fears are laid bare;
everything i hate about myself,
everything i hide about myself.
if i could never tell the truth,
breathe these poems and let them say it for me,
i would be happy


                                                         ­                              to no longer exist.

The silence in this world is ringing
ringing like the unanswered phones left on the line
because no one is home to hear
the shrill call of an unanswered voice just begging,
begging for one more shot at whatever sordid mess they’ve left behind
because the future is ahead and it’s scaring them.

Please, just let me come home.
Home was never safe, it was never warm,
it was just a place for childhood embers burnt fast by the age of 12, no, 11, no, 10,
but then I still beg to go back because life’s ahead, mom,
And they’re calling my name but I cover my eyes
because all I hear is the shrill call of an unanswered voice
begging me to amount to all that I’m worth,
to take strides on horizons I can hardly fathom,
because out there, they’re looking for a shadow to their sunset.
A step away, a reach, a grasp,
but I let it fall from my hands and crash -
graceless, inelegant, twisted, metamorphosed into a nightmare I’ll never catch.
Because these walls are a sanctuary
where the hands that cover my eyes and
the hands that cover my ears protect me
from the world’s volatility,
and the one thing I grasp:
invincibility
in the highest degree.

So fire your bullets, because they’ll only ricochet,
keep away
no way
no wait,
this isn’t invincibility,
just conciliatory me
bending, twisting, metamorphosed into
        a grotesque shape
        a nightmare I’ll become
When someday there’s a ringing in my head
of an unanswered phone left on the line.
I don’t want to hear it;
the shrill call of an unanswered voice just begging,
begging for one more shot at the broken pieces,
this puzzle strewn across the floor
like it’s always been there
just never seen before,
Because you only see the flash after you hear the bang
and it’s all over.
It’s too late.
The phone keeps ringing.

i wanted so bad for you to love me
as i loved you;
in the way that never falters,
never wavers, no matter how hard i try to stop it.
i look at you and wonder what would happen
if i could just take that step forward,
looked you in the eye,
and confessed it all.

i have made many mistakes,
but there are none i regret
quite as much as those i made with you.
i pushed you away because i never thought
that anyone like you could look at anyone like me
for the right reasons.
in your sweet words i saw something more:
a starry-eyed sixteen-year-old so easily swayed,
small, fragile, so easy to manipulate.
i slammed the door shut on all we could have been
because i was too afraid
of letting the wrong person in.
and while i waited again for your knock at my door,
i wondered if i must first invite you back.

my knock was so soft i thought you wouldn’t hear,
but the handle turned and my heart skipped a beat.
with an unsure smile i turned to face
a blue-eyed reminder that i was too late.
i swore to myself i would forget about you,
let you be happy with whomever you choose,
because maybe all i ever wanted was for you to be happy,
not for your heart to be mine.

to my surprise, after many months had passed,
it took confessing my feelings to find a path
that would lead me to forgetting you
and all of the things we could never be.
i was no longer tied to my missed chance,
and once again my heart was opened
to the world ahead.

oh, but my silly reader,
did you think it ended there?
when i cleaned up the pieces i left one behind,
and in the dense air of fall
i listened as he sang the words to a well-loved song.
he fell so deep into the music as i fell so deep into him,
and just like the orange streetlights hanging overhead,
the spark i had lost flickered back to life.

so now i will start all over again,
wondering if my missed chance
will come knocking again.

seeing you is like the bittersweet taste of fruit that is not quite ripe.
the sound of your voice is like listening to a song i grew up with,
a cruel nostalgia that makes me think of a better time.

but touching you is like nothing else;
my hand on your arm, my fingers on your cheek.
i could breathe you in instead of oxygen,
live on the smoke that tangled with your breath,
wondering if i would ever get to taste
such sweet a breath as yours.

kissing you was nothing else and so much more.
even if you faded from my life,
i would still remember the salt on your tongue,
the words you whispered as you shifted closer,
canceling the space between us.
every day that passes
where even the words that touch our lips do not meet
is a day spent in the dark.

you see, foolishness is a lot like darkness,
and i was the biggest fool of all.
i waited.
i wondered.
i giggled and rolled my eyes, and i thought it was enough.
i was wrong, but there was still time.

i stood before that door, looking at the numbers,
wondering if you were sleeping behind their golden sheen.
my phone said 4 am but my mind said now or never.
i knocked.
three soft raps upon the door, a hundred beats away
from the pounding of my heart.
it sounds cliché, but the moment your lips said yes,
i would swallow that word
and i would never have to wait, never have to wonder.

seeing her was like plunging into a frozen lake in the dead of winter,
my tongue sluggish, my breath stolen by the cold.
her warm words burned as i backed away.

the room behind her was dark and i laughed because
whether it was you or i,
we were all fools in the end.

If there is one thing I will never forget,
it's the weight
of your hand in mine,
the deep rumbling in a chest that pillows my head,
our conversations so far from superficial
as our voices carry over the movie we don’t watch.

If there is one thing I will never forget,
it's the way you smile down at me,
a softness in your eyes
I have never seen before,
and I think that I could get used to resting my head on your heart
with your arms wrapped around me.

I could go on, endlessly, about
every detail;
every kiss;
every laugh;
every warm embrace.

I don’t need to get high on your voice
or drunk on your lips,
because for once I am not in need of an escape.
I have found my safety in your love,
and I have found myself in loving you.

If there is one thing I will never forget,
it is the way you taught me what love
   really means.

Paint is never quite the shade we imagined.
The lines are never straight enough.
The page always looks a little too blank.

There are perfections in every imperfection,
Buried under crossed out lines and
crumpled pieces of paper.
Every eraser-stained, college ruled notebook
full of half-baked ideas and smudged words that
just don’t quite feel right.

The final product is in there somewhere,
like black-out poetry stitched together,
patched up,
and transformed into something beautiful.

   -   x marks the spot

death is a part of nature.
we’re born.
we live.
we carve sad stories into our arms,
and we die.

it’s written in the plan now.
wake up.
eat breakfast.
commute.
contemplate suicide.
work.
commute.
eat dinner.
contemplate suicide.
take a shower.
take a shower.
take a shower.
take a shower.
can i drown in the shower?
cover ears.
put head under water.
sit.
shiver.
contemplate suicide.
choke.
sputter.
hyperventilate.
contemplate suicide.
breathe.
keep breathing.
don’t breathe out.
hit the wall until your knuckles are bruised.
stand.
breathe.
shiver.
wipe nose.
shut off water.
sleep.
face it all again tomorrow.
survive.

there ought to be more love poems
for the ones who hold their pens tighter
than they’ve ever held anybody else.

ink that spells out love stories greater
than they ever were when we lived them,
memories crafted between meetings
that made them larger than life.

there ought to be more love poems
for the ones who make playlists
that spell it all out,
titles that fit together like jigsaw puzzles,
rhythm ‘n blues and i love yous.

line after line about a beauty
too great to bear,
the one they reached for,
clutched in their hands
until it slipped and shattered
and left us with the shards.

there ought to be more love poems
for the ones with hand-written letters
in tea-stained notebooks,
fingers tipped in glitter,
and paper flowers that smell like jasmine.

there ought to be
more love poems for me.

I looked up at you and thought
"wow, there is something to behold."
I poured libations of sweet milk and honey,
Listened with glowing eyes as you sang your words,
And I made my sacrifices by shining embers.

I smiled for Truth.
I smiled for good-heartedness.
I smiled in reverence for the idol before me.

The clever thing about faith
Is that it is whatever you need it to be.
When those shining embers crumbled into ash, I didn't cling to their fading warmth.
No - I realized the faith that I had been missing all along.

And when that idol came back to me
looking for sweet milk and honey,
I smiled,
For he will get no more sacrifice from me.
No - I alone will coat my lips in honey,
And I alone will hear my song.

And the idol, bespoiled of his worship, cried out.
"You cannot disobey me,"
He roared,
stripped of his dazzling charm.

what is love?
no, really.

is it liking the same person for months on end
with no hope of freeing your heart?
is it finding beauty in all of their flaws,
warmth in their smile,
and strength in their skeletons?
is it fighting like hell to let them go
when they’ve found somebody else
and you want them to be happy,
but it feels like you’re breaking inside?
is it finally being freed when you least expect it,
those feelings vanishing in the blink of an eye
as you finally let someone else in?
is it seeing them for the first time in forever,
the way they look at you rekindling that **** spark
you thought – maybe even hoped – had been extinguished?
is it being so scared of telling them the truth,
of losing them again,
but this time for good?
is it setting aside that thing they might requite because
being with them,
ignoring the need to reach out and hold them,
ignoring how your heart swells when they smile,
flutters when they meet your eye,
shines when they wrap their arms around you –
all of that is worth so much more than the possibility
that they may never love you back.

is it you, my love?
could you really be my first love?
i have never been here before,
never once wondered if the things i feel
could be more.
why you?
you were never the man of my dreams,
no love of books holding you together at the seams,
no fondness for writing leaving ink when you bleed.
yet every word you speak makes me smile,
every time you mumble,
or slur,
or stumble,
every breath you take only makes me crumble,
falling deeper than i was before.

is it you, my love?
could you really be my first love?
could you ever look past the mistakes i’ve made
and love me back in the same way?

I dance to live,
I dance to breathe.
I dance to keep this heart beating,
      these feet on the ground,
           this spirit alive.

I dance because dancing keeps the world turning,
because everything is a song if you listen closely.
I dance to express that fight with my best friend,
      that diploma in my hand,
           that night that everyone left,
                  And I let it all fall away.

When you dance you become the music,
and who you were before doesn’t matter.
Every song is a fresh start,
      every missed step a new opportunity,
           every mistake a building block
                From which you build the person you want to be.

Today.
          Now.
                  Not yesterday at 5 PM when you spilled your coffee on a fellow commuter.
                  Not four years ago when he said you could just be friends.

You are not your mistakes,
            your rejections,
                   or your falls.

You are only as strong as the next step you take,
        to brush yourself off and fall until you learn how to catch yourself.

Of course I love you.
How could I not?
No one has ever cared
as deeply as you,
Held me
as tightly as you,
Made me feel
as strongly as you.

First loves can be complicated,
because how do you know?
I was always scared of being the girl who said
I love you out of the blue,
two weeks into dating because
maybe she doesn’t understand what love really is.

I smile at every text you send me,
but that’s not love.
My heart skips a beat every time I see you,
but that’s not love.
I close my eyes every time you laugh,
        trying to memorize that sound.
But that’s not love.

No.
Love is sitting on bathroom floors
trying to remember how to breathe
while you wipe away my tears and hold my water bottle to my lips.
Love is the peace I feel when you hug me
and my cheek is pressed against your chest
and for that single moment all of the voices in my head go quiet.
Love is the small details remembered,
the red flags caught,
like when you bring me a sandwich wrapped in foil
because I forgot to eat and I mentioned it was my favorite once before.
Love is the contentment of
lying in your arms, watching movies,
talking,
listening as your breathing evens out.
Love is the perfect comfort of falling asleep tangled up with you.
Love is no longer looking for an escape,
because the world has finally showed me its beauty.

Curious that its beauty is named after you.
It has a messy apartment and shows up late to work.
Its bones crack and moan beneath shea-butter skin,
but it refuses to get them looked at
because, really, it’s fine.
(pop).
Beauty forgets to eat more often than not,
sometimes for days at a time,
and it really ****** me off.
It speeds and makes questionable jokes,
but it always has a comeback and a laugh to share.
Beauty takes the world’s ugliness in its stride,
but is not afraid of honesty.
It snores, but it won’t steal the covers.
Curious, that it is named after you.

So, here we are.
This time my three words are not “I am sorry.”
I am not sorry that I love you.
I am not sorry that I fell headfirst,
way too fast,
because god ****** how could they have made someone as perfect as you.
I am sorry if I overwhelmed you,
but I am not sorry that I said what I said,
and I do not take it back.

I don’t expect you to say it back,
Because that’s not what love’s about.
I am sharing my love for you,
Not expecting yours for me.
I’ve come close to saying it so many times,
Offhanded, like it was perfectly normal.
And I remember the exact moment when I realized,
With your kiss on my forehead and my arm draped over you,
That saying “I’m fond of you too” was an understatement.
I love you.
I fell asleep that night and had a dream that I said it.
And when I woke up the next day,
As I drove the two hours back to my house,
I realized that it was true.
I was terrified,
But I realized that I love you.

to some, i am a person worthy of righteous protection,
the blind spot beneath the tree where
dandelions sometimes get trampled.
i am never enough yet always too much—the
drive-by friend you can wait to see.
on the inside lies a multiverse of
goods and bads, talents and failures.
sometimes i’m pretty, sometimes i’m not,
but i am always something to behold.

and to you?
the one who changes the focus like an optometrist,
“one…or two?”
until my multiverse unites.
a good writer, a good singer, a good friend;
the little things others don’t find funny that always make you laugh;
the validation i’ve been searching for,
an honesty that lets me trust myself a little more.

to you i hope to be an eternity,
a couple of shambling girls united against a world
that doesn’t always have space for people like us.

if there’s one thing i’m good at,
it’s unrequired loved –
i even wrote a song about it when i was 13,
though it wasn’t love back then.
maybe i could place first in a talent show
if i clambered up on stage
and told them about
                                     every
                                                single
                                                            almo­st.

If I die tonight, make up something creative.
She was a girl who never let her fears get the best of her.
She was a girl who took chances, who took action, who kissed me on the lips until I forgot that lips are even a thing.
She was a girl who shined so brightly that everyone around her couldn’t look.
They didn’t look.

She died saving the planet.
She died in a freak accident during a circus performance.
She died because that little piece of her was the small crack that spiderwebbed
Until it all overflowed and not even the foundations exist in its wake.

She was a girl who conquered suns.
A girl who captured my heart.
A girl who sang like a violin and plucked strings like wildflowers.
She was a girl who chased the moon and the setting sun and let the stars bathe her in their finite glow.

If I die tonight, make it memorable.
Think of something creative;
But please don’t tell them the truth.

It’s scary to say
When you’ve heard it before,
through teeth covered in blood
and a bit of your heart back there between the molars.

It’s okay,
You thought it was real,
they thought it was real,
but one of you were lying.
Or maybe you were just lying to yourself.

It’s scary to say.
It’s scary to even think,
and the moment you realize it, a different three words come to mind.
****.
Not again.

It’s scary to say,
And you sat there with tears in your eyes
and said you were scared.
I said I was scared too.

We’ve been here before
at the crossroads of Too Soon and Two Hearts
in Rhythm Together.
But this time was different,
because this time
we fell together.

Words cannot capture the moment you looked at me,
both of my hands in yours.
Two hearts
in rhythm
together.
And you said the thing we were both too scared to say.

It’s scary to say,
but I love you.
Wildly, passionately.
Brighter than sunflowers and
sweeter than cinnamon.

I love you,
and the next day it’s just as scary,
but we’re strong,
and we’re curious,
and I don’t think we’ve ever been here before.

i keep wondering
why i wake up every day
feeling a little like the muted sunlight
behind my blackout curtains.
and then i remember:
you were in my dream.
                                                          ­                     and only in my dream.

We just walk over dandelion petals
Worn into the ground by time and repetition and the
Step
Step
Step
Of my feet.
I could walk off the ends of the earth before I ever stop thinking about you,
Trying to decide what's true and what else I could do
But walk between the falling raindrops,
Collecting them on my face, and keep walking
And walking
And walking
Trying to find my place because it always seems to change
And I could never put my finger down, could never slow this pace
So I'll keep on going until the horizon comes

How loud can I get the music?
I hit the volume button a couple more times for good measure.
I’ve spent two years crafting a playlist for moments just like this,
Moments when I have a
Thousand anxiety attacks at once.

1.
I think of more and more reasons
To resent you for leaving me.
I hate that I can’t comfort you.
I hate that you can’t comfort me.
I hate that you left without a second thought.
I hate that I miss you when you treated me like ****.
I hate that thinking of you makes me cry.
by Another Ex-Best Friend.

2.
I live a good life.
I have a lot of things I’ve always wanted,
Made true by a draw of luck that sent my anxiety to the back burner.
I was happy.
I was really happy.
But I’m not happy anymore, and I can’t be sure why.
I no longer want these things,
But people ask them of me and I smile and
Either I’ll go or I’ll make an excuse.
There’s no telling these days.
by The Suffocating Cynicism.

3.
I wrote a poem about telling you
All the things you did to me that apparently you never noticed.
It was 3 AM.
It seemed like a good idea.
Now I look at you, calculating when I’ll get the chance to bring those words to life.
And I swallow them right back into my fractured heart,
Because looking at you terrifies me.
Being near you makes me sick.
This can go one of two ways:
Either you turn your life around in a flurry of realization and apologies,
Or you leave a couple more bruises and some blood and
Maybe a restraining order in your wake.
by Your Latest Conquest.

4.
Somehow you ask so much of me without even realizing it.
You’ve grown.
You’ve changed, just like the rest of us,
But there are still so many things you refuse to change
Because you have sculpted guard rails that block them from your view,
Carefully crafted and immaculately cultivated.
There is no escape.
I wonder why I feel this way, because I should love you, and I do love you,
But sometimes I want to cry because you consume my life
And I cannot escape.
by Your Life’s Work.

5.
There are things that stand between me
And my greatest achievements.
If you notice,
They both have “me” in them.
Did you know I wrote a book?
It has one scene left,
But I can’t finish it because
Nothing feels right and no one knows
What that ending needs, because no one
Knows this world as well as I do, like the back of my hand and a shred of my heart.
I want someone to give me the answer.
I want someone to finish it for me, because endings are important.
Endings are necessary.
They need closure and a reason to return when asked.
I finally stopped keeping my work clutched to my chest,
And thought maybe I would show it the light of day.
No one noticed.
I laughed and tried again, posting it in a couple of places,
Drawing nonexistent attention.
I’ve created obstacles I cannot scale.
by The Woeful Worriers.

6.
Very few people are able to see a person’s pain.
In my experience, it totals to one.
One person can tell when I’m hurting, and she lives 9,000 miles away
In tomorrow where life is sometimes a little bit better.
She’s the only one that gets pictures of my first foray
Into a ****** world I told myself I would never enter.
I told her it looked cool.
She disagreed.
I broke down.
She checked up on me every other day, and it hurt even more.
Eventually I stopped wearing long sleeves,
And stories stopped swirling in my head.
It became apparent that no one cared.
No one was going to ask about the healing scar on my arm.
Do I care? Because honestly, I can’t tell.
I want people to notice,
To know how much I’m suffering and tell me it’s okay
To take a break from all of the things that are drowning me.
But if people notice, they’ll know.
They’ll know that I’m suffering,
That I did this to myself,
And their footsteps will crush the eggshells they walk on.
It’s less genuine than Her. She’s been there. She knows.
I thought one person in particular would notice,
But it makes me laugh in hindsight,
Because she never noticed a single thing I did.
No one notices.
I’ve come to terms with that.
I’ve come to terms with the dark room that my own thoughts lock me in,
That no one else has a key
And it is my own responsibility to find my way out.
It’s like a sick, grotesque Escape Room.
If only I had the motivation to find the clues.
by The Silence.

7.
I’m happy.
Honestly, the last six songs were all it took
to heal me and cure me and take away all of this pain.
I’m smiling,
See?
I feel lighter.
Until this verse ends and the next begins,
Pulling that feathered feeling over my head and suffocating me,
Reminding me that nothing is okay no matter how hard I try to believe it.
I have learned that I am a very good actor.
I lie so often that I started to believe it was the truth.
But the truth doesn’t like to be ignored.
It came back and reminded me that I was never okay.
by Recurrent Denial.

8.
I can’t breathe.
My skin feels oddly cold even though I’m sweating,
And the deep breath I pulled into my lungs
Catches in my throat.
I have two options;
Hold it and suffocate slowly, deliciously, inching into darkness and leaving hell in my wake.
Or, I breathe out the stifled sob it has created and resign myself
To another break down.
Another one.
They never end.
As much as I like the first option, it isn’t very easy to suffocate yourself by holding your breath.
You see, your body has this thing called self-preservation,
Even if your mind doesn’t.
So I choke out a sob and wince at the ache in my throat,
Catching my breath and catapulting towards hyperventilation.
I close my eyes and breathe through my nose.
**** that.
I keep breathing, ignoring the tears on my cheeks, just trying to breathe,
Because apparently the body likes breathing even if it’s a hindrance to its inhabitant.
**** it all.
I curl my hands into fists and open my eyes, breathing deliberately.
I lick my lips and breathe away the tears,
Because I so cannot be bothered with this right now.
It lasts five minutes, and then it’s tucked away
For later.
I was always really great at repressing break downs until
They piled upon each other and exploded in a gut-wrenching fit
Of tears and swollen fists and maybe a tiny bit of screaming.
That’s how I broke my piano bench.
by Another Fractured Name.

sometimes i am embarrassed that i fell for you
so quickly,
through cryptic tongues and
limited interactions.

i fell for you the way ketchup
falls from the bottle.
i beat it until it fell out of me
and through my tears i realized
that every time i called myself a fool,
an idiot,
a cliché,
i was right.

i fell for the person i wanted you to be,
the pictures i painted in my head.
it was never about you,
it was always about me,
and letting you go was the sweetest taste of freedom
i ever let myself indulge in,
because being free from loving you
meant being free from hating myself.

She was great.
She shined like the stars,
Her eyes glowing like the moon,
And in her laugh was a thousand swirling galaxies.

But stars die.
The moon eclipses.
And even galaxies get lost in the universe.

with dreams of you upon my lips,
i slept like the world was mine to keep.

To me, everything has a memory.
Notes, drawings, stuffed animals.
One time my mother held aloft an old sweater that I never favored or disliked,
and she wanted to get rid of it.
‘No,’ I cried, reaching for the worn fabric. ‘I wore that when I was sick!’
Or the countless times my dogs mistook my plush tigers for dog toys,
ripping off the faces and tearing out the stuffing.
I held them in my arms and cried,
mourning the fatal injury to one of many family members.
I tucked them into bed and curled up beside them,
nursing their wounds until they were well enough to join the others.
I sewed buttons in place of eyes and stitched limbs back together.
My mother told me to throw them away, but how could I discard a piece of me?
The other day I found an old drawing,
something terrible, an indistinguishable shape scribbled across the page.
My name was written at the bottom in mismatched, oversized letters.
I put it in my filing cabinet with the rest of my attempted art,
unwilling to scrap what my younger self had called a masterpiece.
Because everything has a memory.
Every drawing copied from a clip of a movie marathon,
every fragile stuffed bear won from the carnival,
every sweater that kept me warm.
To me, they are a timeline.

I started to write something
that wasn’t quite as nice as it could have been,
and I thought about you reading it.
I could waste my words venting about
every bad thing that you’ve said to me,
But instead I started to think about
what I would want you to read.

I miss you.
The person you say you are now,
She isn’t you. And I hope someday
you’ll realize that.

I agree that you’ve changed,
but I don’t think it’s in the ways
you would have liked. Maybe,
Maybe in the ways you think were right,
in the moment, to suit your needs.
But I think you’ve changed in the ways
that let you build more walls
and sever more connections.

I wish that things were different.
I wish we could go back to being everything
we were before, with the exceptions of time.
We were the dream team, you and I,
And there was no one I wanted to spend time with
more than you.

You let me down.
I stood by you and did my best,
Even while my life was barely holding it together.
I understood why you did the things you did,
because you had to. And I wish you could understand
that I did what I had to do too.

You want me to
“work on getting to know the new you,”
But I wish you could see this “new you”
from my perspective.
She isn’t who you think,
the badass who beat depression.
She’s mean, and she’s pretentious.
And I hope she hasn’t burned all her bridges
when the time comes
for reality to set in.

today, we are eternity.
yesterday, infinity.
tomorrow, transient.

i wait and wait but you never show
my heart is ice
my thoughts are snow