Don't let hate consume your peace,
Lest it occupies every space
Your heart can no longer contain,
Protruding like a pigeon's rib cage.
Till one day it lits a grenade,
And explodes an uncontrollable rage.

not just water or air
could fill my body
with the gentle force
that the tides do, and
so it is with you--

not just your kiss,
your smile,
the cold of your
hands on me

just out of reach,
the same power that
brings sea to shore
is behind us, or
around us

there's vulnerability
in the way i even
think your name.

I like to think I'm constant.
I'm constantly unselfish (thanks mom)
I'm constantly stressed.
I'm constantly nonjudgmental,
yet, admittedly, I do judge those who judge.

Aren't I just perfect?
When I worked, people hated me for being good at it and expecting the same from them.

Humility? Not really my friend,
I don't boast, but I don't deny my abilities.
I don't deny my shortcomings either.

I was educated in a system that demanded your best.
Now I live in a country that puts emotional wellbeing before education and ability.
I constantly struggle with this.

This dilemma is my constant companion.
Perhaps even my constant friend/enemy.

I constantly love all my family.
I constantly give people the benefit of the doubt.
I constantly form opinions of strangers.
I constantly cage myself in a prison of aloofness.
I constantly pretend disinterest.

I'm constantly afraid of the world, yet I constantly want to explore it.

Yes, I'm constant.

once the sun met the moon
as we sat on a mountain cliff
it felt like years
our moments
my moon-silk and midnights
your burning eyes and fire days
i felt the earth move
rolling its weight under the dusty rocks
my lungs contracted,
my chest expands still,
to think i may be hollow like a bell
while you burn through energy and
cast it away.
once we could have danced
it was a thursday afternoon
but the rain soaked through my
first-date blouse and
it all ended way too soon.

like the way
his tiny hand reaches for mine
as we line up for lunch

or the way
she says she loves my sweater
even if its the same as the day before

or the way
20 pairs of eyes light up
when i say the word experiment

yeah, some things are beautiful
like the flower
he picked me on the playground
or the moment she could finally
read the word as

and i wouldn't trade those moments
for all the money in the world.

the thought of another human
falling wholeheartedly in love with me
is absolutely terrifying
because that would mean they would accept me, all of me
all of my beliefs, and faults, and strenghts, and weaknesses
me as a being and as a whole
they would see and look at and accept
and yet throughout all of that they would still love me

the concept of that i will never be able to accept
because there is a lot of me
there is a lot of personality, and thought, and being that goes into being me
i'm a human
and i'm a mess majority of the time
so why would someone look at me and talk to me
and thinks "wow, i absolutely love her"

and what makes it terrifying most to me
is that this human would first have to see the true me
the rough, over thinking, exhausted, emotionally inept me
they will see every inch of my soul and my existence
and they will see that not everything is exactly as i present it

and that is what is most shocking about it
to know that someone i absolutely adore does the same to me
throughout everything that i am
they still love me and accept me

i am lost
i am alone
i feel like im drowning
in a sea of emotions
yet i feel nothing

i watch as everyone around me
moves and bustles through life
while i stand here
time frozen
in this cold darkness

im trying to swim to the surface
every time i get close
i get dragged under
more
and more

im running out
of breathe now
i can feel my heart
beating fast
the pressure on my chest
is too much to bare


suddenly,
everything goes black