You aren't anything I want.
Your eyes alight at the chance to prove yourself
superior.
Being older shouldn't be an accomplishment
It's a shame
For you.

Wish I hadn't noticed the strange noise I heard.
Whispers from within,
screaming to reach open air,
itching under my skin,
to be real and true and free.

Gravity shifts quietly, gently
I feel a weight in my arm, unbalanced
tipping towards you
wanting to stretch past the space
the wide space
6 feet exactly,
exactly too close
not far enough.

Pretentious, obnoxious
and yet
I still long
For you.

And then, seeing only part of your face,
the other half obscured by a mask
A physical one
As I wore a different type beneath my own
blue filter
One that didn't show the way my eyes pleaded
to drag over to the right
where I could see you.
To where I could pine
For you.

I know it's impossible,
infallibly fantastical.
But seeing your face,
Again I feel that buzz of attraction
For you.

I still see you when I close my eyes and let my mind wander
I wonder how your face would feel against mine
Wonder how we would feel together.

February finally happened.
Winter ended for me, but more for you.
I promised to remember, but some days I still forget.
You forgot me, and I guess its only fair,
but I don't care.
I promised to remember but as months passed,
after you passed,
the memory doesn't last.

The image of you is faint:
you, frail and pale and empty.
I could see you hiding inside her,
so lonely,
so scared.

The nurse looked so pitiful
I tried so hard to keep them in
I remember you as water,
water I tried to keep inside

Decorate me as you please.
Eyes lit up like candles,
bright flames casting shadows over your face,
over my form.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Wax twists down slowly,
tortuously,
melting toward me as I can merely watch,
waiting for you to burn through me.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I force myself to smile,
sweet like frosting,
a pretty picture for you as I watch,
waiting for you to burn through me.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Before I am ashes, you blow out the candles.
Make a wish.
I wish I could leave, but I can only watch,
waiting for you to burn through me.

it hurts to see how years pass by
how days turn to decades,
decisions directly caused her decline

it hurts to hear how songs grow old
memories linked to melodies,
moping to music made months ago

it hurts to read her pain
to borrow her books
buried truths brought into focus

I live beneath layers
And layer and layers and layers
I am small within myself
Shrunken down
Collapsed
The reflection is superimposed

Through my eyes, I see myself
The rest is simply layers

Layers of fat and skin and stretch marks
Each layer heavier than the last
Heavier and heavier until
I start to droop
Inside and out
My shoulders concave
As I wish my stomach would

Searching for acceptance
For self-love
Searching and only finding stares

But they only see my layers
And I live beneath them

confide in me
quietly
tiptoe through night as we
silently
defiantly
slip into the light we see
vibrancy
and finally
in time we're free

I've loved you across space and time
years spent, investing in a friendship
only to go broke

I've given you space and time
imagining an apology, an explanation
radio silence

I've watched you across space and over time
You made new friends and joined with old ones
Just not me

You can be oblivious but time and space
Could never completely erase
How much I
know you.
Because I know you.

And you can't take back the time we spent
and you can't create more space
And you can't lie anymore
Unless you lie to my face.
Because I am done reaching out
to see if you're alive.
Because it's clear now.
You're no friend of mine.

I love you like rain
Soft and warm
A gentle lullaby tapping on my window
As my heart echoes it quietly beneath my chest


The morning air is different
Full and heavy
It doesn’t weigh me down.
I float through the humid air,
air full of you
A clean, mild scent
Like summer’s sweet beginning

I love you like storms
Loud and crashing
Hot and bright
A strike of lighting
lanced through me

I love you like clouds
You filter the sunshine,
Refine the light,
color my world

I love you like heaven on earth

Isolated but never alone
surrounded by noise
yelling and shouts and anger and doors
creaking and slamming and sliding
footsteps constant
the house is never still
and I can't break my silence
I can't say a word
I cannot sing the way I wish to
freely and loudly and brokenly
I want to rip my vocal chords out with the sheer force of my cries
but I keep them quiet
small sounds muffled by sheets
I want my friends but they are long gone
Some far by miles and some far by will
willful ignorance
I'm wounded and their messages are salt rubbing in
digging into my skin
tearing thin lines across my skin
razor thin lines down my legs
down my arms
thin lines I imagine but never carve
I won't because I know now
I know how to breathe
I know how to sleep away the hurt
sleep for weeks and months
sleep through a pandemic
sleep through the pain

I can feel myself tucked inside.
I want to come out and feel,
deeply,
but I am trapped in my chest.
With each breath I remember
the hollowness where
a swell of feelings
once perched,
like a sweet bird
singing to me constantly.
I miss the warmth of its weight within me;
I turn up my music to draw it back out;
I am afraid it’s been lost to monotony.

But if I close my eyes
and breathe slowly,
deeply,
I can almost feel my diaphragm brush the edges
of that same cluster of emotions
that once lived close to my heart

I climb slowly
gripping each ledge, each pebble
leaping from perch to perch
nearly flying.
Each breath sends chills down my stiff spine.
Each heartbeat drums strong in my fingers.
Each moment moves slowly until it passes,
until it is gone and I must move onwards,
upwards and onwards.
Directionless, I merely climb for ages,
days and weeks and summers pass
essays and applications
money and apartments
endless obligations I halfway want.
I've done what I'm supposed to do.
I don't know what to want,
what I want.
Happiness is to the north, but I dropped my compass years ago.
I stumble in each direction, moving closer, farther.
Still, I climb, clinging tight, promising myself another year.

Summer heat beams down, angry and punishing,
brutal light blinds me as my shoulders burn.
My nose and cheeks are freckled, ancient specks once lost
to childhood memories of swimming and sprinklers.
The belligerently blue current bounces
as the shrieks and the smiles of countless kids
chime through the air,
bittersweet as the memory of you.
You who once laughed quietly, like happiness was a secret you kept
from the world,
shared only with me
and the quiet house by the coast.

Now the ports, run down, rotting,
while waves lap at the thin shoreline,
are an eerie mirror of your mind.
Now the chlorinated water only reminds me of your eyes,
clear, but still too far to touch,
distant but reaching,
searching for my name,
for my face,
for me.
I will not visit again.
I will remember you as water, stretching on forever toward the horizon.

Bundled in blankets

       my skin is cold

Closing my eyes

      your smile is warm

Summer heat beams down, angry and punishing,
brutal light blinds me as my shoulders burn.
My nose and cheeks are freckled, ancient specks once lost
to childhood memories of swimming and sprinklers.
The belligerently blue current bounces
as the shrieks and the smiles of countless kids
chime through the air,
bittersweet as the memory of you.
You who once laughed quietly, like happiness was a secret you kept
from the world,
shared only with me
and the quiet house by the coast.

Now the ports, run down, rotting,
while waves lap at the thin shoreline,
are an eerie mirror of your mind.
Now the chlorinated water only reminds me of your eyes,
clear, but still too far to touch,
distant but reaching,
searching for my name,
for my face,
for me.
I will not visit again.
I will remember you as water, stretching on forever toward the horizon.

needing to look up
because rock bottom has never been so close
because you can taste the dusty film that coats motivation
you are breathing the achingly sweet stench of giving up

needing to look up
because the light blinds you
distracts you
from the same destructive melody that echoes constantly
a catchy chorus of crumbling conviction

looking up
trying to remember what optimism was like

It doesn’t matter if smiles or tears paint your face
So long as the numbers say what They want them to say
The transcript, the scores, the resume
Only numbers can tell what a person is worth
Only numbers can tell what a person has paid
A document will never list the price of pain
Will never notice when time has taken its toll
Will never notice the humanity of feeling
The humanity of breaking down
The humanity of mistakes
Repeated mistakes
Repeated excuses
Repeated words
All meaningless
Until you are crushed
With the weight
Of Their heavy stares
Disapproving
Disappointed
In the meaninglessness
In the worthlessness
Of that numberlessness.

moment wrapped in ribbons of silk
twirling and swirling in circles
amaranthine

driving at night, sky blackened
windows like vacuums
******* in the smoky winter air

wheels grinding, rolling against the lopsided asphalt
crushing rocks with every bounce
driving,
no location
only hands gripping the wheel
and pressure on the acceleration

driving down silky ribbons of rocky asphalt
driving
no location
only hands gripping the wheel
only pressure on the acceleration
only you holding tight
grabbing life by the neck

sitting in a box
only going where someone else takes you
is empty
so grab every moment
wrapped in ribbons of silk
twirling and swirling in circles
amaranthine
savor the bittersweet memory while it lasts

ripped and torn from its place in the neurons
in the brain
stored in the depths of the ocean
the ocean of memories abandoned
lapping against the vacant shore
sky blackened, windows like vacuums,
******* in sand, summoning dust
spiraling piles crowding out a smooth smile

driving through amaranthine moments
widening eyes
moments wrapped in bittersweet anticipation

Your smile
Lightning across every nerve
sizzling through every vein
headed straight to my heart.

My eyes
Darting away quickly
crossing over tiled floors
landing outside the window.

A headache blooms with my blush
and it's suddenly too much.

Shame I couldn't bring myself to smile back.

I cloak my conditions in colloquial
Decode my demeanor, I dare you.
There’s no definition to be found.

I am the same as the others
Too different and you’re strange
And hidden feels happier than strange.

I'd say something if I felt like it
but depression seems to take feeling
and wrinkle it into *****
crumpled and crushed
compacted closer than the papers piling around me
as I delete drafts
dramatically demanding a **** word
to hold meaning it never could.

Sometimes, words are nothing.
Because when they are everything,
I can't bring myself to say anything
so they might as well be nothing.

Every time I try to tell someone,
Anyone,
It comes rushing through my eyes instead
Let me paint you a picture,
A self-portrait from painful pastels
And punishing paints

Living in a lonely world,
In my lonely mind,
It gets tiring.

I wish someone could see past my fronts.
Look at me;
See a real person,
And not the mask I wear

I know I could take it off
I should
I would
I can't

It's my only defense.

Because if they don't like my mask, it's fake.
But if they hate me, it's too real.

And every time I try to tell you,
It comes pouring from my eyes instead.

Let me wear these sarcastic stripes
and austere arches.
My sorrowful scene.  

This picture isn't pretty-
far from perfect.
But it is me.

And so she sat there,
smiling quietly,
watching the sun set fire
to the bright green trees,
feeling the window warm against her head,
as frizzy hair brushed her shoulders.
Music flowed through her earbuds,
the scent of orange bloomed
in the gently chattering bus.
Fridays couldn't be better,
and life was beautiful.
Too bad she'd have to leave it behind.

Screeching stung the lovely afternoon,
spinning, and spinning, and spinning.
A cocktail of chemicals rushing,
flushing out the floating happiness.

Black, and tears, and tragedy.
The most beautiful of souls had to pass before all others.

poetry is hard
everybody wants to read
your most personal thoughts

the only success you'll see
is when you paint your heart across the page
and pour your soul into pressing that simple "save"

my voice seems worthless until I spill my secrets for the world to see
but what if I want to keep secrets to myself
and let the world see what it thinks it wants

let me write soppy stories of summer days
or mornings filled with cliched coffee cups
loaded with the "real" problems every poet apparently has

the real Problem is that everybody has a problem with not having problems
why can't we be happy having perfect lives

instead, I have to pretend I have problems
when all I really have is the standard stress that comes with being young

The closest thing I have to a real problem is the parabola on my worksheet and the other math problems beyond it

I'm no different from any other aspiring author
wanting recognition for lying
and exaggerating
and imagining problems into existence

because no story exists without conflict
and no peace exists with problems
so we have a bit of a perfect problem paradox

She was so lucky.
Friends.
Several of them.
All of them kind and real and amazing.
School.
So kind and real and amazing.
Nobody scans her as she walks the halls.
Nobody judges her every choice.

Nobody notices when she chooses to eat information instead of food.
Nobody realizes she notices the little glances just barely within her sight
     Or the muffled snickers
     Or the sly comments.

Nobody knows how absolutely aware she is.
Nobody hears her trembling breaths in the bathroom
silenced by the palm of her hand.
Nobody could ever know how hard it is to ignore all of it;
                                              how hard it is to not hate yourself;
                                              how hard it is to hide everything
carefully packaged under the confines of her undershirt.

Nobody can tell that inside those bulging rolls is simply a girl with social anxiety and insecurities beyond mental health.
Nobody sees her bury her feelings in her sparse salads and amaranthine assignments.
Nobody sees her.

There are a handful of vague words you should never use:
this or these, in a non-specific way,
good,
bad,
thing,
something,
anything,
everything-
           but
nothing is acceptable as there is often no alternative.

You should stop to smell the roses
I think they're starting to rot

Luckily, the stench of your lies
should hide any signs
of decomposition

Not that you've noticed death before
not even when you tore
my heart from my chest

Certainly not when you lied
and consequently died
in my eyes.

Nostalgia laps over memories like waves brushing sandy beaches
Hot, hazy days cooled only by the frigid waters of time
When freedom tasted like sticky sweet ice
Melting so slowly, too quickly
School bells end those happy days
Waiting for the next year

Sunny days barely touch me through the walls of my home.
Now I live in a box in the sky
But heights don’t fill me with that giddy rush
That pure emancipation.
Nothing seems to make me so happy as those days
When freedom tasted like sticky sweet ice
Melting so slowly, too quickly
But we were children, then
Everything was a thrill.

I imagine leaving
Rushing down country roads
Ignoring the world
Because what’s the point of it?
Sitting in a box, only going where someone else takes you?
There isn’t one.

The day I decide is deafening
Silence screams so sickeningly.
Tell them I'm sick.
Don't tell them I'm sick of them.
Just sick.
I run.

Suddenly, I’ve liberated myself
Unimpeded by obligations.
I don’t need those memories
When freedom tasted like sticky sweet ice
Melting so slowly, too quickly,
I have that coursing through my capillaries
Creating a cocktail of chemicals
Adrenaline and endorphins.
No, I’m free.