I always have high expectations for summer
Not sure why I allow myself to do this every year
Maybe it’s because I’m trying to leave the school year on campus
And escape the people who make me unhappy
But then I’m let down each summer by the people who are supposed to make me happy

This summer it was a boy who told me I wasn’t a second choice but then still wanted someone else
Last summer it was the high school friends who told me it would be forever but then still had a list of complaints on me

My birthday comes around in July and I’m reminded of when I was suicidal at 14
Because everyone forgot my birthday so clearly I shouldn’t have been born.
I wanted to quietly step off a pier and die on the rocks but my brother sitting beside me kept me grounded

The summer is coming to an end now and I’m terrified for school
I don’t want any high expectations and be let down
A perpetual cycle of being excited and let down over and over
And when I see the girls who pushed me to the side I hope that do not cower in fear
A new school year is dawning and the unknown is in front of me

My heart still jumps every time
your name shows up on my phone
I'm craving you
Only 30 days
until I am in the hometown we share
Only 30 days
until I have 10 seconds
of ultimate courage
when I learn over to you sitting beside me
and kiss you
with all I have
because I have waited two years to do this
and I will not wait any longer
Only 30 days

I had two dreams about you last night
The first
We walked together
I reached for your hand
And you intertwined them each time
Each time we said see you later
We kissed
And then I kissed you once with more passion
And you said how come you don’t kiss me this normally
I said, why do I have to be the one to kiss you

The second
Was that over Easter
When you said you had plans
Really you were living in a house
With your ex girlfriend
The one two years ago you told me not to worry about
Now as I lay awake this morning
This dream has shaken me

These dream play on real life fears
I want him to make the move
I’m afraid he will go back to her
I want him
I want to know I’m his
I don’t need commitment
I need reassurance
Make these dreams stop
Kiss me

The worst things about college
is living with someone
who was once your friend
but is no longer

Once we were friends
happy to be in each other's company
but now she doesn't speak to me
even though we inhabit the same space

I go through my day
being the same as before
but they ignore me and keep their heads down
when I pass them in the hall or on the way to class

I live in a space
where I am not wanted
I live in a space
where people talk around me
I live in a space
where girls talk about me when I'm not around

I wish I could leave
but there is still 56 days left in the semester
44 days since the fall out that changed my college life forever
That time has gone quickly
but was not without distress or misery
Will these 56 go by faster? I can hope

Young one,

Right now, I see you and my heart breaks
My memory of this moment you are in
is not one I want to experience again.
But I'm sorry to tell you this isn't the last time you will feel this way
But it also won't feel this way forever.
This I can promise.
I promise.

Young one, I know you have been betrayed
You say there is no none,
they have all left you to abandonment
this is true, I can't tell you different because you will disagree
but I will tell you,
look around,
there are more people feeling this way, its not just you.
There may not be people in your life right now,
but that doesn't mean there won't be forever.
This I can promise.
I promise.

Young one, I have lost all my friendships many times
it hurts the same every time
But you know it when you feel it
that a new person, a better person
will come, and does come
This I can promise.
I promise.

Look up young one,
look at the sky, look at the rain
Whatever you see, feel it
Let the tears come, you can't stop them
But don't choose to stop anything else...
You will be okay
This I can promise.
I promise.

This is what anxiety is like:
My stomach is in knots
My heart is beating fast but when I put my hand over my heart I can't feel it at all
I might throw up, I'm not sure
My brain can't focus on one subject, one thought
I feel like there is nothing to do nothing to say I give up
Too many thoughts and yet none at all
Tight chest and curdling stomach, which will get me first?
And this all happens... for no reason at all.

Social media
has ruined my life
my mom says it
was never like this
twenty-five years ago

You never saw
all your friends
hanging out without
you

Or the boy you like
be with someone else
or be caught in a lie

Social media lets lonely
people to act like they
aren’t lonely
and it allows people to
show off their lives
by hurting others

Show off your body
for all the old men
waiting behind a screen
instead of a tree in the park

Show off your friends
to the person you
left behind

Carry on all the
traditions that were
started way back
when they were
your friend

Watch your guy’s new girl
and see her photos with him
and imagine it was you

Social media
posting pictures
leaving comments
counting likes
has ruined more
friendships than
Instagram followers
I’ll ever have

It has ruined my life

And everyone allows it

I have become too attached to you.

It effects me too much
when you don't respond to me quickly enough
when you add a song to our playlist
when you ask how my day is

When you leave me on read
I panic
I think the time has come
that you will leave me
too good to be true.

But is that the truth?
Will you leave me?
Have you decided that someone else is better than me?
Have you decided to go back to her,
the other girl who came before me?
Have I not showed you enough skin?

I panic and I wait for your response
I have become too attached
I avoid the things that remind me of you

I dream every night about you
How I wish I could tell you about it
My mind attaches itself to you, links my unconscious to you

What will I do, when you choose I am not enough for you?

Today
I ran into the cute boy
at work who I’ve seen.
I was getting that
morning hot chocolate
leaving the kitchen
and I thought to myself
this is how the fanfiction
I wrote starts
By bumping into someone
leaving a coffee shop
And then it really happened
Leaving the doorway
the cute boy at work I’ve seen
came around the corner
We both said
Oh sorry
And I got to hear his voice
I barely even looked up
but I knew it was the one
who’s desk I walk by
when I take the long way
back to mine
When I walked away
I wanted to go back in
to see the boy who almost
made a fanfiction be real
But I put my hand
over my mouth
and kept going
in order to not ruin the moment
of the almost.

Fearful are those
Who do nothing to help themselves

Fearful are those
Who have lost the people closest to them

Fearful are those
Who cry in the nightime

I am all of these things.

I fear what I do not know.

He says he'll teach me
how to french inhale
this means I'll see him soon

In the mean time
he satisfies me with videos
of smoke clouding from his lip

He knows how to captivate me
bringing his mouth near the lense
He licks his lips and blows out to me

If only I could get that close in person
he could satisfy me in another way
I wait for him to make his move

I deleted her picture today
the same day I tripped over my feet,
got a nose bleed,
and lost forty dollars.
So should I have done it?
I see her roommate at work,
she knows more about me
than I know about me.
Weird how that works.
I wish it wasn't this way
Maybe I should have left and gone to a different school,
It's not like I didn't think about it
But yet my heart has healed in Liz's comfort
and the surrounding of this new group
"We are not them" Charlie says to me.
I say that I know, but somehow I don't
I fear this perpetual loss of friendship
and it eats at my heart
like termites
but my heart is not wooden
its glass.
It has many cracks and gaping holes
from the divorce and the deaths and the loss of friendship.
But every once in a while
people come around attempting to make me whole
My problem now is
I don't trust that new friends
won't break me like the others

I don't want to read any romance poetry

I will think of you

and that makes me angry and cry

I miss you and I shouldn't

I want you to reach out to me

but I know it won't happen

this I'm sure

I need to get over you

but I don't want to

I never did

I wanted to be with you

but you wanted her

It has been a while since I've written poetry here
and thats because I loved a boy
Who didn't love me

He was selfish
but I was selfless in loving him
and he took advantage of that
even if he wasn't really trying to

He made me a playlist of songs
romantic connotations and all
to speak his mind from what he's scared to say
But he didn't actually say the words
so I couldn't claim he had

Sometimes I wonder if it was all in my mind
or in my heart
was it even real for him at all?
I told him I didn't want to be a second choice
He said I wasn't
But then why are you still wanting the other girl that dumped you 6 months ago when you've been seeing me for 5?

Even now I am still writing poetry about him
and I don't know if he even thinks about me now
It has been 12 weeks since we've talked
But I've seen him in my dreams
I wish they were real
and my heartbreak was not

Is it really like how it's shown on TV?
Does he wrap his arms around your waist
and hug you from behind?
Does he kiss your forehead
and play with your fingers while you watch a show?
Do you tangle your legs together when you sleep
and does he like the way your hair smells like lavender?
Does he think about you when you're with your friends
and text you to ask what's going on?
Does he wait eagerly for a notification from you
and does he put on the hat you said you liked, that one time?
Does he take you to dinner
and hold your and across the table?
Does he look at you, and really truly see you,
and still think you are beautiful and good?

Why, oh why, does no one want this with me?
Are those things what people really do?

I've seen these things done,
in real life and in books and in poetry and on tv and
somehow the world goes on around me
but I feel like I'm missing a piece of myself

A piece of my heart is missing
a man is not that missing piece
nor is a man going to complete me
but I see people living like this around me
and I long for it, I yearn for it, I beg for it

I want someone to want me in the way I want them
I want someone to miss me and wait for me to get out of class
I want to know they are committed to me and only me
I want someone to count the days until we are together again
I want someone to love me and want me, so wholly

Why is that too much to ask for?

Why is that so hard to find?

Did you think
that things
would ever be the same

That you should be the one
to go
but try
to take us with you

Did you think
we would want that

They say
it’s a two-way street
They say
they should have known
better
but they
didn’t

Even now
it affects me
She tells me
do not
have a hard heart
But trying
to love someone
you don’t
but should

can be hard

If you didn't want to see me
you didn't have to lie
If you don't actually like me the same way
you need to let me go
If you want to get back with the other girl
you have to tell me

I can not bear to go on another moment
not knowing if you feel the same way about me
I can not bear to go on another moment
questioning if you actually want to spend time with me
I can not bear to go on another moment
feeling love for someone who loves someone else

I don't know why it is so hard
for people to be honest with each other
about they way that they feel.
Why lead someone on
if you know that they feel something for you?

Why do you let them continue down this path
of unrequited love
and perpetual sorrow
I need to know if you feel the same way about me
or if you will ever
Are you on the path to loving me?

I can deal with being in different places on the same path,
but I can't handle being in a different forest.
You need to tell me where this is going because
I've had enough of unrequited love

The day you left me waiting
was one I'll never forget

I stood there waiting,
trying not to let my sweat show

My friends asked if you were coming
I told them I was sure

Gill's boyfriend arrived
you had been with him in the afternoon
So I knew you were out from school

I got giddy then
waiting to see you walk in the door

The laughter died down, smiles faded
Parents, friends, and teachers left

I waited next to my paintings
The pink one just for you

Morgan looked at me with pity
She had won an award and was happy
But she looked at me and knew I wasn't okay

I think I knew you weren't coming all along
But I knew for sure when all my friends went home

I drove home that night
My car as quiet as my heart

You asked me how was the show
I didn't respond

I gave away your painting
As soon as I took it down

The show was over

He says
We can’t have *** until I love him
So when he says
I wish we could have ***
He means
I wish you loved me

the stars are not bright enough
when you are not around

I shouldn’t have to justify
my desire to not have *** with you

Don’t make me feel cornered
or small because you say
you want to do all sorts of
things and I say I don’t

Clearly we both had different
ideas of what this was

He told me I needed
affection

Like some ill-treated orphan
or the runt of the litter

I don’t need you or your affection

I thought it was fun at first
but now it’s over.

I don’t like it when people change
That’s my problem
All my best friends from home
I have known all my life
And when they change it’s gradual
I growth with them
We are intertwined
But here, at college
It is different and people change rapidly
I don’t have time to keep up
I don’t have time to analyze who they are anymore
I can’t keep up with their changing moods and wants
It’s exausting and that’s why I lost all my friends
I couldn’t keep up so I got kicked to the side
No pity please it’s a good thing
They create chaos and facilitate dysfunction only visible to the outside
I’m better now for this loss and I like myself better
I no longer sit in the dark crying over the loss of their love
I thrive with my new friendships of loving people with my own interests and aspirations and values
Starting anew is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done
But oh am I happy to be on the other side

I live on Melancholy Hill
A place quite hard to find

I live my life running low on serotonin
The gasoline that makes me go

I will never be fully satisfied
Curiosity and creativity go hand in hand

I stare out over my hill and wait
Always waiting and waiting to be rescued

I live my life in my mind
Talking has never been a strong suit

I sit on my hill with a megaphone
Its the only way I'm heard

I am rarely seen, always listening, and perpetually dying
People forget about me

I am told I have a black soul
Only I like the way it feels

I feel every emotion more than other people
Highly sensitive and dramatic

I know when you're lying
But sometimes I'm wrong

I can't seem to get happy
My happiness depending on others

I have goals and dreams
They are as far away as the stars J loves

I love too deeply
It never gets returned

I am learning to be myself
Doing things because I want to

I walk down my hill and into the the forest
A map has not been supplied

I live on Melancholy Hill
Forever feeling too deeply, Hardly ever happy.

Do I make more out of this
you and me
when I write poetry about it?

Do I over analyze it
and dream too much about it
so that I think its more than what it is?

How am I supposed to know how you feel
if you don't tell me?
All this guessing
and going with the flow,
makes me anxious and all I want is you.
I want to know that I have you.
But do I right now?
It's okay if I don't, I just want to know you aren't going anywhere.

Everyone has this checklist in their head
of reasons to have ***
I'm different from my friends
their lists are small and not all requirements need to be met
and thats okay
but mine looks a little different
and thats okay

[  ] Emotional Connection
[  ] Physical Attraction
[  ] Understanding
[  ] Length of Time Known

I'm learning and growing about who I am

"There's a flower. . . I think she's tamed me"

Oh, be like the little prince, won't you?
You took me to see the stars
I didn't know then that he was up there

Its my favorite story, you told me
About a fox and rose and sheep and a little prince
So when we left each other again, I went and read your story

He was the only boy in the world for the fox
And she was the only flower in the world to him
Oh, how this is too often neglected

I am waiting for you, my little prince
Oh, won't you tame me?
We can laugh with the stars and hear the bells

Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?

I told my mom today that my best friend was experiencing depression.
She is studying abroad
and wakes up everyday feeling like she wants to be dead
So I said to my mother
Liz is miserable and wants to come home
She said to me
"Its home sickness she should stick it out"

I think that I am needy
There I said it
I don't have what everyone else has
a boy that loves them and wants them
and I think I'm needy
because I want that
I want the Pam and Jim love story
the Me before You story
the Meredith and Derek story
Is that so much to ask for?
It must be.
I say that there is someone for everyone
but when am I going to start believing it?
It seems so easy for everyone else,
to love and be loved, so quickly finding someone
but here I am chasing a boy who may not want me
and I convince myself he does
What if he doesn't?
Have I wasted my time?
When did I start measuring my worth
upon how far I have gone with a man?
And when someone else
who is much __(er) than me
gets with a guy,
I feel like there must be something really wrong with me.
When did women become each other's competition?
When did I start being so harsh to myself?
I know what I want, truly, from a man
and I think I'm needy because I have standards and expectations
I want to be desired and loved and wanted
I needy for it and I hate myself for it

Are you okay? She asks me.
I nod yes but look down
She knows I am not

My past still haunts me
when night circles in
darkness never fleeting

In class I sit with my psychology professor's voice
somewhere in the distance
"What does anxiety feel like?"

Anxiety is the cheese steak
I threw in the garbage the fateful night
my friends in college told me they hated me

It is newly 14 year old Erin
looking over the side of Narragansett Pier
on her birthday thinking what if her head hit those rocks

The fear that no one will love me
I will continue in this world the way I came and will go,
alone.

I don't know how long these memories
will haunt me
my soul forever altered

Every night
you come to me in my dreams
I see your face all night and day
Though it never goes my way
My dreams once in color
now are in full grey

You tell me it was all in my head,
this thing between you and me
We were never meant to be
can't you see?
I refuse to believe this
But his love has never been for me

You laugh at me and my imagination
You don't commit awake or asleep
You'll never like me as much as I like you
This much I know to be true
I can see his body
clearly his tattoo

My brain likes to tortures me
Putting doubt in my mind
These nightmares leave me crying,
I question why I'm still trying
If I told you I wasn't falling
I'd definitely be lying

These fears that terrorize me in the night are coming true

I don't know why I was so naive to think something different would happen this time around

Thinking people have grown in maturity, and they have, and yet they still choose someone else over you

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

I am preparing myself to be let down by you in the next few days, I need to be in the right mindset

It is not easy preparing for someone to break your heart, even when you know its coming

All I wanted was for you to let me in, for a chance to be partners in crime, and I thought that's what we were

It is funny how two people can have different experiences of the same event, I thought things were good.

I don't know why it is so hard for people to say how they feel, I don't know why its so scary

I understand go with the flow and taking it slow but can't you give me a sign its what you want

I can see you, fading away, and I can feel you deciding that I am not for you

If you love someone let them go, if they comeback then they are for you? You have me questioning this

How do you prepare for you heart to be broken...for the second time, by the same person?

im scared
im scared you wont want to see me
im scared you wont want me
im scared youve lost interest
im scared it wont ever happen
im scared this is going to slowly
im scared youll wake up one day and decide im not enough
im scared to love you
im scared because if i love you youll leave inevitably
im scared you wont kiss me
im scared you wont want me to make that move
im scared of rejection
im scared ill say the wrong thing
im scared im not as good as her
im scared you compare us
im scared

I think your women have to prove themselves
You make them work for it and you do not
You know they are hooked

So you only go with it when something new pushes you along
Like the fact that I like ***** heads songs
Or that I read poetry
Or that I smoke ****

It’s understandable you want us to have things in common
But why am I the one always making the effort to find those things

Is it selfish of me to keep with you
When I don’t think you’re in it fully
Because I am.

Our similarities are undeniable
Even to you
And that’s why I know when every once in a while
You see what I see and it pushes you along
Along to me
And I’m okay with that

Maybe we are both a little selfish but either way
as long as I have you, I’m okay

I ended the only relationship I've ever had.

After four years I told him I didn't want to get married.
"So you want to get married but just not to me?"

I revisit that day in my sleep every night. The day that I took the plane to do it right. Boston far below.
"You have completely broken my heart."

My brother by my side at the departure and arrival. The sumner tunnel under construction and $300 in jet fuel later.
"I want you to be gone when I come out of the bathroom."

A few months prior he told me that dating me was "bliss". I knew it hadn't been that for me.
"Is this it? Are you done with me just like that?"

I told him that he was taking me for granted and I couldn't talk to him when I needed him most. Hiding my mental illness should he think I'm broken.
"Just because I don't ask how your day is does mean I don't care."

He flew to Boston not 12 hours later. Even during his grand gesture he couldn't help but criticize me.
"Stand up straight."

He told me he thought suicide was selfish. How was I to tell him I had considered parking my car on the highway bridge over the Merrimack river and jumping off? A women did that the first week I lived here, so I knew it would work.
"I thought about putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger."

My best friend told me he asked her for her name. I'd been dating him for three years. Pop quiz: Who is your girlfriend's best friend and roommate? Did he even listen to me speak at all? Did he even care about my life at all?
"Whats your name again?"

Three months later, I only see you when I sleep. I'm haunted by this memory. I never dream we are still together and I wonder what that means. I've broken up with you a hundred times but it doesn't get any easier.
"Tell me everything you don't like about me. Give me a list."

I'm living in a tank filled with sharks
A contained living space
with creatures of blood

My body
suspended in the water
dark, blue light filters in
from somewhere far above

I don't need to have my eyes open
to know they are out there
watching me

Every once in a while
one gets too close
to me and my lifeless body
it nudges its head against my floating limbs
reminding me it's there

Today a shark took a bite out of me
my flesh ripped open and I am exposed
What do I do?
If I hit it back, surely it will consume me entirely
and if I don't I will die slowly anyway

You see, here in this tank
there isn't escape
The sharks don't leave
they pack together and hunt me

So I stay here
my hair fanned out and body wieghtless
floating and waiting for something to happen
I wait for the creatures of the tank
to leave me
but I know they will only sink back
into the shaddows
watching and waiting
for the next time they want to take a bite

I think being with you would be simple
Like watching the bees in the summertime

I imagine us laying in bed with music playing
We are propped up on our elbows looking at each other

Loving you is like laying in the grass
The sky so clear and I don't worry about anything else

oh how I have waited for you
for so long
you make me feel
so wanted
and more than that
you make me feel
like myself
like you want to be around me.
you look at me
and you see something good
when I look at you, I see
something good in the reflection of your eyes.

I want to feel my fingertips on you skin
your hands on my body
my lips placed on yours
but with me here in this moment
my heart flutters
at the thought of you.

I can't wait for the summer
because it's when I'll get to see you

I want to lay in the grass with you
I want to go to the art museum with you
I want to get high with you
I want to skinny dip with you
I want to watch comedy shows with you
I want to paint van gogh on your back
I want to get drunk with you
I want to dye your hair
I want to spray paint the mills with you
I want to kiss you
I want to hold you

I wait for the summer to come
and all that it has to offer

Have you ever
experienced something
that has truly
broken your heart?

Something so devastating,
that it breaks
your soul
your heart
your mind

You question
everything you’ve done
to make this happen
but you can’t think
of anything

Over and over
the thoughts tumble
in your mind
the memories
flow from your brain
to your eyes
the pictures hurt
just as much
crisp and clear
they were made to remind you
of the best times
but all they do
is show you what you lost

The dull ache in your
heart
even months after
the defining event
says I miss you
and aches for
the ability to travel back
a year
a few months
any amount of time
that could rewind
the heartache

But time doesn’t act
that way
Neither do I.
Going back
knowing all eyes are
watching
judging
waiting for you
to **** up

is not friendship

I had a dream last night
about you

You were laying there
on the blue flowered couch
In the living room of my mother's house

The dinner was ready and I came to get you
I stretched out my arms to you and wiggled my finglers
I had been thinking about holding your hand
But you touched my fingers and pulled yourself to two feet
You dropped my hands and pulled me into you
I snaked my arms around your waist
and rested my head against your chest
Even now I can feel your arms around my shoulders

You kissed me on the top of my head then
and held me tighter
Short lived dream missing a beginning and end
but it was all I could think of when I woke
laying there in the comfort of slumber
pulling my blanket closer to me
as if it was you

Why does this constantly happen to me?
History repeats over and over

I would think I would be used to this
by now,
but yet every time it happens
I feel the same **** feeling.

When will it stop?
When will I learn?

I cry for belonging.

I cry for love.
How I long for someone to come home to,
For a man to care for me
For a lover to comfort me in my distress
For a cover of sleep to encapsulate me
Yet I have none of these things,
I cry for love.

I cry to be held in the arms of my mother.
I am so far from home,
I can see myself sitting with her in my bed
She looks at me the way only a mother could
She makes my heart slow at the sound of her voice
Though I am not home, I am so far
I cry to be held in the arms of my mother.

I cry to feel something.
I go through my scheduled day
With tunnel vision, the world moves on around me
but all I see is a haze of people who say they hate me
I cry to feel something.

I call myself,
The Melancholy Child.

You are only friends with me when it is convenient for you
Ignore me every day
Come into our room and stay quiet
Coinhabitants; living but not talking
I know if it weren't for living together
you wouldn't want me around

We once were friends
now I think you barely can stand to be around me
What a shame

I remember the way you jumped into my arms
and declared that you were my roommate
when we stood in my old bedroom

Now I stand here deciding
stay or go?

What would it be like
to have someone
who is your everything?
What would it feel like
to be someone’s
everything?

People talk about
finding this person
who they love forever
but why can’t everyone
have that?
Why can’t I
have that?

They say
one day you will find
the person you will
love forever
but right now
I have a hard time
finding anyone
besides the warm bodies
I find in the dark
on a dance floor
who I never see again

My person
I fear
is lost
gone from ever being found
He took the wrong exit
on his way to me

I like riding the train
I don’t like the people
But I like the train
One time I rode it empty late at night
It was exhilarating
Only as a woman
I feared
the one man
at the station

You told me yesterday
that you write poetry
I said me too
but it scared me a little
do you write poetry about me
in the way I write poetry about you?

If you did,
what I would give to read it
your thoughts, fears, goals,
the moments we shared that touched you

I would die inside if I knew you read my poetry
its mainly all about you
what else is there to write about
when you're all I think about

One day maybe I will show you these words
and we can laugh
about the young naive girl that was infatuated
with a boy from her hometown
Until then I will keep you a secret here on these pages

Sometimes I still miss you
Sometimes is a lot of the time.
I don't know why
but I see you in my dreams

Sometimes you say that you want me
and I say me too
but in other dreams you say her name
and I wake up in sadness

My heart aches
for someone to love me
I don't know why it is so hard to be loved
no, actually, so hard for someone to love me

What does my virginity have to do with you?

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