I don't kiss someone without stopping myself
What do they intend to do?
Will this be the start of the love of my life?
Or are they just using me like you?

I take things slow and I think I do too much
My friends tell me all that they've done
I wanna be as free with my body as they all are
But I can't, because of what happened once


All I ask myself is if I'll get played
And did i deserve it because I stayed?
Every boy takes his tole
And to this day I haven't told a soul


How do I ask for help without giving up my cover?
Will I ever fall in love with another?
Why did I cry on the chest of a new man
Because of you when I hate you, understand
I'll never love with my whole entire self
And I hope you don't as well

I have always believed that when you're in love, you will know
But what if I don't know until I've fallen out of it?

It's scary, the possibility that after everything is said and done and people are moved on with their lives that the past will be the only determining factor that tells you yes, you were in love with them
And by that time, you can't go back to when you were

It's hard to tell myself I'm in love. I am either in it, or closer than I've ever been. I know I shouldn't doubt my instincts, because I will only hold myself back from embracing a beautiful feeling, but it is something to think about.

These dark sounding piano keys can play so loud in my ears but not loud enough, the crackling chip bag of you is too much, it's unbearable.
I swim deeper down until I can graze my palms against the smooth sand but I still fill your hot sun on my back, burning me, how terrible.
I make poutpurri petals and push your pungent smell out of my room and I spray Miss Dior and mist Dior until I can't breathe but you're underlying.
I inject myself with vitamins and visit every doctor and demand they help me, it's physical pain not mental, but they can't help me, so I'm dying.

One feeling that causes the most painful tears that makes one feel the wrinkles forming between their brows and the constant questioning one's self of how is that of falling short of expectations, and while you may not care, want to meet them, want to be there, falling flat is a ****** feeling and regardless of your attitude, that's a fact.

When you let someone down, your family, your friends, your love, you feel this sense of being so close. I could've been a better cousin, and I could've been nicer, I could've done what was right and not what wasn't, I could've held you tighter.

Yes, you could've, but those expectations would only be higher if you did, and the so close feeling would come back into play. This is why I say to myself,
"You do this to yourself, and you know you do."

At the end of the day, you decide whether you were accomplished, and the only person you can't let down is yourself. Keeping this in mind, and knowing these impossible unrealities are mine, I strive everyday to be my best self, and one day, she, I will be able to find.

When I laugh with you, it is so much louder than a laugh in other company.
It reminds me of before you loved me, when your laugh was loudest to my ear.
If I was the cause, oh dear!

When we talk of our interests, I listen because I actually do care about yours.
It's just like when we'd icebreak, what are your interests? I find only yours interesting.
How silly, I think.

I watch you closely, even closer when you don't notice. I look across the table at you working, and it pleases me so.
I used to do this constantly, hoping maybe you did notice, but also swearing I was sly.
How dare we catch each other's eye.

Now you see me, for all that I am. For all that I want to be, and I see you seeing me.
I remember when someone told me that you liked me, because of the way you looked at me.
I thought this over, so happily.
You're still looking at me.

"Did you want to say something?"
"No, I'm good"
Instead you'll give me money
Like you've always thought you should

I walked down the steps of first grade
I told myself "this is the best day of my life"
And maybe I was right,
But from that point forward the feeling of being abandoned echoed in other things, through other strife

Invites were missed and so were opportunities
But I never needed any of that because mom and I had unity
And even though on such important days I didn't have you with me
I'm fine, and everyday I'll have to tell myself why

You may have gotten me some play tickets
But did you see me graduate?
Is life at home alright or am I getting slack because you're sad and hate
The way that things have turned out but none of that is my fault
I wanted you to be there so I texted and I called

Why did I need to be eased in?
You were my dad
And even though the perfect movie family unit's something I never had
I felt as if I knew you and you made me who I am
And you did but why you didn't want to see that, I'll never understand

Even though we didn't even meet until I was six
The thought of my mom finding out alone still makes me sick
She probably thought it'd be just me and her forever
Was she wrong? Because I still feel like that when all three of us are together

She was all I needed
And standards are high
I hope I make you proud
But if not, I don't mind

And if you plan on getting thank yous
Everyone would say I should
But when I summarize the past
No, I'm good

On a couch for three,
I am one,
Though there's more.
You could sit here,
But I think you'd rather take the floor.

Oh, anxiousness!
Why is it so hard for you to say hello?
I act frustrated by the question,
But the answer,
I know.

Let your eyes look at mine,
They're blue for that purpose,
If we shake hands and you don't,
Suddenly,
It is worthless.

But it seems we all agree,
Being social's of the past,
We'd prefer to not confront,
Don't look at faces,
And just pass.

You're away for a little while,
But I'll wait for you.
I imagine what you're doing and I see your smile,
And that's what gets me through.
You can be miles from me but yet I feel as if I could look out my window and watch you, and that always helps.
I imagine you next to me when I'm happy, holding me when I'm not. I was upset before and wanted to tell you why but after a while I forgot, and everything beautiful about you is in my head when you're not in my sight, but when you are, it'll be bright, and I'll be praying for a safe flight.

I know for a fact that I will never understand the struggles that you go through, but I will understand this before I understand why those like me, try to.
You are discriminated against, held to different and more harsh standards, and people see that as some sort of advantage? I don't know how you feel, but I know they are wrong.
I can watch them, and I can question and protest them, but I will never understand.
I'm sure you don't either.

Your arms around me are rich, oxblood velvet gloves that match a couture gown, and my lips against your hand are petals.
My own head is so paranoid, and I'm sorry that I make these beautiful things into metal and industrial machines meant for pain. I want nothing more than to love you and from all these bad things, refrain.
Your laugh is a string quartet, your walk is a waltz. I've fallen in love with you, and it's all your fault.
Your eyes are painted with divine murals that reflect myself in a more beautiful way than I've ever seen my own face. It is this luxury, this ballroom that I call your love for me, that constantly leaves me amazed.

I can't even say a somewhat mean joke without thinking about it over and over
I don't wanna be that type of lover

It's funny to poke fun, it's mad how it makes me mad. Relationships allow for that gray area of jokes, but it's so easy to revisit and use it as a weapon.

Remember when you said?  I was joking

It's not funny then, and the jester becomes the prisoner, and the muse becomes the victim.

I write this as another poet sings,
And her words keep tying into mine,
But I flick them out of my knots.
This is from me, for you, for all of time.

Your ladder goes higher than the next few,
And so your journey is more strenuous and long,
But I never worry about that.
I know you'll reach your finish line, where you know you belong.

I will reach down when I can, but often I cannot,
My hands are preoccupied but I can try to balance,
And if I'm unable, I'll call upon others,
And you will reach brilliance.

I wish I could pour a bucket of water onto you and watch your hair dampen and your lashes droop
And see your eyes open to a great white landscape, sun from behind you enlightening your way
And I want to take a match to every forest that shades you when all you want is to feel the warmth
One day I will send a tsunami to you when you crave to be crashed against, and you can swim

Each day I will push harder at the large stone that obstructs your view of the glorious heaven
Until the plethora of colors steal each inch of your view, renewing your sight, your point of view

Whenever I'm overwhelmed I get the same advice.
"Think of something that makes you comfortable, makes you smile, makes the world seem entirely right."
Happy thoughts.
I envision his certain smile, the laughs he hands me with gentle hands, and his ambitions in this world, and this makes me comfortable, me smile, and the world seem entirely right.
Truthfully, I will never rely completely on one, because if they are absent, my happiness is naught, but I'm perfectly content with my favorite happy thoughts.

It doesn't matter what I say because you won't get it.
You won't, you don't.
And you make me feel like I'm the villain but I'm not.
I'm not and I never have been.

You are the only thing that keeps me sitting on the cliff not beneath,
And now you're calling my name from the ground.
"Hannah! I miss you."
You never jumped, though. It's like you flew down there when I wasn't looking, but it didn't hurt you like the way it would hurt me.

So I'll just take the stairs.

I watch you talk to three boys at once, a tree hosting a nest full of birds unbeknownst to the betrayal through the veins of its branches.
I hear you talk only of yourself, only knowing the surface of your ocean, rather than the ecosystem of things beneath it.
I see you dressing in things you don't find comfortable, visually or physically, but you paint yourself as prey for your predator in hopes that it will feed you the nutrients and attention you need to survive.
I pray for you. I pray that you flourish and grow and become beautiful, but not if you just pollute yourself for the sake of those living on you.

Yes, I will forever want to change.
No, I don't fear this or that I'll never be satisfied, because I am aware of my addiction to new ambitions and I don't fear satisfying it.
Always learning new things, always meeting new people, but you can trust me.
Trust that although I will feed my hunger, I may not always enjoy the aftertaste of my actions.
The face that told you I love you said otherwise to another, but you can trust me.

I left
I miss you most
Don't forget
To keep me close

I can call my mom
I can text my friends
They keep me calm
But when it comes to myself, what can I send?

A thought?
A word?
I'd rather not get caught
And look absolutely absurd

I miss you most at night
Not your being, you're here
But you aren't acting the way you used to, no not quite
I keep worrying that you'll disappear

I feel like I gave up on being skinny and I know it because nothing small will fit, so now I'm having one
I felt so faint on the car here I was sweating and shaking; I haven't done that since I was nervous about a speech and now I'm doing it over something so trivial.
So now I'm crying in this fancy restaurant bathroom and a lesser known Sinatra song is playing, and I know it's him because I love him, and I put all that love I don't have for myself right now into his voice.
I shake as I type this sitting on a seat not suitable for anything but something else.
Im lightly tapping under my eyes trying not to lose my bottom mascara.

The tens of thousands of headstones were covered in flowers. Trees that were about triple the height of them circled around them forming a Stonehenge and green forest of those passed. Daughters and sons sat behind the decorated stones and over the flat marks that were simply map points where they, their parents, would live for eternity. The fresher visitors even needed time to navigate, the ones used to it know where to go. Many come. It's justifiable to to think that one of them could meet a friend that day in the same situation. Maybe they've been there a few more years or maybe this is their first Mother's Day on the grass, but friends just the same.

With such admiration,
I see you in the small moments
I breathe you in, the biggest mouthful
That I'll ever show it as much as I'd like to, that's not only doubtful

But impossible.
It is far too beyond
I watch you do the simplest things, breathe in, breathe out
And I think, what am I ought to do now?

Dedicate my life to that exchange,
Watch it quicken and slow,
Hope it's because of me often,
Watch it harden and soften.

So stunning, so delicate,
Wish I could paint it forever,
So much more than I'll ever be able to embrace,
I'd do anything to keep it at pace.

It seems every few hours I picture the same thing
We are sitting at a table in an adorable cafè,
Holding hands across the table, knocking a croissant, and I say,
"There's nowhere I'd rather be than here."
And you say nothing, and that's all I want to hear.
There's such a beauty in being in your presence, I hope I am beautiful too.
I love you, and we enjoy every moment knowing we are overspending, and we don't regret it.
So yes, I'm in bed and it's still summer time, but I know that we will go there, and just like now, you'll be mine.

I lay here, confused about where I am
I feel my body and I feel my skin
But it's this unnerving feeling I keep seeming to get
I don't know it yet.

And I ensile other thoughts, knowing what you need
I ask and answer anything
I feel so disconnected to who I am
I don't know who, and I definitely don't understand.

I ask you so many times how I can
Alleviate this pain, don't ask me how I am
I cannot answer, if I don't know
How do we seem so disconnected, two days ago we were so close.

You think I'm causing trouble
I would know when I am
I'm causing it to myself and my mind
I feel a sense of being snubbed, who knows why?

It's that frustration that I can't get to go
It's that feeling of failing but underserving, never saying no
Mistrusted, misrepresented, misunderstood by myself
That's what I am.

A chandelier, calm
I see it swinging around
I hope it falls down

If I did not love you, I would not be thinking so highly of you in your absence.
I am away, but my thoughts watch you and my mouth curves and my heart stirs.
I picture you with rich curls in your hair and expression and I wonder, "What did I do to get so lucky?"
The answer is that I fell in love with you.

You took the most important firsts from me with filthy hands and no intention to give them back, and this was a mistake.
I was too anxious to lose things that I lost, and so while you were a thief, you took from a victim that did not even know you were disguised. I simply thought you were borrowing them.
Since you've been free and unpunished, I have been searching for some type of recompense, but all I've found is sadness. That is until I was awarded the perfect second chance. Though I was so much more alert and afraid, this chance showed me that not all boys are thieves.

How can you tell me you're hurting, right to my face, when I've cried everyday this week and haven't been given one incentive to stop.
Oh but you're in pain, I'm so sorry. I guess it's my fault that nothing feels as good as it used to, and I'm just as depressed as I used to be.

And you do cause it. You're not the only one but you do. But I don't care that knowing that hurts your feelings because it should.
You hurt mind everyday, so maybe that's fair. I have no pity for you when you say stuff like this, just pure ******* anger.

Throw away your fears and keep this moment close, because everything unseen is all that you know.
I'm here with you now, what else matters? I'm yelling for you; I wish I could take my point of view and make it yours, and show you the beauty of seeing the beauty.
I'm giving you everything I got, and to do so, I'm not worried about when I can't.
So ******* love me with everything you have now, like I'm doing for you, and I won't stop.

A minute ago, I was walking down the stairs
And I swore I smelled the cologne that you always wear
It made me miss you, what an instigator
I love you and I miss you and I'll see you later

I can write about love and the loss of it.
I can tell you every time I've been heartbroken, and I can get halfway through a piece and quit.
I'd like to challenge myself, though.
You know how I've loved if you have loved. Everyone knows pain.
I'd much rather do something nobody's read rather than regurgitate the same.

It's not easy
It's not the worst
I'll see you in a few days,
But until then, it hurts.
I miss you when I'm happy
I miss you when I'm not
I miss you, I love you
I can't wait to see you, I love you

Can't you just tell me what's wrong?

I vow to love you until I vow to do so.

In my defense,
I was far too tired,
And you pushed me to run around,
And you called me a liar.

But I didn't lie,
And I didn't deceive,
I had to do what I wanted
But you didn't believe.

So I found a new track,
And I'm woke as ever,
All because I was too tired,
But, whatever.

With all of my might I sit here,
My head seeming disjointed and the coffee not kicking in.
We fought last night,
We made up, but I still don't think it's enough.

I could bring it up.
I could say I don't feel forgiven, and I still don't forgive.
I could tell you how I felt this morning,
But perhaps we would just relive.

I haul myself into the colors I mix,
Ochre Yellow, Windsor Yellow, Windsor Red,
And for then, I'm not concerned with my concernments,
Instead
I just,
Forget.

I type name after name into an Excel sheet,
Nina, Alexa, Nathaniel, Joe,
It's mind-numbing, I know,
Although,
I just,
Let go.

I read 60 pages in an hour,
A page passes with a minute,
And within none of those I was sad, I did it,
I admit,
I just,
Submit.

My mother in particular used to tell me if the clasp was turned to the front.
I'd pull the front to the side until the back was where it should be, away from sight.
Sometimes other people would say it.

I never minded it there.
But now I find myself every once in a while, feeling my chest for the clasp, sliding it back.
Centering the pendant in the middle.

I got better for you, and I did all that I could
You deserve that and you always have
I couldn't tell you to your face and cry right where you stood
I could only hear your word cut away, the room went flat

There were so many promises I couldn’t keep
Maybe you’ll never trust me again
I’ll remember our car rides and getting cold feet
And trying to make you understand

I know I’ll never stop thinking about you
I know these thoughts will smother me
And I'll feel guilty, and I'll miss you
Maybe we don’t deserve each other
Maybe I do deserve me

Moving on will be a crime on either side
Accepting ourselves, imagine how hard
And we’ll both feel like we’re justified
And we both are