You look just like the girl I met 3 years ago.
You look just like the girl I lost 7 months ago.

But did I lose her
Or did she lose me,
Or did we both lose each other?

Can you lose something that was never really yours?
Something you thought you had
But really didn't?
Can you lose something
That was never there?
Can you lose a girl with rainbow hair?

Because 3 years ago
I met a girl
Who did not have rainbow hair.
But was a gay cliche,
Back then her hair was red.
Her hair was red and long,
Kept in place by a braid and a bandana.
And she made all the little kids laugh.

3 years ago I met a girl with hair the color of a blue that had started to fade,
And left a trail of sickly green dye behind.
Back then she had friends
And spent most of her days laughing until her core was sore the next day.

2 years ago
I met a girl
Who still dyed her hair with splat
But was now blue and purple.
Short
Half shaved
Blue and purple
To match her personality.

2 years ago I met a girl
Whose hair had been bleached
enough times that it felt like straw at the bottom.
Her hair was a red that made fire trucks look dull
And hurt to look at in the sun.
She held half smiles instead of her usual dimple faced grin.

Last year I met a girl
Hair just like the last
But more purple
Less blue.
Her body looked like a clean canvas without stripes.
The purple in her hair burst with paint
Creating whatever flowed down her pen.
Scratching dragons, tigers, and penguins,
The ink in her hair
translates onto the page,
And there was no way to describe it.

Last year I met a girl
Who spent her life in hospitals and trying to stay alive.
Her hair had become lonely without its color.
It was her natural black and bleached clashing in war.
Her ink on the page was words instead of sketches.

This year I met a girl.
This time I didn't know her.
All I knew was the rainbow hair
Cut off on one side,
And flowing to her cheek bone on the other.
She wore a black suit
White shirt,
And that shiny yellow tie she had always loved.
She loves ties.
Just like the girl I met 3 years ago,
This new girl loved ties.
She had a track record of bad mistakes
That matched up perfectly with mine.
This year I met a girl.
I had no clue who she was,
But she looked familiar all the same.
This new girl resembled the first.
She laughed often,
Smiled so big that her face hurt at the end of the day.
This new girl didn't live in hospitals.
She watched horror movies and tried to skateboard.
An unsuccessful plan.

And I realized.
These girls with colored hair and paints
are all similar.
They have the same goofy grin,
And a wrinkled up nose when they laugh.
They all have the same scar where their pet iguana accidentally scratched them.
They have infectious laughter that makes you turn your head to look back and see what it was.
They all have the same pale skin
That I've always teased about.
All of those girls,
Hated skirts
And wore cargo shorts or skinny jeans
With no in between
Those girls would not be caught dead in a dress
And only wore suits.
Only edgy punk rock clothes
Without listening to the bands
And instead listened to Florence.
All of those girls had the same name
And they all had the same personality.
The girls were identical in soul.
Those girls were one person.
Those girls were my first love.

And I realized,
These girls all have the same ****** structure
And the same choice in music, clothes, and morals.
All of those girls had the same undeniable light
With a spirit that wanted to touch everything.

Today I met a girl.
I met a girl who smiled as she wrote this,
And didn't feel an aching when she wrote about her first love.

Today I met myself.

dear daddy,
you were there throughout my
childhood, but when i
say that i mean it physically, of
course. you weren't really
there emotionally.

dear daddy,
as i grew up i watched you
fight with my mom,
i sat through the cold dinners
and at ten i watched my mum
slam a calculator on the table
before walking out the door.

dear daddy,
i was sixteen when you kicked my
brother out of the house. he was
only fourteen, daddy,
he couldn't look after himself.
it was your ****** pride, that's
what it was.
yours and his.

dear daddy,
at seventeen we barely spoke,
i remember the bitterness
i held in my heart;
you couldn't even get a proper job,
couldn't even look after this family,
made mom do all the work.
my brother didn't live with us,
he was at an aunt's house, far away from
the fire we knew would start if you
both were in the same room.

dear daddy,
twenty crept up on me like a ghost
and i saw the lines in your face
age catching up with you as
you began to forget,
where your keys were,
whether you brought your phone back from
the car, what time dinner was.

dear daddy,
twenty-one now, and i still
don't know how to feel about you.
you tried your best, i suppose,
and i love you with a sort of grudging
nonchalance, because who am
i to tell you that you need to change?

dear daddy,*
i'm conflicted. i love you because
i know i should, because i
admit you're human too. you tried
your best, i know you did
and i wish i could change my mind
but i hope you'll forgive me
for seeing a stranger when i look at you.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

It's like shooting stars in your eyes,
I could make a wish on you all day.
Your pupils have a comfort only found in my dreams
and the space behind is a galaxy of time
           I'd gladly get lost in.
In essence, your eyes are my infinity.
An endless pool of peace and love that I was so graciously born into,
     have happily lived through
          and will peacefully die in.

darling delilah
what a pretty little thing you are
tell me,
when the philistines promised you the world for samson’s heart
did you know this was strength?

anne anne anne boleyn
what a cunning little thing you are
tell me,
when you sliced through rome with the kiss of a king
did you know this was destiny?

cleopatra my love
what a lovely little thing you are,
tell me,
when you drew caesar to your bed for the nile and for yourself
did you know this was power?

holy holy joan of arc
what a mighty little thing you are
tell me,
when you were burned at the stake for hearing god’s voice at fourteen
did you wish it was the devil instead?

golden girl marie antoinette
what a sweet little thing you are
tell me,
when your shiny blonde head rolled down the steps of a revolution
did you finally feel like a girl?

eve mother of eden eve
what a wicked little thing you are
tell me,
when you sunk your teeth into the secrets of the universe
did you feel like a god too?

Love, the real kind, is never simple.
It is the one thing that makes life worth it in the end,
and something that wonderful and sought-after is never going to be easy to get.
You have to work for it.
Blood, sweat, and tears.
So if it’s easy, yeah maybe you won’t get broken.
But you won’t be truly happy, either.
You’ll be settling.
Don’t get me wrong,
There are lots of things in life that are totally acceptable to settle on.
Sure, Harvard was your dream school.
But you know what?
Going to your state school because its more affordable
Will still get you where you want to be in life.
And I know the hairdresser couldn't match the color you showed her,
But you are beautiful and can rock it anyway, so don’t worry.
But love?
Settling in love is like buying a pair of shoes that are a size too small,
Just because you thought they were pretty.
They may look nice,
But you are dying on the inside. I
f you had just held out a bit longer,
You would have found a pair just as beautiful that fit well, too.
Maybe that nice guy looks good on paper,
But if he doesn’t give you butterflies whenever he looks at you,
Don’t be with him.
You want someone who makes you fall for them every day,
Not just once.

I am more than what the world sees,
More than just the sum of my parts,
I am composed of half-hearted dreams,
and built by misfired starts.

I am more than what you might hear,
If you listen close in the hall,
Rumours have teeth and words can bite,
But they dont really matter at all.

I am more than my mistakes,
More than choices I've made in the past,
The clock just threw on running shoes,
And thats why time flies by so fast.

I am more than imperfections,
Im worth more than all my flaws,
You can try and change the way i am,
But i wont put my life on pause.

I am more than a person,
Im someone worth fighting for,
Im everything I want to be,
I couldnt ask for more.