Don't you dare look at me with those eyes
You don't own my body anymore
Not these freckles that litter my skin
Or the bruises that ink my calves
Your big blue eyes were never there to fall in love with me
But rather to teach me a lesson
The lesson being that before I fall in love with anyone else
I must first fall in love with myself.

Isn't it funny
How when someone leaves you
That they're the only person
you'd want to talk to about it?

I see lovers
holding hands and giving each other the look that can only be described as
"the look"
because only those who are out of love are bitterly aware of the sickeningly admiring gaze that one partner gives to the other when they speak  
and only those who are in love are oblivious to the fact that they are giving the look

And I see friends,
friends in love with friendship
friends in love with being with each other
in love with the adventure and the memories
and the comfort and familiarity that comes with knowing each other like the back of your hand

I see individuals
completely, and utterly in love with themselves
the kind of arrogance that is almost admirable
in love with their passion,  their ambition
with their goals and their futures
in love with the potential they know they have and in love with the hope that maybe one day,
they'll be an All-Star
or a politician
or a beautiful poet
or a parent

I see all of these people who are in love and I wonder, are these people really as in love as they claim to be?

And if so, when is it my turn to be in love?

your bittersweet acid-kisses
 made my lips burn enough 
to set myself on fire just by thinking of the night 
you hid a part of yourself 
in my hollow skin. you built a burning castle in my fragile mind, you ****

*(k.w)

i am not
a nail to hang a picture
a switch to turn on a light
a key to open a door
a broom to sweep a floor

so why must you think
it is okay
to treat me like these few?
i am a person
a mind
a soul
i was not made
to be used


- j.m.d.