I don't remember the day I picked up a pencil and wrote my first poem
I don't remember why I even wanted to write in the first place
But I remember the day I stopped
It was in the third grade
I'd talked about wanting to become a poet the way some kids talked about becoming firefighters or dancers
"You won't make a lot of money"
"Poetry is for old ladies to read when they're sad"
"Poetry is boring"
9 year old me was so naive
I believed them
I was different enough already why attract more negative attention to myself?
So I stopped writing
I didn't pick up a pencil with the intention of writing a poem until about two and a half years later, when we had a unit in language arts on Poetry
We were learning sentence structure
"Welcome to the poetry unit
You're going to write some of your own whilst we discover some of the greats"
At first, they were short haikus and rhyming poems about bunnies
6th grade was when I realised reading poetry was almost as good as writing it
7th grade was when I realised how much I loved it
I realised I could be anyone I wanted in my poems
My poems could be as dark or as light as I wanted them to be
I could pour out my soul onto the pages and the paper wouldn't judge me
8th grade I was scribbling stanzas in the margins of my notebooks
9th grade I found out my poem was being published in a book of student poetry
I've spent summers writing, making up for lost time, writing poetry as I breathe oxygen
I know who I am through poetry
Looking back, I know why she stopped
She thought she was saving herself the humiliation
Looking back, she was pretty wise for a girl her age
I remember the day when my 8th grade teacher told me I was talented
I remember the day she told me to enter that poetry contest
I didn't win
But
I haven't stopped writing
That's a win for me.

He was the best hide and seek
Player in the
Second grade
There were whispers
Rumors
He could beat the 5th and 6th
Graders
Nothing was ever lost to him
But time spent
And that was worth it

I hid and
When he found me I told all his classmates that he had stolen my lunch money.

stupid people asking the same
  stupid questions
thriving on the electricity of being so full of **** they were probably
born into it

I don't know what's so **** poetic
About drinking black coffee
And being depressed
What's so 'sad yet beautiful'
About crying in the rain
Because nothing about the hurt
Is beautiful
It's ******* pain
In your chest.
It's a sick stomach
And it's not eating at all
Or eating too much.

Nothing, nothing
Is poetic about it.
It's not beautiful.

It's ugly.
And it's there.
And it won't ******* leave,
No matter what you
Write about it.

Here's what I know:
I will fight you tooth and nail until the bitter and sweet end of this heroic fall
because I cannot afford to lose myself in our conundrum
But do not fret
for I will be fighting myself as well
Fighting to stay afloat when I feel like drowning in you
Fighting to feel indifferent when love taketh over
Fighting to be free of the choices that I made when you offered them
And as unfulfilled as my heart has been in the past, I will remain that way with you in the present
My heart's desire will be left unsatisfied because I will want all of you
And that is the one thing I will want more than anything you can ever teach me, write me, play me, buy me or show me

So be armed

There will be battle
There will be blood
Love will be lost
And there will be moments indicative of why this shouldn't have happened before it began

I cry silently in my room
Mascara staining my pillow case
How dare you think this has anything to do with you.
I'm a stranger to myself
And i don't want to be saved
My brain a chaotic maze of dead ends, wrong turns secret rooms, and locked doors.
A dark paradise
black vines wait to make you their prisoner
The more you struggle the harder they choke the sweet earthly air from your lungs, ripping you into the void you have been searching for your entire life without even knowing
A temporary bliss
Do they see you? Do they even care?
Or is everyone poisoned by their own hypnotic daydreams
Walking the Earth a black hole, suckling from the *** of the demon himself for a taste of "true happiness"

A child smiles
At the smallest of things:
The way a bird flies,
The beat of its wings.
A rich autumn's breeze,
A cold winter's day,
The summer's green trees,
When spring comes to stay.
A dark empty night,
A white moon's face,
Stars shining bright,
A wonderful place.
A room filled with love,
Surrounded by laughing,
The thought of above,
Acceptance, no asking.
But then we grow up
And we smile no more.
We don't want to be us,
Nothing at all.
Don't lose your dreams,
Don't lose your smile.
Always believe.
Be your inner-child.