A picture paints a thousand words
but even a thousand words
is not enough to paint
a picture-perfect portrait of you
too ethereal, too unique
pulchritudinous in the way you think

Let's take a hundred thousand pictures
so we can make a novel out of you
Let's take a hundred thousand pictures
so the world can learn that perfect isn't a myth
perfection is hidden within your smile
within your eyes, within your voice

Let's take a hundred thousand pictures
so I can immortalize you in my art
Let's take a hundred thousand pictures
and maybe then I'll have all the words I need
to make you believe me when I tell you
just how perfect you truly are

I wonder if you see my sorrow
And sunbathe in it
Do you feel more radiant
In the glow of my woe?

I bet it looks pretty on you,
The karma I bleed

I can't stop wondering and worrying.

Are you over me? Of course— but do you hate me? Probably not, you're too sweet. But I'm sure you found rage in your healing, and gods, you deserved to feel it.

Are you seeing someone new? I hope not—but if you are I hope they are treating you better.

I hope they laugh at all your jokes. I hope they always let go last when you hug. Always answer your calls at the first ring. Put you first. Save you as their lock screen. I hope they keep you warm at night and make you smile.

I hope they say I love you before it's too late.

I used to believe in second chances
In lightning hitting the same spot twice
But then I became the one needing it
And I can't imagine someone as clumsy as me
Holding onto something fragile that I already broke once

I was never frustrated with you
It was me
It was the pressure
All the eyes on us
All the hopes and expectations
And as I let those feelings suffocate me
Somewhere along the way I guess
I decided to drown you too

You make me want to be a better person
I guess that's what love really is
How selfish of me to want that now

I turn 18 in a month
I hear people say they feel the same
As if there wasn't a shift
But I can feel and see the shift
I am no longer a shy little girl
I am becoming a confident woman
No longer caged by my insecurities
I have spent up till now transforming
I have learned the weight of responsibility
The responsibilities of truths, lies, and secrets
The difference between consequences
for now and for the future

No, I don't feel like a child anymore
I don't yet feel like an adult,
but I feel like this is my first step
into real life

I was a natural disaster
A hurricane
Volcanic eruption
A tornado
And you were pulled in

You should yell at me
Scream
Call me names
Tell me all the reasons you hate me
And I'll still love you anyway

It's karma,
I want forgiveness
And I don't deserve it

"I love you"
I hate the sting as this hangs in the air
"I hate you"
I despise this followed by my hands in his hair
"I despise you"
I dont know if its cold because he's gone or because I don't care

"I don't know you"
Well neither do I, love

Do you know I don't want to drink to forget you?
I want to drink to drown in you

Some people make time stop
Some take your breath away

You were a mixture of both

Hands that held mine
Lips that grazed mine
Love that was mine

Now all belong to her

My mind is a black hole
It consumes every bit of information that comes my way
Relentlessly absorbing every new anything
To the point that I am nothing
Nothing but this black hole
That is filled with everything
Because even though I hold it all within my grasp
I can not stop consuming long enough
To use up what I already have

I have nothing
All this gold
Silver
Jade
Ruby
All this diamond
Sapphire
Emerald
Garnet
All this amethyst
It is all nothing
Because I don't have you

How much longing can one person suffer
An endless turmoil of an empty lover
One day I'll meet the eyes of someone filled with passion
As it all spills from their lips
Every dream they let out in a whisper
I'll write them out in the stars
So they can shine down and illuminate them
Then they'll finally be able to see
They are what makes the sky dance with light

Soft lips to touch my cold hands
A kiss to relight my inner flame
With a lust I thought burned out
All from the star I couldn't live without

I have gold coursing through my veins and silver flooding in my lungs that turn into richened glitter with every exhale
My mind is a garden with exotic fauna to leave all who enter in awe
My words are like the sharpest blades that pierce into a battlefeild of whirling lies
My heart is a chasmic void to trap you in my sweetest lullaby
For my poetry is the wing of a butterfly and a drop of poison all in one

If tomorrow I awoke in a hospital room
To be told I'd been in a coma for most of my life
I know I'd ask for five minutes more
Because this dream has left me
So tired, so exhausted
Even if its all just been a long sleep
It hasn't been long enough

Lying in the pit of my stomach
Is a furious fire breathing dragon
I'll never admit it
But that dragon is tearing at my insides
Trying to desperately claw its way out
And devour every flaw, every mistake
It longs to burn the flesh of whom I despise
Claiming me as it's final prize

I hadn't heard from you in over a week
Knowing the fragile state of your mind
It felt like an eternity, a new reality forming
I was afraid that if I called out to you
On the edge of the abyss you'd fallen into
My words would just reverberate with no response

How do I save you
When you don't want to be saved?

Is it guilt that drives you?
Am I some sort of obligation?
My future that dangles on a tightrope
Balancing between credit cards and report cards
Feels like cheese in a mousetrap
What if I don't want this?
What if this is my only way to run away
To free myself from these chains used to drown me
If you want me to succeed
Then why after every step forwards
You force me to walk two steps back
Backing me against a wall of needles
Nowhere to turn or run but forward
But their selfish hands press my back against the wall
Through blood and tears I grit my teeth against the pain
Is this what unconditional love is like?
Is trust only built through hurt?

Yes, my cage has open doors
But the demons who lurk outside
Make the damask interior feel like safety

Love is a strange place
Where you lose yourself wholly
To someone's promise

Love is like a cliff
Where you fall endlessly to
Find yourself again

Love is like a home
Where you place yourself inside
Of another's trust

Love is like a cage
For a bird who's song has been
Silenced in their hearts

Love is a strange place
Where you continue to fall
Into loves chasm

I walk through this world blindfolded,
echolocating my way with just your heartbeat.
Each pulse guiding me through blurry lines,
making the world around me pellucid.

And though your heartbeat fades so soft–
I follow the breadcrumbs you leave me,
reminiscing in the times it was deafening, now
ultrasound, hardly there at all,
perhaps only a dream.

I may be vampire–
But what I crave is something sweeter than blood.
Only you would do, my favorite chalice,
such a decadent delight, sweet honey on my tongue,
the taste of your love I used to drink till I was drunk–

Now my thirst consumes me, such hunger becomes me,
with no true beginning and no true end.
I glide across the starlight, seeking you out
with my echoes in the dark.

On gilded wings I soar to you,
no matter how your fickle feelings wane.
The sound of your heart is still brighter than any flame–
It illuminates my way, and like a moth I follow.

But all fires burn out in their due time I suppose,
no matter how eternal their light seems.
And when too close to the sun,
all vampires return to dust–
no matter how immortal their dreams.

Sometimes I'm a pure and innocent shade of white
The shade remeniscent of cotton ball clouds on a sunny day
Sometimes I'm mixed with green, blue and black
I turn into a murky and distant gray; rain clouds
Then sometimes, I'm just pitch black
Void of every thing, a combustion of chaos
I'd rather be the colors that shine down falling through the cracks of a cloud
That shiny shade of yellow and gold that no amount of paint can perfect

That's what he feels like
Sunlight on skin
All the warmth and shimmer
He reminds me of the scent of sunshine
And everything bright and beautiful
That intangible color of sunlight through a cloud?
That's him
Ethereal

Where do I begin
To clean my heart of you?
Should I scrub each vessel
Douse my veins in bleach
To finally be rid of it all?

Every time I think I've moved on
You say just enough words
To pull me right back in
I want to know
Can I get clean again
Or will I forever be addicted
To a love that no longer exists?

He thinks that everything that blooms and flourishes is only born to wither before it perishes
Happiness to him is like a candle that's run out of wax and can no longer be lit
I try to lift him from his pain, but I carry him away in vain
Everytime I think I'm holding him high enough above his fears and insecurities
He's distanced himself and disappeared once more

He's a rose that's grown from sand
He only sees himself as a freak and an anomaly
People around him tell him he's a burden
That he is useless and insignificant
They take advantage of his kindness
He wants to disappear rather than be a disappointment

I feel like I'm always fighting to hold him above the river of Styx full of souls with their reaching arms desperate to drown him
If my love isn't enough to save him
I hope someone with stronger arms will come along and pull him from the current and onto land at last

I sometimes wonder when I leave this house
Will there really be a hole that can't be filled
An absence of this mess I've left
Will I miss the taunting?

When im flying above this state, above this country,
I live for the moment I see how small my problems are
And watch as they fade away and disappear under the clouds

Will I feel fear or relief?

"I'll just suffer" became my catch phrase because I learned from you that if I ask for help I will not recieve it. In it's stead I will recieve unkind words, judgment and beratement for all the things I already acknowledged my failure in and already feel bad enough about. That burden is acid in my mouth, it's the reason I can't sleep at night. Knowing that if I come to you for help another obstacle will fall before me.

I have learned that I can't turn to my parents to help or be proud of me. You will never be my encouragement or my acceptance. In your stead I have to turn to my friends, to their parents. Because you simply will not bring me to the surface when I'm drowning. You let me sink and tell me to drown so I know how bad it hurts. So instead I will reach my hands to those who will pull me above the water and teach me how to swim and keep afloat.

You're selfish, it's something I have to live with. You think that because you have suffered that others can't. And when they haven't suffered enough they can't desire or seek help. You are allowed to run away and escape the pressure but you force me to take it all on my shoulders. You are the rock and chain that drowns me.

Poets are addicts
Haikus are our gateway drugs
Words are our vices

Without them, we shake
Writer's block, our withdrawal
Our pens— the needle

I want him to become so dizzy with me that he forgets what language he speaks and has to make up his own

Starting and ending with my name

A single intrusive thought
A nostalgic song
Any little thing that reminds me of how your words felt
When they caressed against my heart

I engraved each syllable in my mind
A permanent reminder of the love
That felt like sunlight through clouds;
Starlight through trees

All it takes is one little thing
And I am yours again

I want to fall in love with his bad days
His insecurities
Become a best friend to his loneliness, his fears
A partner to his loathing

I want to love him for all he thinks he isn't
So I can prove him wrong and kiss away his hate

I want to fall in love with his tears
His messy hair in the mornings
His grogginess before his cup of coffee
His clumsy and nervous stutters

Everything about him, I want to find myself fawning over
I want to give him my all and love his everything
Because love doesn't pick and choose
It consumes all or it leaves with nothing

If I only choose to love his shimmer in the sunlight
Or his childish smiles and giggles
Then it would be as if I loved a portrait
Our love would only tarnish and fade with time

I will love everything or I will not love at all

He's married to misfortune
bewitched by the pain
those cruel and unwelcoming eyes
tore him limb from limb
his trust disposed of
like a used and worn down crutch
crumbled down so small
till it could be carried away on the wind
he dissolved until
all he had left to call his own
was a shriveled piece of hope
caught inside a spiderweb
of fear and deception

I tore through the silk of insecurities
I fought through all the lies
till my arms were numb and heavy
I carried his hope
cradled in my arms
like a newborn baby
and when I found him
laying in his chasm of dispair
he turned from the light
but I stood my ground
I held him without a sound
I held onto his withered form
in my weary auspicious arms
until he turned around and
at last embraced himself in forgiveness
and reclaimed his hope once more

But I've been wed to 'almost'
a sly hex placed on me
where I almost get to cherish him
I almost get to erase his burdens
where I almost take his worries in my hands
and bury them in my own
I almost have the right to ease his mind
I almost get to be more
than a healing hand
a refracted beacon of light
where I almost get to hold him
where I almost get to stay by his side
till the stars become one with the Earth
I almost get to sheild him from loneliness
I almost get to protect him
and guard his traumatized heart

A curse so fowl and deep
that he is always almost within my reach
yet our hands can never seem to touch
where I almost get to dry his tears
where I almost help him see his worth
I almost get to save him
from all those unkind words
that slip from his mind and out his mouth
that leave those marks across his heart
I almost stop those cruel voices
full of betrayal and envy
But worst of all I must live with the everyday
realization that had I been
just a little more selfish...
He was almost mine

People constantly compare love to rollercoasters
Many say it's because both have their ups and downs
What some don't realize is that rollercoasters do far more than just go up and down

There are twists, swirls, leaps, and loops
There are tunnels and pauses
There are tears, screams, laughter,
suspense, and joy

When it's finally over there's a feeling as if your organs have been flipped and jostled around
Yet still you come back for more
Thats what love is like

It's sickening and terrifying while at the same time it's liberating and exciting
Thats what it means to love like a rollercoaster
It means having your ups and downs as well as twists, turns, leaps, and loops

Behind his gentle eyes he hides a million thunderstorms crashing against, begging to be set free
Every morning there is a sunrise in her eyes, ignited by the fire she conceals inside

Each new discovery is another adrenaline rush
Finding out more about the other produces more epinephrine than a million coasters could muster
There is more to them than leaps and loops

They are untouchable by the hands of time
Tied together by the strings of fate
They are tangled in redemancy for each other and their world

Her love is thick and deep
His heart is pure and rare
She loves with her whole being
He loves with eternity,
Perpetual and without falter

A love without fear or hesitation
A love so strong it feels like crashing
Painful yet soft
It's like being stabbed
Piercing, sharp, painful, and throbbing
Feeling everything and nothing all at once
What I wouldn't give for a love like that

I fear I've taken him for granted
Assuming I'd always have him there
Because never in my wildest dreams
Did I ever imagine someday I wouldn't

He was like an ambrosia flavored poison
Tastes so good but rots you from inside out

I used to gaze at the clouds all day long
I used to love to dance in the rain
I used to love the sunshine on my skin
now I never go outside
I just watch as passion seeps from my life

I used to walk on eggshells for you
I never let them crack or make a sound
I used to stand on a pedestal with you
despite my fear of heights
but what did you ever sacrifice for me?

I'm not the same as I once was
the smiles that I wore
have all gone out of season and expired
but out of all the things that I have loved and lost
you are the one goodbye I don't regret

Keep your pedestal
I'm building myself a shrine
A person like me
Was meant to be worshipped

"Till death do us part"
I refuse to say this when I am wed
because love does not have an expiration date
I hope that long after I die
you will still look back and remember
how deeply we loved
If you die before me
I will love you into my next life

Till death do we meet again,
to renew our love and fall once more

I miss him
when he isn't gone
it makes me feel
as if my heart
is making peace
with losing him

How can I
convince him to stay
when I write
like he is already
gone?

I know you're busy trying to find yourself
Through nicotine and diet pills
I was just curious and thinking
Do you ever stop to wonder
If it's enough to just be the you that you are?
Do you ever stop to consider
If it's worth losing the you that's already there?

So call me when you get back
From the hell you're putting yourself through
When you choose me over all the worthless addictions you destroy yourself with
Call me when you get back
From all the nightmares you've made come true

Tell me who's been by your side
Through all of what life has thrown at you?
Can your cigarettes wipe away your tears?
Do those drugs make you feel so pretty
That you don't even need me?
You say that it's none of my concern
That just sounds like an excuse
What you need is a hard knock back into reality

Do you believe I will just ignore
All the brand new cuts, bruises, and burns?
Do you think I'll sit still while you tear yourself down?
I know you lie when you say you need to save yourself your way
Doing things your way looks like a hazard sign to me

I'm scared of what you have become
I'm scared of what you will do to yourself
I feel like I can't take my eyes off of you
Or you'll just disappear
I’m so mad at you for making me be so disappointed
In the person who I looked up to the most
Without any regard for those who love you
Choosing ephemeral means of feeling over the shoulders that we offer

Call me when you wake up tell me why you're upset
I want to be there for you
You know that I am someone you can come to
Call me when you need me
I promise I'll pick up immediately
Know that I know that you are scared
So call me when you're ready
I promise I'll be there

Standing next to her is like putting myself next to Aphrodite or Helen of Troy
and still trying to demand attention
her beauty alone captivates and blinds the world
those pools of coffee brown eyes and dark thick curled hair
wrapping around my neck and flooding my lungs

Yet I wouldn't like to find myself in any other place
even Aphrodite deserves someone she can trust
I see her for who she is
I see the insecurity behind her eyes
I refuse to let someone worshiped by so many for her beauty feel so ugly
at her side I get to tell her that her beauty does not stop at her skin

Beauty dives into her flesh  and runs within her veins
it coats her heart in a rich and healthy glow of glitter and of gold
my Goddess here on earth, Aphrodite
you aren't a goddess because you have a pretty face

You have more love in you than your heart can handle
that is what makes you so powerful, so beautiful, and so beloved

I don't claim to be the most beautiful for simply vanities sake
From my first breath of life I learned
That in this world my beauty is my worth
If I am not desirable, then I am nothing
I am beautiful because I have to be
Since that first breath of life
I was told that I was beauty, through and through
If I am not beautiful, then what am I?
What purpose would I serve?
If I am not the most beautiful, then have I lost my worth?
The diamonds on my skin
The blinding, dazzling layer of my shallow beauty
Hide the precious gemstones that cover my heart and run through my veins
For I am beauty, through and through

If love is a crime, her head will rest at the foot of the guillotine
If desire is wrong, her heart shall be ripped from her chest
If lust is unnatural, she shall be sunk back into the ocean

She dipped her feet into the waters on the docks
As she longingly watched the ships return to the land
The sailors back from adventures of somewhere grand

She watched as lovers embraced after months apart
She sighed with pride at her gift to humankind
Thought to herself, "Nothing is wrong, or am I blind?"

A shift in the wind, love in the air, and Aphrodite full of despair
Looked around with heavy eyes, searching for something wrong
Searching for the sin between the lovers lips and honeyed words

Aphrodite felt empty and cold, no love to warm her bones
She, the goddess of love, felt lonely and distanced from all
For she could simply see no wrong, no harm, no sin

**** her beauty, and **** their gazes
**** the gods for their judgement
**** them all for tainting love with lies

When Aphrodite was given life
She was born into this world
All alone
There was no mother or father
To greet her arrival
There were no smiles
Cheers of joy
No warm welcomes into life

But Aphrodite didn't need it
She brought her own love into the world
She knew from her first day in life
That someone had to teach the world
To cherish, to hold, to touch, to desire
To caress, to feel, to long, to see
To love the beauty in between

She who gave us the deepest emotion in life
Chased that feeling to hold as her own
But as many tragic stories end
Aphrodite never had such luck or peace
She chose love and love again

But love never chose her back

The world is falling apart,
but I would gladly live through an apocalypse
if it was side by side with you

I'd watch the last sunset
journey of the moon
and twinkle of the stars

If I knew you were watching too

There are many things I cannot do
More are there things I do not understand
Countless are the things I do not know
But what I can do, what is tangible for me
I imagine in the palm of my hand
And lock within my fist, it's bottomless cage
What I do understand, I wrap around me
Like a chrysalis, a sheild of safety
And it protects me, my ward against the world
However what I know, that I do not covet
I give that away to passerbys, to strangers and friends
Like a sage, a mentor or philosopher

Perhaps things like emotions escape me
As my heart abandons feelings
The ones that pass through my fingertips
From my pen to paper
But writing is what I hold within my fist
It is how I makes sense of the world
It is every one of my senses
I see, taste, touch, smell and hear
Through a world beyond words
Like a magic veil, I see into anothers conscience
All the things they hold dear, what they cannot live without
All the things they regret, what they wish would wash away
In even the faintest moment and smallest thing

I feel all those emotions of which I've never known
But more than that I feel one thing that I can call my own
The passion, I feel that tearing through my bones
I can feel it burning in my lungs and my heart becomes a hearth in a cabin of nothing
For a moment I am filled with warmth like no other
And that feeling is one I'd chase to the ends of the Earth
Into the darkest chasm and within the brightest light
For it is the only one thats real within my world

You can never look more beautiful
Than you do through a poet's eyes
Especially if that poet only looks for you

A poet's eyes see the truth
We see what the rest of the world ignores
Every seemingly insignificant detail we turn into a whole other world

A broken piano
A speck of dust

A missing sock
A single staple

A shrunken sweater
A fallen feather

The world is full of wonder
But none like they are
To a poet who takes in all that is offered

You will never see how beautiful you are through a poet's eyes
You will find it in their words as they try to describe
The indescribable perfection they see before them

A speck of gold hidden by coal
The kind of magic that tears your soul
Released from the fingertips of someone bold

reading my poetry
is reading the story
of my life
in each chapter you see
the love; the loss
the growth; the change
and one day
when I am gone
my poetry will
become me