The leaf sways back and forth
holding on with all its might
staying on until the last
and yet, with fall it loses.

The warm summer breeze slowly turns to something colder, darker.
And all the leaves turn brown, lest they **** the tree.
But we stay warm, wearing things
that we may not grow ourselves.

As days get shorter,
winds blow colder,
scarves are worn,
the trees I loved so dearly in the spring,
stopped waving at me.

So long we wait, hoping
for the first rays of sun
that tell us spring is almost here.
But when it comes, we all forget
why we were waiting.

Blue and white and orange and white
And songs and coffee and tears
Keep together my daily plight

I’d add you to my list of fears
But I don’t want to miss your laughs
And songs and coffee and tears

I’d split my soul into two neat halves
And hand me to you on a platter
But I don’t want to miss your laughs

I know that it would need to matter
If you were to open up one day
And hand you to me on a platter

I’ll model the place we’re in like clay
And slowly, slowly seep me out
If you were to open up one day

I’d take good notice of the route
Blue and white and orange and white
Would slowly, slowly seep us out
Keep together my daily plight

Sometimes it’s stressful
when I’m unprepared
and nervous, because
I fear they might think
I’m not doing my job.
But when I feel good
having put in work
and seeing it all
pay off, I feel
amazed at
the fear
that no
longer
taunts
me

Faster, faster,
everyone’s already done.
Quicker, quicker,
seems you’re the only one.
Think, think,
I don’t know what that makes.
Write, write,
This was a huge mistake.

there she went,
back into her mind
the noiseless depths of anticipation.
her reactions?
controlled.

Will I ever not be excited to meet myself?
Will I ever stop expecting a knock at the door, to find myself on the other side, saying
“Hello, it’s so good to finally see you!”

Is there a part of me so removed from the paths I have taken
That is doing everything it can to make its way back to me?
Is she a lover I have forgotten too soon?

Will I no longer await the arrival of someone new
To join me behind the mirror and let me absorb
Enough of her newness to be considered whole?

When do I become
me?

Children are carefully put-together structures built of popsicle sticks
taken from the mouths of people they admire
and one single broken word
can send it all crashing down

There are no songs to express my joy,
So I sing them all in glee.
There are no songs that feel my sorrow,
So silent I will be.

Maybe the ocean whispers things into our ears
and it eats through all the filling in our heads
cements itself in that one place we were keeping secret
and the visions of the truths we wanted replace themselves
with hollow melodies and salty foam.

first, take the two strings and twine them together.
next, pull them apart so that they’re connected at the bottom.
last, make the two strings do an intricate
dance, until one of them is inextricably trapped in a loop that can no longer be fixed by tugging at it and instead you have to find the end and pull hard so that you can leave the situation, even though at that point you still have to untangle yourself from the original twining which is often harder than the initial tug.

Now your shoelaces are tied.

Oh I’ve climbed the tallest mountain
I took the steps so slow
And at the top I looked around
At people down below.
The hustle and the bustle
The rushing in the snow
And knowing I was part of it
It kind of made me glow.

Being tired isn’t the worst part by far
the worst part is staying awake
when all you want to do is let your consciousness fade
when all you want is to stop the suffering

and the suffering comes from the fear of the pain
no, not even the fear of the pain
the suffering comes from the mind-gripping fear
that you can’t stop it
that there’s absolutely nothing you can do
and if you knew that there was no escape
maybe it would be easier
but freedom comes
and there’s no making it come quicker.

And there you’ll learn
you are either them
or you

solving for X
tearing down any defense
any pretense

where X = right
and right = real
and real = them

because you are a number
that doesn’t exist
a square root of negative nine

and to you
dividing by zero should have made
infinity

but there you’ll learn
that you can’t divide
by zero

and the square root
of negative nine
can never be X

to them, to you, you’ll forever be
not a solution
but an error

isn’t that I trust people too easily
there’s nothing wrong with trusting people
I just start expecting too much in return
like trust
++++++++++++++++++
I think my problem
is that I just desire
reciprocation
++++++++++++++++++
I don’t know if I’m able to give less
and still feel happy
but if I’m always giving and giving and giving
I feel like I deserve to receive
or at the very least
like I don’t deserve to give

For weeks, all I wanted was to paint.
It felt like the solution
to nothing in particular,
to particularly everything.
The easel collects dust in the corner of my room now.
An empty canvas rests upon it, mocking me
for thinking I had an easy way out.

I wonder if I could be okay
admiring you from afar
never letting you know how much you meant to me.

I wonder if I could just be friends
without hungering for that intimacy we once shared.

Is it really gone? In the past, forgotten,
along with every long night we stayed up together?
When you agreed to stay another two hours
(even though it was 9 pm)
to watch a movie with me?

I want it back so bad
just someone who talks to me
understands me in a way that others don't.

But maybe that's not who I am to you.
That'd be okay, I think.
I'd get over it eventually.
But I'd never forget.

And right now,
it just aches.

I miss you.

The gleam in their eyes
-don’t miss it! It’s gone before you know it-
when they realize that the whole time
they were staring right at the solution
and the joy that comes
from knowing the answer
makes me want to refute them,
so I can amaze them again.

The moment it all goes off the rails,
I remind myself:
the rails don’t exist.
And once I actually believe it,
the rails disappear.

yes, the time does pass
often quicker than preferred,
and no, it won’t return.
but mayhap we can pretend
that every now and then
something happens that was worth it all along.
and though it passes by,
always lost to mistress time,
we can hope moments such as these
will make the future bright again.

there once was a fun beanie gal,
who made for a pretty great pal.
if you call her short,
she'll have to resort
to cruelty, which she shall.

in the back sat a guy with long hair,
and if you look at him he'd glare.
but if you sit down,
and upend his frown,
you'll find he's not much of a scare.

i miss being wanted. i know i must have felt it before, because how can one long for something they've never known?
i wish i was able to believe in love outside of view.
but it seems like every new moon i forget your touch
and i'm running through the woods just to make you love me again.
i believe you every time you tell me you could never hate me (how couldn't i)
but sometimes your words don't last.
sometimes i lie in bed trying to make myself dream of you so i won't exhaust you with my cries in the night.
sometimes i want to take advantage of your soft hands
feel safe in your mind
and let you take care of me even when i don't need it.
it makes me feel selfish, to want that kind of love.

Beware of the self-serving friend
who uses as means to an end
though she may be blue
or complex as you
she isn’t your duty to mend.