I've said time and time again what my future will look like
simple ranch style house filled with animals
my pigs running around like cats or dogs
sleeping and feasting like kings
I always told myself this would be my reality
said it with such conviction to others that I believed that conviction alone could will it into existence

At the same time I spoke to others how I was going to be a teacher
from the age of seven certain that's what I would be doing with my life
Here I am
in college for the third time
aiming for a degree far away from my childhood dream
this time I'm hoping for insurance and security

I can't really see my ranch style house in my sights anymore
can't see these animals I would invite others to work with either
I can't see the dream I had always tried to speak into reality
the path ahead has gotten too foggy

My dreams are changing without me
my childhood whims are slipping from my grasp
Others telling me that I can still achieve them
but how can I achieve anything
if I can't even achieve my own happiness

you used to tell me that you could never be certain if what I told you was the truth when I had never spoken anything to you without my soul open and exposed
My honesty was always laid out before you like an animal in a trap
wounded, hiding, scared, but utterly raw and open for the ****
In truth (if you can believe me) I am not the pathological liar everyone says I am

These poems of mine always seem strangled
Tangled in a web of tight vocal chords
My throat can't get the words out it needs to so my hands do their bidding instead
I guess that's why none of my poems seem happy
Those words burst from my chest like firecrackers
My laugh unsurpessesble and bellowing
Much too fast for hands to grab
Happy emotions are light and feeble. Carefree and quick
Trying to grab them is fistfuls of sand in water
But the dark
The taboo
They are much more heavy
Easier to grab
The weight of those feelings only leaving by typeface
Wet cement drying then being slowly chipped away
And I am free again

It should have been easy
I shouldnt have had that unsettled feeling in my stomach when kissing you
And honestly I really don't
But the thought of anything else makes me uneasy
I'm attracted to you
I'm comfortable with you
So why can't I make myself go further?
I thought it was just that I hadnt found the right person
Or maybe we just hadn't been together long enough
Or that my religious upbringing caused me to have an avoidance to ***
Some psychological training in the back of my mind telling me I would be shunned from God
I never understood cheaters
How *** could be so tempting
How anyone could get addicted to it
How random hook-ups and one night stands were the norm in our world
I am out of place here
It's not like I dont want to have that connection
I just don't feel the drive
Then I thought it was my medication
But I realized long before the chemistry in my brain was artificial that I wasn't intrested in the ****** acts most people were
And to be honest even when I am in the act, I dont really have a drive
Never felt the need to ******
Always focused on satisfying the other partner
Because this was a relationship and it's what I'm supposed to give and I dont want to keep that from them
It causes strain in them
Causes a distance that I dont feel is there
For a long time I thought I was broken
Now I know for sure that I am
But I want you to feel secure,
So I'll fake it again and again
Let you do to me what I have no interest in
Maybe this time will be different.

Tell me why i still write about you
tell me why i'm still hanging onto that cliche branch off the edge of a cliff
tell me why i'm scared to fall into a world without you in it
i should be happy
in a way i am
i have a girlfriend now and i can already tell she'll treat me better than you ever did
can already tell that i'm on my way to loving her
maybe once day i'll be in love with her
so tell me why i'm still writing about you and not her
                                   please just tell me

I often times wonder how my name tastes in your mouth
i'm sure it used to be a favorite of yours
crisp, single-syllable proclamation of adoration
a name can hold so much power
I doubt you savored the times when my name tasted sweet in your mouth
I bet you thought my name would never become sour to your tongue
would never fumble out with regret and broken promises
would never leave a burning in the back of your throat
Your name was always indulgent to me
naturally causing my mouth to form a smile as your letters positioned themselves on my tongue
Your name was an addiction
thrilling and dangerous
I say your name now with a bitter tone
It tastes wrong now
Like how when I was younger and had such a sweet tooth, but now that I'm older I crave salty things
I guess my mouth grew tired of your name
grew tired of how easily it fell
now I have to force it out
is it the same for you?

broken conversation
awkward and too overly formal for both our tastes
I tried to hide my anger and pain behind politeness
feigned interest about your day and life
when really the only thing I wanted to know was how you were doing without me
you expected to do better without me
I dont think you're doing better without me
I won't say it though,
trying to give you some semblance of pride in the mess you created
in our short conversation I tried to make you feel something again for me
not love, no--
maybe something along the lines of regret and jealousy
I am doing better
I am doing fine without you
My world is moving on just like how you said yours would
I think your world is moving too
only yours is in a slow reverse
and mine is in a steady, forward pace

I say I'm over you
tell others that I don't want you back and wouldn't come back even if you asked nicely
my sister told me I move on quickly and excuses tumbled out of my mouth before my brain registers that they've fallen
you see these dates I've been on have been meaningless
a useless endeavor, really in an attempt to fill this emptiness you left me with
I dreamt of you again last night and when I woke punished myself by staring at pictures of you until my eyes were raw
I haven't deleted any of them
The vision of you in my dream told me you were in love
told me you found that person who makes your heart do trills like cats purrs
I remember waking with tears
Every **** time I think I'm over you, I look to the gorge you've left in me
Reminders all around my room
The tickets we bought for a date but never used still untouched in the middle console in my car
They don't have an expiration date

I've stopped believing in the pretty things
the beautiful words strung in a web too good to be true
I stopped believing I would find perfection
even if it was just perfection to me
because life truly isn't fair
and life isn't beautiful
It's corrupt and distant
a movie with a lost director and bad cast
I want to rewrite the script
I'm sick of this improv game and technical difficulties

Everything about me dwindles down to this
broken body, mangled branches, rivers of blood
I am nothing more than true unbridled feeling
and sometimes that scares me

Love, as I've come to know, is  a shapeshifter
every time I experience her she is in a different form
but there is always some semblance of nostalgia every time
I used to think every new love would be my last
and figured that every past love was a misunderstanding of the term
but I've come to realize that every love will be different
every love teaches me new lessons
and I could not be more grateful for what she's taught me

I can just make out the blurry red of your shirt
They way colors blur is not new to me
My eyes have been blind for a long time
My life painted in water color without my glasses
But this isnt the same
My eyes are hot
Saltwater threatening to fall
My dam of emotions is breaking and all the hardware stores are closed
I cant repair this in time
By morning I won't need concrete anymore
I'll need a boat

   --God once hated his creations so much he wiped them out with a flood

I denied what was going on for a long time
The lack of I love yous
The late nights and early mornings
I should have seen it coming in hindsight
But your lies were always lullabies in my head
Calming my fears from my paranoia and assumptions
I should have listened to them and not to you
You were never a good singer anyways
And I never did like lullabies

It's been hard to find my muse since you left
You were the source of so many of my poems even though I tried so hard to deny it time after time
I realized when you were around I was drinking profusely
and my drunken brain finds poetry to be great company
just personal enough to offer comfort but just distant enough from physical contact
poetry doesn't look me in the eye shaking my shoulder until I snap out of it
poetry lets me sit in this shallow puddle in-between of swirling emotions the English language never bothered to name
So my muse hasn't been here much since you haven't
but my depression hasn't been here much either
nor my anxiety
I stayed constant without you here
its kinda funny, huh? I have you to thank for the rise of me
but I also have you to thank for my downfall
I'm finding my muse again--
this time without you
and this poetry will be that much more beautiful
watch out
she has risen from her ashes

A few weeks ago
while in a state of mania
I wrote down a physical bucket list
and you know,
I never thought I would cross anything off
Always figured my increased motivation through increased serotonin was untouchable by my average
instead I found myself crossing two items off yesterday
I succeeded where my mania said my depression would fail
I wrote more ridiculous tasks
who knows what I'm capable of

I think I love you
Well, not think-- I know I do
I've been slowly falling since day one
But it's hard for me to admit my feelings
Because you are the most important person in my life and I dont want to ruin that
I dont think I'm in love with you yet
I'm guarding my heart with my head from that one final step
I'm scared to take it
I can't do that long distance thing again
I cant hurt you to heal me
Even if you are in the back of my thoughts every minute
Even if my dreams have you and I together
Even if my coworkers are tired of hearing your name on my lips
I cannot be selfish this time
I always used to want to be selfish about the people I loved
Wanted to keep them for myself and hold them close
But you make me want to be selfless just this once
I want you to be able to have what I can never give you
I dont want you to hold back your dreams just for me
There's something bittersweet about the fact that I am content knowing you'd probably be happier without me

i get in the car and its easy
seat-belt. foot. pedal. go.
see? easy
down the road, only two right turns and i'm there
everyday
not even five minutes away
it's easy to drive
easy because of muscle memory
easy enough as a piece of plastic in my wallet
but my drive
my drive is never easy
wake up
struggle out of the covers
cursing the sunlight filtering through my curtains
get up my brain yells
no my body fights back
begrudgingly I stand and get dressed for the day
this drive is always hard
the getting up part
the leaving part
and everything in between
when I'm home with no obligation other than my animals
I can afford to have the car turned off
I wish my drive was as easy as the one to work
simple with no thinking
nowhere to go but forward and two right turns

maybe it wasn't love
maybe it was the perfect illusion
one where I saw myself as someone
being capable of such a concept of love
where I saw myself happier than I really was
where I didn't make compromises for
my happiness to allow you some of yours

Maybe it was fear
the fear of being alone again
the fear that it was always me all along
who wasn't capable of making a relationship last
the fear that if you weren't the one then
there was nobody else out there that could be

And you know, maybe it wasn't love
maybe it was contentedness
the feeling that I was comfortable
so that should be enough, right?
that I should be happy with being comfortable
and not being truly happy

But maybe it was love
Maybe it was love that kept me with you
so much longer than I should have been
maybe it was love causing me to sacrifice
so much time and effort and energy into us
love causing me to think differently about my future
love making me blind to other possibilities
love making me selfless rather than selfish

So I guess I should thank you
because I've realized now that it's okay to be selfish
that I don't have to compromise to be happy
that I don't have to change my wants and
dreams to match yours
and that I can find someone who shares my goals

I can thank you for the growth
Thank you for the insight
for the days of joy
and for the nights of pain that made
those happy times even sweeter

So maybe it wasn't all love
But it was real
We were real

We're done, aren't we?
I've been feeling it now for a while
Too scared to let go of the one person that has been consistantly in my life that
I've been selfish
I'm sorry
But we're done aren't we?
You stopped talking to me
Say you'd rather be alone
Stopped telling me where you were going
So we're done, right?
I think I did my grieving that week you were crying and overwhelmed and I gave you some time to think about us.
I told you I'd give you some space but I'm pretty sure this is more than I bargained for
So we're done, huh?
I cant be the only one here not feeling anything
I know that you feel just as trapped as I do
And I'm tired of being emotionally used.
So we're done, aren't we?

Someday I'll learn
And to be honest I probably should have by now
But although I'm sure I've been here before
My lessons always come to me the hard way
I cant be told something
I have to experience it
The concept never truly taking form in my mind until I'm stuck right where I never wanted to be
I'm that type of hypocrite who speaks and never listens
Advice given that I never take for myself
I'm sure someday I'll learn though
Just like I have in that true happiness is in the day-to-day
And not knowing who you are or what you want to be in life is okay
Some things take time
I'll learn eventually

When I was younger I used to believe that I was destined for greatness
Not the kind of greatness like curing cancer or anything
But the magical, the unbelievable
I was meant to leave this world
This place where I've never really had a place
I was supposed to go explore magical lands
meet weird and unusual creatures
do incredible and impossible things
I know it's just a childish whim from years ago
Yet I still lay in bed at night wondering
what It would be like to wake up somewhere else
what it would be like to be needed somewhere
to be wanted somewhere
to be destined for more
but it looks like I missed those storybook years
where I would be chosen for something more

You know those times
at three A.M.
when you walk into the bathroom
look in the mirror
and you don't recognize the face looking back at you?

I think the reason I'm so depressed is because i'm always unfulfilled
I live my life day to day
I crave knowledge and passion
but finding it is hard
when I know the only things that would ever hold my interest long enough for a satisfying career need doctorates
and I'm too lazy and unmotivated to go to classes every day to be told things I already know
to go into debt for knowledge I obtained years ago
There's no easy way to get into infectious or rare genetic diseases
no easy way to become an exotics vet
I wish I could skip the basics
The day to day is taxing

I dont speak truthfully with my psychiatrist
The fear of mental hospitals keep my lips glued
I know that there should be somebody that I can speak to about anything
But the daunting premonition of being crazy keeps me chained in this cage of mine
These glass walls in my brain are bullet proof
No amount of "how does that make you feel" will ever break through
I want to tell someone everything
How I want to **** myself
How I have multiple ways planned out
But those plans would leave me institutionalized and the fear of that chokes down the words in my throat
I wont do it
I wont commit that taboo
But the fact that I have plans
That I close my eyes driving cars
That I see how long I can last without medication in a hospitalized withdrawal keeps me quiet
I fear to be known by my illness
By my crazy and my unpredictable
I got help once
Medication paired with therapy
And lies fighting back the truth
I wouldn't be here If my impulse control was normal
I wouldn't be here if they knew

I hate my own company sometimes
My mind always running in marathons
And too still sometimes for the boredom to leave my bones
It is seeping into them
Executive dysfunction and dissociation are playing hopscotch in my brain
There is no winner here
Instead I lay in a standstill of movie- watching and trashed floors
Wondering when the energy will come back
Wondering when the motivation will return
Or if I ever had it in the first place
I've been friends with my mental so long it's hard to remember a life before them
Before they told me who I was and who I should be

I must be allergic to you
every time you come near me I swear
my stomach starts doing somersaults
My palms grow slick with perspiration
and I start to asphyxiate on fantasies of you
Surely I must be allergic
Why else would my eyes water at the thought of losing you
why else would I hold onto hope like an epi-pen that you are meant for me?

You were vinegar and I was oil
Never truly meaning to mix
but going together so **** well

I cut my finger on a can opener last night and now I'm constantly reminded of how sensitive I am

I wish my heart was calloused so I wouldn't ache everytime another meaningless occurrence reminds me of you
But hearts are not hard
They cant become calloused
And even though they are surrounded by bone, ribs are meant to be flexible

This finger will heal
It will scar and callouse with repeated use
My heart instead grows only softer and weaker with time
I dont know how much abuse it can take.

I wish I could shed my skin like a snake
Maybe then I would feel content knowing
That this body has never been yours

  --The only time I was grateful for taking martial arts was when you were on top of me

Do you know how hard it was to turn
away from your kiss
How hard it was to not throw
my face into your shoulder like
I have so many times before
Instead my saltwater threatened
my lips trembling with choked back words
I smiled and told you that I didn't want to push--
but this space between us right now
this increasing distance
You are the shore my sea-lost body craves
I long to sandwich my bare toes in your sands
and sink into your dry land
Instead I am floating aimlessly, helplessly
in a raft makeshift, broken bottles, vine
drifting further and further away
and my hands are scooping up the water with prayer hands
begging,
pleading with aching muscles
to let me paddle my way back to you
but every time I seem to be pushed
further and further from my goal
I need answers
You said that it wouldn't take
you long to formulate your response
and now a week has lapsed
and I'm still here
in this purgatory
wondering what it is that I could have done
what it is that I can do
to bring you to your senses again

And the words dropped from your lips like honey
And my ears became clogged with their sweetness
I did not hear you say goodbye

Call me basic white as I sip my iced coffee
and feel free to laugh at my obviously fake spray tan
this orange could never be natural anyways
I watch the hairdressers roll their eyes every time
I ask for black
It's my natural color, I promise them but they doubt me anyways
I became a guessing game for my co-workers
my ethnicity a puzzle with missing piece
I know Spanish but I'm not Hispanic
You look Arabic but that side of the world was never familiar to me
I say I am Native
Native American on my dad's side
Half my blood flows with that of my mutilated ancestors
Yet you see my white, coffee sipping lips and doubt
My skin in the winter is snow
but my nick name is at summer camp was snooki
my tan unbelievably orange
yet you wonder why red-skin is an insult
I am native and proud of my heritage
the only questions I get are about scholarships I never received
You say that I am lucky
and that I must be receiving so many benefits
I resist the urge to punch you in the face
I have received nothing from your people
and I never will

When I was younger the most horrifying thing
was the garbage disposal
clogged up and over flowing with
a plethora of unknown substances
and my mother
my mother would put her hand into
the murky chunky waters in our kitchen sink
and clear out the drain

I know I would be dead without my medication
a day off and I dream more than I could ever imagine
two days and I'm seizing on the floor
withdrawal so intense I'm dizzy and crying
and shaking, nauseous,
a phantom explosion in my head
I feel off
Three days and I'm hospitalized
I feel like an addict
but I have to tell myself that I am back to square one
back to the chemical imbalance I was before the
prescription healed me to be
This is normal
you are not an addict
you are sane

But that one day off I love
I sleep so deeply I feel dead to the world
comatose with lucid dreams
I dream so vividly I can feel them in my waking self
I know I can't fly yet my dreams say I can
I would spend days in this trance if I could
Last night I dreamed I was in Disney
My medication causing me true terror through amazement
yet this morning I felt off
and tired
and like I would ***** any minute
I wish these symptoms would stop
I wish I just felt normal without it
But the chemistry in my brain never adds up
I want to be trapped in the feeling of constant dreams
It's when I can truly live

I wish I had better coping skills
but who needs therapy when
you can just as easily cut your hair
and pierce your nose
I have seven tattoos and
ten piercings
I'm running out of room

You called me envy, sloth
I called you wrath, pride
These names which will forever haunt me
I must be blind to my envy
I don't see myself as such
Wanting to be what others are
I want to be what I am not
My sloth I understand
My laziness and trepidation in doing
what needs to be done
I see wrath in you
your road rage, lack-of patience self
You laugh at my calling you pride
yet you buy designer clothes and
care too much what others think
of your appearance and mind
these our our sins
and we must learn to live with them

I have never had a fondness for roses
a basic beauty, classic, calm, safe
Instead, I have found enchantment in the chaotic
the unpredictable, the unusual
Chrysanthemums hold my intrigue
I fell in love with you for the same reason

I believed my mind to be a box of glass walls
the moon to be chasing my car at night
the roaring of the car wash to be a lion trapped in a den
I believed quicksand to be a much more prominent threat than it truly is
and that I would have surely caught fire at least a few times in my life at the rate Stop Drop and Roll were engraved into my brain
I thought by now I would have experienced peer pressure and that saying no to a drink or a smoke wouldn't have been this easy-- no one ever retorted
That by age eighteen I would be free from my parents rules and I would be living alone with a dozen animals  working my dream job
Or at least that I would be dead
That I would surely be dead

i have turned to thunder
a response to your lightening gaze
i refuse to be silenced

They told you
you had changed since you met me
of course I believe that to be true too
I've changed since I met you too
But of course over two years you would be different
who wouldn't be?
change of school, jobs, life plans
the only constant here was me
so fingers were pointed at the only thing that stayed the same about you
and I had no say at all

I'm biting my tounge as tears run down my face
Iron and salt meeting in a macabre
I always surrounded myself with grey
I didnt mean to press that color onto you
Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my time or my poetry on you but
I will still bite my tounge bleeding evermore before I apologize for loving you

I'm sorry too
I'm sorry I'm a toxic depressing person who gives others her bad vibes
I'm sorry I didnt see how much you were hurting in these two years
I'm sorry everyone thinks I changed you
I'm sorry if I did
I'm sorry if I ever pressured you into anthing
I'm sorry that I haven't always been easy to talk to
anxiety often plays well with me and those around me
I'm sorry
I'm so sorry
But I can promise you this
I will never be sorry for loving you
For giving you my virginity
For trusting you with my secrets
For spending two years of my life with you
For our sleepless nights naked in bed just talking
For the songs I sang you to sleep with in the first few months
For the stupid road trips that always ended in rain
I will never be sorry for loving you

My two best friends in the world are in toxic relationships
both engaged
both living parallel lives miles apart
young and dumb
broke and self-medicating
I look at these relationships around me and wonder if they think they're perfect and healthy
I wonder if they find mine toxic the way I find theirs--
wonder if they see the red flags in mine they can't see in theirs
I wonder if I'm the only one in this relationship who is in love
who fell hard and never got back up
who feels comforted by your embrace
Don't tell me this is toxic
Don't let this be one-sided
Please

I bought myself a ring and
you said it was weird
twenty dollars of sterling silver
now perched on my left ring finger
It doesn't belong to you
not some symbol that I'm taken
my right hand just does too much in
a day to be dressed up
but this ring bothers you
you said it looks like I'm married or engaged
and truth be told that doesn't bother me
because I look at this flea market buy and see what could be
I see what one day could be your ring on my vow
But you find it odd and unsettling
and I'm struggling to find that fact anything but unnerving

I know I'm being selfish
and I'm sorry, okay?
I know you think I'm being ridiculous--
criticizing
over-analyzing
hyper-aware
I'm not mad I promise
I'm just upset
You think I say it too much
that those words lose meaning everytime
But I see it differently
Every time I say those words is another moment I think of you
It's another memory of us
another vision of our future together
I love you
I'm so ******* in love with you

so please....
when I say it
say it back
Don't pull a Han Solo and say that you know
when I look at you with longing and hurt in my eyes
tell me you love me
tell me when you're not prompted to at all
Tell it to me before I say it to you
I know you show your love in other ways
but I'm selfish and insecure and I need vocalization to know my mind isn't playing tricks on me
to know that you really do still feel the spark like I do after two years
I love you
I love you
I'm so in love with you

Why can't you say it to me
without my saying it to you?