"I think i'll take the iced caramel macchiato please"

Dark brown eyes and a furrowed brow look down at me

I type the order into my order screen, nervous to look up and suddenly wondering if there's any strands of hair out of place

"Anything else?' I ask

He doesn't say anything, concentrating on the menu directly above my face

"Any good pastries?" He asks slightly smiling

"I love our muffins but our cheese danish's are also really good." I smile back

"Ok, I trust you. Ill take a muffin please."

"Of course."

"If its not good, I'm going to have to come back you know?"

A smile spreads across my cheek and a slight red tint exposes itself
We were definitely flirting at this point

I looked at you,  
as I often do,
and I could feel your gaze,  
a warmth so deep it wrapped around my soul.  
It wasn’t just a glance
it was the sun, beaming,  
breaking through every guarded corner of me.
I felt it- I really did
my heart pounding in time with yours
I swear, in that moment,  
my eyes weren’t just looking—  
they were spilling over,  
filled with tiny shards of my heart,
overflowing with everything I couldn’t say

I’ll never forget that look of pain—
stained in my mind,
like bleach on black cotton

The unbearable depth of your eyes
imparted that anguish
straight into my soul

sometimes i dream
im far far far away

out of this home

out of the red light

in a peaceful bubble

away from the scrutiny of religion

away from the decaying love within my home
the one that has been dead since i was 12

My words for you go beyond
any poem I could dream of writing

It’s frustrates me to encapsulate my thoughts and feelings for you
into few lettered words and expressions

How I feel for you goes beyond
anything I have felt in the past
& I hope it transforms with you in the future

I hope we grow eternally
I hope we become annoyingly in love
I hope people get sick of us
I hope we have a specific table in a restaurant that we always go to
I hope we have lifetimes of inside jokes
& I hope we hold hands even when we fight

I pray that the thin glass between us only becomes clearer but it just makes us more beautiful to each other

something inside me soothed when I met you
I can’t compare it to anything else

it was like my heart became malleable like clay softening

the ridges on my forehead settled

my nightmares turned into dreams

i started noticing flowers instead of rocks on my walks

days that felt cold began to feel warm

you brought warmth to my life. you didn’t erase my pain but like warm soup against a irritated throat, you soothed it. my pain was bearable because of you. It feels like I could face life because of you, an unmatched feeling.

they say the grass is always greener on the other side

I say, ‘while I think my side looks brown, I will water it till it’s green’

and that’s

that’s something I look forward to doing everyday

Dear Dead Poet,

One day I will be you. I think that’s beautiful to think or maybe it’s a silly human thought conceived to help us justify the inevitable ending we all face, that you already faced. Forgive me if I speak without grace but I have so much to learn from you & I wanted to let you know it. Dead poet, when reading your poem earlier you spoke on love. In death, do you feel it valuable or necessary to life or do we the living yearn for it to veil our misery? Do you have the answer? If there is a way, let your words return to me-though I know they never will.

Sincerely,
Living Poet

I can’t help but think of you
your my inspiration

i don’t think i’m yours

but you don’t even know your mine so
how could i know
if i’m yours

I met you
and not to be dramatic
in the age where people don’t like each other
but I think I like you

in a way that feels comfortable
a knowing feeling

like a deep sigh of relief
like I knew you in a past life
and my soul is ready to reconnect with yours

‘runt’

i’ll never get over it

‘you shouldn’t say that mom..’

‘well she is.’

stings & burns
on my whole heart

my whole heart
shattered to pieces by a few words

‘that really hurts to hear you say that mom.’

she shrugs
& brushes me off like a piece of lint
i look at the lint
feeling like I got punched in the gut

i walk away
to my dark bedroom
slamming my head to into my pillow
crying my eyes out
till I have a migraine for the rest of the night
leaving my self value
in the hands of the woman
who made me

Dear Dead Poet,

I read your poem to my class today.
They didn’t understand it.

I felt bad because they probably won’t ever think about the words that I read them again. Not ever

Maybe they will when the face the challenges you & I have. They’ll think about your words then.

But I wish they would listen now. I wish you were here now.

My classmates don’t understand & I doubt they ever will.

Dear Dead Poet please write me back when you can. I feel like you understand me or you are me.

Yours truly,

Dead Poet

the middle ground
between
war & peace

is reality

She could hide a lot of things but
her fingers

they never lie

she smiled
even laughed
but the short
freshly ripped up nails
exposed her

She got employee of the month
yet the sides of her nails were red
bright red
and raw

She showed up
for everyone in her life
but her fingers constantly twitched
every second of the day
they twitched


Her fingers never lied
She couldn’t put makeup on them
She couldn’t put a filter on them
She couldn’t tell them to be ok

The only thing that could heal her fingers

was her
and time

i read this poem that said

when you feel yourself falling in love
to let yourself fall

we don’t experience it often
so embrace it

enjoy it

and from that day I did. when love came to me, i truly let myself fall in love. in every way.

I let my thoughts wander to you daily and you started to lived in them. You became an occupant in my brain. You made my existence feel lighter. you being there was…it was so real, I was there. i felt it.

but

just like that something happened. I don’t know when it did but the days of smiling on my daily car rides, turned drives consisting of only silent tears. when sound sleep turned to one maybe two hours of sleep. but it did. and just when I thought I forgot the pain you caused me, I feel it all over again. i cry at work, in my car, in my bed, in the shower, the river of tears doesn’t have an end. you destroyed me in the softest way and i feel that pain everywhere and all the time.

so the next time someone advises you to experience love, don’t listen.

i took the creamy crayon and swiped my face with it. i took the black wand and made my lashes look longer. i tilted my head back to see if my makeup needed adjusting, it didn’t. i thought i looked like the prettiest girl in the world, and for a second I was.

you invited me out, and i kept checking to make sure i looked good in my driver side mirror. i was so excited to see you, i really was. all i could think about was seeing you and being with you.

when i got there i saw you standing there but you couldn’t be bothered to notice me. i was invisible, but that’s ok i had but just got there. i waited but you never came, but that’s ok i’m not high maintenance i don’t need you around all the time.

i saw that girl i thought you liked a long time ago, it was never confirmed or denied. she was there but i thought she was with a guy who was also there. i’m not sure, but i’m not sure at what point it happened but a knot was starting to form in my stomach.

we decided to go to volleyball courts. me and some girls I just met. i saw you standing next to her and you seemed captivated by her. i understood. she is very beautiful, way more than I was & people love her too.  

i saw her hop in your car and you actually drove her to her car. that was nice. a boy has never done that for me.

you didn’t say goodbye when u left the plans you invited me too. but that’s ok really i understand.

when your a kid
you think your parents can do no wrong

then you grow up and see
that they do the most wrong

i looked up to the stars
hoping they would bring me the peace i earned to have

but it didn’t work

the tears jumped out
against my will

they flowed
for what felt like an eternity
and the empty, ugly felling in my stomach
formed so prominently

i’m never going to know love
i’m not worthy of it

i am not

the girl you fall in love with at first sight

i am  

the girl who you see behind her beautiful friend

i am not

the girl who gets numbers written on the side of her coffee cup from the cute barista

i am

the girl who boys use to get to my pretty friends

i am not

the skinny girl with a big **** and perfect curves

i am

the girl with disproportionately big *****

i am not

a super organized and color coordinated

i am

the girl who has fly always and a messy purse


i am not that girl
and i will never be her
i don’t know what i am
but i know it will never be enough

i slide down the blue plastic chair
in my denim shorts that reached my mid thigh

the bare part of my thighs skidded against the now body temperature chair
as I slide down

I rubbed my eyes-

part out of boredom and part out of tiredness

once the stars from where I just rubbed my eyes disappeared
I leaned forward
and I picked up my yellow number two pencil

filling in the dot carefully
sure not to streak outside of it

I knew that if I did I could get the answer wrong or it wouldn’t process
and that couldn’t happen

i borrowed souls in my pockets
tucked them away for the jazz party
on 30th street
and my braids bounced against my scalp
as i ran to the party
and in that moment i remembered
my ancestors cried over these braids
rice grains
engrained in these braids
to find my freedom
and my children’s freedom
and their children’s freedom
but most importantly
my ancestors cried
to help the little white kids
with boats find their rhythm
in a world that was made for them
but funny my ancestors rode a boat too

i don’t know why my dangling braids and the party on 30th got me thinking this

i sank deep into the chair
that now feels like my home

hours of being told what is wrong with me

by hour one i’m
reminded of every single fault

by hour two i wonder what my purpose for being here is-
my existence

by hour three i try to swim to my private sanctuary the one i’ve created in my mind for a brief second to attempt to escape the chaos
only to be dragged back to reality and told that the face i’m making is disrespectful

by hour four i’m at dinner with friends trying to smile and act like life isn’t so bad

by next week the cycle repeats

i saw you
and my lips parted

my stomach immediately-

and i mean immediately
started to shuffle

a million nerves worked there way
up and down
my entire body

i’m excited and nervous and calm

this is what you do to me
and i wonder if i do the same to you
because

wow
i like you

and it’s hard to admit that

admit that
to
myself

but really
i like you

and i have no control over it anymore

i think about you all the time

when i’m working
when i’m sleeping
when i’m combing my hair

constantly

i emptied the pennies on the table

they clanked abruptly against the auburn stained wood table


they did eventually settle

“Ok, I think we can get out of this place.”

We will without doubt struggle but not more than we already are

I nodded in absolute agreement with my sister

“We’re getting out of here.” I whispered

I froze

I didn’t know what to do

my inner monologue said,
‘if you go, you die. if you don’t go, you die.’

what the least painful
route to go

i’m so tired

i’m struggling to piece together the words
to say to you but
you keep taking the pieces out of my hand

I can’t figure out what to say because you won’t let me say it

there’s something wrong with you

you should talk to someone, seriously

what’s wrong with you

your a runt

what u have to say does not matter

you should see a therapist

i thought about how the seconds go by
and then those seconds are gone

and the seconds turn into long minutes
and even longer hours

and days turn to weeks and years

and before you know it
you only have a few seconds left

wishing you spent them better

the tide pulled in
and then receded

the ocean had this never ending game with the shore

in and out
in and out
in and out

it never ended
the cycle never ended

you won

your words won

they tore my soul to shreds and I don’t think i’ll be able to put them back together

ever

my incompetence

I’m sorry

i stepped out into the dark pavement
of a now dark, but very alive city

i hear the horns and sirens stinging the background

before continuing any further

i look around to see if anyone is following me
or notices me

they don’t
but i like it better that way

and I plug my earphones in

the lights flickered from the jolt of electricity

“CLEAR!”

the young girl’s chest bounced off the table and immediately back down

her eyes rolled back and then shut

“CLEAR!”

the other ER doctors pressed the defibrillator down with more urgency

and her body repeated the same movements
except this time the monitor flatlined
and she was dead

I reached into my hallow
jean pocket
the rough interior
brushed against my knuckles

I searched for my silver key
but couldn’t find it

a ripple of fear surged from my chest  
and formed a pit in the middle of my stomach

‘where is my key?!! WHERE IS MY KEY!!!??’
I internally screamed

defeated my mom turned to my dad and asked,

“what did we do wrong?”

He sighed

“I really don’t know.”


this is the third time i’ve heard this conversation in the past month

I look myself in the mirror and ask myself the same thing

my trauma is not valid
because others have been through worse than me

I looked in your eyes for something
honestly don’t know what for


but those eyes were blank

and they told me

“what are you looking at?”

with a scoff and harshness

I opened my white closet door

the only light coming from the sleepy sun

it was 5 o’clock in the evening
and the sun was slowly gliding down my
singular gray wall

it was serene

but it’s fleeting presence made itself known to my face and onto my newly exposed clothes

I shuffled quickly through those now orange
tinted clothes
flipping over dresses and skirts

desperately

searching for my favorite hoodie

the green one with the white letters
I bought in OBX the previous summer

a classic


But I couldn’t find it
and the suns orange light was quickly slipping away

And then it was gone

ruffling through the white bag
i found exactly what I wanted

the chips…

my sadness craved it

in the middle of a museum

stood a little glass figurine
with a beautiful face
unconventionally beautiful

the artist sculptured her
after the one whom he loved the most

but
out of all the figurines and art

nobody ever admired her
or took pictures of her

at night when nobody was around
she cried
still as an anything
with little salty sea glass tears
running down her beautiful face

i dragged my feet through the thickest of mud
i scaled the highest of mountains
i’ve starved for weeks on end
i’ve been naked to the the point where i didn’t know i was naked

this battle

all for the approval of someone who will never give it to me

someone who created me, not by chose

I no longer live in joy

I no longer see flowers bloom
or the sun come up out of the clouds

instead

I now feel hurricanes
I now feel thunderstorms

i don’t like living here

i started my letter

apologizing to her

she deserved the world and I gave her nothing but the crumbs of it
dirt specks that creatures with no morals inhabit

that’s what i gave her

So i sat there and penned out my apology
telling her exactly what she deserved and hoped she believed me when I told her

i felt instant warmth spread
it was amazing what simple skin could do

the warmth rushed to my stomach
and i wanted to throw up but in a good way

all these feelings exploding at once

at the sight of you
at the feel of you
at the shadow of you

i tried to love my body
but my mind said no

those two were at a constant war

they hated each other

they ripped each other to shreds
so often

Under my stomach
laid this burden
and it lessened but never ever went away

that burden I think we all carry we just don’t acknowledge

I went insane

Not visibly though

My makeup still looked the same
I still laughed the same
I dressed the same
Walked the same

But inside

I was not the same

I was stuck in the bubble
I kept screaming at the people around me

but

they couldn’t hear or even see me
I was like the wind
invisible and quiet

but

I caused a tornado

you fight fire

with lighter fluid

something i’ve never seen

you expect the fire to go away
but it grows and grows

then you blame the fire for it growing

i’m only loved

when convenient

it makes my insides churn
with sadness
and hollowness

knowing that nobody will love me
truly

only when it’s convenient