What do you see
When you look inside me?
What do you see
When you look in my eyes?
Can you see
The scared little girl
I was growing up?
Can you see
All my insecurities?
Can you see
All my secrets?
What do you see
When you look at me?
What do you see
When I stand all alone?
Is it a girl
So lost and afraid
She can't look you in the eye
and ask for help?
Is it a woman
Strong and confident
In who she is
And what she wants?
What do you see?
What do you see?
A strange mix of both?
Neither?
What do you see
When I finally,
Look you in the eye?
Can you see
All my broken pieces?
All the scars?
All the things
I've tried to hide?
Can you see it all?
Or
Is that just
What I see
When I finally
Manage to look at me?

Shall we hide, behind this door?
Or what about this wall?
Stronger and taller than the door
It does not open, there is no handle
Only we know what happens behind the wall
Too vulnerable to emerge, so we won’t
Keep hidden, it is safer, easier
Than to expose ourselves, to feel

I despise this wall, trapped behind
I long for a door, to welcome you in
To open up, have you stay a while
Not fear rejection of who we are
But bask in a glow of acceptance

Stay still, for a cold chill blows this way
We laugh for we are safe
Behind this wall
Indifferent and cool to emotional pangs
They leave us be
Nothing to see

Have they gone? Are we alone?
Retreated behind this wall again
A habit that needs to break
We begin small, as a crack penetrates the wall
Until finally a space shaped door

Lavender tea
Reminds me
Of you
And the time
We ran
Through
A forest
And rolled around
In a meadow
Until
The stars
Broke the silence
Of the night

Lavender tea
Reminds me
Of your eyes
They are green
Your eyes bring me peace
I imagine your sweet
Swimming
Green eyes
I always seem to sink
Deep
Into your sea-green ocean

Lavender tea
Reminds me of you
All those chilly Autumn nights
When we would lay
Outside
Humming along
To our lavender song
A calming memory

We stare at the same stars
Every time
I can feel your bodies heat
Warming up mine

Lavender tea
Reminds me
Of the memories
We keep and will keep
Lying deep
Within our eyes
And thoughtfully
Staring at the stars.

you came to me at a time in my life
when i needed it the most,
for it was literal life or death,
though neither of us
really knew that then.
i didn't know what hit me until later on,
when you mailed me your journal and trusted me
with the deepest darkest terrifyingly beautiful parts
of you. when i gave you endless warnings about how
difficult i am to have around and you put your hands
in the air and said
i don't care. i love you. i'm choosing to stay.
it was like i was waiting all my life to have someone
say those words and actually mean them.
you meant them.
i have, to this day, never met anyone
so completely compassionate, sensitive, intriguing, magnetic, inspiring,
funny, self aware, hopeful, wise, intelligent,
unconditionally loving, and forgiving
as you.
i often find it difficult to write
about you because i become so frustrated when
i attempt to come up with the right words
to accurately capture
how much i love you.
let me just say: there are no words for this.
words words words
i need words to describe
how everlastingly thankful i am to have met you,
how you have taught me more about what it means
to be a woman than my own mother,
how God heals me through your love and undying
support.
how i've regained so much of my self worth by having you
around, reminding me who i am
and how important it is to remember who you are,
each and every day.
this is not like any other love i have ever known.
this is pure,
this is real,
this is rare.
distance is the only thing that separates us,
but even that fails to keep us apart.
i miss you i miss you i miss you
i love you i love you i love you
you are the most precious creature i have ever
had the privilege to know.
*i will see you soon, love.

you spoke of romance as if it were a disease.
you treated poems like pick up lines.
you said there was no point in writing anything if the writer
did not have an audience.
you asked me who my audience was,
and as soon as i answered your question,
i stopped writing.
it's easy to stop writing about someone once they begin
expecting you to.
i still think part of me was wrong, but most of me was right.
there is a point to writing beyond having
someone who will read it.
it is a desperate demanding kind of feeling
that wishes to remain
anonymous.

twenty one and burned out
like a cup over a candle.
"you're so young, you're too young,
you're too young to even realize how young you are."
he said to me before i went home the other night.
i laughed and tried to believe him, while trying to laugh in a way
that would display the many lives that lay within me.
i wish the world would start noticing
how looks are deceiving and hearts are receding and bodies are forgiving.
i've spent too much time living the lives of the ghosts that haunt me.
i'm exhausted from moving out and moving in,
trying different lives on like clothes that don't fit -
peering into the lives of other girls who tell me
that they are addicted to feeling accomplished and not
defeated, while i nod in silence,
then spend the entire night awake, wondering
what they mean.
i've dreamt up a million ways you could have said goodbye.
i've spent two years in the waiting room of hope,
only to be called into the office of indifference,
which happens every time i show up
to my appointments with forgiveness.
i'm still waiting to meet him.
but it's alright, my name will come up on the list
of names soon.
it's all over now and i've grown into being glad.
i learned patience the way i learned to walk.
sometimes i miss it, the way the sadness was a lifestyle,
but novelties become exhausting and boring and
so overly dramatic and annoying.
i'm still frustrated, you know.
even though i make it look easy.
being pretty is like putting on a movie you have no
intention of paying attention to.
it's easy and i don't care.
by saying that, i mean i don't need you,
the way you think i look like i do.
what i'm trying to say is, i still love you
even though admitting mistakes is not
something humans brag about very often.

i inherited an entire library
full of books that offer explanations
as to why you are incapable of loving me.

the romance section was laughable,
giving me bullet point commentaries
as to why i am doomed to never
be loved or feel loved again,
reasons why i settle for beautiful boys who
enjoy my company because i'm quirky, cute, time killer material,
not anchored, solid, strong, soulmate material.
but that's just it, i guess, no one can deny it-
(everyone knows when they are in the presence of precariousness.)

the mystery section offered me nothing but
a full buffet  of questions i already had,
questions that always seemed to give clues to future answers,
delicious questions that tasted sweet at first
then turned suddenly sour,
questions that made me understand the meaning
of a deceptive cadence.
(these books made me wish i didn't leave fingerprints
on everything i touch.)

the fiction section made me feel like a child again,
these were the books that reminded me why hope
is and has always been my favourite bedtime snack.
(these were the books that reminded me that just
because i couldn't make you love me did not mean
that i couldn't make believe you love me.)
since i've stepped out of my fins every step has made me wish
for the courage to throw myself into the sea,
to dissolve in an instant,
to be a daughter of the air forevermore.
(perhaps Hans Christian Anderson was the only person in the world
who knew just how much it hurts to be a human being.)

the self help section gave the illusion of answers,
the way a fortune teller with a foreign accent
doused in flattery and jewelry might seem.
i have spent hours of my existence with these books,
laying on my stomach, furrowed brow, fingers turning white
from clutching the ballpoint pen for dear life thinking
maybe if i just keep
underliningunderliningunderlining
things will start to make sense again.
(because, don't you know? the more you underline
the parts of your life that are relevant on paper,
the closer you are to having figured out your life so perfectly
you eventually will walk by these books wondering
which unfortunate person you should donate them to.)

i inherited an entire library
full of books that offer explanations
as to why you are incapable of loving me.
i think maybe there are some things
that we are never meant
to know.

How do you write with a heart that's not broken?
Surely there are people who know something I don't
Then again, why would you write with one that is?

I can talk about how lovely the weather is
How bright the sun is shining through the irresistible colors in the sky
How they remind me of sherbet ice cream in all flavors...

But before I know it, I find myself reminded of my daddy again
And how he used to buy tubs of it and eat it like it would certainly expire tomorrow

I can still see him eating it in the living room
With the tv on, at around 3 AM

I guess I can thank him for my sleeping habits
And my never ending love for sherbet ice cream