I know back roads and bonfires.
I know pine trees and rivers.
I know parking lots and cigarettes.
I know trailers and trailblazers.

The day I was born I was wrapped in dust,
it coated my skin and made me sneeze.
I was laid down on a bed of dust and my nose began to bleed, it hasn't stopped.

In school we'd throw a tennis ball against a wall, we'd run through the field, we didn't have swings, we didn't have a soccer ball.
We read from dusty books, we inhaled the words and dust alike.

In high school we drove fast down back roads. We drank beer and started a fire. We swam in the rivers and smoked doobies on the rocks.
These are the things I know.
I know this small town, I know the people in it, I know the trees and I know the back roads.
I don't know heartbreak.
I don't know alcoholism.
I don't know anything that is not covered in dust, I don't know anything beyond this valley.

Oceans ebb and flow,
as do I

Sometimes I think that I will drown here.

There are falling cliffs on the coast of California,
and I still don't know if there is a difference between sand and stone.

I used to say his name out loud when I was alone just to see if it still tasted the same.
It did.

There's things beneath tons of water that no one has ever seen.
There is no light to see them, anyways.

I'm the only one who has ever thought my eyes look like the ocean before a storm.

I don't own a record player but I have four records and I can't use your turntable anymore.

There's a little mailbox off Broad Street that serves as a sort of library. You can take books out and you can put books in.
Yesterday, directly across the street from the library there was a sign on front porch of a house that read "free" and there was a pile of belts and hats and other things.

I want you to write about me but you don't know me and all I know about you is that you're not happy with who you are and that you write and that you're beautiful and disgusting and I am all of these things as well.

My mother has been pulling her hair out; she is losing a custody battle for my little sister, she lost her job and is living off welfare. I'm working two jobs because she asked me not to eat the food in the house so I do enough drugs I don't want to eat and punk rock music is always softly playing from my room, I can't stand it any louder.

My shoes have holes in them.
My gas light has been on for two days.
And I am happy.
The end is never the end,
I won't bother wrapping this poem up because it is not over.

I saw you with her.
It seemed fast.
You seemed happy.

I used to write for fear of forgetting.
I stopped writing for fear of remembering.
Your arms loosening from around me
as you said final thoughts of us.
Your taillights trailing down the street.
Mirroring the floodgates from my eyes.

Now I have the typewriter you gave me.
An incessant reminder of all the words I never said.
All the words that are too late to make up for time lost.

I wrote to you anyway.

Without the intention of winning you.
Only hoping not to lose you,
the only person who could scare the **** out of me
and make me feel like I was floating
using one stupid look
that made me fall ceaselessly and unnervingly
in love with you.

I wanted you to know
that all of my convictions
that true love and fate
were just lies that are spoon-fed to us
so that we aren't starved by an empty life,
it all wavered when you smiled at me.

I want to tell you
that I used to never have dreams
and now you're in all of them.
Making reality that much harder.

Every letter was returned.

Back when the world was cold
and the rain came
almost every day

When flowers were soggy and
drowning
and we were eating the cupcakes your mother made
on your back porch at midnight.

When my world revolved around
"You look beautiful today"
Or
"By God you have the smallest hands I have ever seen"


(There was a lot of thunder and lightning in Nevada County last year because the climate just couldn't decide if it was
hot
or
cold)



My world was gray and damp
but in your passenger seat I convinced myself I loved the rain.

I dont love the rain.

California has been in a drought,
and we haven't spoken since Christmas.

I remember all your scars and blemishes
but I can't remember why I loved them.

I haven't worn my winter coat at all this year.

And I still hate the rain.

For my mother,
who told me when I was 4 and didn't know better
that I was beautiful,
and when I believed her.

She told me,
"You know,
women pay hundreds of dollars
for that strawberry blonde color
that you already have."

And I looked in the mirror,
and I believed it.

When I was
12 years old,
and angry at my reflection,
for not being
thinner and fuller,
for my skin not being clearer
and my hair not being longer.
and my mother telling me
that I was beautiful,
but I didn't believe her.

When I was 16
and crying,
because my there would never be
a gap between my thighs,
or a perfect curl
in my hair.

And my mother wiped my mascara stains
off my face
and told me
I was beautiful.

And I told her she was lying.

My mother,
who is beautiful.
Who gave me honey hair
and almond eyes.
Who gave me a garden of freckles,
and the softest skin.
How could I look at my mother,
and say I was not beautiful.

For my mother,
my grandmother,
my sister,
my cousins ,
my brother,
and everyone else in my blood,
who ever felt like they weren't beautiful,
I will tell myself that I am.

I am 19,
and I am so far from home,
that when I look in these different mirrors,
and I feel lost and scared,
and I feel like I am not beautiful,
I look to my mother,
my gorgeous mother,
who will tell me
I am beautiful.

And I finally believe her.

I am learning to love myself,
to love the skin I am in,
it is my home,
and I will not destroy
what my mother built me.

Today,
I wake up
and I look in the mirror,
and my mother doesn't even have to tell me
I am beautiful.

The water is always warmer than you expect it to be.

She taught me to shut the **** up and think. Think for a minute before I say something. Think for ten before I do something.

The grass may be greener over there but that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy the green grass you have over here.

She taught me how to treat others and how I deserve to be treated and how those aren't always in the same way.

You should always drive safely because people love you and they know you're seat belt is broken and it's not hard to keep in touch so stop getting high and text her back.

Today you turn 19,
and I often think about how much things have changed in one year.
These concrete 'remember the date' days make it easier to recall,
like how I felt on Christmas and New Years and Valentines day.
How last year we went out to sushi, I got you that Perma t-shirt, you and your brother took all of us bowling, and you wouldn't hold my hand when there were people around.

Today you turn 19,
And I remember feeling like a surrogate for you to **** your emptiness into.
I remember the constant nagging of not feeling good enough,
the self-loathing that plagued me through our entire relationship.
Hating other people who had never done anything to me just because they meant more to you than I ever would.


A lot has changed in a year.

Today, you turn 19
and I woke up in the arms of another,
and I woke up with a sleepy smile that lasted into morning, afternoon, and night.
I woke up with his name in my mouth and his lips on my shoulders
and I woke happy.

Today you turn 19,
and I can look in mirrors again
and I don't wake up wishing I was someone else
and I don't punish myself for things that aren't my fault
and I don't skip meals trying to look the way you wanted me too
and I don't hate myself anymore.

Today you turn 19,
and I didn't wish you a happy birthday.

I'm better now.
I'm healthy,
and happy,
and loved.
It's almost Spring.