I wish I was beautiful,
with  diamonds in my eyes,
and flowers in my hair.

I wish I was sweet,
like the scent of subtle lavender,
and cherries on my lips.

I wish I was delicate,
like watercolor stained glass,
and you, holding me like I might
flutter away any second.

I wish I was lovely,
with my heart on my sleeve,
and adoration on my face.

I wish I was graspable,
like something soft to get you by,
yet something hard enough
so you'd never say goodbye.

I wish I was beautiful,
with light pink fingertips,
and a smile on my face.

I wish I could identify,
with all the words you call me.
But I am not as pretty or,
as fragile, or as lovely,
as you say I can be.

I didn't lose myself in the second grade,
when I fell and scraped both my knees on the sidewalk.
I didn't lose myself when my parents forced me
to wear a pink dress on my birthday.

I didn't even lose myself when
my mother decided I wasn't good enough for her,
or when my friends had decided that I wasn't
as cool as they once thought I was.

I didn't forget who I was when I
hid behind makeup and cut all my hair,
or when my classmates all told me
I was ugly and weird.

I didn't pretend I was someone else
when I knew I didn't fit in.
I wouldn't dare to change myself when
people decided they wouldn't be my friend.

I didn't lose myself when
I found out things are harder than I thought,
and I'm not as good as they said I was.

I didn't lose myself
until I lost you.

Tap, tap, tap.
These repetitive little things
repeatedly annoy me.
They tap and tap and tap,
and my blood begins to boil.

Tap, tap, tap.
It's like it echos in my head,
like whispers that emit
in a room that makes no noise.
And I am tired of the-
tap, tap, tap.
It drives me crazy, and,
i cannot control it.
I have a problem,
with authority.
I don't like to be controlled.
And when the tap comes tapping back,
I cannot sit at all.
It stirs me like a coffee cup and
throws me like a switch.
It's like a faulty bungee jump
or a clock that only ticks.
TAP TAP TAP.
It's only getting worse.
I contract, with the-
tap tap tap*-
and I can't control myself.
So stop the tap, tap, tap,
or maybe I'll stop it for you.
Because once the demons rise in me,
the anxiety builds a wall,
and it won't control the things I'd wish to do at all.

I think you've covered up your sadness with
fancy perfume and that red lipstick you bought
in the 7th grade.

I think you erase each aspect of your personality
with cover-up and golden bangles,
and something else you read on the cover of
Cosmopolitan while you were waiting in line
at the grocery store.

I know you exiled every person who meant the
world to you because they began to know too much,
like how many times you brush your teeth a day
and what you pray for before you go to sleep.

You think I don't notice the way you look away
when you're surrounded by all your friends
and they're talking and laughing,
and you're "happy."

I think you smeared your red lipstick on
purpose because you knew I'd feel
too bad to leave you on your own
and I'd try to save you again.

Instead I wrote you a letter,
about why I think you're different,
and I taped it to your front door
and wrote your name on the front so only you would read.

So put on your red lipstick,
and gloss up your eyes again
because I am afraid you might be breaking,
and at least at one time those
very things held you
together.

I cannot make decisions on my own.
I feed myself the comments of the people
who surround me, and make their thoughts
my own.

Life seems like a boardgame,
with way too many choices.
But I cannot make these choices,
for myself.

The color of my hair,
and the way my laces are tied,
do not reflect the way I may
want things to be.

I cannot choose
anything.
For myself, that is.

I let people mold me,
and form me,
and push their feelings on me.

I feel bad.
When people don't agree with me
I feel like I let them down.
I hate to disappoint
anyone,
but
I always disappoint myself.

I want to watch Sci Fi movies
in the dark, and eat raspberries
off my fingertips,
and drown myself in red velvet cake.

I want to listen to that song you played me
last week because you said it
reminded you of me,
and that I was so very special.

I want to make your famous
'everything-but-the-kitchen-sink' sundaes,
at 3 in the morning,
and watch horrible 80s horror movies.

I want to write down every reason
why I think you're so lovely,
and hide them in your house,
so when you find them,
you think of me,
and you're okay.

I want to watch you play guitar,
and make paper airplanes out of
sheet music,
because you are far too restless
to stay put all day.

I want to hold your hand,
and leave lipstick on your cheek,
and laugh at that silly joke
you told (again).

I want to draw you pictures,
and drink coffee in the dark;
eat ice cream in the Winter time,
and read the ending, before,
the start.

I want to send you roses,
and find one way to define love.
I don't know if I know it,
but I know one thing for sure,
that if and when I do,
I might only find it, with
you.

I've stayed up passed my bedtime
writing words that don't make sense,
then I wrote again until my words fell flat,
tell me now, am I a writer yet?

I bled words onto paper,
and made rhymes from old news print,
then I lost my train of thought til 4am.
Tell me, anyone, am I a writer yet?

I wrote poems on the ferry,
for the boy who played guitar,
About a girl with too wide eyes,
and her lips all red like cherries.
Someone tell  me, am I a writer yet?

I read the words sewn to my chest,
and marked all my feelings in henna,
collected my thoughts like a novel,
and hummed every word to a beat.
It'd be a shame to say I wasn't a writer yet.

I read novels and sonnets,
from Shakespeare and Poe,
hoping that something would show me the road.
Tell me, please, am I a writer yet?

There is cursive on my forearm,
a few pretty little words.
A few tearful eyes at the sight of my words,
and a smile to accompany them too.

Perhaps I can answer for myself now,
and my words might shine a little brighter.
It was silly for me to ever doubt;
I always knew I'd be a writer.

At times I feel I've lost my way,
I evanesce like dreams at wake.
The memories resonate with tears,
as I clash myself with all my fears.

Lost and gone; drifting away,
troubled waves crashing down on me.
The time, the pain, still I can't breathe.
Lost and gone; now lost at sea.

My anchor now, where have you gone?
You held me tight, you felt so strong.
The steadiness that I need now,
I see you're gone, nowhere found.

So I drift about, and I float my own,
trying my hardest to find my way home.
But the ocean gets so cold at night,
I need you here, I need your light.

Just as my hope began to fall,
I see it in the distance now, standing bright and tall.

The light is overbearing, but I finally found my shore.
You were always here to guide me by, I was never on my own.
Lighthouse lead me home.

Nobody understands;
no one really gets it.
"Oh, but,
I really understand."
A little scripted line, they say,
to keep all the sympathy away.

No one comprehends it;
you don't understand the smothered feeling.

I loathe what my fingers touch,
I hold my heart in contempt.
I realize these things spread like vines,
from my finger tips, to my arms,
and sinks in my eyes.

Its only slowly consuming,
the color I hold to my skin.
A little pretty poison that
taints my whole, from within.

I've seen an empty river,
and I've seen a draining sea.
I could doodle each little feeling,
to help you understand,
but such liars don't get it,
they push my deeper in the sand.

"Oh, just forget it.
Don't be like that."
Such people don't understand.
That's whats mad.
That people can lie,
and fool you like thieves.
But I could never lie, like that,
I am not like you.

Please, don't try to get me.
Don't try to understand.

I didn't even notice
the tears in my arms and legs,
because there wasn't one through my chest,
or through my paper heart.

The little slashes were endless,
but I ignored them all I could.
Tears in fabrics and laces are
easy to repair,
and I'll patch myself up quickly.

I changed my wear like paper clips,
and pulled all the tape from my hair.
I promised I'd keep it safe, still,
I tried to pretend I didn't care.

Crimple me,
and tear me.
Stash me in a frame.
Make me pleasing to appear,
and very nice to see.

Paint me like a china doll;
pour me in a vase.
I can be just as lovely as,
you'd dress me up to be.

But in the wind I falter,
and the water washes me away.
I may be 'nice' to look at,
but it'll never stay.

There was once a girl
who thought words were
only ideas,
and that music was
only noise.

She spent long hours
thinking,
and trying to draw
hearts for the boys
she passed on the train.

They only stared at her
with empty eyes
and scars on their lips
from the cigarettes
and told her the drawings
were silly.

She rubbed salt on her cheecks
and threw away the
drawings.
She thought they were inadequette,
like she wasn't
good
enough.

She painted checkers
on her fingernails,
and threw away her pencils.
She didn't take the train anymore,
and she made herself
happy.

Her fingertips were bruised,
and her ribs were lined with dust.
Beneath the bones, all but crushed,
lays a heart, broken but blushed.

Her eyes were left with tears,
that not all happiness was real.
She would bend and snap,
if, it was all still black.

Her lips were laced with blood,
and her teeth were spilling lies.
He didn't care for how she was,
he left her own her own.

"It can be my fault."
was her favorite lie.
It was down on her hand,
it was under her eye.

It was like a hurricane,
steadily growing worse.
How could such a good girl
be burdened with a curse?

She's waiting for a statue.
That is not the way.
She's crying on the staircase.
That is not the way.

Her collar is warn and breaking,
her elbow holds a crack.
She pretends not to notice,
that she's drowned in blue
and black.

She pretends she isn't falling.
That is not the way.
She's telling her friends she's okay.
That is not the way.

She wipes off her mascara
and the lines all down her cheeks.
This is not the way.

II.

She cleaned up the coffee table
and the rips in the brand new couch.
She watered the flowers he bought her,
but made sure nobody knew.

"That is not the way."
he said,
but she only shook her head.

She always said she didn't notice,
the darkness on her back.
She was sick of hearing,
what might be the way.

Her friends said she seemed
different,
because she didn't call them
on Saturday night anymore.
Why?

"Listen, this isn't the way."
he said it again like
suddenly she might hear him.

"It's all okay."
"You don't understand."
"This is the way."

He didn't take it and
instead he packed her bags.
He said he couldn't take it,
he wouldn't let her sink.

He stole her like a story,
and told her someplace else.
He didn't let any darkness,
capture her with madness.

He swore that she was fragile;
she said that she was strong.
Never for once in her life,
did she ever might think she was
wrong.

III.

Somewhere in the papers,
was a name with a dark face.
When she saw the headline,
she tossed it off the stairs.

Her friends has lost their contact,
and her mother had worried her head.
She ignored all of the letters,
and bathed in the light instead.

She looked at him like dreaming,
and saw the light again.
She always overlooked it,
but it was always him.

He served her with a smile,
and held her pink finger tips.
She told  him she was sorry,
and that she should have trusted him.
But he told her to never
say that again.

I specialize in lies;
I have special lies.
I am an expert in falsities,
oh, isn't that the most lovely?

I can easily take words from
very empty minds,
but cannot put a word into
a mind as active as mine.

Stealing lines from empty air
is my favorite little talent.
I can form a pretty song,
when there's seemingly nothing there.

I can sew cloth on cloth to
create a bed of thoughts.
And petals on each flower
represents the colors in your eyes.

Yes, I am a professional liar,
but I supposed that I was a writer.

It might seem outlandish,
or perhaps, kinda sad-ish,
but I can lie with words
and make you feel the feelings,
of whatever I may create.

I had spent years in circles,
chasing things that do not exist.
I had dug through the dirt, finding nothing,
and had spent long hours in the rain.

I had dug several pin holes for growing,
but my seeds never did sprout.
I would cross all my fingers, then hold my breath,
but still I spotted no stems.

I had wept when the waiting grew longer.
Alone in the dark, was my least favorite place
and my flowers did not keep me company.

I had spent years holding onto nothing.
False fed hope was the source of my life.
The hope that I might see my flowers,
not the dirt, nor the weeds, nor the strife.

One day the rain had stopped falling,
so I tore all the thorns from my knees.
I hoped that maybe the silence,
might bring some life to my seeds.

By the time I had realized that
years had gone by,
I was lost in my garden and thoughts.

For years I had given all of myself
to those who did not give back.
They took all I had to give and
still did not love me back.

Plagued with the thought
I was taken for granted,
I lifted myself to my feet.
I could not stand the sight of something so lovely,
who did not see the same in me.

Just as I had decided,
I was leaving it all behind.
Something so soft and tender,
caught the corner of my eye.

In the back of my garden stood brightly,
a beautiful Daisy so tall.
A beautiful little flower,
who had seemed the loveliest of all.

I have never written a love song,
but, what if I did?
Would it  be a soft low melody?
Or a pop-like tune with a static key?

Would the lyrics flow, or make no sense?
Would I mention his name?
                                                -Please tell me it wouldn't be passed tense.

I think I'd make a note of, when or how,
we met.
Perhaps I'd even bring about what you said,
as if I could forget.

Now maybe if I wrote a love song,
it'd be something sweet and true.
But I highly doubt it,
it's something I couldn't do.

I don't mean to dwell on the opposite;
I bet love is as great as they say.
But I had always supposed that,
love was just not for me, and,
I'd be forced another way.

But perhaps a little spring of sudden thought
can be a revelation,
or perhaps a push to my step.

I never cared for rain nor wind,
but now these are my favorite things.
How could that be true?
I think I still hate the rain.

If I wrote a love song,
it'd probably be a farce.
I'd probably make up every line,
and make it sound so pretty.

But the truth is,
it's not pretty.
And it's not even so great.
To have this feeling that I hate.

So maybe I'll write a love song,
about not wanting to write that love song.
It might seem absurd, but it will be true.
I didn't want to write a long song about you.

Something
like thorns in
my ribcage,
I'm done.

Something
like bullets
resonate,
I'm gone.

And something
like worries
in my chest,
I can't.

I'm falling,
like raindrops,
or paper,
or steel.

I'm weak
and
I'm breaking.
I'm fragile,
I know.

Something
like falling
no bridges,
I'm gone.

I faded,
like paper,
like notebooks,
like songs.

I broke like
a mirror,
like tears in
old paper,
I'm broke.

Still fragile,
with hairlines,
and fractures,
so long.

Like something
still broken
with no chance'
at all.

Reflected in the silver
is my ghost of madness.
Lost in the etchings in copper
is the memories I have repressed.

I scratched the words in metal,
but it didn't change a thing.
Something made so permanent,
cannot be changed,
even with a cover or facade.

I threw the coins in the fountain,
but,
they were in my pocket the very next day.

It was change,
that I couldn't get rid of.

I made wishes on silver, and copper,
and even on the metal in my pockets,
and the gold in my earrings,
but they never came true.

Reflected in the silver,
is my madness that I suppress.
Painted dark in copper
are the faults I'd like to hide,
but I can't get rid of them,
and they're too much to carry.

There are flowers in my hair,
and a smile on his face.
Daisies are my favorites,
and he can't be replaced.

I lost my place the other day,
reading a book, and forgetting my name.
Then I remembered things were changing,
and I wanted to fall away.

I held his hand Sunday morning,
while he was half asleep, and,
I drowned my thoughts in iced coffee.

I felt the dew on my finger tips,
and the warmth floating in the air.
Daisies were growing around me,
and there was a smile on my face.

I held his locket in my palm,
and pulled petals off of flowers.
He loves me,
he loves me not.