To myself five years ago:

In five years, you will notice that your poetry has gone flat
because it has been too long since you last let yourself taste sadness.

Please, don’t try to hold back the power of the ocean in your eyes.

Let yourself panic, let yourself drown, let yourself scream until you choke on your frustration
so that when you finally resurface, the sunlight will look like God and the tidal waves nothing but a lullaby.

I’m not saying it gets better
I’m saying that it doesn’t matter.

Because in five years, you will realize that pain was the universe’s way of reminding you that you still wanted to live.

Do not run away like I did or become the corpse that I am.
I cringed away from love so many times I lost my nerve endings.

No, don’t follow in my footsteps.
Or else in five years, you’ll hate yourself for your apathy
and wish you cared enough to do more than just write a letter to your old self about it.

She's nuts, and I keep trying to remind you that you're allergic.

To the only one I still care about:
I have a confession that half of the world's population will condemn, and the other half will romanticize.

I still want to die.

And I hate myself for it. Because with all the willpower in my body, my only wish is that I could love you so much that thoughts of death would never cross my mind again.

But how do I tell you that the reason I don't text back sometimes is because I am drowning myself in loud music and studying and a hundred different clubs
Simply to get my brain as far as possible from the desire for oblivion.

How do I explain that I am running on caffeine-induced smiles and artificial adrenaline
Never stopping for a breath of air that my lungs don't want
And keeping my heart racing to hide the fact that all I want it to do is stop.

How do I reveal that it keeps me up all night, trying to figure out if my greatest fear is losing you or leaving you
And by morning, I am too exhausted to think of anything besides the promise of eternal sleep.

How do I say aloud that you are my world, but even gravity couldn't hold Icarus down when he wanted to fly,
And it's been getting harder and harder for me to keep my feet on the ground too.

How do I admit that I once thought there were monsters in my soul, but now I realize I am one,
And the ones in my veins are simply calling me home.

How do I confess that I have lost the last of my strength in this endless fight
Trying to keep you safe from the fact that I am the darkness and you are the light.

I wasn't lying when I told you I was fine
I really did believe it.

Because how could I not be?
With straight teeth hidden behind a mischievous smirk
And emeralds in your irises that burned through the shadows
Your features as fine any Greek hero's

But when you left
The sun seemed to shine a little brighter

Only when I looked back did I realize why
The replayed memories felt rough around the edges
The echoes of your words wickedly sharp
The remnants of your laugh ringing false in my ears

You had choked me with strings so fine I didn't realize you were suffocating me at all
​until your tired arms released me
and my lungs finally tasted the oxygen they hadn't known was missing

Love should be a contract.
After all, I have already signed away my soul to you
In the hopes that maybe one day
You'll learn to love me too

But it seems
That I am the only tied down
Not the other way around
As I reach desperately for your hand to hold
You brush it aside
Then toss me to the ground

I guess for now, I'll settle for a love unrequited

And though your empty smile will never be enough for me
That won't stop it from making my heart contract painfully.

Most people are good at stealing attention from a crowd
Or the key to someone’s heart
But all I have ever been good at taking
Is starlight, from the eyes of everyone who has ever loved me.

But she makes me want to be different
And though I know she would never want anything more than my smile
I would give her the world,
if it meant that when I left, she would still have more than all that I amounted to.

She says she sees a light in my soul
And even if I used to have night vision and only saw darkness in the debris,
for the first time, I’m beginning to believe her.

But candles are more dangerous than shadows
Just as false hope hurts more than harsh realities
And if it’s true that I am a flame leading her home,
I’m terrified of the certainty that one day, I will go out
And leave her more lost than when she had been on her own.

I never asked for a guardian angel, but I got the best one.