I remember the first time i knew i loved you. We were sitting on the stairs of a pool that didn't belong to us and you were smiling at me like you could see something good in me. The sun rebounded off of the water and made your eyes squint like they were trying to smile like your mouth was. But the first time i was allowed to tell you i loved you was the morning before school when you wrote a poem for me to tell me that you loved me. I didn't even get to read it all the way because i saw those three words before anything else and my face blushed like it was 100 degrees even though it was winter. I say that i was finally allowed to say it because i was afraid that if i said it first you would run away, because you were a dream that finally came true and you were my best friend, my savior, my first love, my whole world. We didn't see each other as often as we wanted, but that's how i knew i really loved you, because our relationship didn't require *** or physicality to complete it like every other relationship. We were terrified of life, but mostly i was terrified of you. The thought of you was so fragile that I was afraid of speaking your name out loud in fear that it might shatter. But your voice was like every soft hello ever said to me at once, and when you left it was like every shouted goodbye. I can still feel the curve of your giant hands over mine, making me feel like the smallest human being possible, but in a good way. You consumed me. I had never met a man that i loved with everything inside of me until i met you. I loved you until i was blue in the face and couldn't feel my lungs. You were the best thing that had ever happened to me. On new year's, i ran to you and you picked me up and spun me around like a sappy 80's movie that makes teenage girls cry. You kissed me and told me that you didn't care if the world ended in 2012, as long as you had me. But then we grew apart, which was ironic because we wanted to be with each other so bad that we couldn't stand each other anymore. I loved you for a long time after that. I thought that we would spend the rest of our lives together, you saved my life and i tried to save yours and it was me who got you help that December. I thought that maybe you would be my first everything but i guess that won't happen. We've both changed and a lot has happened since then, but I still love you but in a different way now. Tonight made me remember what it was like to be your best friend again. My face still blushed and i didn't stop smiling one bit and it was nice to hold you again, even if it was just for a second. I missed your laugh, that was always one of my favourite things about you because the creases of your eyes wrinkled together and you smiled with your whole face, not just your mouth. But i missed the way you said my name, it always sounded safe in your voice. You make me feel safe. Thank you for teaching me how not to drown.

I met a man
who found monsters in the mirror
rather than himself
and for the first time
i felt as if i could give everything
and hold back at the same time
and this man would understand.
There was no pressure,
no expectations,
just time and patience and comprehension
that verbal confirmation of demons
was the only thing that made sense to us.
I have only known this man
for days
but his soul says years.
I have this weird theory
that some people are drawn to each other
because their atoms were near each other
when the universe was created.
Now, i am uncertain if this pertains
to him and i
but his friendship comes easy
and his words even easier.
I've told him about struggling
and how i am expected to be strong
but he told me
we can't all be strong forever.
Not even Atlas carried the weight of the heavens
for all eternity.

Bodies were galloping around,
almost forced to breathe in the other's
carbon dioxide due to close proximity.
Mouths were salivating
at the thought of another drink,
another boy,
another girl,
another blunt.
You could smell the stench
of body odor and drugs
throughout every corner of this house
that belonged to a girl whose face
and name i did not know
nor was i cohesive enough to remember even if i did.
In mid thought i felt strong hands
grip my hips and turn me
in the direction of the stairs.
"I'll get you out of here"
the voice said but i wasn't sure
if i had asked to be saved.
The 75% proof ***** in my blood stream
reassured me that it was a friend
not foe
so i let the hands guide me
through the house
up the stairs
through the door
in the bed.
The face i saw was no friend
no foe
just stranger.
Rough stranger,
tough stranger,
my way or your dead stranger.
Tall stranger,
too strong stranger,
i don't care if this isn't what you want stranger.
Forceful stranger,
stealing stranger,
tell anyone and i'll deny it stranger.

They describe in text books
how women should protect themselves
by kicking and screaming and punching,
but they didn't write about
how i wouldn't even try to fight,
how he would spit on me after he was done like a pile of trash,
how i would repeat the word "no" until it was worthless.
I started guessing names
because I wanted to put a name to the hands that defiled me.
Michael, Jacob, Aaron, Eric, Ryan, Brian,
****** bag, *******, *******
*******
*******.

He left me screaming into nothing
because the music was too loud for anyone to hear me.
I yelled at him
I'M SEVENTEEN
I'M SEVENTEEN
I'M SEVENTEEN
Maybe he thought that's what my name was
because he never bothered to ask.

I was Seventeen, but to him I was Consensual.

You have wrinkles at all the creases of your appendages, which gives me no other choice but to believe that angels were the ones to sew on your extremities. They took thread made of silk and carefully attached your body parts together, one by one. With one small kiss from above, the silk dissolved into your skin and the scars turned into wrinkles that i would someday memorize with my eyes closed. Not only did the heaven's create every inch of your body, but your soul as well. You're constantly telling me that old souls are common among those whose bodies look worn in close proximity. But in close proximity, i can't help but see lines of life, not death. You see tire tracks and old skin, but i see footprints in the sand and a body reborn. You see muddy brown pools inside of pure white, but i see a coconut cracked open to let the milk absorb into your body and maybe that's why you melt in my hands. Your voice is like the sound of every hello ever said to me at once. When you sing to me, i hear every soft "goodnight". I would always tell you to not let the bed bugs bite, and if they did, bite them back. But your teeth could never harm a being so vulnerable standing right in front of them, which is why i never bled because of you. I only received tiny black and blue marks on the soft flesh that connects my neck to my shoulder. When i sighed your name, my mouth tasted unworthy and frightened that if i spoke too loudly you might shatter. The thought of you is so fragile and intoxicating that i am consumed by you for hours even after you're gone, wondering if you're safe and tucked in your bed or if you're tucked inside of somebody else's. When i spoke to you, sunflowers sprouted from my tongue just so i could trap my words in something tangible enough to give to you by the handful. But mostly, i swallowed my words along with my pride and sunflower seeds that rooted into my spine. If you're quiet enough you can hear the stems snapping with all the pressure.

When I remember that angels created you, it also dawns on me that you must have fallen from the heavens. There is only two explanations that i could possibly think of for this: 1. You slipped out because you saw that i needed help. Because that is what we do, that is what humans do, they stay alive for each other. 2. You are the devil in disguise. I have to remember not to trust you because the devil was once an angel too. He was the most beautiful angel of all. And i can't help but think, as you lay in front of me with nothing but your grey bed sheets and a smile on your face, you are the most beautiful, astounding angel i have ever met; and i can't help but fear that underneath the hairpin curl of your lips is the devil's tongue.

I can see it now, I was in 4th grade and we were all saying the pledge of allegiance with our hands over our hearts. "One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all." I always thought it was "invisible". One nation, under God, invisible. It suddenly turned our nation into a superhero with the sickest super power ever, invisibility. Our nation was leaping over buildings and fighting crime in the moonlight with a bad *** sidekick named God.
One nation, under God, invisible. That's what i have become to this sidekick, invisible. I subsequently have fallen victim to the rare oddity that is my brain and finally realized that God doesn't even know who i am. Suddenly, this nation was not jumping over tall buildings, it was blocking the sunlight and causing an eclipse.
One nation, under God, invisible. I am invisible in this darkness of the night. But i searched for the moon relentlessly, knowing that it was my only chance of finding my way out of here. And once i found it, i held it in my arms, cradled it like a sleeping baby and careful not to wake it up because once it awakens it must escape to the sky and will no longer be mine. But to no avail, the moon was awake and whispered to me, "Dear child, did you really think you could escape God?"

You told me you were ready, that this was not a huge deal to you. I had been waiting a long time for this to happen and you told me you were ready, so i believed you until i stepped one foot in the door and i could see the fear deep inside your corneas. That fear has been resonating there for the past few days, knowing that you had lied to, not only yourself, but me as well. You were not ready for this but you told me otherwise. So i took you out to dinner and you did not eat your food, you even had the audacity to tell me that i was making you nauseous, that you were holding back *****. So i told you that if you were that scared i would just go home but you insisted that i stayed. We drove back to your house and i laid on your couch and you cuddled up next to me. I knew in my head that you were not ready so i did not try anything. I wrapped my arms around you and we watched the movie together. But at the last second, before i left, you kissed me. And all hell broke loose after that. I felt as if i stole you away from your body, stole you away from the things that you are comfortable with. I felt guilty and angry that I was the one you chose to be your first. You were not ready for this and i could feel your body trembling underneath of me as if in agreement to what i was thinking but i let it happen anyway. And if there was any way that i could reverse what happened and never meet you in the first place, i would do it in a heartbeat. i broke your heart and i was your first. I think i'm more broken about this than you are. But the thing was, you never really kissed me. You did this because you were afraid to lose me. As if giving yourself to me was a form of glue, that if our skin touched together we would become inseparable but that is not how this works. You kissed your fear instead of me.