Take a swim in my stream of consciousness and realize how cold it is, only dead fishes of forgiveness and diamonds nobody could fit into their rings.
You always ask how I am, never what I cry about.
If you’re a man of transparency, take off your clothes and dive into my heart, jump into my heart, leap into my heart.
I come with no strings attached and go the way I came, if you want me to stay then build me a dam and follow me upriver to keep me from the oceans.
Power me with rains, listen to me in the driest times and understand me, level with me, get to know me.
Just don’t ask if I’m fine.
I cry every time I remember that everyone I know will once die, I cry for them when they’re alive.
I lose people and then I lose me, it drives my thoughts to the beach and not because I wanna sun on the sand but go for a real long swim.
I don’t wanna get married out of fear of outliving my husband.
I would die,
if invested in something so immense and convoluted to lose it,
not gonna lie.
Last time I had everything I wanted was in middle school.
Half of my ex classmates are either married or parents.
And I’m over here afraid to get attached.
I watch the mandala spin through a translucent lens, I bought a puppy just a week after I lost my dog of 11 years.
Last time I saw him he was by the metal gate up front, half alive, I tried to try to alleviate his pain, and then he was gone.
I only cried when I was alone, because I had to be strong, I tried to alleviate my pain by drowning it out in a hot bathtub, but time mended me, it has all along.
I remember my great grandmother, I used to come over every day after preschool for a cookie and then I took my final bite.
I don’t know how I felt, but it was the real life baptism I feel I never had until March.
And what can I do other than watch the mandala spin?
I look out the public transport window and watch the fronts of houses pass in front of me in blur and it’s making me dizzy.
And then I remember my new year’s resolution and it terrifies me that it’s May already.
Last time I saw my friend she wasn’t even pregnant and now she’s a mother and the other I watched get erased from my routine like gusts of autumnal wind blowing at a pile of dead and fallen leaves.
Why do I feel accomplished that she broke up with her boyfriend, I used to care but now I’m a stranger.
I miss all of them, the dead, the alive, in fact I am not the same person as in middle school, not him from the San Gabe Motel 6 poolside and now I’m giving love a go, wasn’t that long ago, I’m so much different now.
At this rate I’ll be dead before I know it, but I’m only 20 and I can still make something out of what I have left.
I don’t know how to stop running, but I must’ve been enchanted or cursed to run and run and run until I’m done.
Peggy was 24 when she climbed up the Hollywood Sign and jumped.
That’s a way to go, I thought in my darkest times.
I come with no strings attached and go the way I came.
I love myself but not like I loved the people I ran away from.
I’ll open up my heart for you, make it livable, beautiful, capable.
Swim naked in my consciousness, surface of an arid planet and watch life bloom out of me.
I’m so ******* happy some days, but sometimes I catch myself thinking of beach days during stormy weather.
I can cherish who I love, no one’s gone forever.
I’m not gone forever.
Don’t ask if I’m happy, but act as if I’m not.
Hold me close enough so that I can’t run.
Make me feel irreplaceable for the first time ever.
Dive into my heart with no clothes whatsoever.
I pray to God to wrap a divine blanket over my people, I love them wholeheartedly, cause I can’t love another way.
If there’s a link between us, a string I can’t see or I’m unaware of, preserve it.
I say I go in and out of people’s lives unattached, I hope I’m dead wrong.
I may seem like I don’t but I care.
Angel, Felix, Leah - keep your eyes up.
Val, Rosemead, Petra - I wish you the best.
Gabe, Aaron, Charlie - may you live happily.
Ajay, Eric, Max - thank you for those years.
Jay, Lizzy, Steph - I’m forever grateful.
Barb, Annie, Hannah - know I’m doing great.
Tom, Dylan, Mexico - I remember you too.
Colleen, the guys, Caroline - I still love you.
Nina, Maggie, Martin - hope you’re smiling now.
Modern god, Zack, Alex - best of things in life.
Margaret, Vic, Sher - be happy forever.
Glo, Coyote, Court - move toward the better.
Ash, Alex, Jack - all the sweetest things.
Ellen, Alice, the fires - don’t go anywhere.
My family, my friends, my lovers.
I have you in my corner.

Daddy was a sailor, but I stuck to toy ships in the bathtub - and it’s only as far as I got into the deep waters.
I swam a flash of a lifetime and only as far as the watchful eye of the lighthouse could see.
Past that range I never set my anchor in, but that didn’t stop me from gazing ahead through my sextant’s cracked lens.
I ran my fingers across the nautical chart and all the bays were just circles I kept walking in the dark, but I threw wood into the hearth to keep myself from freezing.
I kept me warm when times got rough.
My home is like a port side, but there’s a nautical knot around my heart.
My quarters are in cobwebs and the door is boarded up.
I write so it’ll get better, but all a sailor says is lies.
How do I lose the great whites biting into the stern of my boat?
I didn’t want to sink.
So I headed back to the port.
Lord enlighten me and let my heart go on.

My hotheadedness I take after my grandfather and my softheartedness from Jesus himself.
I’m trying my best to be brave like my father but the wind and the waves and the deep waters, they scare me off.
I feel a little adventurous, but that’s a feeling that washes off, when the tides rise or lightning strikes or when I see another boat.
My heart is covered in nautical knots and I shoot flares into the sky, only so when I get heard I sail back to hide
in the cold navy naiveness.
Lord give me strength to be brave like them.

My old man upstairs, he loves to remind me of what I think I need.
14 dreams in, I need to make up my mind or start writing my will.
I try so hard to lose the great whites
to free my heart and have it go on like a tugboat of a drunken sailor fallen overboard.
My man one floor higher, he sometimes brings me to heights higher and higher.
He watches me sweat fighting fire with fire
but I can’t keep falling for someone new just to forget the one before him.
I’m quietly hoping
I’m quite nearly there
off the desired shore
of the Avalon Island.
My father was a sailor, but he threw in the towel for a reason I don’t know, I played with wooden ships in the four walls of my home.
I never sailed so far off that land merged into sky and everything was blue, the sea, the skies and I.
So lord enlighten me and say how long to wait, divine me coordinates when it’s right.
Let my heart float away like a letter in a bottle thrown astray to that one person a billion waves away.
Avalon is an island far away, but distance is a made up thing.
It doesn’t matter if I’ll have you here, cause in heaven I’ll have everything.

The sound of glass smashing is a pang to the ears, but I’ve learned real beauty comes from broken things.

Drip
I hear water in the gutter
One upside of a broken heart is that I can write, lose guys so I can write about them.
Slip.
Here they fall through my hands just like sand from beaches.
Might sacrifice one night, wake up with red bloodshot eyes, but this poem would be beautifully written.

Most never liked me, RIP.
I had my eyes on them, but they never looked at me.
Most I’ve never talked to, RIP.
He was my realest, but he turned out to be just another poem.

Drip
I hear rain on the windowsill
I guess the good thing is I had fun with him
Crack
I’m broken again
I’m smashed along the edges of my first shattering and that’s along the edges of extreme masochism
that I let my heart break to write this poem.
Drip
Water’s dripping off my face, I’m in the shower.

The view of glass breaking is painful for the eye to see, but now I know that real beauty comes from broken things.

Will this be my best year, best year?
I’m at the frontier of golf courses, where the sun is up and blinding and the hills are green.
Will the next one stay here, stay here?
Will he call me beautiful?
Will he not succumb to the spell of fairytales snapping in the soul?
If I find him I think I might stop being a poet, a poet.
Cause happiness didn’t bring me to my notepad.
If he wants, I’ll write him a poem,
but it would be pretty bad.
Cause I’m only good when I’m lonely, lonely.
I never said I love you to a man.
I never had a man say I love you to me, only that I was hot and he wanted to **** me.
But if I do I’ll find beauty in being with somebody else, but for now I think
that beauty comes from broken things, broken things.

I’m so ******* high on stardust, I inject glitter into my bloodstream.
I live in no fairytale and that a prince won’t find me is highly likely.
I only write stories about longing, after all that’s all I feel.
But I’m good with the pen, have a soul of a poet, I’m creative.
So I grab my calligraphy pen and I write your name in cursive, then I take one breath and write mine next to yours.
It’s an untitled story, an unpublished romance and I’m not sorry for any nuance woven into it.
I take his proposition.
Ask my everwishing soul to speak sweet compliments like someone playing the harp.
I polish my blue eyes like sapphires, let them sparkle in the glow of big round emeralds,
and that is the start.
That is the start.

Where do I continue, I wonder.
Friends first or lovers, I ponder.
For realism I’ll make it meander and weave in a couple of tears wet nights so when all the lights turn back at them, he would grow fonder and realize he loves him so much.
But my pen is just an object, I’m the object of some grand plan, I’d try to paint what I crave so bad, but even the greatest painters fail, cause love is hard.
Play my song, take a cruise under overpasses in West Oakland, California is home, but if he won’t come I think I won’t go.
And that is the draft.
That is the draft.

After many ripped out pages and grenadine flavored drinks, I can’t write the conclusion.
I don’t wanna be there yet
I don’t wanna skip past that
I don’t wanna climb that high
Cause if I fall, may not stand up.
I leave my calligraphy pen, shut the pages provisionally, then I get undressed and swim in the glittering stars.
And that is the ending for now.
That is the ending for now.

I was listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers when he texted me.
The time was a minute forty four on “**** My Kiss”.
He gave me the second best day of my life.
Second after my first night at San Gabriel Blvd.
And also the second cause it didn’t feel unreal.

On and on I’ve hushed my heart and day by day it wept in dark.
My lips felt heavier than metal to raise
to say what my heart wanted
but my head had all the say.
I was listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers and half a day away
to let my heart scream and yell and shout and say whatever the hell it’s been holding in for two decades.
That was the realest I’ve felt in my life.

I was thinking of letting my heart break a little when he texted me.
I was ready to just let myself run it into madness just to feel something.
I knew it would hurt
but pain is better than nothing.
On and on I’ve told myself to shut up and wait for someone to like me
cause I’m not likable when I’m trying
but I did something crazy
at the moment of writing this - 1:55, I don’t even trust the flow of my life anymore
I look for the catch, cause this is better than I’ve ever had.
Or maybe I’m a little lovesickly paranoid.
I hated to hope, hoped it would get better and I hated that though.
I made God a promise, if he gives, I’ll find the better in me and on and on I’ve watched them walk away, watch them vanish like smoke till one prayer away.
I almost tried to find a way
to find somebody to fill the gap - it was either that or I’d crush my numb heart in my hands, just to feel something, even if it was pain.

I’ve never shown a guy I like him until he texted me on minute 1:44
That number must mean something
like the date of the day that my very soul could see a light in that tunnel
and I think it’s divine providence that I walked through a tunnel that night
the night that my heart felt something other than pain and it was more beautiful than beautiful, it was perfect.
As of writing this poem, a day after the second best day of my life,
I don’t know where I’m going.
And I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I’ve never felt this real.
Here’s a note to future self, I don’t know how things will play out.
But I’m glad you …… .. ….
I’m glad you let him into your heart, even if you didn’t know if he wasn’t going to break it in half.
I don’t know yet if he ….. ...
What I know is I …. ….
I showed him that I …. ….
So future self, intact or not
Just know I’m curious to hear it
I hope you’re happier
I’m happy now
I finally opened up
I’m really proud.

A woman named Grace once said she was afraid to love and the same thing terrified me.
That I didn’t love myself I knew, but the thought if something grew around mine and someone else’s chests made me run and don’t look back.
I was afraid to love.
Scared to unveil my heart.
I was afraid of love.
I was…

I pushed 18 when they started asking, and I kept saying I was looking, but I wasn’t
and that was a white lie for them, but something larger for me.
It’s that I didn’t trust me.
I didn’t wanna change, but felt like I had to, cause when I saw myself I knew I wasn’t meant to hear “I love you”.
It’s one of those things easier said than heard.
I was afraid to try, mind at bedlam, hugging ferns.
Looking for comfort in the trees.
Discovering beautiful things.
I love the overgrown pond outback to name one, but that’s not the notion of it
It made me realize one thing:
Everything’s beautiful in its own peculiar way, and so am I.
I was terrified.
But now I’m like
I’ll give love a try.

A woman named Grace once said she ran from things she feared would **** her.
I was scared of riding horses like her,
let alone deliver my heart to a man.
I was scared but I’m fearless now.
I’m high on oxytocin now.
I was scared to open up like her,
to spread myself open like a book for him.
I was scared but I’m fearless now.
I’m drunk on his memories now.

And maybe it’s a bad thing.
Maybe I’m stupid again.
Or maybe this was destined,
destined to happen to me.
And maybe I was meant to open up.
Maybe I was meant to conquer my fear.
Or maybe I was on the right path,
one where love doesn’t scare me.

I was afraid but I’m not.
I was afraid but now I’m not.
I was afraid of love.
I was…

I’m your boyfriend, not your devotee
This ain’t a cult, this ain’t a church,
Your name’s not written over me.
I love you but you’re not my everything
cause when you’re down I lose the ground under my feet
the sinkholes spread, can’t fill the gaps, can’t but I need
and yeah, I’m falling too.
And who’s meant to save me then?
I need you, but you’re not everything I need
cause when it’s too hard to love you I can’t rest my head to sleep
when I close my eyes you’re the prettiest thing I see
but I love you to feel free
not wait for you to leave me,
cause I can’t commit anymore.
Not to look for a reason to leave you for someone easier to love
and it’s not cause I’m too afraid to start from scratch with a foreign guy.
I’m your boyfriend, not your attorney
I love you but you’re not all I think about.