Your things have been bagged, sitting in my closet for nearly
three weeks
theres still the pictures
the polaroids of you
of us
easter with your mom
most days im fine without you

it doesnt mean i dont worry for you though
for how everything is changing for you
i hope you're doing alright
cause im not gonna ask
we decided its better that way right?

I am sun-kissed and I glow in the moonlight,
my eyes reflect like water,
and summer makes me speckle and freckle
and I crave rivers and mountains
and other things that make me beautiful.

I am long-legged like the spiders you hate,
my hair is red like roses and smells like springtime,
I am soft in a way you imagine clouds to be
and I no longer fear you or the dark.

I have grown out of sidewalk cracks,
I am a ******* garden and you can't step on me anymore.

I am too tall to be contained and too beautiful to be detained
and I will never again haunt myself with things I couldn't be.

I am too much to be too little and somewhere you always knew it.

So when you talk to me like you think I still love someone who made me believe I was just an ugly girl,
remember that there are flowers growing inside me,
and I washed the taste of your sharp tongue out of my mouth months ago.

I am an ocean with waves and depths and storms and beauty and there is so much to me that you will never get to see.

You were an anchor weighing me down confining me to one stark place of myself,

I am so much more than you ever saw, I finally know this now.

I had a dream that you wanted to **** me,
you told me you were going to drown me in the lake,
you were going to drive your car off the pier and we were going to die together.
I begged you not to do it,
I was terrified,
and trying to convince you that we could make us work,
you didn't have to do this.
Crying and screaming and trying to get out of your car but you wouldn't let me.

(I got the same feeling in my stomach that I got for our entire year long relationship)
(Like I was trapped and didn't know how to get away from you)

I woke up and I was so happy that I am still 900 miles away and that I never have to speak to you again.

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.

I never meant to hurt you,
I never wanted to hurt you,
and I'm sorry that I did.

Remember when I told you that people are messy?

I wanted to fall in love with you easy,
but you are not easy,
You are obsessions and rituals and raw skin and apologizes and I tried to keep you floating.
You were an anchor that I wasn't strong enough to lift.

You had soft skin and I loved the way you felt but you hated everything about yourself and couldn't even listen to me when I told you why I loved you.

And if there is one thing that I should know by now it's that you can't fix someone with just kisses.



I wanted to stay by your side but I am trying so hard to get out of my own murky waters and we were drowning each other.

I'm sorry for everything

Anger is ugly
i know this because of the way my father wore it
as the world wore down his patience
he yelled
his voice echoed through the house that my mother fought so hard to keep
working to support me
my baby sister
and his habit

his voice echos now through coridoors of my mind
in silence they follow
they hadn't been able to find me for quite some time
and yesterday they did

my father would break things
he would throw objects when they would not work
he would punch walls when my mother looked at him funny
or when he thought she did
he threw rocks through the windows
and there is still scattered glass on the floor of my heart

My father hit my mother
he grabbed her
he chased her and told her that she would never leave
she was with him
and he would find her
my mother never knew i watched all their fights from the roof of that old house
I don't think she ever will

i dont want to tell you the details, ive suppressed them well enough
but now you may understand
why i flinch when you reach for my hand

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.

Wow what a beautiful
supernova you will say
as I explode into dust