you're not doing well
with skin like bed sheets
ebbing tides in your forehead
and the malady that keeps your mind guessing,

these next six nights
of not having to feel
so alone will make you
fall back into sleep
to grow roots.

i'll cut holes in the ozone
to put your heartache in

i'll walk you to the hospital,
i'll wait in a white room,
place your sad eyes in my drawers
until my hand breaks

the universe is twice as big as we think it is
and 'you are so important to me'
is easier to digest than
skipping heart beats

i miss you like a dart hits the iris of a bullseye,
or a train ticket screams 4:30 at 4:47,
and
i've fallen in love

you're the only one that made that idea
less devastating.

to the little girl
who sits by the tv screen,
watching encantadia—
lireo is where you belong,
your palms big enough
to hold the kingdoms of sapiro,
lireo, hathoria, and etheria in
your hands, keeping
the brilyantes of air, water, earth
and fire in the four chambers of
your heart to keep peace
in our world.
you are an amihan,
open to the truth of
an entirely different continent
coexisting with the mortal world
that you know,
never letting death keep you
from closing in on yourself
like an abandoned cathedral;
you are soft and gentle in
all the ways she tries to lead,
dangerous in the way
cassopeia's prophecy was fulfilled,
bringing the ruin of hathoria.
do not be afraid when
pirena comes, rage and
hade! hade! hade! against the beating
of the earth against your feet,
stealing the holy fire in your heart.
it will keep burning, arrows aimed
and the war won and you will
get it back.
you will get it back.
ilantre ivi e corre?
ilantre ivi hasne masne?
the people wonder.
you are a descendant of the
diwatas powerful and
almighty in the elements
of the world you hold close;
under your reign,
corre will return,
masne will start its journey.
kingdoms will be brought
to their knees.
you will never forget
the land where you came from
mingling with the magic
in your veins
you are one of many
a lot of things you can never compromise.

*ivi esna adelan e...

i'm in a car with a beautiful boy,
and i keep telling him that i love him,
so it hurts.
he thinks it's platonic, thinks that i
couldn't turn the entire world
upside down just to show him
how wrong he is.
it's been a week, he says.
(i know this, and i know it hurts, so i
hold his hand except i don't,
not really,
because it all happens in my head)
i tell him, i know, i'm sorry.
and it feels like my hands are on fire
because all i want is to hold him;
i see the ashes leave traces everywhere:
on his face, on his hands, his arms,
his heart.
i blink and it's all gone.
i'm back in the car with the beautiful boy.
he reaches out and holds my hand
and my ribcage expands;
for once in my life,
this is something i cannot find a name for.

you expect moving on to become an achievement.
i didn't know.
three years of absence to forget the better part of two years.
it had nothing left for me.

they slip away like a ghost.
why do people come back then? when are we supposed to totally let go?
i felt like this empty place i no longer get along with.
(i could say we're alright. probably.)
i burn down to forget about you and there is no way to go back.

my boy's got sunshine in his hair
and his mouth can rap pretty verses
he's looking up at the same sky
he's speaking in an entirely
different language but i can
understand how happy he is
his sharp canine smile
crooked in the light
his laugh is a lullaby i use
to sing myself to sleep
my boy's got galaxies in
his eyes and i still wonder
why i love the stars
my boy is a golden boy
and half of me
cannot compare to
half of what he is
someone once asked me
what i would love
about him if i
was given the chance
i pointed at his heart -
*"this, and so much more."

note to self: you're normal.
it doesn't matter if you like girls,
or if you make stupid ****** decisions.
you're a human being. it's okay.

note to self: stop jumping to conclusions.
you're not a mind reader. sometimes
you're just looking for ways to hate yourself.
you're just fine, don't worry about it.

note to self: don't rush things.
you'll get better at your own pace.
you don't do things that quickly and that's okay.
these things take time.

note to self: things will get better.
as diana goodman from next to normal said,
"you don't have to be happy at all
to be happy you're alive."

i'm wearing a yellow sweater with the sleeves pushed up and it's cold it's dark and i can't find you where are you
there are stripes on my arm and it's dark it's dark i can't see my eyelids are so heavy and
i can't stay
is carved on the floorboards and i hear yelling and maybe that's you?
it's you it's you why are you yelling? darling don't yell i'm fine except i can only see red and gold and red,
so much red
and i can feel your arms around me and you're carrying me why are you carrying me
where are we going
why is everything so white all i can see is white where are we?
now i'm sitting upright and i can see and you're crying
(why are you crying? stop crying)
and i try to speak but the words stick to the roof of my mouth like a bad memory
i can't move i hurt everywhere i want to move why can't i do this
why do i do everything wrong i can't even die right what's wrong with me
i'm wrong wrong wrong like an answer someone tried to erase but couldn't quite get it done
i'm a failure why are you still here
i yell at you and it's a mess and you still stay and why aren't you giving up on me?
baby it's not worth it, you should go
and i get better and you're smiling and i don't understand why haven't you left?
stop wasting your time on me, go be an actress or something
but you get me in your car and you drive me home and you stay with me and my house is so clean
it's so clean how did it get so clean?
and you stay and you're always there and i keep crying and you just hold me
now i'm scared that you'll leave even though i deserve it but please don't leave
i see you and you're so beautiful what did i do to deserve this?

[to: E] hi, i love you

and you're smiling and you kiss me and why?
you're kissing me and i'm still scared that you'll leave so i kiss you back
and you're smiling, mon ange. even i'm smiling.

[from: E] hi, i love you too
[from: E] please stay

no one taught me
how to love
without the mandatory
'i love you's, without
fabricated appreciation
just because everyone else
was doing it,
no one taught me
the rawness of it all
how the feeling
consumes you like
fire and makes you
speak in a language
you never knew
you could speak

no one taught me
how to express myself
in ways that don't
slip between people's
fingers like water,
with palms up
heart cut out and bleeding
every pad and print
facing the earth
each vulnerability visible
from the stars

no one taught me
how to keep my emotions
running like a broken tap
because for years
i'd switch it off
once i thought i was done
dealing with them
and afterwards i'd never
want to run my hands
through the water
ever again because
i was scared to feel

no one taught me
how to love how
to express myself
how to feel
that once i loved
i burned like rome
i loved people more
than they would ever
love me, i'd always
love them too much and
once i learned how
to be vulnerable i
ended up tearing my heart out
and giving it to the
first person that
would listen
once i learned how
to feel i felt
too much to the point
of drowning my hands
rubbed raw from
running through
the water one too many times

no one taught me
how to live in greys
so i live in
blacks and whites
all or nothing
too much or too little
a constant push and pull -
i just want to be whole.

i just want to be whole.

remind me of what i used to love
remind me that i still do
remind me that i always will
your fingerprints
forever on my ribs
residing in the place between
hurt and comfort

remind me that you don't
remind me that i'm no longer
part of you
remind me that i never was
that you were never ready
that i was never meant for the long run

(i am terrified of living in
your memories as someone
you learned to hate
that what you choose to keep
fuels the fire of why you left)

sometimes i find you at the bottom of wine bottles
sometimes i see you when i close my eyes
(even behind my eyelids you burn so brightly)

i'd say sorry but you wouldn't hear me
(do you ever?)
so i yell "what's the point?"
and you look at me
right
at me
and i don't need your pitying pity eyes
stop looking at me that way
i will never deserve that type of attention

someday we will stand at the ruins
and you will hold the charred remains in your hands
and you will tell me
"there is nothing in life that isn't
worth saving."

i wanted to hold you,
to touch you,
to make everything better;
to tell you i love you
over and over
like a broken record
if only you could allow me

'make everything better', i said.
if only i'd had realized -
you burn when you touch the sun.

i burn myself down to cleanse my sins
i burn myself down to accept it
all's fair in love and war, and anyway,
it is not myself i love, but this war
is waged on my insides.

there's a sort of drowning here –
drowning in sadness, anger, regret,
drowning–in–whatever. i guess.

something like dante's inferno:
nine circles of hell, but this
is all me.
nine circles of all my failures,
one for each piece
of worthlessness possible.

there's nothing in here.
stop looking.

i wish i told you
(that it's not your fault, it never was your fault in all the ways you told yourself to stay i know you thought about my happiness every single time)

i wish i knew better
(than to do what i did, than to take it out on you as if it wasn't my problem but yours, as if i was the victim and i did nothing wrong)

i wish i never held you back
(never tried to keep you to myself, but i realized too late when you left that i wasn't loving you the way i was supposed to, that i became the kind of lover i told myself i wouldn't become)

(could have, should have)
darling when will you realize
that you cannot own time
that you can set clocks but
you can't control the rate
at which the arms will move
that time is not of this earth
that time never listens to anybody
it is its own mistress
time
doesn't want anything to do
with us and yet it's the most
important thing we have
time
carved itself into the velvet
of the universe
and made a home for itself
time
always seems to morph
into someone you love -
there's always the right time
always not enough time
always time and time and time
again
(could have, should have)
my darling time
is the repetition of the seasons
how everything changes but is
still the same
how we seem to stretch into our bones
but still feel how we did
my darling
time
sinks its teeth into our
could haves and should haves
feeding off the things
we wish we did
the things we wish
we could do differently
time
becomes our enemy
until we realize
that although it
will never listen to us
it will let us in
if we just let it.

this letter is under my copy of a tale of two cities that you love so much.
([to: E] hey.)
there are days where i am nobody. there are days where i am the person you know.
there are days where we don't talk.
there are days where we talk and i talk too much and you tell me you never want to see me again.
i say, okay.
(okay okay okay okay okay ?)
it's the first time that i did leave. today marks the day i haven't seen you in two weeks.
today my kneecaps clank when i walk. i can't go to you because my kneecaps make too much noise and i don't want you to hear me.
i had a dream where you left. you never leave. it's always me.
but you left and you never came back and all i had was your sweater and your phone and a grave.
i woke up and i remembered that i left. it's been two weeks.
([from: E] hey.)
oh, look. it's you. hello, you.
it's me who left and yet it's you who came back.
you look sad.
(why are you sad? and i realized i said that out loud)
you say, you left me. i didn't mean it.
i say, it's okay. and, i'm sorry.
you say, okay.
(okay?)
and, i love you.
i say, i love you too.

your mouth is open, words
settling in your throat like
all those memories you’ve shared
and all those times you’ve thought
about him, and
nothing comes out. your
tongue is a home for all the
things unsaid and your ears
a shelter for all the things
unheard.
there is a black sky—
small lights prickle the velvet;
bones and flesh and blood lie
beneath it and he’s in your arms
and you’re home.
you wish he knew, you wish
he could just take your brain
your heart your entire being
so he knows it’s real so he knows
you love him.
and maybe, just for now
you forget about everything
that holds you back
and tell him how much you care
because his guitar strings
might as well be your heart
and it tugs, heavily;
as long as you’re together
you can do anything,
you love and live and everything
in between.
you’re with him and you
are a bird flying
because you know that
if you leave him, you’ll
still come back.

look into each other's eyes and count the galaxies in them. then remember that the universe constantly changes, and so do you.

i worship gorgeous petals
in seas and
you moaning

the bible says faith
is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen.
how strange and yet
magical it is for us
to believe and remember
in things we do not know
the way the three kings
believed the star would
bring them to the child Jesus
the way people used to believe
that the phases of the moon
meant life, death, and rebirth
symbolizing the way a woman's
womb would swell once they
bear a child
the way we hold onto history
as if we are witnesses of
every horror and heartbreak
remembering the lost souls
using what we had to find out
what we will have
faith is total trust
and surrender
knowing that the world
began with adam and eve
but not knowing how it
will end
for the moon
the stars
our history
can only tell us so much
and our faith
is the honey found in heaven
the conviction that someday it
will be all we taste

i believe
i believe
i believe