share your favorite things with the temporary people in your life
staple your favorite songs to the foreheads of people you've known for two weeks
dance around in artificial lightning and touch them for as long as you can
take pictures with disposable cameras, pin them to cork-boards and write down their dates
scrawl their names in sharpie ink on your wall, ignore when your mother gets mad at you for it
watch your favorite movies with them
kiss them during your favorite part
write down the taste
write down what you hear
fill notebooks with their sentences
take their hand and lead them to your favorite places
count the blades of grass under you
record the rocks
the tree leaves
the sand
the hardwood floor
read them your favorite books
tell them your theories
match them to main characters and laugh when they try to imitate their dialect
read them your poetry
whisper your favorite words in their ear
pass them notes with your favorite lyrics
give them tastes of your favorite ice cream flavor
promise yourself not to forget their disgusted face
at your favorite weird food
smear the color yellow into their palms
because it has always been your favorite
trace the lines that crack the paint
give them your favorite sweatshirt
let them make it their home
smell them on you the next time you wear it
let them enter your world and include them in your list of favorites
and
then

when they break your heart,
you will be forced to conform to the sadness you feel
you will have to turn off the radio when that song comes on and you see their smile in the melody
you will have to pay for a new camera
burn pictures and blame the smoke for your teary eyes
stock up on white-out and erase those dates
when they pass the next year you will stay inside all day and your hands will shake
you will have to paint a new color on your wall just to quit staring at their name while you try to fall asleep
you will paint three, four, five coats atop their handwriting and
at night you will still be able to see it
you will have to go to the movies and categorize new favorite scenes
when that movie plays on sunday morning you will taste them and it will taste like cold coffee and
eventually you will be strong enough to change the channel
you will tear pages out,
buy new notebooks
drive by your favorite places and don't stop
you will have to read new pages
find new characters
its okay if you catch yourself running over the spine of the book you woke them up to read at four AM
buy a dictionary and find new favorite words
make up new favorite words and drop them into casual conversation
eat new icecream,
try more weird foods at restaurants you can't pronounce
look at colors more closely and determine a new favorite
buy new clothes
ones that smell like mass production and the local mall
you will leave the world you gave to them
and you will create a new world
with new favorites
with new songs, words, memories, places, books, movies, foods
with new pieces of you
and you will let someone new enter that world
they will tear chips of paint off of your wall
and ask you what your favorite color is
its okay to hesitate
say blue.

I’ll tell my mom about the love that you want.

I’ll tell her you’re wrong, but in my heart, I agree.
I act like I'm blind but tear down anything to see.

Your affections—they are my drug, and I am a closeted addict.

Now, I admit to the desires your flirtations imply.
I confess it in my manifesto that I will soon deny.

I’ll persuade even myself that you are nothing.

The tension in my mind frays the walls of my secret.
The weight of the burden makes it hard for me to keep it.

To confide in you and love your precious soul.

I privately proclaim my feelings as I whisper my love onto this page.
My desperate silence begs me to break out—to rage and to rage.

one of my biggest fears is
that I'll work a 9 to 5 job
that I despise and drains me

I don't want to work a job that pays the bills
and is physically and emotionally draining
I want to do what I love and make good money

I know that that sounds naive
but I see the effects the menial job
that kills you slowly
taking everything out of you
with barely any energy at the end of the day

every 7 years, every cell in your body is new
one day no cell in my body will remember this
to hold on to it, I’d have to stop living and to keep living I’ll have to let it die with my cells

every 7 years, every cell in your body is new
i am trapped in an in between point
the most severe acts my body had been subjected to have melted to the pressure of time, being as much a part of me as old hair on a brush or fingerprints on a mirror
it’s results on my mind still linger on my skin, begging my hands to hold onto it still
my body rejects my bed, my brain holding onto consciousness through my heavy drowsiness
my heart begs my body to let go, rope burns on my hands swell and fester, bleeding as my fingers grip harder

your absence, like a wound, will rot and fester until the skin around it is raw and hot
but the love i still have puts a bandaid on, and insists it’s just a scratch
the love i still have, like a doctor, gives me a shot while making sure i look away so I don’t see the needle entering my skin
the love i still have, like a shot, runs through my veins, making sure not an inch of me stays painful
the love i still have, like a vein, is in every part of me, carrying the blood to my heart and my brain
the love i still have, like my blood, keeps my body and mind alive, making sure i can love, hate, laugh, and cry
the love I still have, like my body, carries me to everywhere i go
the love I still have nurses my wound until it only festers when it is stabbed by an absent memory, and will nurse it all over again

If I could talk to any past version of me, it would be freshman year me. She would probably ask me what she should be doing differently, I’d tell her nothing. She’s doing everything that leads up to me, and I think I’m doing alright. Being a younger version of me, she would ask me if he likes me. I’d tell her no, he doesn’t. Then, she might ask me why we still like her. Unfortunately, the only answer I’d have for her would be to wait, a love like that only expires through time. I wouldn’t be able to tell her that anything that happens now is only the beginning. Being me, she would only obsess over changing the things that made me and her so different. I would tell her to keep feeling the way she does, to feel everything strongly. That feeling is the only way I hold on to her. That is the only reason I can feel her in her favorite songs, the reason why they bring me to her when revisited. I would never be able to explain to her the solace I feel while escaping into who she is, who I was. To me, her life seems so simple. Given how she feels, she would be terrified to know this. Her life is so idyllic and clear to me now, but only because I have retrospect. It’s all so new to her, so confusing and scary. I try to tell her in these songs I used to adore that change has transformed us, although change is still as terrifying to be now as it was then. She may ask me whether I would change anything. I don’t think I would answer her.

I have a D+ in chemistry.
I have a D+ in chemistry, despite doing my best work throughout the quarter.
I have a D+ in chemistry, so I hired a tutor.
I have a D+ in chemistry, so I obsessed over it for a while.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but my hard work continues.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but the laughs of me and my friends still fill my school halls.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but my scars remain healed.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but I can still listen to music late at night, while the summer air fills my room through an open window.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but the wind still hits my face when I step outside, lifting my hair from my shoulders, the sun wiping my cheek.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but the moon still shines behind the clouds, reminding me she’s still there.
I have a D+ in chemistry, so I’ll do better.