Head to chest, heart to head
Legs intertwined, curving against the water
In the tub where
Her hair dips, and she tips her head up
To look at me

Eyelashes dark as night a sky, the spaces in between -
         the stars
Freckles across her skin.

time ticks by
time ticks by
time ticks and tacks until...

i don't recognize myself anymore.
twenty two, and so blue-
reminiscing upon my youth
wishing time would

tick and tack and turn backwards.

a year and a half spent tangled in bed sheets
a plethora of friendships flushed down the drain
it becomes so clear

that, disrespectfully,
life will go on,
with or without you,
ticking, tacking,
twisting, twirling,
waxing, waning,
tick tick ticking

away.

I saw in my mind, a mirror,
Saw everything I wasn’t
Within her.

I know you touch her lightly,
Kiss her softly, you must muse
Over how easy it is
To wrap your mind around her existence

Oh, how it broke me
To see you with
A perfect version
Of someone I could never be

With her hair brushed behind her ear,
A simple smile on her face, you used to love it
How my locks would intertwine with our lips
When you kissed me, how you couldn’t ever figure me out,
How my smile disguised multitudes

I was too much for you.  
Too much baggage
She is light, she is not a puzzle,
She rises before meridian
Synched with the rise of the sun
I was the moon,
Shadowed, waxing, waning

Never staying still.
And it ***** to say I understand,
If it were me, I would choose the one
Who was easiest to love the one
Without butterflies encircling her head
Instead of me, you wanted her,

And I will spend my life
Just trying to be okay with that.

Tell me mother,
how are your lungs.
how many layers have the tobacco leaves peeled
from those sacs of flesh which give you life.

Tell me mother,
how is your heart
how many years has anger stripped away
from this vessel which keeps you in motion

tell me mother,
how is your brain.
how has the loss made you refrain
from understanding what you have done to me

tell me mother.
will we ever be the same?
or will we stay like this, you frozen
and I, terrified of loving you.

I didn't know what to think of us
so I read and while
I wondered day and night
where I stood with you
I attempted to formulate
any idea of what we could be.

when it came to me- I wrote it down
tears and time
kisses and contemplation
i filled a notebook
with my feelings for you
that I could now admit to having.

and maybe soon I'll tell you about them,
I will have the courage to answer you honestly
when you ask me what I'm thinking about

do you think the dead envy the living
do you think they lust over the chaotic fury of youth

cause right now i am lost
twenty-one and young
drinking and crying
through snapchat filters
and "emerald exhales"
through the books on my ikea shelf
which highlight the glorious escapades
of some protagonist I can't relate to

do you think the dead envy me
as my heart breaks at the thought of a boy
who never even knew my name
when I get parking tickets or
cut my knee on gravel outside my apartment
and lie to my family saying no- I was sober.

do the dead envy the living
at their most irresponsible
their most reckless
and their most messy

am I still coveted and loved at my worst
for the simple fact That I Am Alive?

when I was little i dreamt of an Eye
it's iris-a specter
which rested upon my windowsill

I'd always try to keep my eyes open
cause every time I saw it
I'd blink it away

i used to think about this eye
on nights I couldn't sleep
I'd search the corners of my room

for the optic illusion
that watched me as I slept
did it ever go away?

or has it never left.
remaining out of my
line of sight

because now I'm grown
and I haven't seen that eye in years
but I still feel it watching.

i have been told
time and time again
that I think to much

and I want to write a poem
about how that makes me feel
but i don't know how
to organize the stanzas

when i am unable
to determine which words
are worth writing

which words will strike your heart
burn your tongue- which words
will taste like honey
but sting you like the bee

I want to write a poem
but i don't know
what to write about

because I feel unworthy of my gift
i have seen people
weave thorns into crowns of roses
with just a pen and a page

I want to write a poem
but I'm mangling my message
over and over mutilating it

until the words don't make sense
and my metaphors sound
like an example
of how to NOT write a metaphor

I want to write a poem
and I really am trying
but i'm intimidated

by those who can spit magic
in minutes
weave their struggles into art
with their ginormous vocabularies

I want to write a poem
I want to write THIS poem
I want to write anything

but how can I.
when i have nothing to say
my mind fixated on word counts
and a deadline i worry I won't be able to meet.

ever since you left
i've kept the butterflies alive
with thoughts of you and I
but now i'm rolling stories into
petals of poisoned nectar
because I have decided they've had their time.

because, they flutter all **** night
and they only speak of you- and to keep them healthy
they need to be reminded of why they are there in the first place-
they only exist when i'm frozen in time.

a ribcage filled with papillions
dying one by one
they end up on my tongue
mariposas-I spit them out, and save in a jar

each one
a memory I can barely remember
a feeling I will never feel again
i poison the stories,
they live at the expense of me moving on
I have fed them when i should have
clipped their wings

I cared for them because
you never came back to get them
now I poison them because
i've accepted you never will
and I hate the feeling of velvet wings
fluttering against my diaphragm.

droplets of chlorinated water
dripping from my pigtails.
A four year old,
standing at the edge of the abyss-

goose bumps prickle
and I tremble both
with freeze and fear
as my mother commands me

Take off your floaties.
Jump In.

screaming- tears streaming
down my face

my mother twists off my water wings
and I am launched, a flash of bubbles
into the depths of the pool.

sink or swim.
s i n k
o r
s w
       i m
s
i
  n                                  m
    k         or      s         i
                             w

opening my eyes to the chlorinated water
and kicking like they taught me at the ymca
i shed my fear and rise to the surface,
gulping oxygen,
smiling wide-my mom cheering
reaffirming that
i had accomplished something

that is the moment
I learned to be

resilient

Paint your skin
with pretty lies

let the bristles disguise
the parts of yourself

you hope no one sees.
Paint your skin,

leave nothing uncovered
disguise yourself

with perfection, indifference, and sarcasm-
they are the pigments you will use

to paint your skin
with pretty lies.

(if/when)
you are no longer mine
will we coexist or go to war?

will our lips spit arrows
and start fires like
a conflict with no end in sight

or will we have the strength to just
smile- slightly to each other as we pass;
and view each other as a lesson

rather than an enemy
I will acknowlege you politely
and ignore you as a curtousey

and i will turn the other cheek
(if/when)
you are no longer mine.
if you will do the same.

you learn to move forward
when you learn
the difference between missing someone
and being nostalgic

you stop looking through photos-
then
you really
stop looking through photos
and you only hold onto them
until- that delete button doesn't scare you anymore.

it's when you picture yourself
happy without them and you realize
they did nothing to make you
force yourself to start thinking that way.

it's the glare that light leaves behind
when you take a polaroid; and you stand-
shaking the film, as you beg for
this photograph to develop completely
moving on is accepting that it never will.
and that perhaps- it is better that way.

it is learning that sometimes
the best lessons
are cliffhangers

i slept until the sun went down
an entire day in bed.

I woke up, everyone was asleep.

and I pulled my blanket to cover my face
no one was there- i don't know why it was so important to me
to hide

I just felt so lonely.

you learn
that even though you can be anything you want
you will be limited by your resources

you learn in your life
the value of paths
for the right price
you can skip ahead

the right price
can place you
instantly in the pursuit of what you've always wanted
if you can afford it.

and it's worth it, sometimes- to wait.
but with every day
chicago calls to me
and reality intercepts the message.

because nothing comes without a price
not even your dreams

my grandmother made a road map
printed it and tied it to the seat in front of mine
yarn a clip board and pen

i sat quietly- a six year old
tracing the milestones as we passed
toll roads
mcdonalds
rest stops
finally
gary
skyway bridge
navy pier
museum of science and industry
shed
buildings of metal and glass
i traced it all the way to-

chicago-
you will make it here one day

the city sang to me
a connection too intense
my childhood brain
decided- this
must be
love

wandering the city
my tiny hand in my grandmothers
my eyes memorizing every angle
hoping, fearlessly, that it's promise was true.
and someday

It will be the hand of freedom and opportunity
life and love and chaos
Chicago will reach out to me
and without any doubt
i will take it's hand
and follow