When I was sophomore in high school I was cut from the volleyball team and I started thinking about what I would do next
I decided to try out for the cheer team for my junior year
When I told people I heard the same two things
But aren’t you in honors classes?
And
But  you’re not a *****
my friends I thought would support me were only perplexed by my decision
a friend told me I would be invited to parties
and pressured to date a ****
but they forgot, my best friends forgot
that even though I’d be a cheerleader, I’d still be me
I would still get nervous and talk too much,
I’d still be awkward and angry and sad
I made the team and the next year
In my honors classes people asked “but aren’t you a cheerleader”
When that cute senior invited me to his bedroom that night
I refused and he said “but you’re a cheerleader”
And I did not understand why people could not see past the uniform I wore
I got invited to parties
But I usually went and stayed quiet while everyone else mingled
And sometimes I left early because I felt so alone
I was still awkward and angry and sad
And people still did not understand that even though I was a cheerleader
That I was still me

Almost human
Still, not quite
Foolish, ignorant
Searching for something,
Anything

These words said
Late in the night
Every single night
Said by you,
Who tells everyone that you aren't over me

I don't see why my flaws are worse than yours:
Sociopathic, apathetic, trying so hard to be different
That you follow the same overused pattern
As every other "different" person out there

How could I be foolish?
You, the great wise man, fell for me
Maybe you aren't wise at all
It's just a facade, part of you so-called "cool"

Manipulative you called me
When I'm really just ambitious
Really just trying to make people see
I am worth something,
Anything

Did you ever stop to think
That you are the almost human?
That maybe, you should try feeling something
Instead of going about your life
Hiding behind your mask of "different"

At 15, most of my friends have never even kissed a boy
But I have already loved someone as distant as the stars
And like the stars he was dead inside
But his light could still be seen if you looked
That is why when in between trying to make a dead language live again,
I cried when my teacher said
"These are the best times of your life"
Because I could not believe things can only get worse from here

I didn't really believe in the zodiac
but I still searched endlessly.
I needed something to tell me we were meant to be.
Something to validate what I already knew.
What I found was that we were incompatible,
but I was doomed to long for you.
You were the sky
and I was chained to the Earth.

In those distracted moments in class
the girls I know think about the night when
the boy of their dreams comes knocking on the door
to whisk them away.
I think about the night when
hordes of the dead come scratching at the door
to feast on the living.
I wake up after a night
of running from grotesque zombies
as satisfied as most girls are
after dreaming of a date with the football captain.
The girls I know spend hours
calculating the formula of the perfect
outfit, hair, location
to create the perfect romance.
I calculate the formula of the perfect
weapon, force, defense
to take out as many infected as possible.

I've forgotten the feel of your lips on mine
I've forgotten how soft your bed is
I've forgotten the sound of your footsteps walking towards the bed
I've forgotten the way you said I love you
I've forgotten the way you breathe when you sleep
I've forgotten your smell
I've forgotten your touch
I've forgotten your voice

I have not forgotten the way I felt
when you said goodbye

The other day at Sophia's house
I asked "I'm really happy right now"
there was a quiet moment and I said
"that's how I know something bad is going to happen"
Sure enough three days later
you changed your mind about me, about us
and I vowed to never be happy again

and I've had enough
of drunk boys telling me they love me
only to change their mind
during next day's hangover
of your late night texts asking to see me
and you telling me you didn't mean it the next day
of your eyes trailing me at work
of your jokes meant to make me smile
only to have you tear me apart hours later

The sky turns from blue to black
I lay down thinking
I'm feeling inspired
Yet still so sad
I'm feeling like I could do something great
If the world weren't vast
And I weren't so small

I want to cry
No tears come
I want to get up and dance
My body feels weighed down
From dreams that never come true

I walk around and all I see
are smiles on others
but I cannot seem to recreate a smile
in the mirror.
I walk around and all I see
are girls with boys
who look at them with loving eyes
yet, I have not experienced this.

I could sit in the classroom for six hours each day
and I will never properly learn how to love
or how to say goodbye
I will never learn how to touch another so gently
to show them I care
or how to let go when it's time
I will never learn what to say at 2 am
when there is nothing left to say

I feel nothing
yet I feel everything
every breath is like shards of glass
everything I touch is made of needles
but I still feel calm
I want to break every pen in the house
like I do at work when I'm mad at you
for not even saying hi because you think people can tell
what we've done together just by the looks we share
but soon there will be no more looks
no more breaking pens
you will no longer be here
you knew that from the beginning
yet you chose to take all I gave to you
chose to let me fall
"better to have loved and lost"
but this was not a fair loss
you knew from the start I would be the one to lose

We both left each other ruined.
I left you scared, sick and paranoid.
You left me alone, depressed and confused.
We both loved each other too hard
and I should have known
we all read Romeo and Juliet
and I knew that "violent delights have violent ends"
and yet when you said you loved me,
the sun was shining through the window
the world seemed so clear, so perfect.
And every time you drove me home, dropped me off down the block the sun was shining
except that night.
The moon was out and you didn't say you loved me
and I cried and slept in my mother's bed because she was away
and mine smelled like you.
And that one hallway smells like you,
and the Latin teacher smells like you,
and I cannot stop crying,
even though it's been almost a year,
and I don't even know how it will feel when the
warmth comes and it feels like those days you drove me home,
shades on, singing along to the radio and looking over at me.

Right now my bed smells like you
soon that scent will fade
and I will have nothing left to remind
me of you

For no reason at all
it feels taboo to write about you
not because of the things we've said and done
but because of the idea you might see this
and I am scared of what you'll think