I am always so glad when I find another girl who writes love poems about women.
I get so tired of watching romances that tug at my heart....if I imagine I am the man.
Of reading books and finding that the plot revolves around obtaining a boyfriend.
Of listening to songs of love and heartbreak that I know were written about men.
I'm sick of knowing that it's more of an achievement to have a boy than it is to love a girl.
I'm sick of reading magazines and flipping past half of the articles- "8 Things Guys Notice About You Instantly" and "Make Him Hot For You".
I'm sick of being hidden.
It wears on you. Nobody ever talks about it.
Why does nobody ever talk about it?
I'm sick of knowing that if I were a boy, I would have been with many of the girls I've loved, would have been forgiven for more flaws, would have been seen so differently.
I don't want to be a man. I don't want to love a man.
I don't want either to be expected of me.
And honestly, I don't want to lose to a man.
But I know that that will be happening to me for the rest of my life, and so I swallow my pride.
And I watch other movies. And I write my own stories. And I sing my own songs. And I don't read magazines.
And I give everything I can to the girls I love, and hope that everything from me will mean more than something from a boy.

i’ve given up on days that begin in late afternoon,
skipped breakfast and lunch,
days that fade slowly and end with
****** cut-out holes in eyelids because
the second i close them and it all goes black,
every moment with you comes back
played on fast-forward, the memories moving so quickly
that both our faces are blurred
and it feels like everything i’ve ever felt for you
is overflowing the tub, filling the washroom with
suds that take forever to melt

i’ve given up on those days.

i’ve traded them for ones that begin with
sunrises instead of sunsets,
days that are spent falling forward
instead of trying to chase the past, and i don’t
look back and see something broken, or
something that was better off left unopened

i look back and see our bodies so close together
that you can’t tell where yours begins and mine ends,
i see my heart that grew twenty-three times its size,
i see you and me wrapped up in something that
i didn’t know existed outside of blurry 35 mm
and overdue and falling-apart library books
that sit on the nightstands of middle-aged women
who are bored with their lives

and i’m just so happy i got to love you at all.

but i’ve folded up all the days spent with you
and taped them in the messy pages of my journal
and now i’m running into the sun,
running away from every lie that’s trying to
wedge its way in between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction of words like "regret"
and any feeling that insists that none of it was worth it

because all of it was worth it.

every moment we were together pumps
through my veins, and it will always be there;
it will be there when we’ve both graduated,
when you move out west,
when you kiss your family goodnight,
when you sit in your backyard with tears
in your eyes because you’ve lived a life
you are proud of

it will be there when i finally make it to new york city,
when i kiss someone who isn’t you,
when i find the answers you inspired me to search for,
when i sit on my rooftop with tears on my cheeks
because i’ve lived a life fuller than i could’ve ever imagined

and you and i will live these lives apart,
we’ll move on and forget what it felt like
to wake up beside one another;
we’ll find what we’re looking for elsewhere
and we’ll understand why this all had to happen the way that it did

but what we had will always exist somewhere,
in rotting apples and old mail and unplayed mix CDs,
in mosaics that line the city streets, in sirens and
red and white flashing lights that shine through
your window while you are asleep

you and i were magic,
we always will be.

Hearts are
Wild creatures,
That's why our ribs
Are  cages

Because she could not see—
Song in flower, light in lovers abed,
Dream unfolding as we touched,
Because her great beauty was gifted
It was unfelt, undeserved, shunned,
Making her even more irresistible.

Because I could not hold on to self,
Beside such dream, lost to my hands
As prints clutched into the ruin dark
Of her indifference, I made peace
With subjugation and humilities riven
Out of soul and flesh and hollow being.

Because we were unknowing, each
A foil unto ourselves as we cried—
This then was daymare riding in sun,
Twin delusions in oft reign of blood,
O what stories we both shall die to tell,
How the itch of desire scratches bare
Whole psyche as it writhes in a shell.

The blood on your wrist
should be coating veins.
The salt on your cheeks
should dry by morning.
I should feel your heart,
not just your finger tips.
You said it was only fair
to save it for me,
the only girl you ever loved.
I gave it to him instead,
in the backseat on a sidesteeet,
only to be carried farther from the only arms to ever hold me
like they ment it.
I'm sorry I couldn't feel your hands on my eye lids,
begging me to see the love I had
before I found it in the palm of someone else's hands.
My lips are like sunflowers,
but even more fragile.
Every may I am plucked from the garden
and held tightly
for a moment in a field,
until morning dew swallows me whole.
As for love,
my father never taught me how,
and the words he placed at the tip of my tongue never fit in the space between your fingertips.
Keep them for someone else's lips.
Someone who isn't made if sunflowers
that will wilt in your hands.