hello like a cup of strong coffee at 6 am.
hello like rain, that isn't really rain, but more-so, a dusting of droplets that only really wet my eyelashes.
hello like the yellowing bends of denim and every last loose thread on my father's hand-me-down jacket.
hello like getting drunk and taking all of my body piercings out.
like waking up the next morning and re-piercing them myself.
hello like poking through.
hello like blood.
hello like oxidization and my favorite brand of adoration, that one that turns to grit and rust on my tongue.
hello like, "yes i am ready for things to get better now".
hello like, "i have no idea how to contribute to things getting better now".
hello like learning the words to my favorite songs again.
hello like learning how to write poetry again.
doing it badly.
not really caring.
hello like this time, no one will say goodbye until i **** well say it's time to leave.
this is the year i cease being a revolving door for half-hearted apologies,
they taste like old chewing gum, these ghostly heart-beaten impressions i've collected.
from now on,
bring me something beating,
bring me something warm,
bring me something red.
bring me your hello.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
passion would be where magenta and orange kiss the horizon at sunset,
joy would be the yellow of my socks every easter sunday that i can remember,
and melancholy would be just another shade of blue.

i told him,
i am not done with you yet.
three weeks post breakup,
we shouldn't feel as unfinished as we do.
like, in the ridiculously complicated narrative of he and i,
the author got up one day,
scribbled a quick ending,
and then set the novel on fire.

i read an article in an obscure magazine
about Shelley Jackson,
an artist
who got thousands of people
to tattoo a singular word
from a story onto themselves,
and then sent them back to their scattered existences.

maybe that is what this is,
another scattered story.
another vaporized narrative.

i can feel it in the air,
but not pull the phrases together.
it's like trying to hold onto smoke.
our story slips through my fingers and gets in my eyes.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my ribcage would look like a Jackson *******.
my head would be a paintball arena.

i am so full of indigos,
and mustards,
and crimsons,
that Van Gogh, himself, would dip into my palette
and claim to have never seen such beautiful sadness before.

i don't know if it hurts because it still matters,
or if it matters that it still hurts.

i feel the frenzied ache of creation in my gut.
i am not a painter,
but my mirror is showing me
the immaculate collection of brushstrokes
i have become.

a few weeks ago,
i was approached by an artist who offered to paint my bruises.
to collect my contusions with watercolors.

what a beautiful intention,
to immortalize the growing pains,
memorialize the bumps along the way,
to make something permanent
of these perpetual transitions.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my pride would be gold-plated and rusting from use, like my grandfather's watch,
courage would be the pure green of every bud that has dared to grow through concrete,
and love?
love would be prismatic,
like spilled oil on asphalt.

a rainbow one moment,
vanished the next.

(i think that) it is poetic injustice -
that (to be fruitful) seeds fall away from their kin, (children),
(are) carried away in the guts of fauna,
(rooted in) soil far from (their parentage)
and told, "grow".

who knew that growing up,
feels a lot like growing thin?
who knew my weathered bones
would grow to hardly recognize the skin that they live in?

i’m tired
and when i say that
i mean more than just the sleepiness that seems to reside permanently around my collarbones.

i’m heavy
with the weight of converging adolescence and adulthood
like kissing life-milestone tectonic plates,
they bury us.

we spent the last of summer days soaking up what little sun the mountain range allotted us,
and the last of summer nights gathered closely around the burning ends of our post sunset cigarettes
murmuring that there must be more than this.

striving to make the grade without making ourselves insane.
substantiating our existences with substances and excess.
growing closer to these ragtag companions we’d patch-worked together in a few months time than friends we’d known for years,
this is family.
this is kin.

they say that nothing compares to the first breath of spring but i digress,
the first breath of freedom - that first whisper, no matter how tainted with ash and glitter and the ever-present impending air of responsibility it may be,
is truly incomparable.

but, on the first night you find yourself talking someone down from the dangerous concoction of stimulants and ego,
listening to them scream about how they hate the world, and you, and themselves,
remember your arboreal roots.

remember that there are trees that survive forest fires with their lives but not their branches.

that same night you will see in the mirror how resilient buds can bloom through ice, and concrete, and self-loathing.

you will find solace in persephone.
letting a piece of you die each and every winter seems a fair price for the rebirth of spring.

i cannot say that this will be the last night you find a friend on their bathroom floor,
like a child with matches, trying to strike away the unruly sprouts that have taken root under their skin
i cannot say with confidence that you will never find yourself there either.

there will be more forest fires coming your way
like a child with matches, you may start a few yourself.

but, darling, spring is around the corner
you may be mangled and gnarled and knotted,
but i have seen trees engulf steel, and watched as flora took back abandoned gardens
i have witnessed oceans of grass shoot up from ashes,

there is nothing manmade that the earth cannot take back
the earth will take you back,
there is still green within you.

count the dandelions you find poking their cadmium heads through asphalt,
remember inhabitance is not a matter of comfort but a matter of will.
feel the ripe bud of growth in the soles of your feet.
remember there is nothing wrong with returning to the dirt.

my mother tells me
that love can be found at the bottom of a cup of coffee,
and i believe her.

she calls it her "elixir",
drinks half a *** by herself
with french vanilla creamer.
calls me my father's daughter for being unable
to stomach the taste of cream and sugar.

my mother likes her coffee sweet.
i drink mine without additives,
half burnt from sitting in the *** for an hour.
i swirl the dark brew at the bottom of my cup
before giving up
on taking the last sip.

the last sip of coffee makes me gag.

my mother tells me
that love can be found at the bottom of a cup of coffee,
and i believe her.

YOU ARE:
melodrama.
sunsets on mountains and poetic weekends.
“if you write about me, i will blush when you read it.”
playing my guitar.
playing with my hair.
playing with me.
“do you want to get something to eat?”
“are you tired?”
“let me in."
holding me down, in the best possible way.
approved by my mom.
poetic texts and the reason i’ve been clutching my phone.
too good to me.

YOU ARE NOT:
what you appear to be, you are so much more.
what i expected.
disappointing.
sure about where this is going, neither am i.
a manic decision, although you may seem like it now.
alone.
mine.
mine.
*mine.

hope is a burning buddha candle.
set aflame with his ornate head slowly melting.
we sat in silence and blew the candle out before his waxen ears met his shoulders, but you would’ve liked to have seen him exist in a puddle.
you sit quietly that morning and wonder what it would be like to exist in a puddle.
you decide that you would have liked it.

hope clings itself to the fabric of the floral sundress you bought two weeks before the leaves turned shades of burgundy and ochre.
when asked why you bought it, you shrugged it off.
you wore it, baring shoulders and all, alone in your room with the blinds open.
the september sun glanced at you and you at it.
you were never a dress person, but the blue and pink flowers seemed at home on your torso
and who were you to separate blooms from their home?

hope is your baby brother showing up at your door, sand blonde hair reminiscent of the beaches you were raised on.
he smelled like salt and violent adolescence.
in his hands, he clutched four large pieces of fruit that he stole from the hotel because he said that the fruit bowl from home missed you.
you saw novels in his seafoam grey eyes that read that he missed you, too.
you hugged him
too tight
too many times.
you didn’t cry when he got in the car, but you did when he called you later and said that he was counting down the days to christmas.
there were 114, now there are 109.

hope is st. elmo’s fire and holding your best friends hand as you explain to him that you always felt like ionized plasma.
that you’re like lightening, but not quite.
it is stopping the car on the side of the road to pick wildflower bouquets and press them between the empty pages of your new journal.
it is squash blossom pizza and $60 parking tickets because you were too lazy to catch the bus.

hope is writing a poem and, for once, it not sounding like a eulogy.
hope is writing a poem and not hearing your voice shake as you recite it.
hope is writing a poem and finally feeling like a poet.
hope is writing a poem and finally living like a poet.
hope is writing a poem.

i like a boy who likes the rain -
who damns the sunshine while finding solace in thunder and lighting, the pitter patter of drops on a tin roof.
i'm more of a dreary, overcast person. i feel most at home on this planet when the sun seeks shelter from the impending storms; but he smiles when the sky turns grey, and i find myself smiling, too.

i like a boy who wiggles his hips when he sings.
it's in his nature; he dances.
sometimes with the radio, sometimes the phone as it rings, and even me when i sing.
i find solace and comfort in music, but he celebrates it. and as he shrugs his shoulders to the bass line of a song whose lyrics i will never understand, but will always relate to, i find myself swaying, too.

i like a boy who tells me i am starlight; constantly. when i am cramming the last bit of food in my mouth, when i am pouring sweat from being in the sun all day, when i am bed-headed and smeared-makeuped holding onto him for dear life. he tells me that i am the beginning and end of the universe. he tells me that i am beautiful. he smiles and looks at me like he is a starving man, and i am the last morsel of sustinence on the planet. and i find myself believing it, too.

today, i was told that my brother and i were just 'different animals'. like he was a bird of prey, and i was a songbird; but the distinction is so minute, because both creatures have wings.

today, i mumbled 'thank you' as i was force-fed advice that claimed, 'when people are rude, just be nice back. it'll make them feel bad.' i reminisced on the time my parents swore to my brother that he must do all that he can to defend his honor.

today, i was shooed out of a car garage with some ******* excuse that explained that the exhaust fumes would 'hurt my lungs', while my brother found solace in the oil and grit and dirt. i wondered if they remembered the times he faltered in his machismo and i stood tall.

today, i was reminded that my brother and i are 'different animals'. but i am talons, and furiously winged as much as he is mellow voiced and prancing. next time i am faced with that analogy, i will ask the speaker how many wild songbirds they see.

1:34 a.m.:
without words, you went to sleep and i got drunk. because when the world doesn't want to see your face, the easiest way to deal with the pain is to make it feel like you don't have one.

7:56 a.m.:
i've decided to write a manifesto using only sounds from your mouth. the crackles and pops of the radio silence radiating from your lips will be the ink to my pen.

3:35 p.m.:
i press my palms together, hoping to drain the last bit of ambivalence from my fingertips. i wonder how many times i must fall and scrape my knees on the prayer bench before i realize that prayer is not my forte and both you and god **** at listening.

searching for some odd sort of solace
and yet again,
i find myself writing words i don't really mean
to people i don't really know
about topics i've not really researched
all in the name: poem
this is not my war

it's like i'm standing naked on the front lines
all weariness and flesh
melancholic in my voice,
"take arms, and fight."
this was never my battle, but it rages in my mind
and my troops aren't gathering
my hands, too weak to hold up my blade
my pen
this is not my war

so, once again,
it's dark and i'm finding ways to poetically knife myself
without the blood and romance staining my bed sheets
and marking cryptic patterns on my wall
in hopes that my fellow aesthetes
will find them pleasing when i post them
this is not my war

and honestly,
i've never found anything beautiful about sunsets
because the dying of another day
didn't make me feel like stardust
but more like a handprint on a wall
being threatened with fresh paint
this is not my war

i'm not ready
this is not my war

1) pending decision
the clock is always ticking
don't want to grow up

2) never been afraid
but the sun is setting and
i don't want to leave

3) my life is much more
than syllables can contain
and yet, i still try

We’ve made it. We ***** and moan about growing up, how we grew up, and now that we’ve grown up, what we’re going to do. Maybe the secret to surviving it all is not looking forward or looking back, but looking to the present as the only thing that can conceivably be altered in your favor.
2. Don’t condemn because of what you’ve heard from others. That quote saying “small minds talk about other people,” is cheesy, but also very true. And people, no matter how seemingly kind-hearted, have a nasty way of diverging down roads of rumor and scandal.
3. Relenquish the idea that you’ll ever be in full control. The winds of change, or time, or love, or development are always blowing; wild and strong. Don’t turn your sails the other way, stand in the hurricane and yell, “I am willing!”
4. Believing in the power of something, whether it be an object, a song, or a ritual, doesn’t make you a sucker and it doesn’t mean you are a lesser person. We all need something bigger than ourselves to fall into when the branches of our arboreal haven that we’ve built comes shattering down. Often time, those branches land in the ground as spikes and we are impaled. So turn to your dance, your god, your love.
5. Document your world. It will never be quite the same as it is in this moment. This is a singular event; a speck on the timeline, never to be recreated in all that came before, or all that will come to be.
6. Learn to be alone, and after that, learn to be alone and content. Unbeknownst to you, the face looking back in the mirror is capable of resuscitating you when you find you cannot breathe. "Fight or flight is an animal response,” you tell me, “but what happens when you cannot stand to fight or run because you are at war with yourself?” Darling, I have battled with my skeleton for years, but when the front lines cave in, the only place I have ever felt at home is nuzzled somewhere between my heart and lung. Nail down a “home, sweet home” sign and settle down within.
7. We’ve made it, somehow. Remember in third grade when your class planted beans, and you checked on your sprout every day. One day, you came into class and against the weight of the soil, your green sprout had pushed its head out and was greeting the sun. You’ve broken the surface. You’re new and green, and there’s still a long way to go. But, you made it. So, enjoy this moment, and look forward to the next one.