If only you knew how many times
I typed those three little words,
And then deleted them before hitting send

he wants to hear my compositions
and i don't know what to say.
they're all about him.
about the wounds that he's cut deep into my skin, past my veins, past my bones,
and i can't show that to him. i just can't.

he loves to hear me play,
he says i play like an angel.
that my fingertips float across the keyboard.
and i want to play for him
but i can't, because he sees right through me
in a way that no one else does,
and i can't have that.

how
can i take the only way of properly expressing myself
an expose it?? just like that? it makes no sense.
i would do it for him, hell, i'd do anything for him.
but not now, not here, not when they're all about him.

You'll never know how much I wish that you could glance at the person in the mirror and see all the beautiful little things about yourself. Your tiny little freckles or the adorable way your nose crinkles up when you're confused. The way your eyes twinkle like stars in the night sky when you speak with passion about the things you love. Your dimples when you're smiling with out even thinking about it or your laugh that is so captivating. The way your inner beauty radiates off of you, even when you're sporting a messy bun and sweats. God I just wish you could look in the mirror and fall in love with yourself instead of seeing everything about you that you hate. But, all you see is a face full of acne scars, eyebrows that aren't quite perfect enough, a nose that's just a little too big, and dark circles under your eyes because your late night thoughts kept you from sleeping  again. You hate yourself so much that you turn away from the mirror. You don't love yourself, so you can understand why no one else would either, and I think that's truly the most heartbreaking thing. And, maybe the hardest person to love is yourself, but darling I'm begging you to atleast try.
*- yourself

I can scream from the top of my lungs at the highest point in our city,
where my voice will echo throughout the buildings,
"I love you" bouncing from east to west,
and right back to us,
wrapping themselves around the teenage bodies that hold angst, and lust, and love,
but most importantly hope,
the hope that taught me life was worth the late night fights from parents who need a long overdue divorce,
it's worth the headaches masking the buried worry that sits deep in my chest,
it's worth the tears that shed late at night when the demons come out to play only be wiped away from you.
it's worth it all,
because I know you'll be there to make me smile when there's nothing to smile about.

I watched my father scrunch his eyebrows together
whenever my mother said something he didn't like,
his impatience seeping through his dark skin,
apparent in the way he turned his body away
as if he wanted to run from all this
but he's trapped now, trapped forever.
I listened as my mother told me she did not want to stay
and my brother and I are the only things anchoring her unto this godforsaken house
of peeling white paint and crumbling walls and endless shouts and burning words.
I watched them hold each other when things got tough
and I knew it wasn't because of love—
it was because they were the nearest things to each other.
At a very young age I knew love was something that dissolves,
a flower you water everyday,
a story you never stop writing,
And some people, they don't know,
that they have stopped watering,
and they're running out of ink, only on page 3.
Little girl me knew.
Big girl me continues to watch it unfold,
dead petals in their hair
and dark ink between their fingers—
dry