you clutter my mind
thoughts of you,
thoughts of me with you
thoughts that multiply
and keep me from rest,
that lull me to sleep at night

your words are like butter,
they’re smooth and they’re rich
and they make the bitter bits better

library books;
     the musty smell floods me with
     thoughts of its past readers
     did a girl like me
     run her finger across this line
     as i have?
     will our lines like vines
     ever intertwine?

rainy nights;
     while the tip-tap and dribble of
     droplets hit my windowsill,
     i imagine gusts of wind
     dancing with one another:
     carless and free
     and without destination

light touches;
     the accidental bump of elbows,
     the awkward entanglement
     of fumbling phalanges,
     a gentle squeeze of the hand,
     a comforting gesture that says
     “i am here.”

now reverie this:
     you and i,
     the spines of our books broken,
          our shoulders barely brushing,
               the sound of soft and subtle raindrops
          all things i adore in one simple
      and seemingly endless moment

books, rain, touches, and you

often, i picture us
holding hands and watching movies
sitting on benches beneath old oak trees
hearing your laugh throughout the day
and catching you smile
when you think i don't see

and all i can do is hope
that when you close your eyes
your mind is filled
with thoughts of me

i know i am young,
i know i am only seventeen,
but when i think of him
and his incandescent smile,
my heart swells and beats in time
with the cadence of his alluring words

his mind is like no other,
filled with such deep
and captivating thoughts
that flutter from place to place
like a moth, and like a moth
i am drawn to his brilliance

i long to hold his face in my hands
and trace his lips with my fingertips
and when i close my eyes
all i see is the way he looks at me,
as if i’m the one who paints
the summer evening sky

i know i am young,
i know i am only seventeen,
but i think i could spend
the rest of my life searching
and never find anything
nearly as beautiful as
the way he loves me

don’t you worry now,
it’s all about to change
you told me
     you were going to change
to be a better you for me
     and you said you wanted
so badly to make this work

taken all that you are
taken all that i’ve got
i gave you every bit of me
     and you tried to give me
every bit of you, but
     it was too difficult
for you to try to love yourself
     when you were giving
so much of yourself to me

don’t run away from all this
it can cause more than you think
before i didn’t want to let go,
     i wanted to keep believing that
     maybe
you’d be able to love me
as much as i loved you

i’ll be gone
so turn your hands in
and now that i’ve let go,
it doesn’t feel like you’re gone
     more so, it feels like i’m the one
     who has left you standing
     with your face in your hands,
wishing you’d been able to be
a better you for me

don’t you worry now,
it’s all about to change
i don’t doubt that one day
     you’ll be an amazing you
for someone else
     and that one day
it’ll all make sense to both of us

don’t you worry now,
it’s all about to change*
and i don’t doubt
     that one day
i will find someone
who will love me
as much as you wanted to

she was like
        a wilting flower
drained of all things
that kept the others upright

he was like
        a rushing brook
who saw her crumpled and tired,
crowded by overgrown weeds,
and wanted nothing more
than to clear the earth around her
and see her bloom again

so he took all he had
        and poured it into her
and when finally the pinkness
had returned to her cheeks
        she looked back at him
        and saw that

he was now like
        a withering shrub
frail and planted in dry clay

and despite the deep conviction
she had in her heart to restore him
        like he had restored her
all of her best efforts
left her with with exposed roots
and dirt beneath her fingernails

he wouldn’t let her stay
        to continue to try
        to quench his thirst
so she left him with a watering can
and promised he’d soon find relief

your name is always
on the tip of my tongue
and if you
wrap me in a blanket
and place me by the fire,
in the flames
i'll see your smile,
but if i blink
it'll disappear
because our time
while full, was fleeting
and now you are just
dandelion seeds
in the summer breeze
that will land
in another yard
to make someone else's
wishes come true

the thing about feelings
is that they change
yesterday,
  you may have been
   completely infatuated
    with someone  
     or entirely immersed
     in sadness,
   but that doesn’t mean
that’s how you feel now
or how you’ll feel forever
and i fear that people forget that,
  i fear we fail to remember
   that emotions are not permanent
    and maybe that’s why
     her stomach hurts
    when she thinks about
   the girls in his life
  before her
  or why i’m reluctant
   to share old poems
    because i don’t want anyone
     to think that’s how i feel today
    so maybe we should start asking
   “how are you?” more often
     and stop accepting
      the default “i’m okay.”
       and maybe we should start
      caring more about
    what people say now,
   instead of dwelling on
  words of the *past

i wish we could go to a park at night
and sit back to back
on a blanket beneath the trees
and talk until the stars tell us to go home
because when i look at you straight on
my knees grow weak and my voice shakes
and maybe i'm not exactly sure what to say
when i'm distracted by
all the what ifs in your eyes
and maybe my mind dizzies with thought
like the possibility that i could be
a high tidal wave
that washes away the foundations
of a barely built sandcastle
and maybe i just wish i could tell you
everything on my mind at 2am
and maybe i'm just really hoping
you feel the same way

currently i am not

     sad

        depressed

               lonely
  
alone

     self-loathing

             insecure
  
heartbroken

     nor breaking hearts


and that makes me feel quite
    
out of
             
               place
because i am surrounded by
  scars

     and tear-streaked (beautiful) faces

  bruised knees drawn up to chests

     dark empty rooms
  broken mirrors

     and trashcans filled

  with crumpled lists of mistakes
and if i could, 
i would take all the

  scars

    tears

     and lonely nights

from the hearts that are broken
                  
                      or breaking
and i wish i could
 cloak The Light i’ve found

    (or did It find me?)

      around cold shoulders

 and wash all the tired feet

   that’ve been blindly stumbling

      in the dark

although you've gotten taller,
your eyes have remained
the same shade of trusting brown
and deep down
you are still the little girl
who stayed up late
whispering secrets to her best friend
beneath flower patterned sheets

and you're still afraid of spiders
and you still cannot sit still
and as you grew up
you noticed that the world
is a lot smaller than it used to seem

and i think when you looked
into the wonder-filled eyes
of this little girl
you saw a reflection of yourself
and it reminded you that
although you’ve gotten taller,
your eyes have retained
that same glimmer of hope

looking back, i’ve realized
that in the moment
i tend to be anxious and impatient
and i don’t trust
that everything will work itself out
and i ache to know
exactly what is waiting for me
around the corner
   will i alter my circumstances
   or will my circumstances alter me?

i mindlessly allow myself to become faithless
and although i’ve overcome so many obstacles,
my eyes become fixated on the present
and i forget to take a step back
and reflect on my past

everyone always says,
“don’t look back,”
but i think it’s important
to remember where you once stood
and recognize how far you’ve come

i know i’ve changed
and i know i will continue to change
  
so why at 2am on a monday night
do i get stuck believing
that things will always be the same?

you told me
to write down my feelings
and share them with you
when you wake up,
but drawing out these emotions
isn’t easy because
they’re pale and indefinite

i cannot distinguish
a path to take,
whether it’s winding
or cobblestoned,
or so overgrown with trees
that i cannot see the sky

so maybe in the meantime
i’ll sit in my room
and fold paper cranes
on rainy days
till a map that illustrates
how to carry on
makes its way
into my muddled hands