This is not the end
I know that you probably already know that
But I feel the need to remind you
I know it *****
A lot
Hurts like one million knives digging into your skin all at once
Like the animals caged within your bones attempting to break free
Like stepping on metal nails with bare feet
Heartbreak ******* hurts
I am sorry that is does
I would tell you that it goes away but I would be lying
Your first broken heart
Will always be your first broken heart
But I can promise
Is does get better
I can promise
That your first is not your last
At one time it may have seemed like it should've been
Like it somehow just slipped through your grasp
I promise you
Your first
Is not your last
And it wasn't supposed to be
Believe me
There are so many other hearts you will encompass
So many bodies you have yet to learn
So many hands that have yet to touch you
The first might have felt like magic
I can promise you they are not
I can promise that
Moving on is the hardest part
You will feel gaps in the deepest parts of your soul
Know that you do not need someone new in order to fill them
Instead
You will heal from within
When you see him with someone else
Do not burn
Extinguish the fire with smiles and genuine happiness
For someone wise once said that happiness is the best revenge
And it is
That and
Looking hot as hell
Right now you may be going through hell
But it's just a path to the future
And the future holds so much more
I can promise you this
Look at it with wide eyes and open arms
Do not dwell on the one who broke your heart
I can promise that in the years to come
Many will fix it
And that the cracks maintained from those who dropped it
In the end
Will only make you
Stronger.

Sixteen wasn't too far away
But I can remember it
Feel it
Like it was yesterday
Hearts beating out of chests
As if to reach for one another
Speaking language on skin
Goosebumps as braille
That only we could interpret
I do not remember every second we spent together
Only certain moments
Sacharrin memories that have stuck to my tongue
Can not be washed off with mouthwash or salt
They are far too sweet to erase
I do not remember it all
But I do remember feelings
I remember movement
The involuntary curve of upper the lip
Brought on by overwhelming delirium
Contentment
Happiness
I can feel your smile more than I can picture it
I can picture
The lone tear that would escape an eyelid
Every now and then in the heat of an argument
To remind us
That this is real
And it was
Our distance was never anything more than a few miles yet
We always stayed up to make sure
That the other
Was home safe
Tucked beneath the covers
After driving home
2am in pouring rain
It's funny how
Love comes in more than just four letters
In more than a word
In more than just saying it
An announcement
It comes in
Reminders
In ensuring well-being
In wishes
In thrown pennies into wells
In nostalgia
In remembering how lovely it is
I know we were never ideal
Maybe we fought way more than we should have
Our persistance got between us more than once
You a virgo
And I, a taurus
I'm sorry for being a bull
But I never meant to bully you
I used words like grenades all too often
I was a detonator
When I should have been shelter
Protectant
It was silly for me not to be
I was sixteen when I met you
And sixteen when I loved you
I'm older now
Slightly wiser than I was back then
But in reality
I'm no different
The scariest thing to me is that
It seems as if
Years are nothing more than days
It seems as if
This was all yesterday
That time hasn't even begun to graze our youthful skin
But it has
And it is
Time has touched us in ways I never imagined possible
We have already grown apart
Streched to other sides of country
Dipping our bones into different waters
But if there's something you've shown me
Something you've taught me
It's that
Your first love
Will always be your first love
Regardless of how life goes on
Regardless of who you meet
Where you go
What you see
Regardless of distance, time
Whatever it is
Your first love
Will always be your first love
And love,
You will always be
Mine.

My mouth is full of moths
My words are not pretty
They do not flutter out with grace and ease
Instead
Twitching as they find their exit from my lips
They are not butterfly
With a name so smooth that it rolls off the tongue
I am not monarch
But
The decaying flesh it preys upon
The contrast between beauty and reality
I do not know why
Why
People like me are attracted to light
I guess it makes since
To swim towards brightness
When you've spent so much of your life in the darkness
Cocooned in between empty spaces
Nesting in silk spun from my own silence
I have spent months inside my shell
Learning how to find my own voice
Learning how to speak my own language
Hearing myself talk for 18 years but for the first time actually listening
Like moth
Touch sends me fleeting
Like moth
Attention back into hiding
I am not conspicous
Nor do I crave to be
Like caterpillar
We
Are all given blind hope
Told that someday
We will be noticed
Visible
Beautiful
But some spend so much time
Preparing for glory
That they forget storybooks lie
That in real life
The very hungry caterpillar
Who was promised butterfly
Becomes moth
Moth
What most see as ugly
And intrusive
Chewing holes in your finest clothing
Making home unwanted places
Moth is undesired
Butterfly is welcomed
Tell me why
One is invited in and the other shut out
Moth is not pretty
Moths lack ofbeauty
Is enough
To disregard it
All at once
Different is enough
To disregard all at once
Do not disregard me
Because I am not ideal
Because i am not fully painted winged beauty
We as a society only stop to see what catches the eye
Unable to notice the intricisies
Of darkness
So look a little closer
Try a little harder
Because if anything is to be known
It is that beauty
Is not
In the obvious.

What I would give
To wake up next to you
Bodies tangled vines
Legs wrapping around backbone
Skin stained from the previous night's hunger
From eager lips
What I would give
To have you run fingers down my xylophone ribs
Every morning
Play me into routine
Sing each note that leaves my lips
Each breathless hello
Each half whispered stay
Each please don't go
What I would give
To know the exact shape of your palms
Have them folded into memory
Making home in the dimples of my back
In the curve of my spine
Not allowing for goodbye
Reading only welcome
What I would give
To run hands through your hair
Through the saltwater aftermath
Through sand dusted in from the wind
From a day spent in beach sun
What I would give
To bury myself in the vacant parts of you
And never leave
What I would give
To fall asleep next to your mumbling
Next to your 3am curiosity
With your breath against my ear
And toes weaved together like the silk from our bedsheets
What I would give
Is not enough to shrink the space between us
Is not enough to turn distance into nonexistence
But boy,
What I would give
To have you next to me

I would give everything from the arch of my soles
To my abundance of freckles
To be with you

In order to be with you
I would give
All of me.

The first time you are told
That you are beautiful
You will not believe it
You will swallow it down harshly
Like a glass of ethanol
Force a mona lisa smile on your unknowing face
And say thank you
Say it like it's something you're used to hearing
Like it actually means something
Like it doesn't hurt as much as it does
Compliments aren't supposed to hurt
But you were taught them backhanded
Raised on anticipation
Expecting to feel a sting after every one you're given
Conditioned to regard praise as unfamiliar
As foreign territory
Body only knowing warzone
And battlefield
Not knowing genuine
Body was never taught how to be loved
How to love
You were too busy trying to learn to love men with rough hands and heavy breath
Too busy giving away parts of you in hopes of getting something back
And what was left over never felt like enough
Felt hollow
Felt maybe you were never meant to feel like you are important
Or desirable
Or anything for that matter
So the next time you are called pretty
Or something of the kind
You will have mastered the art of acceptance
Will have memorized the routine
Will be able to swallow it down faster
Quicker
Will know how to bury it deep inside of you
Yet still bare a vacant hole underneath all of that skin
You were told at a young age
That there was too much of it
That nobody could ever love thick
That they only want thin
When he tells you that you're body is flower and stem
Is garden
Is beauty
Is something to be admired
You will feel the same kind of longing
You have felt so many times before
A kind of homesickness
For a body that has never quite felt like home
Too many residents have attempted to tear it down
Have set it aflame
Have tried to burn you to the ground
It takes someone who treats you well
To realize how incompetently the rest did
It takes someone with intentions of gold
To realize that the rest were just rust
Flattery may not be a language
That you will ever fully comprehend
But it will always be one that is
Unavoidable
You will learn to nod your head
Learn to agree with a cause you might never truly believe in
Might as well accept the inevitable
So when you are told
That you are beautiful
Do everything in your power
To hide your disbelief
Your skepticism
Your complete disregard towards them
Your inability to understand how anyone could ever possibly love something like you
When you are told
That you are worthy
Do your best
To smile
And make it seem like you already know
Like you have known it
For a very
Long time.

I am not the girl you marry
I am the girl who 10 years from now
Will out of nowhere cross your mind
In the midst of contentedness
And have you wondering
What happened to her
I am not the girl you swear forever to
I am the girl who you'll think of
When you ***** your finger on the diamond ring
You bought for the one you plan on spending your life with
I am not the girl you have to try to forget
I am not memorable
In any particular way
But one day you will think of me
When you're sitting in a bar
And the short blonde girl next to you
Orders a glass
Of whisky.

Do you remember
The first time you held somebody's hand
Felt the way their skin pulsed against yours
How your heart attempted to escape from your chest
And your stomach became home to 10 million moths
Flying into the light all at once
Do you remember
The nervous laughs
And the smile that lay between pigmented cheeks
Drawn from admiration
And bliss
How you never before found glow
In a lantern not your own
Do you remember
The lips that first wiped you of your sanity
How they brushed against yours with  seemingly perfect unision
Replayed over and over again
Heart reminding brain
Reminding body
How good it felt to be loved
To be touched
If that could be bottled
If any of the first time nostalgia and discovery
Could be placed in a glass jar
And preserved
Than we would need no reminder
Of how it felt to feel
And how it felt to be
Alive.

They will never know our struggle
They will never know how to empathize
With our extreme abundance of feelings
We have so many words living on our tongue that sometimes
We almost choke trying to swallow them down
Therefore
We are constantly spitting them on to paper
And our journal entries look more like convulsions made by spasms of the hand
Than they do legible anything
But that's alright
We keep our heart in a metal flask
Open just enough to let the air seep in
Ready at all times to pour it out to anyone with open hands
Sometimes to the point of emptiness
Too many times do we leave ourselves with nothing
Having given so much of us to someone
Caution is not something we proceed with
Rather
Speed and recklessness
Blind optimism with eager motion
We are not capable of waiting
We are the ones who romanticize too soon
Fantasize in the most unsettling ways
We are the antagonists of our own stories
Yet we seem to always be searching for a happy ending
We are the wide eyed wanderers
The shy bodies built with open arms
Now and then
Love poems will escape from our fingertips
Never to reach their destination
Our memories are books we reread over and over again
Films that we replay just to remind us how it felt to feel
Our senses our heightened to the point where touch
Becomes crucial
And emotions
Become visible
We are the people
That you do not want to fall in love with
Because once we do
We will never
Fall out.

I wish I could write the poem
To make you fall in love with me
But I am still trying
To compose the one
To get me to love
Myself.

Dear Chicago
I have known you since birth
Was placed on this earth at the corner of belmont and clarke
Between thrift shops and sports bars
Amidst high rises and churches
At introduction was enamoured
Fell in love at first sight
Fell in love with your capacity
Your buildings
And skyline
Fell in love
With the way the pier's ferris wheel
Glows against lake michigan
How I felt invicible
The first time I ever rode it
A tourist attraction to say the least
But to me, has always been more
Has always been comforting
I claim to hate the cold
But the snow blanketing the trees in the winter time
Is a beauty unlike any other
Is painstakingly unbearable in it's temperature
But worth it
Worth the below zero windchill
Worth the frostbitten hands and hour long commutes
The weather has yet to prevent celebration
Couples bond over frozen lips with kisses and hot chocolate
Skates click against glass ice in Millenium park
I have always thought
That the city looks best dressed in christmas
In street lights
In holiday
In togetherness
In road rage turned blessing
It is hardest to hate what is shared
And freezing cold has a way of providing unity
As does autumn
How nothing has ever been more breathtaking
Than how leaves make death look graceful
How they make fifteenth story falls seem desirable
Something about the air
Feels different in the fall
But regardless of season
There is always warmth in the food
In the deep dish pizza that settles at the bottom of hungry stomachs
In the hotdogs that cannot be imitated in any other town
I have noticed
That some things can not be replaced
And this city
That I have grown up loving
Is not one that deserves to be changed
But still
Is imperfect
Is molding
Growing in ways more negative than good
In ways unwanted
Gang violence is no longer a rarity
Earning us a top spot on the list of high ****** rates
It seems today
That gunshots and sirens
Are the only music to be heard in the streets
That the jazz born here decades ago no longer plays
Only silent cry of mother losing child
Only unanswered prayer
Reports of daily shootings have become routine
Safety is not one of the stronget attributes
And a girl like me
Would be unable to securely navigate the streets on her own
Survive in this community turned war zone
Chicago
I have loved you
For as long as I have known what love is
I have painted picture after picture of you
Admiring your intricate details
Your originality
Your parts that can not be found any place else
But there are flaws
That have forced me to leave
Have driven me thousands of miles away
You must understand
That I needed someplace
That could offer me protection when alone
Chicago
I may not be in your arms
But you will always
Hold a place
In my heart
You will always
Be home.

My smile is burden with the weight of disappointment
With every let down I have been handed
Envelope folded desolation
I have learned to speak sorrow
With my tongue bended backwards
Trained in speaking a language
I might never fully understand
Sew stitching every reality
Along the corners of my mouth
Wear glasgow happiness
As if it's enough
To trick me out of my insecurities
Help me to believe
That contentment
Is not just temporary
That not everybody who comes into my life
Plans on leaving
But I am too familiar with goodbye
To understand welcome
I am used
To crossing my arms into shield
Knotting my fists into apology
I may never know conversation without sorry
But am attempting
To set my expectations low enough
To able to reach them
Without falling.

My mouth tastes of whiskey
When it should really taste of you.

I want you
To touch my silk skin
Until it turns sand paper rough
Run your hands down my spine
Until it curves into arch
Wrap your legs around mine
Until we become unison
Hold my unsteady body
Until it is still as the night
Hold it tightly
Until we wake to sunrise
I want you
To warm my lips with yours
Until they are no longer blue
Warm my heart with yours
Until it is no longer blue
I want you
I want you
I want you.