I keep old movie stubs in my pockets
Polaroids
Concert tickets
Loose mints
Half pieces of gum
And the fortunes from cookies I ate at my favorite chinese restaurant
The one nestled between a church and a thrift shop
I keep an abundance
Of miscellaneous items
I like the reminders
Remembering
What was important to me at the time
And even though
I keep these things
I am not a hoarder
I am a collector
Of memories
Of moments
Of past that I refuse to let go of
I hold on
Much longer than I should
Fold every sweet second
Into the palm of my hand
And save them for later
Saving the sun for overcast days
Saving light
For nights when the darkness is too much
It is my memories
That keep me alive
But the same ones
Could very well
Be the death of me
I am a collector
Of both things good and bad
I hold on
Much longer than I should
But happiness
Does not have an expiration date
And there is always reason
To reflect
To smile
At a piece of paper
A picture
A note
Something
Anything
That once held significance
People change
Locations change
Life
Changes
But inanimate objects
Stand still even when time does not
I am a collector
And I am attempting to preserve
The fading.

You slip off my tongue
Every five seconds
Your name stumbles out of my mouth
Every time I open it
I taste you
In every syllable
And I don't know how
To wash you out

Maybe I don't want to.

He had a love that lasted years
I have had nothing
Even remotely close
Only what is fleeting
Rough lips and selfish tongues
Greedy hands and reckless touch
The only love I have ever known
Left without warning
I have never known love to be forgiving
Or patient and kind
That kind of love
Is not one I am familar with

I am well aware
That he is not here to love me
He is here to worship this body
That most days,
Doesn't even feel like my own
Most days
My skin is a jacket
That stretches over fragile bone
I only wear it because I have to
Because this world pokes and prods with sharpness
And there are only so many times someone can break completely
These tattoos
Are just a shield for vulnerability
Piercings,
Nothing more than metaphor for puncture
There are so many wounds still awaiting healing

And although this body
Hasn't been fully occupied by its tenant in years
I will let him spend a night in it
Let him believe that it is nothing beyond ordinary
I will let him carve his name into the arch of my back
Fingernails to flesh
Palms to ribcage
And for one night
He will make believe love to me
We will make believe intimacy
Make believe that lust is something
That can only be felt more than just momentarily
We will pretend that our affection is warranted
And be unbound

In the morning
He will wash my name from his mouth
Swallow it entirely
And forget he ever tasted it
Tomorrow
He will wipe my DNA from his skin
Rinse off every last trace of my lips
And I will do the same
There is no reason
That I should be something he comes back to
There is no reason for me to draw myself indelible
When all I will ever be
Is a lone evening of desire

Nobody wants to get to know the girl
Who barely knows herself
Nobody will ever remember the girl
Who forgets who she is every time she gives herself away
This is a girl
Who calls herself woman
But still cries in the dark

And someone
Who knows love as well as he does
Will never want someone
Who doesn't even know
What love is
Someone like that
Is better suited
For one night.

Money cannot buy happiness

My mother
Has a collection of jewelry
Diamonds are her favorite
Hers are pure and glimmering
She wears them on her hands
And over her heart
She has a collection
Of shiny things
They all sit pretty on her body
Glowing against her tan skin
But their worth is still not enough
To cure her instability
Or ease the anxiety that never leaves
She has all of these beautiful things
But still relies on antidepressants and nicotine
To make it through the day
And even after that
She is still not content
Money does not buy happiness

My father
Has a love for cars
He has spent his earnings
On greatly crafted vehicles
They are kept well and clean
They glisten
Shining almost as bright
As my mother's diamonds
They are fast
And smooth
Like his collection of fine liquor
All of the bottles lined up neatly
15 year, 18 year, 20
All of them rich in age
He has a lot of nice things
But at the end of the day
Still requires multiple glasses of whiskey
To wash out the bitterness of life
And the memories
Of how close he came to losing it
He has all of these cars
That take him from place to place
But it is still he
Who has to drag himself out of bed
Each morning to face the world
And even then
He is still not at ease
Money cannot buy happiness

Celebrities
Have lives that most would envy
But even they can be consumed by darkness
And fall victim to their own sadness
Money cannot buy happiness

The man who lives next door
Has a beautiful house
And a lot of things
To fill it
His home is never empty
But I can tell that he is
His eyes give it away
Money cannot buy happiness

I have
So much to be thankful for
I am provided
With more than one could ever need
And my level of privilege is beyond doubt
But most days
I struggle to make it through this one
And on to the next
It is always a never ending battle
Between me and myself
Between my mind and my sanity
Most nights
I fall asleep to a mix of ambien and panic
Having to **** my thoughts
With substance
I am overwhelmed
By constant fear
By frequent depersonalization and depression
Often feeling sad and then guilty

Because I have everything
I could ever ask for
But I am still not happy
These material things
Are not enough
To fill the gaping hole expanding within me
And there is a lot
That money can buy
But happiness
Is not one of them.

I am the kind of person
Who has mental breakdowns in the line at subway
Decision making is difficult
Or maybe I'm just crazy
And I might be
Every day is unpredictable
Every day I wake up in the same body
A different person
People never believe me
But believe me when I say
I change on a daily basis
My mood is completely erratic
And always shifting
It is not desirable
To be this unstable
With the daily possibility of hurricane
And ever-present disaster
There is bound to be destruction
I think deeply about everything
Too much and too often
My personality is introverted
Yet I get upset when I'm alone for too long
Human contact is critical to my being
But sometimes I get upset if I am looked at the wrong way
I push people away
And then get mad when they don't come back
I don't make much sense at all
Really, I don't
Potato
I got a massage once
And cried for the whole 80 minutes
Because I had realized
I needed to pay someone to touch me for that long
It was still worth it
It's not normal
To fall apart this often
But I do
So often that it's become my daily routine
A repetition
Of overanalyzing
Freaking out
And then worrying
Followed by bouts of hysterical crying
I cry at the most irrelevant things
But never serious situations
I've been to two funerals in my life
And didn't cry at either
I didn't know how to
I am impulsive
I have seven tattoos
All of which were added within a span of three months
I make my decisions at the last minute
I'm addicted to netflix
I bawl my eyes out every time I watch lilo & stitch
Which is often
Sad music makes me depressed
But it's still the only thing I listen to
I say I hate hookups
And then spend a night with someone who will never speak to me again after
I look for love in all the wrong places
And then get ****** when I don't find it
Yell at happy couples because they are happy and I am not
I smoke cigarettes only because I like the smell of them
I drink too much
And then not enough
I look good some days and then like hell the next
My pillow has a permanent imprint of my head because I sleep a lot
Some nights I don't sleep at all
And then cry about it in the morning
I think I cry too much
And most days I realize this
I realize that I am
A mess
A whirlwind of ugly
Black and white
Back and forth
Thunder storm tidal waves
That constantly pick up and crash
A kaleidoscope of everything wrong in this world
All put together in one single being
I am the definition
Of insanity
But when you look at it
In the right perspective
I guess it starts to make sense
Starts to fold into something other than just breakage
I can't see the appeal in the chaos
I can't see the beauty
In any of this
But maybe someday
Someone will.

I read a blog post
That I had written
Years ago
It was written
The night of my first kiss
And it was titled,
"The best night of my life ever"
I can say now
That it was probably not the best night of my life ever
But it was a good one
I remember it well
The fast pace of my heart
The whirling of my stomach
The smile plastered on my face for the whole week that followed
Prompting my mother to ask what the hell was wrong with me
That sunday in october
Years ago
Was the first time
I had ever felt butterflies
I wrote about it the night it happened
Eager to document my excitement
That sunday in october
Is a night that I still write about sometimes
I have kissed
Many lips since then
I have had hands touch me
Explored bodies
In ways that my 13 year old self
Would cringe at
I am much older now
But some days
I feel like time hasn't passed at all
Some days
I have to remember
That this body is not the same
It has played house to so many men
That I often forget who it belongs to
I am not the same person
That I used to be
I have had so much happen
Since then
So I wonder why
I am still writing about my first kiss
How it is the only memory
Since then
That I don't want to erase completely
My innocence was lost
Not long after
So I keep rewinding to that night
Continue playing it back
Back to spinning objects instead of bottles
For the chance to be kissed
And a moment of infinity
It's funny
How one of my fondest memories
Is a sunday in october
When the boy I liked
Touched his lips to mine for the first time
It's funny
How I still think about it
After so much has happened
After so much time has gone by
I am almost a completely different person
Than I was back then
But I still need reminders
That I'm not that girl anymore
I still think about her
I still write about her
I wonder
If she ever wrote about me
And who she thought she might be
After so many years
I still keep her blog up and running
For the sole purpose of reading it
For the sole purose of reflecting
On what was important back then
And what will always be
She wrote about her first kiss
To be able to remember it
I am writing about it
To keep her alive.

You may not be
The brightest rose
In a bouquet of flowers
But one day
Someone will find you
And call you their favorite
They will admire your petals
Your stem
They will withstand the thorns
And you will learn how to be soft again
They will see what most cannot

Beauty is in the eye
Of the beholder
And the one who holds you
Will find the beauty in your eyes
You may not be
The brightest rose
In a garden
But someday
You will be the brightest rose
To someone.