Let lore luster lax,
Lingered love leavens.
Let love loop lilac lei lavishly.

Listen lovelorn lilt, laconic liken
Lisping liturgy, limping litany.
Litmus-leaking longing, languor lengthened.

someone told me once that i was an all or nothing type of girl.
and they meant it as a compliment, or rather an insult
draped and disguised to look like one.
but it's true, i know this.

and i have locked onto that phrase for years and years.
because i am so afraid to love someone wrong
that i love everyone too much, maybe.
or maybe not ever at all.

i can tell you what a crush feels like, list symptoms and
cross things off on a list one by exciting, miserable
one. but i cannot write on the excitement
of the brush of someone's fingers

or the bone-rattling nerves of an across-the-room glance.
i can't remember what rejection feels like and if
you asked me, i could not properly say
that i care about that anyway.

but i am familiar with this, the anxiety and this yearning.
to talk and laugh and say out loud what was said
to me and oh, however shall i respond?
that's what i'd say.

if i had a crush, anyway. but i am a girl who just...
does things all at once or not at all, and so
i find myself terribly frightened
to feel anything at all.

I.
My first in first grade
I carved your name in my desk
I hope it's still there.

II.
Made class valentines
Required for everyone
But mine was special.

III.
You begged the teacher
To sit by me on the bus
With a great big smile.

IV.
The first who wanted
To take me out for dinner
But it was a joke.

V.
Dedicated song
I can no longer hear it
Without thought of you.

VI.
You never said it
But your eyes always told me
You had wanted more.

VII.
You dated my friend
And I never told you how
Much I adored you.

VIII.
Playful like a child
But mature like an adult
So interesting.

IX.
You asked me to prom
Yellow flowers for friendship
That's all I wanted.

X.
You said you loved me
I loved you like a brother
It would never work.

XI.
You swore up and down
You had changed for the better
You didn't, first kiss.

XII.
Late walks on campus
Never saw me with makeup
We were so natural.

XIII.
Eyes found each other
"I don't forget pretty girls"
you whispered to me.

XIV.
I fell quickly, hard
But you still loved someone else
A girl with my name.

XV.
A friend of a friend
Texting non-stop everyday
Going nowhere fast.

XVI.
Liked me from the start
Bruised and broken, I do care
But not in that way.

XVII.
The piano man
It was all right but timing
One that got away.

XVIII.
We tried to fight time
Thinking that you were ready
Left us with heartache.

I have become endlessly infatuated
with the low cadence of your voice.
The way it crackles before dawn and
strengthens after your morning coffee.
Your soft lips part to bare its splendor.
It tickles my earlobe when you whisper
soft melodies I could never grow tired of.
It covers the rim of your coffee cup when
you take a sip; it sweetly kisses you like I do.
I believe in the beauty of simplicity once more.

A plane ticket can help you
leave this hell behind,
but it can't help you escape
from your dreadful mind.

Mothers don't allow their young daughters
to experiment with make-up until old enough
but I had no choice but to bring a brush to my face
and paint the canvas to hide each blemish.
Long sleeves, loose scarves, fitted jeans,
anything to hide the daily playground ritual.  
The swing I experienced was not hanging from chains
but rather from the tightened fists of someone I once knew.
I found solidarity underneath the weeping willow tree
as we sobbed together in the cool air of November.

The sea is the only creation
that can feel

(s)ympathy,
(e)mpathy, and
(a)pathy

all at once.

A beautiful contradiction.

I continue
to write
about flowers
so they
never die.

I cracked my bones,
curled my legs,
and bent my spine,
forcing myself to
fit your definition of
human perfection.

I presented my morphed bundle
of brittle bones and stretched skin
before your dark eyes...
and you still walked away.

I was never going to be
good enough for you, was I?
But now that I see what I've become,
I am not good enough for me, either.

As I opened the medicine cabinet
carefully hidden behind a broken mirror,
I discovered transparent orange bottles
with broken childproof tabs on each cap,
concealing diet pills the size of ants.

I replaced the capsules with fully bloomed daisies
and I hope you swallow each petal
and ingest each stem entirely
so you can eat something that,
like you, encompasses beauty.