This is to the camera, that sees me as nothing but
Delicate bones and pearly whites
My essence captured through awkward captions and
My worth measured by likes and heart bytes
A photograph carefully composed
Of a girl with her true thoughts [boxed up tight]

This is to the boys who see me as nothing but
Geometric shapes
Circles and curves and parabolas
**** and *** and legs and waist
And an irrelevant concave where my brain should be
My “radical ideas” make me a butterface

This is to the academy, that sees me as nothing but
3.97 and a good SAT score
A scholar of great potential
That will donate millions or more
As an honored alumni
Of the greatest institution in the world

This is to society, that sees me as nothing but
A golden gal who always colored inside the lines
Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, no fire in my soles

“She’s never insubordinate, ‘cause she’s never been inclined”
Determined but docile
Go ahead and assume I’m not the rebellious kind

This is to myself, because I see that
My mind is a kaleidoscope of technicolor dreams
Ideas colliding like specks in sunbeams  
And I’ll call myself a feminist or riot grrl if I **** well please
You are not my dictator or an office label machine
It’s 2015; I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be.

I wish I could fly
I’d go somewhere that I could call my own
A place that no one knows
let my thoughts fly about
like leaves on a windy day
no branches that can hold me down
just the blue sky that consoles me
to breathe in the fresh, crisp air
and let go of all the worries

Heard quivering along the grape vine
grew bitter
Words shivering to escape my spine
*You quitter

so you're disappointed
that you're disappointed
and maybe that's to be expected
some folks make beds
out of their catharsis
differently than others
it's this list
of things you lost in the fire
or how jealous you are
of people
who never came back up for air
you're crying
so the faucets leak out of solidarity
& someone asks you
why the floor is wet
so you tell them
"we've been weeping here forever"
then they want to give you
a mouth full of presupposition
by saying
"are you going down with the ship?"
& you look them in the mouth
like Leo is handcuffed to a pipe
five decks down
you look at them
like you just woke up
from that dream everyone has
where all their teeth fall out
maybe it's an intervention
a hearse vs station wagon origin story
a clearance sale
& everything's gotta go
or maybe it's the dream
where you're at the docks
from your childhood
and there's a little girl
unmooring all the ships
because she thinks
they'll float away
but every time
she unties them
they just sink




                                          they just sink

to my darling who feels she's not:
our separation is mere illusion.
truly, your pain strikes me as i write this;
your sensations of abandonment,
and the decisiveness they have caused,
bleed from my skin into the fibers of my clothes.
i am no longer clean.
i do not feel pure.

to my severed arm and shortened tendons:
destruction is merely another side of life.
out of disappearance comes all things-
without space, there would be nothing to contain us,
nothing to allow and enfold our beings' spirits,
and they would sputter and cease like my love's flame.
i am no longer yours.
i do not feel full.

to the farthest star that my eyes can see:
your light reaches me- i glimpse you!
in the perceived emptiness between us
there is no distance to be found;
around us exists the infinite potential for
further connection and deeper growth in closeness.
i am no longer alone.
i do not feel sorrow.

I Dodged a bullet but got hit by a train.

1.** I have loved you since November, I've tried to stop, I can't.
2. I have never met a person like you, a person that can make me feel in slow motion. A person that can embody art, you are like watercolor sunsets and the smell of daisies.
3. I can't help but blush and smile and act like a bubbly schoolgirl on a Friday.
I can't help but get lost in your clothes, your hair, your laugh, your smile, your smell.
I know, I know it's mad, but I've found that I just get lost in you.
4. I remember when we were talking about you and your life and you asked me about mine. I really wanted to hold your hand, I didn't. I remember when we talked about aesthetics in class and I thought of you, because I find you so lovely. I remember talking about space and feelings and how you felt like an alien; I said I felt the same.
5. I remember seeing you and being immediately captivated, I remember sharing feelings and feeling so understood. I will always remember the comfort I feel when I'm around you. I may be alien, I may be foreign, I may be unidentified, but I have the universe to come home to. I have you to romanticize and use fancy words with, I remember when you said I was out of this world, the illest. I corrected you with, "If I am, then so are you, we're etherealists."

i can't help but feel sad
over all the people i'll never get to meet.
never feel the calloused hands that have turned the earth inside and out
never see the eyes of those who have chased the sun, moon, and stars
never trace the constellations they weave in their heads.

this world is overrun with beautiful souls
but not enough me-
why can't i have more hands to hold the ones stretching out to me?
why can't i have more legs to carry me further across?
let me meet them halfway
between "what i know" and "what i could know."
let me go
i beg of you
please let me go.

there are so many beautiful souls
but not enough me-- not enough me.

so instead i will embrace the bodies before me
i will hold out my frail hands
and read theirs like they're the last book i'll ever read.
i will be afraid to blink
in hopes of watching every sunset they extend.
i will carry their hearts wherever i go
and wear their lives through each season.