Tough girl isn't afraid of much
Tough girl is strong
And brave
Tough girl has mastered the art of apathy
The science of not giving a ****
She is confident
And swift
Tough girl has trained herself not to care
Walks with confidence
Keeps her head up
She is a whirlwind of resilience
Withstanding each disaster
Every hurricane
She refuses to let the world break her down
Her skin
Is a combination of metals
Her smile, a shield
Bone made of iron
She is incapable of corrosion
Her heart always guarded
She is unbreakable
Knows how to put up a fight
And win
She doesn't give in
And no matter how hard people try
To bring her down
She doesn't let them get to her
But I
Am not her
Our resemblance is uncanny
And I have the ability to pretend
To fake a sense of pride long enough to believe it
A concoction of false courage
And intimidation
But she
Is not me
Tough girl is everything I have ever tried to be
Having spent hours practicing blank stares
And learning how to walk
Like the ground below you isn't breaking
Trying to breathe like there isn't a storm building within
Resistance is a skill I have spent forever trying to build
But I am not solid
I am not tough
I am softness that wears rough around the edges
A jacket built of barriers
With barbed wire skin
All of this protection
And I somehow still manage
To frequently break open
I am not a super hero
I can barely save myself
Let alone anyone else
And as much as I wish I was
I am not tough girl
As much as we look alike
As similar as we seem
I am not she
I care too much
Think too deeply
And love too passionately
But I'm starting to realize
That maybe
It's not such a bad thing
Maybe the girl
I've been trying to be all along
Is not as put together as she seems
Those who appear fine
Are often the ones coming apart at the seams
I may not be tough girl
But I can still make believe.

The real reason
We'll never work out
Is that I'm into you
And you're into yourself.

I have always
Had a knack
For losing things
It's no wonder
You're gone.

This is not a love poem
I do not love you
Although I know I could
This is not a love poem
This is not a questioning
But a way of saying
I care more than I let on
A way of confessing
I think about you
More than I wish I did
I wish I could hate you
It would be much easier that way
I could write about it
And move the **** on
But I am stuck
Aware of the time I am wasting
By contemplating it all
By thinking too deeply
I can guarantee you
This is not a love poem
If it was
I would speak about the light in your eyes
How your smile
Is one of the brightest things I have ever seen
Your personality
One of the most addicting
If this was a love poem
I would tell you how much I want to kiss you
I would outline your lips with metaphor
Compare your tongue to honey
Write your body into a sonnet
And tell you how badly I crave it
I would tell you
How much
I long to be with you
How I want to waste
All of my moments with you
I would tell you
Everything I wish we could do
But this is not a love poem
So instead
I will tell you of how badly I want to slap you
Tell you that I hate you
That I want absolutely nothing to do with you
But the problem is
None of that is true
I could very well
Write you a love poem
But I don't think it would do much
I still don't think it would be enough
To make you have enough time for me
And the thing is
You are far too busy
For a girl who has all of the time in the world
She will never admit she's been waiting
But is a ticking clock in disguise
So much time has already been spent counting
All of the seconds
Each minute
Every hour
Days are milestones
Time is limited
It is better spent together
And I would much rather
Be alone with you
But this
Is not a love poem
I cannot incite beauty in something inconsistent
There is no romance
Only disappointment
And let downs
They are easy enough
To get used to
Do not ask me why I have trust issues
Ask everyone who has ever left
My hands do not touch without prints
Without leaving some sort of permanence
They say stay
Don't go
I want so badly
To push you away
But stay
Don't go
Because the way I think of you is a love poem
The way I speak about you is a love poem
The way that I talk to you is a love poem
The way that I can't get you off of my mind and out of my head is a love poem
The way I claim to hate you, avoid you, and pretend to despise you is a stupid ******* love poem
You are the love poem I cannot stop writing
This is a ******* love poem
This is my surrender
So please stay,
Don't go.

I will regret this in the morning
but I will do it anyway
my impulsivity often overpowers my conscience
yet I am almost always fully aware
of the decisions I make
and their consequences
I am not exactly mentally stable
but I am sane enough
to know right from wrong
yesterday from today
love from lust
although sometimes I mix them up
I have a tendency to lunge at any pair of arms that open for me
my mind and body often disagree
my body saying yes to eager hands
my mind saying no
constantly looking towards my heart
thinking how stupid one must be
to fall repeatedly
get hurt every single time
and still manage to do the same
over
and over
again
I wonder
how many times I will have to hit the ground
in order to learn to stop falling face first?
I often say things
that should be left unsaid
I often do things
that should not be done
sleep in beds unfamiliar
make believe love to strangers
get to know people who will not remember me tomorrow
I am gone as quickly as the hangover
I can be washed off the tongue
just as quickly as the liquor
I often believe I am capable of inciting change
I kiss temporary lips with permanence
hoping that I can train them to stay
I love temporary people with permanence
hoping that I can train them not to leave
and when they do
I claim to have seen it coming
I am incapable of forgetting
a scrapbook memory of skin and heartbeat
of touch and moments
I know not to look directly into eyes
for they can be blinding
and I still
do it anyway
I know of the risks that shouldn't be taken
well aware of their consequences
and I still
take them anyway
you could say
it is my own fault
for the way that things continue to turn out
but I can make no promise of apology
instead
I will live momentarily
**** up intentionally
love recklessly
fall unguarded
break enough times to learn how to put myself back together
crash into concrete enough times to learn how to shift a crooked smile
into something worth seeing
I have been told that a life lived in fear
is hardly a life lived at all
so I intend to live every second
like it is the last one I will have
I will write each night as it happens
narrate my own stories
and hope they turn out okay
I will regret this in the morning
but I will do it anyway.

I fell in love with the idea of you
The thought of who you might be
How your hands might touch me
How your lips might feel against my skin
The idea of you loved me
Patiently
And kindly
Never selfish
Only selfless
The idea of you knew how to listen
I poured myself empty every time
And still managed to feel whole afterwards
Did not need a bottle to fill me
I was drunk enough as is
The idea of you gave me all there was to give
No need to ask for anything
No need to beg
Or wait
There was always something to grab onto
There was never any chase
The idea of you kept me company at night
Held me in moments of despair
And sung me to sleep
The idea of you always knew what to say
And when to say it
Knew words to untangle me
When my tongue grew tied
The idea of you was everything
I could have ever asked for
But you
Were not what I asked for
Your grip was rough
Your edges too sharp
Your caress anything but sweet
The only time you held me
Was when your arms had no other obligation
There was never any time made for me
You were running so fast
That I could hardly keep up
Always busy
Too consumed by everyone else
Too distracted
To pay attention to what lay in front of you
It is often the brightest lights
That blind the hardest
I must have been far too fluorescent
For your eyes to handle
And although it took me a while to see it
I finally do
I have come to realize
I never really wanted you
I wanted someone
Who didn't even exist.

After the heartbreak
You will learn to love again
It may take
Weeks
Months
Or years
But it will happen
After the fall
You will learn to build yourself back up
From the pieces left behind
It may take
Weeks
Months
Or years
But it will happen
After the spillage
Through all of this emptiness
You will be whole again
It may take
Weeks
Months
Even years
But it will happen
Change will happen
Life will happen
And you
Will be you again.