Do not get yourself into trouble
I have been told this too many times before
Warned that my clothing
Or lack of
Is enough to justify another person's actions
What I have been told by my mother
What she means
In much simpler words
Is
Don't get *****

My mother's concern is understood
I am 5'1 and do not breathe fire out of my mouth as I would wish to
I am not a master in the art of
Self defense
Only sarcasm
And making myself look pretty enough
To catch the wandering eyes of men
But neither of these
Are invitations
To my body

What my mother is saying
When she says don't get yourself into risky situations
Is don't drink
Because if you do
It then becomes your fault
As if the increase of alcohol
In my blood
Makes me more responsible
For another mans decisions to take what is rightfully mine

What my mother is saying
Is that it is okay to look good
But not good enough
For someone to want you that way
How do i tell her
That ****
Is not about what you look like
Or what you wear
That it is solely
About power

My mother tells me to cover up
Implying that ****
Has something to do with
The appearance of my *******
Or curviness of my hips
Tell me mother
If this is true
Why do millions of girls worldwide
Who are covered head to toe
Get ***** daily
How is it that
They can be fully clothed
Yet still stripped of their dignity
Constantly

To me
The worst part is
That we teach women how to protect
More often
Than we teach men to not touch
Do you know mother
How dangerous it is
To give out these warnings
As a disclaimer

It is a dangerous thing
To play games with blame
Politicians do
A good enough job of it already
Therefore
We do not need our own mothers
To do so as well

What we need
Is for our mothers
To tell their sons
About
Boundaries
And teach them
That consent
Is not written
Into the lines
Of shown skin
On a woman's body

What we need mother
Is to stop the defense
Of actions that have no predecessor
What we truly need
Is to stop telling our daughters
That they are responsible
For preventing the doings
Of someone who was never taught
That no means no.

Do not fall in love with me
I will turn every empty second into a overanalyzed thought
I will fill the spaces between our heartbeats with lovesongs emitted from my fingertips
I will make your words into poetry
Recite them over and over until they are tattooed on your skin
I will make your lips a sacred temple and send my prayers through kisses
Your body will become my garden where i will plant myself roots up
Intertwine my vines with yours
I will call you the sun
Your breath will become my air and I will use you to photosynthesize
I will forget that I am not a tree
And you are not my forest
I will forget that we are only human
So do not fall in love with me
Unless you are willing
To love the details.

Addiction is not beautiful
It is nights spent cradling bitter liquid in a glass bottle
Held against your heart like a bible
Scraping the ash out from underneath your fingernails
It is learning how to cover up the parts that you are ashamed of
Scarred skin that shows every war lost with yourself
Finding ways to pull fabric over even your darkest corners
And figuring out how to leave the least visible damage
It is crushed pills making a home in the sides of your nostrils
And holding back your head until the bleeding stops
It is nocturnal nights and sleep filled days
Obsession over every single sober second
Addiction is ruthless
Harrowing
Agonizing
It is something that nobody chooses
And it is anything but
Beautiful.

I swear that in another life I was a crow. A bird of black feathers and mystery, cawing at the wind and nesting myself high above civilization. I think crows are beautiful. Beautiful like the blood moon lunar eclipse being the first of the year, beautiful like rain water slapping the windows of a glass house, beautiful like the way veins insist on being pointed out through pale skin, I think beauty is in perspective. When people think of crows, they think of bad luck, evil, and death, these are the convictions that cultural mythology instilled upon us. Poe once wrote the raven to symbolize mournful and never ending remembrance, the bird being a reminder to one's desent into madness, he forgot to mention the magic that these creatures maintain. What spells evil to some is beauty to another. Anything can be beautiful if you look at it the right way and we so often look at things incorrectly. Eyes half opened, blinded by some form of unnatural light, we so often look at things with skewed perspective. We are often unable to bend our reality in order to see something that we dont want to believe in. Why do we look at blackbirds as a symbol of fear and white doves as free and pure? And why is white and pure always somehow perceived as better? Crows may be dark, but make no mistake, they are not hollow. These birds are known to be some of the most intelligent animals on this earth yet we disregard them based on history and how they look, tell me, does this say anything about our society? How we are so easily willing to put aside something because they are not the typical definition of beauty? How often do we not take the time to recognize the charm that lays within difference? Difference is beauty. Charm is mystery. I think that crows are charming. Crows to me, are the four leaf clover, the rabbits foot attached to a key ring, crows manage to bring me a sense of comfort and beauty, I think crows are beautiful. I say that in a past life I was one. Too many times have I been followed by them, hearing there echoes in trees, crows always seem to find a way to come to me, even in my darkness and therefore i choose to percieve them as light. Life is all about perspective. So what most see as ugly, I choose to percieve as beauty. I swear I was a crow in a life before this one. But for now i am a girl. A human. And as for the future? Nevermore.

If we are to ever fall in love, remember these things. Remember the things that make me laugh the most as I will need it when I am grumpy and in a bad mood, i have a love for bad jokes and anything ******* related, it is noted that I have the sense of humor relevant to a  12 year old boy. I was 12 years old when I first learned how to hate my own body. I mastered the art of dissonance while simultaneously shredding any sense of self worth from my paper skin, I was taught that I was not and never would be good enough. To this day, I still don't feel whole. Thats not to say I never will, I am constantly growing and learning to love my whole being. Still, when you tell me that I am pretty, or beautiful, when I am in your arms and you tell me that I have a perfect body and a loving soul, a part of me will not believe it. When you compliment me, I will lay there silent, not because I don't want to accept it, but because I truly don't know how. How you could possibly love something that has been broken so many times before, I will constantly second guess myself unable to believe that you are somehow capable of loving something as ******* up as me. I am always trying to ***** into place all of the pieces that define me, always checking to make sure that the glue i've used to put myself back together is still holding. Holding me in your arms will always be calming to me. I could be jumping out of my body but the moment that you rest your hands around me, I will fall quiet. If you remember anything, remember that touch is the one thing that can speak to me when nothing else can. Use your fingers to form words on my skin and your palms to send heat to the arctic places of my trembling frame. I am always trembling. But I am not nervous, rather calm with a disorder that causes my nerves to constantly spell out fear as if I am afraid. if I am afraid, I will not show it. I will hold it in because I was told at a young age that vulnerability is synonymous with weakness. But that is not always the case. The strongest moments I have are when I am face forward, naked soul, and crying. If you get the chance to see me cry, you are special. Remember that you are special. Remember that I can be happy too. Remember that even in the darkest of storms, the sun still lives on. Only in rain can we truly learn to admire clarity. I will be your clarity. When your vision is blurred and your ability to see is hazy, know that I will guide you through any fog that you encounter. I will not surrender until you force me to and even then I will refuse to give up. Astrology has told me that i am hard headed and strong willed. And ******* its true. I will walk to the ends of the earth for you before I give in, remember this. Remember that in my book, love is the biggest chapter, one that is constantly being scratched out and rewritten. Love is the part of my story that I have yet to figure out whether or not will ever be finished. Remember that I remember things far too well to ever forget you. I will not forget you. I will love you. Sacrifice my limbs to worshipping every part of you. I may not do what most lovers do. But most lovers don't remember the details. And the details make me who I am. So love my details, my imperfections, my lines, my freckles, love me like the way the stars admire the moons ability to be elusive. I am elusive, obsolescent, and desolated, yet I am free. But i can only be your moon if you let me. So please, let me be, your moon.

I swear to whatever god there is
Out there
That when you touch me
Light is emitted

When your skin
Just barely grazes
My skin
I swear I can almost see
The air particles kiss

When I wrap myself
Around your body
I can hear the silence whispering
About us

I can hear them speaking
Saying softly
how beautiful
Incandescence is
In the human form.

Mom and dad there are plenty of things, that i never told you. And thats not to say i never confided in you, id say you know me more so than anyone else has or ever did but mom and dad there are a few things that over the years ive hid. Things i still to myself cant admit. There are things i have never told you. But i think its about time that i did.
Like that time when i was 15 and it was halloween and i told you i was sleeping at haleys and she told her parents that she was sleeping at ours, and her parents were out of town and we threw a wild party and the cops almost came but they didnt and we somehow managed to get away with it, yeah i never told you that.
I never told you about the times my body fell numb after digging through the pill cabinents and swallowing whatever remnants i could get my hands on, you werent wrong when you finally caught me and accussed it of not being the first time. It wasnt.
It wasnt easy for me to tell you about the times when i felt like my body belonged to someone else and i was merely a stranger leasing it out from time to time, it wasnt easy for me to tell you about my depression. To tell you what it felt like, what it still feels like sometimes to be a ghost in your own personal hell, the devil on your shoulder being your only friend. And when i stayed in bed for days on end it was always easier for me to tell you that i was sick. And i was sick.
It wasnt until the first time i had found myself holding a razor against my silk white skin that i realized this. And the realization wasnt enough for me to do anything about it. When you asked me what the marks on the back of my neck were, i told you it was eczema. That it was probably some hives that would go away if i left it alone but i lied. They were cuts. But i didnt want to tell you because i knew you would be ashamed and concerned and i didnt want that. So i told you it was a rash. And you believed that. I learned that day to stop wearing my hair up. To always cover up the parts of my body that showed every war lost with myself. I learned that day to treat my body less like an open battleground, and more like a designated warzone, parts not visible to the human eye became my scared temple where i burned the holy scriptures of my skin.
When i told you at 15 that i was no longer a ******, i wasnt kidding. But i did leave out the bits of uncertainty i had felt in the moments when i had given myself away, i left out the hesitation that i had never even had a chance to proclaim, *** came as quickly to me as anything else and i never had even had a moment to think about. I dont even know if at the time i wanted it, all i know is that when it happened i was too high to question it so i didnt. I never told you that i never knew how to say no.
No. That was the answer to whenever i begged to do things far beyond my age. But i always found a way around it. Like when i told you i was sleeping at haleys every night and i really slept over at the house of whatever boy i dated that summer, i still dont know how you never caught on. I sometimes i wonder if you did. If maybe you knew it all and respected me enough, trusted me enough to pretend you didnt, i didnt deserve all of the trust you lent me. But i learned from it. Without the freedom to **** up and grow i dont think i would have the capacity to know what i do now. Mom and dad i want to thank you for giving me the space to figure out how to get up when i fall down. I want to thank you for keeping me close enough to breathe the same air but not close enough to suffocate, mom and dad there are still things you dont know. But in order to hear most of those things youll have to wait.

There is science to a broken heart

When the heart strings that connect the valves of your soul collapse
When the veins are full and heavy with the weight of let downs and false promises
When your bones ache the same as a near fatal injury
Know that it is not a phantom pain
Not an empty longing
For a temporary someone
You mistook as permanence
The ghosts of their skin forever
haunting with their former touch

The pain of a ruptured spirit
Is equal to that of being hit by a truck
Going full speed down the highway
Lights off
No warning signs
Is equal to the pain associated with The inability to forget
You place a do not enter sign around your heart
Next to the caution tape
Marked on your skin

The science to a broken heart
Can not be found
In an anatomical enclyopedia
But it's existence
Is not to be questioned
Heartbreak has been researched
Enscribed by historys greatest
For fitzgerald felt the blows to his being
From love that thrashed with winds and currents
A hurricane

Often the subject of their own experiments,
Writers are the scientists who study broken hearts
Words used as algorythms
Attempting to respond to
Questions we might never get an answer to
We're often left wondering
And often time its suffice

Because if we were to know why
Why the sun aches for the moon When the moon only has love for the stars
Why the theory of newton and gravity
Will never account for humans falling
Why storms are named after people

If we knew
We might not expose ourself to said research
We like the unknowingness
That science has yet to offer a conclusion to
The unknowingness that is often synonymous
With love.

You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you attend a funeral
And finally understand
Why everyone is crying
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you realize that
They're never coming back
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you hear the word cancer
Come from the mouth
Of a loved one
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you hear it
Multiple times
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you find yourself praying
To a god you never even believed in Yet hope with all of your heart, exists
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until they say
"there's nothing more we can do for them"
You dont realize how fragile life is
Until someone you know
Tries to take their own
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until someone succeeds
You dont realize how fragile life is
Until someone makes a mistake
And it's permanent
You dont realize how fragile life is
Until drugs
Have claimed another one of your friends lives
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you're holding your breath
At doctors appointments
Hoping your tests came back alright
You dont realize how fragile life is
Until you come close to losing it
You don't realize how fragile life is
Until you've ever felt
Like it's not worth the fight
You dont realize how fragile life is
Until you've contemplated death
You dont realize how fragile life is
In fact
You might never
Because you truly don't understand
How fragile life is
Until you truly learn
To live.

In the back room of dia’s basement is where i had my first kiss. a halloween party game of spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven that consisted of 8 or so 13 year olds sitting in a circle and spinning a cellphone. Yes this was how we interacted with the opposite ***. As if we needed excuses to be able to kiss one another. And somehow or the other, it always worked. We would spend our  saturday nights huddled in someone’s basement anxiously turning a piece of plastic or a different object because no one ever seemed to have a bottle on them. But still that night, the night of my first kiss, wasn’t as awful as a
middle school encounter may seem, i remember a bottle being spun, my heart beating out of my chest due to nervousness, i remember how it landed on my 8th grade crush. Butterflies celebrated in my stomach as we stood uncomfortably in that back room, and shared a kiss that lasted about two seconds. But alas it was a kiss. And to an awkward and quiet 13 year old girl, it was like winning the lottery. I had never felt such ecstacy, i remember going home and jumping on my bed, replays of that moment running through my head, that night was the first time in my life that i had ever felt that good. And it amazed me how someone could make you feel so awesome. That night will always be a memory that remains sweet to me, it was perfect, and cliche, and everything that i could’ve wanted to be, it was innocent. It's crazy
to me, how a kiss can make you feel so much, how the touching of ones lips can give you such a rush, its crazy to me how we may never feel as good as we did kissing our middle school crush. I remember every kiss that’s made me feel something. I remember every person that’s made my heart feel bubbly, i will always remember the ones that turned my stomach into a home made out of leaves, hosting butterflies after butterflies and then setting them free, there is no greater feeling, than feeling free. I remember feeling free. I remember the first girl i kissed, i remember the softness of her lips, i remember feeling something that i had never felt before. and then i remember feeling ashamed and confused because what from what i knew, girls weren’t supposed to make me feel the way she did. But she did. She made me question everything i knew before then, she made me wonder if i could ever feel that way again with someone of the opposite gender, the problem with that, is that i was so concerned about gender that i forgot that we were human, and we all have the ability to kiss so who cares if we were both of the same ***? Because when our lips touched for the first time, it felt right. It felt free. And maybe we will never feel the same as we did in 8th grade, maybe its a bad thing that we can no longer rely on a
game to make us feel that way, maybe were too concerned with titles and labels that were missing the point. We should love like two lanky teenagers who have just figured out that braces don’t get stuck together when you kiss. We should listen to our old versions of ourselves and how we felt back then, we should
remember that if two lips touch and butterflies fly free, then that’s what its supposed to be. Were supposed to feel free. So Be free.

Dear lover
By the time we fall in love i would hope that you will have already learned my name, but just in case you havent i will tell you. My name is danielle lauren shorr. danielle like some ancestor i never met, lauren because my mom liked it, and shorr like the beach. I like the beach. No more like love the beach. Maybe almost as much as i will love you. I like the sand between my toes, the way the wind blows through my hair and makes it an ugly mess, i like the way pigeons search for any trace of food like its all one man for himself and this is the hunger games. I like food. But at first i might be embarrased to eat in front of you, i can attribute this to my history of insecurity and that ******* belief that girls are supposed to order salads on dates. But fear not. Because i hate spinach and fries with extra cheese are my favorite, and soon enough i will learn to embrace it. I will always want to embrace you. To hold you, to be close to you, i have an overwhelming need for touch. But a slight fear of intimacy. I will be afraid at first when you try to get close to me, i will put up my guard and attempt to hide my battle scars and everything i dont want you to know about me yet, ive been hurt before. And i know im not the only one on this earth who has been. But when i tell you that i want to get to know you i am telling you that i want to memorize every part of you like the way i used to stay up at night as a kid memorizing lines of books. I love to read. I love getting lost in the words that someone else wrote that so closely manage to speak to me. I want you to speak to me. When you are struggling or lacking in anyway i will assure you with 100% certainty that things will be okay. I will pull you out of pits of depression with every muscle, bone and limb i have in my body, i have not always been comfortable in my own body. And thats been a cause of my own depression. So when the day comes when i give myself to you, i am hoping that you will remember that every part of me is devoting itself to learning you, i want to learn you. I want to trace the lines of your skin, connect the dots with your freckles or birthmarks, play silly little games and hope you let me win, i will let you in. But only if you let me. And theres parts of me that arent my brightest, i will have days where i will be unable to see anything but darkness, i want you to hold me regardless of what i say, or my stubborness, i am stubborn. I am a taurus. When we fight i will be a bull, strong in my pride and unable to see any other side of the argument, i will tell you this right now: give up. unless its important. I want to feel important. I will want to be included in every part of your existence and when I’m not i will get annoyed and ******* and demand to be the center of your universe. I will act like this because i want to feel like i matter. Like i am matter on this earth so important that if i disappeared even for a mere second the earth would crumble and fall into pieces. And if i crumble and fall to pieces, i only ask one thing of you. Do your best to help me back up, im not asking you to put me back together but to try your best to keep me from breaking even more. And when you break, know that i will be here to comfortyou. To hold you. To tell you that i love you. to make you laugh at the most innapropriate moments about the most innapropriate things, to make life seem a little less painful, and a little more bearable. I will do my best to help you stay your best. And if we end up not working, it will be okay. Because nothing will matter more than the love i gave to you when it was good and if in the end it doesnt go the way we thought it would, well, we'll be okay. But if it does. If this love stays, know that i will love you and give you every single day i have, i will make you remember why you decided to fall in love in the first place, i will make sure to make you feel okay, i will always make sure you're okay. if you're having a bad day, I'll be right there with you. I'll be here now and forever.
Sincerely your future lover.

I can't sleep at night, and i think i've figured out why. When i lay in bed with my eyes open i think of you. I think of you and i hate myself for it. I think of you and then i think about more of you and then i almost cry and then i have to pinch myself so i don't. You were the first beautiful thing to ever love me. You were the first to keep me up at night months after saying goodbye. I can't sleep at night because i hate sleeping alone. I hate being alone. I hate looking at my phone and knowing that i havent missed a call from you, i hate when i fall down the stairs and theres noone laughing behind me because im such a klutz and this happens almost daily. I hate the emptiness i feel in my arms and i hate how big the dimples in my back feel without your hands holding me, i hate that you're not holding me. I hate that i can't sleep because i can only think about the beautiful thing that we were in the beginning, like that first night we watched that movie and you leaned over and kissed me i thought i was going to pass out from excitement, i remember how happy i felt how eveery empty second was filled with thoughts of you and every thought was reassured because i knew you felt that way too, i like the night you first saw me cry even if it was over something stupid you held me like my problems were as big as the iceberg that hit the titanic, i liked watching titanic with you because that movie is so ******* good and you're logic to disregard it only made me like it more, i like the first time you said i love you because it took so long to get those stupid words out of you but i loved it because i knew that you meant it and you knew that i wasnt going anywhere. I liked that time you cried at our favorite restaurant because i was being a ***** im sorry that i can be a ***** sometimes. Okay a lot of the time. I like that you put up with my **** and everytime id try to justify it youd say shh. I like how you made me watch too many movies. I like how your dog would **** the bed and we couldnt move him because hes kind of fat. I miss that. I miss a lot. But missing doesnt get you anywhere and nothing i do will get us back to the way we were way back then. I just thought that maybe writing this might help me sleep again, i figured if i wrote down everything clogging my head that maybe id feel better. But the reality is i dont. Im lonely and i miss you and i miss knowing what its like to go a day without missing someone. No amount of melatonin will wipe the memories from my mind both good and bad. Cups of hot tea and warm blankets wont help me to forget the sound of your heartbeat and the way you used to drum your fingers down my spine until i fell asleep, i cant even sleep in my own ******* bed because your teddy bear is next to me and i dont have the guts to get rid of it let alone move it. I know in less than a year ill be moving. You will too. We'll be gone and moving on to a different part of our lives. But i want you to know this. No matter how far away we are no matter whether or not we ever start to talk again, im still here. My phone still buzzes and beeps in hopes that its you. And my heart still jumps and leaps for the exact same reason. if your ever in bed and you cant fall asleep, its okay, because ill be awake too.

She walks backwards faking a laugh, a slight smile framing her face, i can tell she is not fully comfortable. The way she is clutching on to her drink and the wandering eyes clue me in to her feelings of easiness. His level of drunk is complete opposite of her, she is sober, he is towering over and his hands just barely touching her, but i can see it in his eyes. His intentions are that of someone who is not fully innocent, and i know for a fact that what he wants is more than just to form a new friendship, he wants something else. He leans in a little bit more and she lets out a nervous laugh as she backs into a wall. Thats when my voice calls out for him to back off. I tell him that shes clearly not interested, that his advances are not wanted, his slurred words are not compliments and what hes doing has a name its called ****** harrassment. He moves back and puts his hands up as if to say im not guilty of anything. After he ends up on the other side of the room She looks to me, lets out a relieved sigh, a smile on her face, she mouths thank you. I nod because this isnt the first time ive seen a situation like this but is the first time ive truly recognized it, this is the first time ive ever spoke up. And i feel good about it, relieved.
Later in the night he approaches me. Still drunk and reeking of hard liquor he looks at me and says you totally killed my game. Now i have two options. I could either apologize and pretend like his actions were completely okay or do the opposite and say how i really feel. Before even making a concsious decision i look up and say it's not a game, if theres only one player. I turn around and walk away. Now i know people would say that if she really didnt want it that she would have gotten up and walked away herself but see i know this isnt true. Girls, including myself, have been taught something else when were in situations like this. Society teaches us to be polite and nice as if disrespect deserves anything but the opposite, girls were taught to smile and shrug it off as if unwanted ****** advances are something we can just shrug off. As if **** is a game and were just supposed to play along. Girls, why do we act polite? Why when were uncomfortable and ill at ease do we plaster on a smile and pretend like this is how things are supposes to be, this is not how its supposed to be. We have the right to stand up and say no. We have the right to stand up and say go away i dont want you. We have the right to look you in the eye and tell you to *******, we are not voiceless creatures, we are strong Fearless women who need to look out for eachother because I learned along time ago that if we dont, noone else will. So stand up when you see her being cornered by a stranger, speak out when you see him drape his arms around her, if she seems nervous, make her feel secure, because if you look out for someone when they cant find the words to get away then someday they might just do the same for you. **** being polite and sweet and nice, it is your ******* right to say how you feel, dont ever be afraid to voice your uncomfort, you are not alone. And I was alone the night that the same situation happened to me and at the time society had forced me to believe that all i could do was just smile and stand there powerless and weak. I wish that someone had seen the uncertainty in my eyes and body language, i wish that someone had stood up and told him to back off, i wish that i had had the voice to speak up. And even though i didnt then, im speaking up now. Im speaking up for all the girls like me, girls who consantly are in these situations, the polite victims who couldnt find it in them to tell him to leave them alone, for the girls who are shamed for saying no, for the girls who get called *****, it is not your fault you werent asking for it. For the girl whos smiling despite extreme uneasiness, i want you to know im looking out for you. And as for every girl out there, you should be too.

To all the teachers who have let me down, to the teachers who made me feel isolated and alone for all the teachers who made me lose faith in the education system and caused me to believe that my strengths werent nearly as large as my weaknesses, to the teachers who have made me feel like my only purpose for living was to get good grades. I want you to know how you made me feel.
To the health teacher sophomore year who during the ****** education unit ignored my inquiries about safe *** in same *** relationships and then proceeded to tell me that my questions were innapropriate and that i was too young to be asking that, i want you to know that hearing that was a slap in the face to me. Hearing that sent 16 year old me so far back into the closet that i couldnt see any ounce light. I could not see a reason to be hopeful because you deemed my sexuality as wrong and made me feel like i was alone, i want you to know that it took me 2 years after that to understand that my feelings were not something to be ashamed of and it took me a week and google to find the responses to the questions you refused to answer.
To the chemistry teacher who told my counselor that i am a ******* addicted drug user and never even had the nerve to ask me why my hands shake, i want you to know that i have a disorder called essential tremor and my shaking is something that took me years to embrace. I want you to know that your assumptions stole the years of confidence i had built up in the acceptance of my disability and made me feel targeted and insignificant, if only you had simply just asked me then you would have saved me the loss. To the same teacher who made me sit out in the hall for the whole hour long class period because i talked while you were talking, i want you to know how ****** that feels. To any teacher who sends students in the halls, know that there is nothing worse than isolation and that making your students sit out in the hallway wont do anything but make them feel the pangs of loneliness and embarrasment.
To the spanish teacher with the bad temper who always took the time to complain and point out my mistakes, i want you to know that it never helped me learn anything and for someone who preaches tolerance amd respect i think its ironic that you made students feel so bad to the point where theyd leave your class crying. I want you to know that i tried my hardest to get your approval and never got it at all. But even though there have been those who have let me down, there have also been those who have brought me up. There have been those who have pulled me out of the deepest of slumps and showed me how to be brave.
To the math teacher who was more like a mother to me, a really cool one at that, who had awesome taste in music and understood that intelligence is not defined by grades, i want you to know that even though i hated math, walking into your class always made my day a little bit better. I want to thank you for understanding me and teaching me to try even when my attitude was ****. Im lucky to have met you because if i hadnt, i wouldnt have so much motivation.
To the theatre teacher who i met before highschool even started, i want you to know that you are the person who guided me to where i am today. And even when i cant find the words to say how i feel, you always know how to lead me to them. You were like a father to me when my own father was sick and for that i will always be appreciative.
To the theatre teacher who i can say without a doubt saved my life, who brought my out of the darkness and helped me see light, who understood all of the issues going on in my life, i owe my life to you. Meeting you was something that i am forever grateful for. You always know how to make me feel better and less alone and when i feel like im falling down you always help pick me back up. You're the only teacher who can see when im not okay and the only one who i can share with why im feeling that way, you're the only teacher that still manages to inspire me everyday and make me laugh at the same time. Thank you can't even begin to explain how much you have changed my life.
Ive learned that teachers have a bigger impact on kids than we think, they can affect them so much even in even the little things, ive learned that the things that teachers do can either inspire or haunt you for the rest of your life and its important that teachers understand that school is not the only thing in a students life, its important to understand that in just a day a teacher could either save someone or break someone. Empathy is the most important key that a teacher should hold because if you can make someone feel less alone, then youre doing it right.

I'm not happy
Nor am I angry
I am somewhere in between
But I am not content

I miss the happiness I had
Back when we first met
Those first few months
When everything was exciting

A week without you
Felt like an eternity
And we wanted so badly
To just pause time

But now when we're together
Time drags on
And you always leave
Before midnight

And when we argue
There's no rush of adrenaline
No intensity
Just a dull ache

I wish things
Weren't so comfortable
To the point where nothing
Is the same as everything

I used to be your everything
But now i feel as if
I am nothing
And I am not content.

Buy her flowers
Not as a chore
Not to get on her good side
Not because you have to
Not because it’s what you’re supposed to do

Buy her flowers because
When you saw them in the store
They reminded you of her
And you couldn’t stop thinking about
The beauty they possesed

Buy them because
You live to see her eyes light up
And  the dimples in her cheeks when she smiles
How she turns her head
To hide the blush of her cheeks

Buy her flowers because you want to
Not because she wants you to.

I wonder if
You've forgotten me
Completely
If i am
Erased from your mind
Detached from your heart
Memories swiped of any trace of me
Or if
You remember
But you choose to forget
Because you don't care
Or maybe you never did
Maybe i was never good enough
For you
But for me
You were more enough
You were everything
And everything is harder to erase
Than nothing
To you i was nothing
I am nothing
So i am erased from your mind
Detached from your heart
And swiped from  your soul.

I remember thinking that I'd finally got it right
Holding hands walking home that sunday night
Crushing burnt reds underneath out feet
The sweet smell of smoke that lingered on your cheek

And I loved you
I loved you so deep
And when you left and went away
I sunk, I was weak
But the love I had for you
Is now gone and faded
Just like the way we were
How we used to be back then.

It's been so long since I've touched you
So long since i've felt the scratch of the stubble surrounding your lips
The kind that I always complain about
But deep down i think you know how much I adore

It seems like it's been an eternity since I've felt the softness of your skin
The way it streches over your bones so delicately
My fingers repeatedly outlining the indents of your back
Fitting my hands into the deepest curves

My lips have never felt so lonely
Missing the tickle from even the slightest and most gentle brush of yours against them
Forgetting that talking is their main function
Wishing that instead their only job was to love

My legs hang loosely and awkwardly without having yours to intertwine with
And arms rest on each side of my body feeling desperate for companionship

Hands locked into oneanother
So accustomed to holding
Naturally curling inward
Craving the rough callus of your palms


I did not know
That a body could feel nostalgia
But a need for touch proves otherwise.

Remember that time

I made you lay down in the street with me

I was stubborn enough that you finally did

And I know you thought I was crazy

But the stars that night were crazier

And the only way to see them was to look up

So I held my ground and stayed there

Until we were both looking straight above


And I said what is life if you don’t take risks

You said I don’t know because I do

And the best risk I’ve ever taken

Was falling in love with you

I woke up this morning to you gone

Opened the blinds to let in the sun

Laid back in a bed that’s too big for one

Wishing that time hadn’t gone on


But it did


And now I’m alone

Missing the way your arms feel like home
 Wondering why i ever let you go

Still holding out some hope


That maybe someday you’ll come back

I want to marry you
I want to marry this 17 year old naivity

I want to collect it and put it in a glass box for the whole world to see

I want to freeze frame, pause time, snapshot

This photo of us

This moment filled with nothing but young love and lust

I want to drown in this bliss

Stay forever underneath the surface

I want to swim in eternal happiness

And never come up for air.

The trees dance
The grass swims
The flowers drown
When it rains

When it rains here
It storms
And when it storms
I begin to miss you

So from my window i watch
As the rain falls
Thinking if the sky could feel
We'd feel the same.

I remember the day he told me.
Driving down Deerfield road he said so casually,
I have cancer.
The word that we’ve been conditioned to fear, the one that we associate with our
world falling apart, the word that we never want to hear come from the mouths of
our loved ones.
But there it was, spoken with such ease, the word released from my fathers
mouth.
I’ve never been good at emotions or feelings or any of these human things that
you're supposed know how to express naturally. So as he told me I just sat there
in silence, the only sound being the soft hum of the highway around us.
And we drove home.
We didn’t really talk about it much, just went through the motions like that was
enough and it was.
The surgery was quick and before we knew it, he was cancer free and i just
assumed that wed go on with our daily lives that easily and for a while we did.
But the book didn’t end there. Like every good story, there’s a central conflict,
one that we avoid or even face but after some time it reappears as if to say, you
thought i'd just go away didn’t you?
and it came back. With a vengeance, one that would not be so easily cured like
before, one that would change my life and force me to confront the feelings from
which id always tried to hide.
And this time when he told me there was no silence and no casual tone in his
words  I could hear the tremble in his voice as he knocked on my door, he never
knocks. And I knew in that moment that something was not in place. And I could
tell from the fear plastered on his face that he was scared. The man I was
looking at appeared as a lost child, not the strong confident man that I call my
father.
And he told me with the fear in his eyes and a tremor in his voice followed by
the sentence,
"We’ve got so much we’ve yet to accomplish."
And I knew, this was just the beginning of a whole another battle.
The chemotherapy took his silver locks but not his spirit, took his weight but
not his soul, it tore and it ate at his body until the man that stood before me
seemed almost unrecognizable but he had made a promise, one that he had no
intention of breaking. So I stood beside him during infusion after transfusion
with a heavy heart and the fear that I could possibly lose him but never once
did I let it show. I held myself strong because he did. I never let myself get
discouraged because if he could be tough, than I could too.
Sitting on my bed one, weak and at his lowest, he told me to start planning. He
said that our lives were only just starting and that this was merely a wakeup
call to start living and that he wouldn’t dare give up because for 17 years he
has been my rock and he would give anything to see me grow up and that he wasn’t
going to take no for an answer that I was going to write our bucket list and
that he was going to beat this cancer.
And he did.
One Sunday in September we went for a drive.
Something that I so often took for granted and now couldn’t be more grateful for.

And with the sun blaring down on us and the clouds filling in the gaps of blue,
I realized that its moments like these that are the ones to cherish.
Its moments like these that define our lives and the casual routine of our being.
So hug your parents a little bit longer, squeeze them a little bit tighter, make use of
the time you have together because you never know when one car ride might change
everything.

You’re beautiful.
Every single piece of you is absolutely beautiful and I say absolutely knowing that you can trust me because i've seen it all.
And in all of the complicated beauty that you possess I see that you're hurting and that you’re lonely its almost as if I can feel you're sadness, but know that I love you no matter how many miles apart we may be.
785 miles to be exact but regardless of how far away you actually are I still feel like you’re just a few miles down the road I feel as if you still live in the same home the one where we spent countless nights camped out on your trampoline tracing the stars in the sky that would one day lead us here. I get the urge to drive by sometimes you know just to see what its like and who lives there and what’s inside because that house is where I used to spend all of my time growing up.
We used to curl up in your bed late at night talking about things that now seem so insignificant, but back then meant the absolute world to us. And I wonder if some other little girl is living in that room that we found so comforting.
But more than that house more than anything else, I miss you. I miss your presence I miss being able to call you up and knowing that you’d be here in seconds I miss the innocence that we used to have. Back when we'd have to spin bottles in the basement in order for us to kiss boys and sneaking out of the back stairs and trying out best not to make any noise and of course we did because we laughed for hours and didn’t know how to stop it, wed walk to the 24 hour 711 down the street and for us, it was like walking to the moon.
Those moments lasted forever and together we, were unstoppable. And I get choked up when I think about what could’ve been possible before we both went down the wrong paths, going down further and further with no intention of ever going back and we got stuck in quicksand somewhere at the bottom and still through it all you never once let go of my hand. And people can say that our friendship relied on all the things that kept us going but I know the only thing that really kept me going was you.
I remember when things started to get rocky, when we were both walking on a thin rope so close to falling off into a pool of nothing But we never did.
Because you had to pick up and leave everything that you thought you’d always need and start all over in a new town where nobody knew your name and knowing I had to finish high school with my only friend 785 miles away and it still makes me ache just thinking about it. Because I cant walk into the lunchroom knowing that I have someone to sit with anymore, because I know you wont be waiting outside my door with the keys to your Subaru ready to go on our next adventure. And even though we talk everyday I can hear the loneliness in your voice and I can hear the pain and I do my best to hide mine so that you’ll think that i'm okay but deep inside I think you know how much I miss you.
Because I love you more than any guy ever will and you could let me down a million times and id still be there because you were there for me. And so I see the beauty in you and I want you to know that if you or anyone else cant see it, its there. And that no matter what happens in our lives, I will always be here. Because I gave some of the hardest years of my life to you and you gave me yours and for you to be happy, is all I could ever ask for.

You’re going to leave my in July
On a warm summer day
You’re going to leave me lonely
For the cold Australia gray

When the air gets thick
When the sky gets blue
You’ll be gone

When the sun sets late
When the stars come out
I’ll be alone

I’ll look up at night
And you’ll look up too
10,000 miles away
Underneath the same moon

Maybe we’re not as far apart
As we think we may be

I miss our whispered conversations
I miss your contagious laugh
And the way we never needed words to speak

Because the expressions on our faces
Did the talking for us
And the movements of our hands
Said more than we could ever possibly say

And while our lips spoke syntax
Our bodies spoke with language as well
They spoke for the forever-mute heart that so desperately wants to speak but cannot

If I could tell you that I miss you
I would tell you through my skin
I would touch you softly and let you remember

I’d run my hands through your hair
And let my fingers do the talking
Assign my palms to do the apologizing

I’d kiss you gently
Forcing my lips to move
But not to release any sound

If I could
I would let my body do the talking
*But a body can’t speak without a beating heart to listen.

My hands are a masterpiece
Not perfect, but a masterpiece

They hold with fragility,
Move with vibration

My hands are never steady
Unless you count being at rest

My hands sleep at night
Just like the rest of my body

My hands are different than others
They always look nervous, they always seem anxious

They write with patience and pride
Holding the pencil with four fingers gripped on to it

Because that teacher in 2nd grade once said,
“That’s not how you hold a pencil”

But the way they hold the pencil feels right,
It feels comfortable

So the fingers wrap around the wood
And the words begin to appear

My fingers are circus performers
Unbalanced, walking on a tight rope

Trying to stay still
They swing back and forth

My hands are tapping to a song
But there’s no music playing.

We lay gasping for air
Speaking with breathless whispers
I can feel your warmth against my skin

I find the place to lay my head
The place where our necks fit together like puzzle pieces
And our freckles align like constellations

Bodies intertwined like tangled wires
Seemingly impossible to separate
Because they are lost in one another

Our tired figures rest still but busy minds run constant
We sink into the sheets
Forever drowning in this momentary euphoria.

I love you today
Not tomorrow, but today
Because I live in the moment
And the moment is now

I don’t think about tomorrow
Because tomorrow is the future
And you tell me not to worry about that

So I will love you today
With every ounce of my soul

And when tomorrow comes
I will love you again
I will love you differently
I will love you the same
I will love you brand new.