“You can’t go.”
His hand gripped my wrist, an urgency in his voice. We had been best friends since we first met in second grade, and our relationship had taken a sudden (and maybe one could go as far as to say inevitable) turn freshman year of high school. And yet here I was, about to storm out on the anniversary of our first date 2 years later. His eyes, the warm brown that could melt me from across the room, pleaded me to stay. To forget any wrongdoings, and misunderstandings, and the past ten minutes where I imagined the anger in our voices carried throughout the park. It was supposed to be a picnic, the romantic kind, because he knew I always fell for the romantic, no matter how cheesy it was in reality. And maybe that’s why I liked it so much— it provided an escape.
“I know you. No one else knows you like I do.”
And it was true, to some extent. He had seen me at my best, and at my absolute worst. He knew that I twirled my hair when I was nervous, that I made wishes on ladybugs and stars and 11:11, that I couldn’t sing for my life (and nevertheless belted out, Don’t Stop Believing in the car every time it came on the radio, despite his begging for mercy). He knew where I got the tiny half-moon scar on my ankle and was there for every bone I had ever broken in my elementary school days, knew that I consistently cry through the entire movie Titanic, and that when my dad moved out of the house, it left me slightly broken inside.
But he didn’t know me like he thought he did. And he never really would, because what he didn’t realize is that there is a kind of perpetual loneliness in living. Everyone has their own innermost thoughts and dreams, the ones that they are too ashamed or confused by to speak aloud. Thoughts that no one but themselves are, and ever will be, privy to. They are hidden behind more widely-known and impersonal facts, and others can only see so deep into another’s soul. Therefore, to claim that we “know” someone is never a completely truthful statement. We can memorize their full name, birthday, favorite color. Their favorite book, bad habits, and mannerisms. But, just like one can never truly empathize with another, incapable of understanding what another has gone through in a complete sense, we can never know a person in their entirety. Some get close, best friends, family, lovers. But to say that we know that person, have walked along the boundaries of their mind, would be an impossible feat.
Within the shielded confines of my mind, I could admit that all I wanted in life was to have a love that an artist might be inspired to illustrate, or an author might yearn to capture in written words. A love that was worth replicating. And I didn’t believe that a love like that could come from assumptions, a guessing game. For that’s all that this was, really. We’d known each other for so long, but nevertheless I couldn’t help take offense in the fact that he thought he knew everything about me. Those lovers I read about, they never lost interest in each other. And that was the whole point— a wanting to learn new things about the each other everyday, and a love so deep that they would want to keep learning for the rest of their lives. And if he thought differently, than maybe it was wrong. Maybe God or the stars or whatever it is that sent us flailing into this world, searching for something or someone to grasp on to, didn’t want us to happen. I had convinced myself time and time again, as naïvely as a child, that every relationship  I had would be the one that would become something wonderful. But here I was, facing my supposed love, and he was convinced of something that I knew would eventually ruin us. So I looked him in the eye when I said, “No. No you don’t. We’re strangers, don’t you see?”
But he didn’t. I could see it in his eyes, in his returning gaze.
Maybe he could learn, if he wanted.
But I guess he didn’t want, either, because he bent down and picked wicker basket, still filled with food, draped the blanket over his arm and walked away.

Promise me
Forever;
Lie with intent
To love eternity.

Feign the strength of
A god,
Hold the weakness of
A mortal.

Never let “love” slip
From this deep caress;
Not a glance be remiss
From the touch of affection.

Let our souls portray
Light, in the darkness.

there are beautiful people
those who are easy on the eyes
for a moment we all fall in love
for that single eye contact we are all happy sailors
over the moon and the stars

yet they never last too long
just that forever of a second

there are kind people
those who give everything and more for the sake of others
who share when they are starving
who smile when their world has fallen apart

yet they are abused
people take advantage of them and stomp on their fragile hearts
and leave them broken

there are brave people
standing for justice, for law, for happiness
they perish everything

yet they are dead
the cause they have lived for only turns
into the ashes and dust
cadaver 6ft underground

there are dreamers
they say but never do
they think but never reach

they live and die content
unknown geniuses the world has missed

the world is cruel
yet the beauty, kindness, bravery, and genius still do exist
yes they do

the only problem is that these qualities
are poisoned by the very human nature that longs for them to exist

Waterproof eyeliner is a shield, soaked
black hair, like charcoal, pressed against
frozen numb ear lobes, holding in place water-damaged plastic buds,
once blasting melodies of black and blue emotion,
with hands clenched in fists of futility.
The jagged edges of her beauty have
the ocean boiling again, and the clams
spat out bursts of fire.

It was a late weekday moon,
the beach was silent but the sound
of their heavy breaths swooped across the sand,
and their laughter rose like the waves.
“Killin’ that bottle to get smashed.”
She was convinced so eloquently,
before downing a gulp of bittersweet liquid
before drowning in a gulp of bittersalt sea.

Sarah Rose Sedwick.
Swallowed by the waves.
The icy Pacific Ocean water
claiming territory
in her lungs,
dark, salty deepness chilling to
the core of her soft bones.

A memory is written
on a clean blank sheet.
Nothing now but
a paper boat
in the wind.

I was never a sinking ship, just the remains
of an ocean liner, settling on the sea’s lips.
At least, that’s what I think.
I am not a tragedy, no,
but so many of my pages are empty and, my god, I need
you to know that if I am a book,
I am half-complete (not half-unfinished––I'm learning, you see?),
but it’s the back half,
and a few scattered paragraphs before that.
Now and then I write in my own history,
just for others to read and believe
there’s something more to me
than a leather bound cover over cheap poetry.
That’s all I am, really.

I’m just trying to keep my head above the water.
I keep my secrets close, and my happiness bottled
––for the nights when I need something stronger
than spirits that burn on the way down,
something that can keep these ghosts
from crawling back out my mouth
to tumble from my lips at last.

Listen, I'm really not hard to figure out.

It’s broken glass,
it’s the smash of a car crash,
it’s the smell of smoke and ash,
it’s a statue of a girl learning to laugh,
and to know, and how to venture
into you. I count the number of times I've been sure,
on my knuckles instead of my fingertips,
because it wasn't the touch, it was the fist
that first said: I am better than this
(fires will die but they fight harder than all else).
Besides, my fingers are not for counting out.
I think they're for you,
to weave yours through,
and to feel on your skin
when I spell out I love you,
because my fingers do not flinch
as easily as my mouth does cringe
and strangle truths in anger.

If you feel I am pulling into myself,
remember I'm likely collapsing inwards,
and know this:
broken homes beget broken bones,
but more often they spit
broken boys and girls from their lips.
My body is new,
no longer mould and mildew,
but steel, mortar, and brick,
and stone
and stick.

I am almost always cold.
My wrists look too thin for the weight of my world.

I carry on, but I am not strong.
**** knows how long those days have been gone.

To the person who will somehow fall for me:
I am not a tragedy,
but a mess of a story.
I write dumb rhymes to feel like I'm growing.
I speak as a cynic, but at heart I'm all dreams.
Sometimes I take a minute to listen and, slowly,
I think I'm becoming someone worth being.

I seem bare as a clinic and empty as glossy magazines,
but it's all a set and some props, one day I'll end scene.
I'm not ready yet, but on One Day, I'll be.

I swear, I'm almost there.
My world is readying,
like winter prepared
to yield to spring.