When life gives you lemons,
Breathe
Because there is only so much you can get out of lemonade.
Take your time measuring
The sugar
To balance out
The sour taste that
Lingers
Until after.
And if you make a mistake,
If it seams the sour still screams,
Remember that it
Exists
For you to
Anticipate
Every next sweet sip.
There will be unwanted pulp.
Don't drain it out.
And there will be spills,
So many spills
Until all sweet
And all sour have run out.
But wait.
Because life always has more lemons
To throw right your way.

He looked at me
The way you look at
Stacked books
On a wooden shelf,
Carefully stroking my spine
After he's done it to
Three other stories
he'd gotten tired of.

Mr. Bookworm,
I am not a fictional option.
Yes, my cover is
Stained
And my last reader
Folded and tampered
With all my pages,
I only wish you'd
Treat this piece of literature
With respect.
You see, Mr. Bookworm,
I'm not a trilogy,
At least I'm not sure yet.
My Author isn't quite done with me. And I find it quite rude
That you stare at my papery insides,
Page after page,
Only to leave me
Back in the shelf,
Collecting dust.
Be patient with me, wandering reader.
Wait for my story
To reach it's ******.
Inhale my aging pages
Until you reach my resolution.
My apologies
For the times I've been
Rewritten.
But wait with me
Till you've reached my story's ending.
Because I swear upon my
Mismatched table of contents,
It will be a story worth telling.

A mirror is never just your reflection,
My mother once said
The mind has this devilish way of
Twisting
Things around
Making then a lot more or a lot less
That what stands before me
Suddenly
My face isn't my face anymore
Instead
I stare blankly at a blueprint
Society itself has hand-sketched
For me.
Post-it's on where things had gone wrong
Scribbles on things I needed less of
Highlighters on places I needed
Brighter brights
Thinner thins
And I just stood there
Watching
As these self-proclaimed architects
Unraveled
The plans they had for a body that wasn't theirs.
Accepting
The new rooms they had drawn next to the ones that already existed,
The ones that were always there
The ones I made a home out of,
The mole on my ear
That never seemed out of place
Until,
The impact of a critical post it told me so.
The place where my thighs met
I've always ignored,
Assuming I was normal
But the scribbles that
Begged
For less of me,
Proved otherwise.
The marks of stretched skin
I considered battle scars over a few calories at a buffet table
Nullified
By society's architects
Disapproved
As if it were up to them
Invalid
Like human came in the form of overruns
But I stare at this blueprint that suggests to change me from
Floor to floor
Head to toe
And wonder
If the one who owns the lot in which I am
Wonder
If He wanted to change me anymore than them
If He liked the original rooms
More than the ones carved to fit the trends
If He wanted me to ignore the architects
And the drafts of copies
And copies
And copies
Of different versions of me

Didn't He want me to accept the mirror for who I am?

1.  My mind is a 20/20 vision pair of eyes.
I can see the specks
and seeds of irritation before they grow.
Plants,
They were never really good for these eyes.

2.  Let's go to the moon.
And I assure you,
While you sink your feet in moon dust
And swim in empty craters,
While I worry about how dark it is out here,
I get to enjoy the simultaneous twinkle of the stars.

3.  And because I'm paying too much attention,
I might even get to see one fly.

4.  You're thinking about how delicious this lunch is.
I'm counting calories.

5.  So,
what's for dinner?


6.  Hey, if she is
Indeed
Stabbing my back
With word weapons,
My 561-letter comeback speech
Is always ready
in the front pocket
Of my school bag.

7.  Its always  just a headache,
Never brain cancer.

8.  I love the newly opened eyelids,
In the mornings,
My first breath is a sigh of relief,
Yes.
I didn't die in my sleep.

9.  She's got a great body.
Her bones read,
No food and a ton of gym time,
I'm sure it's to make you smile.
And I hate to brag,
But I'm mentally fit.
I get to exercise
Analyzing every single detail
Of the twinkle in your eye
Of the flick of your lips
Of the depth of that frown
When you said
you were leaving.


10.  I think I've figured out why.

Somewhere in the darkest corners
Of a speck of land
Shadowed on a world map,
There is a girl who still believes in wonder.

She is childlike faith vacuum sealed
In pint-sized hope
A revolution craving to be lit up,
A breath of fresh air to anyone who has lived through dirt and pollution,
A livewire of well-kept new ideas.

She is a book.
A good one but a closed one.
A book that sits on the front shelves at bookstores
But nobody dared to read between her lines.

But other than the galaxies of impossibilities she has sketched up in her head,
She is nothing more than short of perfection,
Small
Flawed
Misunderstood
But
Her hopeful whispers needed a microphone.

She believes in the hustle and bustle of success in her little speck of land
Impossible, it may seem
as she IS a speck
in a sliver of land
in a country that is almost always forgotten by anyone who has browsed through a map,
Disregarded by other countries
Abandoned by its own people
But forget the size on a scale of the earth.
Little as she is,
to her, her speck of land is big enough
Big enough to fill with all the love a person is capable of.
Big enough to fill with hands that held each other tight enough to be called unity
Big enough to be filled with more confidence in the country
than pride in personality.
In fact, the word "big" is too little
To describe the way she sees things.

She believes in herself
But she also believes that she is small.
And insanely enough, she believes she can be both
That her individuality for a stand out country
Could not be limited by
A weak immune system
Or the amount of inches she grows in a year
Or the color of her hair.

Yes, when the world gets tough,
And when everything larger
Turns against her
Pressing her into a cage of painful pressure,
She helps herself
By sticking her hand out for the very people who make her weak.
Because courage turns into cowardice
If it is not used to stand up for others.

And though she is small,
That only means she could make her way through
The narrow roads
In a tricky path called life.
Bending when branches of trouble swept above her,
Crouching when the rain poured,
And slipping into deep spaces.

But more importantly,
Overpowering all her beliefs,
She believes in something higher,
In something much stronger than the strength of her imagination,
In something that could turn her plans into a reality,
And the best part of it all is that this "higher force"
Is a He
And He believes in her
Much more than she believes in Him.
She holds her plans for this country in a teapot,
But He is the One who pours it over us
Until this cup, this country, overflows.

She believes this country is ready.
And as for Him, well,
So does He.

But no matter how wondrous she makes the future of this country seem,
We are still everything she didn't say we would be.
So, scavenge your heart for the truth,
Dig around for treasure and hope,
Seek high and low for even the little shards of faith,
Because one day,
We might just find her
In you and in me.

I remember when you told me to
let it go
The words slipped out of your mouth but never did you let pride slip out of your fingers
I know, because every syllable still stings
The surface of my heart.

Mr. Building, you let go.
Allow the wind to blow against your hair and
create wrinkles on your clothing
But never let it
Knock the dreams right out of you
Because
I believe in them and never will I
Even stutter those words to you
le-le-let
Me take your hand and help you carry those burdens
Don't ever drop your ceramic hope,
Cling on to your glassy aspirations because dreams
Are made of fine china
So precious
So fragile
So so so beautiful
Please don't let  your chin fall to the ground.
Lift yourself up,
Because the world deserves to see
How tall He's built you
But prove to them
That when the earthquake comes,
You height's got nothing on your
Foundations.
And if telling me to let it go
Is to break me back into concrete,
Powder,
Cement,
Then by all means demolish these
Stories and hammer through these
Crevasses
Because every broken window
Is worth seeing you succeed.
It'll hurt me to the very ground,
But your standing tall
Will help me recover.

I remember when you told me to
let it go
Your breath smelled of coffee.
I can tell you've had a rough night.

And maybe
Just maybe
you spent
those sleepless nights
Deciding whether you should
Let it go, too.

I'm pretty sure
Eyes glaring
At the surface of my soul
Isn't supposed to feel
Any less like a stabbing to the heart.
But it does.
You have cupped
My burdens
In both of your hands
And sprinkled them over
The driest corners of my mind,
Watered them,
And let them grow
Slowly
Into something lovely.

I'm pretty sure
That every hiccup of an
'I miss you'
Isn't supposed to
Cause my blood
To blush warm.
But it does.
You toy with words
In the best way
Making sure each syllable
Is coated in
Silky persuasion
And I try,
Believe me, I do,
To let them sink
Into this heart,
You've called beautiful
Far too many times.

I'm pretty sure
Your lips have quivered
And tired of
Grinning encouragements
And whispering warmth
And uttering
'I love you's
But they haven't.
For this, I am pleased.
And this fluttering thing
Residing in my chest
Can't find a way out
To tell you,
To thank you.

To everyone else who used it to seal a present,
It was nothing more than
A color to choose
A length to measure
A string to knot
It was something that held together a treasure
But to her, a ribbon was so much more

The triangular slit
She herself had cut at the edge
Of the soft pink ribbon,
Ended in corners,
The way her smile did
Everytime she'd
Loop and pull
Loop and pull

The bows she'd craft
Were more to her
Than just bunny ears and tails.
They were trinkets of triumph
Hints of hope
Possessions of passion

They reminded her of spring
Not the season
But spring
Of the trampoline
In her first gymnastics competition.
The ribbon hugged her ponytail
Delicate and dainty
The ribbon lay around her neck holding
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Ribbon nonetheless

They reminded her of balloons
Not the hot air type.
Balloons at carnivals
That floated
Miles away
Heights astray
If there was not ribbon
To secure it tight
On her fragile wrist

They reminded her of father.
Not that he wore ribbons or anything.
But that he left her with one
Wrapped around
A freshly picked
Bundle of flowers
Bundle of happiness
Bundle of unspoken words of affirmation

But flowers die

And so did father

When they did,
She was left with nothing but the ribbon
Loose and dirtied.
But the pinkness
Unlike flowers and father,
Barely faded away

And for the first time in a long time,
She saw life
In something that didn't have any.

We are unlike the rest.
Yes, I know that's what the rest say.
But unlike the rest, we are not glued together.
Instead, we are stitched together.
Stitched so that every string
Is smoother than the furrow
Of bitter eyebrows.
Stitched so that if one of us wanders off,
It would only take the tug of a string
To bring us back together.

Unlike the rest, we are a medley of forgiveness.
Because with us,
Mistakes come in a handful,
Each painted a different color of disappointment.
But it only takes
Jumps into pools fully clothed,
Random trips to the museum,
Hangout on rooftops
To make it all better again

Unlike the rest, we are craziness
Well-mixed with a spoonful of loyalty.
An odd mix, enough to taste the sweet
Amidst the sour
So that insults come easy
But if one of us trips on nothing,
The rest of us will follow to help you back up.
After laughing, of course

Unlike the rest, we aren't actually friends.
There should be a word
For people who care out of understanding,
Who laugh outside things that are funny,
Who will be there even when they physically aren't

We are not like the rest because the rest call us friends.

And they say friends are forever
But we are the people who beg for much longer.

The picture frame is slanted
Because every time I tried to make it straight again
I remember the moment
In the photograph
When it was
You and I

Suddenly
I remember all the things
You weren't
In all the things
That were
And I see the start of my
Misery

The clothes are hanging out
In the sun
And i watched as the same light that dried them
Resembled
The spark we once had

But that wasnt the only spot
In the house
The house of flaw and misunderstandings
The house that still echoed "i love you"'s
That you didn't mean

That wasnt the only spot
That reminded me of where it all went wrong
Because upstairs
My blanket is messy
I spent
Night after night
Thinking of when it would cover the both of us again

In the living room
I have gifts left unopened
Because I spent the entire Christmas morning
Thinking
Of what I could give back to you

And even the narrowest corner
In the abandoned attic
My guitar seemed only to have five strings
And I wondered
How
Could something incomplete
Still
Sound so beautiful

But our love
Wasn't like that

I had to remind myself time in
And time out
That bluberries don't start out ripe
There was a time your porcelain teeth
Bit into the plump berry
And it didnt quite taste right
But you kept chewing even with your face
Splattered with the unripe juice

This
Is what it was like
This
Is what we were like

Because our love was a lot like the time
I ran out of acrylic paint
But the watercolors I replaced them with
Made every other picture
Blurry

I hate that you look at the galaxies
and are overwhelmed with a feeling of
dull insignificance,
because if anything,
you are not just a speck of dust scattered in the cosmos.
you are the very substance
that this universe is thrilled to be written about.
you are its incandescent gas,
you are nuclear fission,
you are a galaxy's lifeline,
it's reason to celebrate living in the darkness,
baby, your every breath is intergalactic motivation,
that if you were to stop smiling
I'm almost certain that a star dies as well.
and in the magnitude of spectacular phenomena this universe will never cease to offer,
somewhere out there,
I promise someone notices.

She
Is the apple of a selfish man's eye
The one every girl despised,
An excuse for the jealous stirring
They felt in their bones
Every time she strode
Head high
Chin up

She
Carried a backpack of never ending jokes
Wherever she stopped by
And the only giggles she could
Involuntarily
Push
Out of the mouths of her helpless followers,
Were the genuine types,
The laughter
After
Depression and tension

She
Bloomed in ball gowns
And party dresses
She could keep her heels well shined
While still
Strutting
On the dance floor
Nothing but glitter
And glam
And a girl with passion and desire

But
This is how the world saw her
Watching from a car window
Nothing but her appearance and facade
Her, at the least of what she was

Behind the curtain of
Pretty
Her hair and humor blessed her with,
Was a landscape of
Beauty,
Her for what she is

And if you tried hard enough
You would see that

She captures the heart more than any set of eyes.

She could make you laugh hard enough
To make the lemonade pour out of your nose.

She could sing up your spirits with a melody that goes "you are beautiful".

She could rock the formal attire society required,
But she looked far more joyous in sweatpants and rock concert t-shirts.

She is jolly more than giggles
She is grace more than glitter
She is beauty more than pretty

My, if you met her,
You'd called it blessed rather than lucky

My hair fall shampoo
Didn't quite work
This time around.

Is that you?
I knew that smelled familiar.
It's your heart again, isn't it?
I can almost imagine it
Helplessly perched
On the palms of your hands.
It reeks of heartache.
You should really get that checked.
It means
You believed in a boy again.
And I don't know
How those lies
Made it's way to the port,
Hopped on a ferry,
And voyaged to your bloodstream,
Making it's way to the arteries of
Whatever it is you have left
In your hands.
But it's fine.
Don't blame him.
Don't blame you.
You're both
Growing
A lot quicker than your skin expected
So
You have cuts and wounds but
Don't panic, I've got the thread.
It's time for the stitches.

What happened to your hands?
Did you play with fire?
Did you test the waters and were they hotter than you expected them to be?
At least
Now
You know that love
Was never really a game of trial and error.
The realest kind only comes around
About once or twice.
And I know your hands
Liked to fiddle around with the idea
That it would only be him.
For a while it was.
But that fire was extinguished.
And it's nice to hope that some flames would last forever
But
My darling, you deserve the sun.

What happened to your eyes?
They don't sparkle how they used to.
I know the sight of him
Knocked the wind right out of you
And lifted your spirits so high
And filled you up with enough electricity
To power that spark.
But the opportunities to gaze at him
Are only so temporary.
Things only glitter
When they're exposed to
The Light.
So, better fix those eyes on the
One thing
That is eternally bright.
Trust me, when you do, the tears
Will evaporate from your eyes,
Making everything clearer,
And the world will start to make sense again.

What happened to your ears?
You've pierced and stuffed them with
All the wrong syllables.
I know those phrases and letters
Sounded like a good idea for a while.
Maybe you heard them at the
wrong time.
Or
Maybe they were never meant for you.
I know how it stings.
But uncover your ears because
There are people who still want to tell you more
Beautiful truths.
You must listen.
Now,
The sight of the word "people"
Makes you wish I meant him.
But my darling, I can only
Assure you that there is someone
Out there
Carrying all the right words
In the pockets of his hoodie.

All you need to do now is
Be still.
Remember,
You are a princess.
For a while, you've kept your head down
And your crown
Is slowly slipping from it.
But a day will come when your heart will
Heal from the lies,
Your eyes will sparkle,
Your hands will work again,
Your ears will only hear songs
And it will all be because
You waited.
Let me tell you, my darling,
True love is more than worth it.
So,
Keep your chin up.
You can't miss it.

I am a tree
That is still learning how to
Keep it's roots
Under moist soil
And away from little tripping feet.
I'm used to
Yawning
In the morning
Stretching
My branches
Until they have
Dropped the apple
Slightly too far from the tree.
And though I don't have
Much air
In my hair,
The leaves still fall.
Trust me when I say
It isn't worth it being this
Tall.
Sometimes I would long to pay
To not see everything.
The view from up here
Is ironically
Frightening.

Climb these heights
And I can't promise you no
Twigs in your hair
Or scratches on your arms.
This bark is rough
And these leaves,
Stubborn.
But the next time you
Stumble upon these roots,
Remember that I am the tree
That isn't all it looks.

I didn't mind stepping on
Grass, dirt, differences,
And broken promises
the whole night
If it meant I could see the faces
That have become all too unfamiliar.

It was like looking at the night sky
For the billionth time
Except the stars that you knew had their places,
No longer did.
But the sky was still beautiful

Your voice
Pierced through me the way it always has
But with words that no longer made sense,
Words that forced it's way
Through a crowd of people you called
"Cool".

There was no problem with that, I tell you
But
My heart sank to the soles of my feet
In uncertainty
Because
You never liked that word,
"Cool".
You once told me that we were better off
Different

I grasped your hand for the first time
Since the last awkward silence,
And shook it.
Except you returned it with a grip
That felt like it belonged to someone else.
You smiled a smile that wasn't yours
Your teeth shone a light more strobe than candle

You told stories of laughter
But they were no longer about our adventures of fighting dragons and saving the helpless.
They were about jumping into the lakes
Not to enjoy the water
But to show off that new tan and flaunt that new body

And I could have sworn
Amidst the chaos you presence caused
And the enthusiasm of your story telling,
I heard you introduce yourself to me again.
But it sounded like you were saying:
"this my name but this is no longer my personality"

As my heart sank, my hopes followed
Because I was certainly standing before
A person with a piercing personality
A person with the same hands and the same feet
A person who lit up the whole room
A person who was, undoubtedly, beautiful

But that person was no longer
You

Words
Are puzzle pieces with wings,
Stubborn,
They reside
In the creative side
Of my cluttered mind.
Their hobbies include
Floating
And being
In parts of sentences
And poems
They aren't supposed to be.
They hate cooperation
But love dressing up
In vibrant
Metaphors.
They're great as pets
Though they can be a handful.
Take them on walks,
Not with
Leashes
But with pens.
So that way,
In a park made of pages,
If they ever get lost,
At least they're
Exactly
Where they need
To be.

Oh, how great would it be
To fall so deeply in love
With the sky,
The clouds
Go out of their way
And firm up,
Netting themselves over the
Heavens,
In the hopes
To shelter me
From hitting
The solid groud.

Maybe it was the
Fated curl of a clouds lips
That blew wind
At the precise moment
On the ragged sail
And pushed this vessel
To the raging seas,
Towards stormy nights,
And took me
Exactly
Where I needed to go.

Despite the odds,
This broken boat,
Cracks and crevasses,
Made it's way to You.

I've watched the world
Entangle
Everything I love
Into a changing embrace.
And I only hope that
One day,
It
S t o p s