Don't mistake my nostalgia for reminiscing,
Don't tell me all of my guilt is masked by all of his faults.
Because I am also to blame.
Though,
Feeling guilt does not make someone guilty,
Feigning innocence does not make someone innocent.
This is not a victimless crime,
But I cannot sit here and call myself victim
Without explaining to you what I put him through too.
I can't preach to you as a survivor
When the wounds I carry are just as deep as the ones I caused.

And I reach my finger so far down my throat as if I'm fishing,
I can never seem to catch anything besides sea sickness.
A whole ocean pouring from my mouth,
the saltiness burns as it comes up.
The waves are violent, as if they are trying to knock me all the way down to the bottom.
Cement fills my head dragging me down even faster.
And I'm stranded on this island,
I sit here thinking that this is going to be what finally kills me.
I continue to starve,
almost as though I'm used to it already.

And the little slip of paper said,
“Have you ever contemplated suicide?”
And there were check boxes underneath,
One said Yes and the other No,
And this sounds like a simple question but I don’t know how to answer.
See I’ve thought about what life might look like if I wasn’t in it,
Sometimes I write suicide notes
with what I think is no intention,
Some days I can’t get out of bed,
And I think about the people who will feel better when I’m gone.
But I haven’t laid on the bathroom floor with a pill bottle,
I haven’t held rope in my hand with a place to hang it,
People always assume contemplating suicide means holding a gun and putting it down,
Being at the hand of death and only looking over the edge,
And although it could be that really,
Contemplating suicide is cutting up an apple and thinking,
Maybe your family would be happier without you.
Its doing homework and thinking about what your teacher would think,
Or sitting in the shower,
Wondering if it will get better.
People say suicide is a one word answer,
But they never take into account the paragraphs before.
So as I’m sitting there,
Reading the question that I still don’t have the answer to,
I check no,
And think about it all day.

I always read poetry about those boys,
The ones with big brown eyes
And enough apologies to make you feel loved,
But I've yet to read a poem,
About how the boys with oceans for eyes
Are just as dangerous,
How they have enough "I love you"s
To make you feel sorry for them.

All you are is
Nostalgia
With a neon smile,
And Wildfire,
With a steady hand

Got Me Drunk On Wanting Reasons,
And High Off Nothing But Excuses,

You can't tell me that,
because before,
when everything was perfect,
I believed that,
It hurts more to wash blood down the drain then to feel it come out of me,
when I cry,
I don't stop until I can feel something again,
and when I told you I loved you,
I meant it.
If it's just a bad day,
not just a bad life,
then how come every day is bad?
How come I pushed people so far away that they're never coming back?
How come it is so hard to breath that I break down crying in my brother's car and have to miss first period cause I can't stop?
The good days are spread so thin that I don't have much to compare the bad ones to,
If I knew who was hurting me,
I would hurt them back,
but I have to take it out on someone for now,
and I'm the only one crying on the bathroom floor,
When I have bad days I don't think about the good ones,
I think about how many more days I have to keep taking deep breaths before the deep breaths take me,
I wonder where they would take me,
and why I'm not there yet,
When I do have a good day,
I think about it ending,
if I could just stay "good" for a few more minutes,
maybe I would really know what it felt like.
But the only thing I can think is
"It's a good day, not a good life"

And I don't want it to be over,
because that means no more sunsets,
and I've never really liked the feeling of the sunrise,
It's too familiar.
And washes out my favorite stars,
The ones I wished on,
because I wished for you,
and all the sunrise brings is ungranted wishes,
and unfinished poetry.

I counted every single cigarette that she put out,
without smoking,
1. I thought of her favorite shade of lipstick,
how she used it to write "*******"
on the bathroom mirror.
2. I thought of safety pins,
and the ones she chained around her neck
as a reminder,
that she didn't want to remember anymore.
3. I thought of music,
how she listened to songs on repeat,
just so she wouldn't forget that they were once her favorite,
that they might still be her favorite.
4. I thought of her hoodie,
the smell of smoke stayed with it,
and she hated it.
5. I thought of the ways she wrote out her pain,
always more poetic than it really felt,
always sweeter than it seemed.
6. I thought of every dinner that she hadn't eaten in months,
every breakfast sent down the drain,
and all those midnight snacks she cried over having.
7. I thought of her funeral,
it hasn't happened yet but she says it will be beautiful,
she's planned it herself,
she isn't planning on going to it.
8. I thought of all the notes she has written to me,
signed each one with a different name,
she wants to be someone else but doesn't know who.
9. I thought of her dainty hands,
holding her black lighter,
flicking it on and off,
rhythmic, soothing almost,
but that wasn't really her,
not rhythmic or soothing.
10. This was the last one she lit,
a girl made of smoke,
but without the smoke anymore,
now she's just a girl,
and there's nothing left to count.

You’re the type that I want to be,
Poetic,
the type that talk in dainty words that always mean so much,
too much,
You have that part of you,
the black nail polish and red rose,
part of you,
that's the part I fell in love with first,
Small,
without trying,
you dress like you belong with the stars,
I bet you taste like the milky way,
Maybe,
it could be the way you talked about love,
it made me want to hold your hand,
You,
always covered in glitter,
california sun-kissed skin,
but you sounded like those “bad neighborhoods” in New York,
the ones that aren’t really that bad,
that’s where I want to be,
Spinning,
Dizzy in the parking lot,
you make me feel like eating cookie dough,
you make me feel like eating,
Music,
notes somehow surround you,
I wondered what it felt like to swallow them whole,
makes me feel like buying vinyl records,
just to feel you closer,
Lavender,
scented perfume we got from your mom,
thinking about elementary school crushes,
before we found out we couldn’t,
we did, maybe you didn’t, I did,
Sipping chocolate milk and replacing her with him in every love poem,
Her,
it was you,
I wanted it to be you,
it was never really you in the end,
Love,
the way you loved me,
best friends playing hide and seek with neighborhood kids,
Dark,
I got too close,
this time it was in the dark,
whispered apologies that I meant but you didn’t,
Change,
I did, you never did,
and oh how I waited for you,
to change I mean,
but you continued on as an unwritten love poem.
Me,
I want to be the type that can love myself,
the ways you didn’t,
the same ways I loved you,
too.

I'm what remains of a broken girl.
Maybe more cracked than broken, but broken none the less.
Shattered glass of a porcelain perfect girl,
My sharp edges ready to slice whoever gets close enough to glue my pieces back together.
I couldn't let anyone see the ugly remains of my transparent silhouette.
All that was left of my blown out dandelion,
No one wants to keep the stem of the dandelion after they've let their wishes dance in the wind,
But oh how the stem wishes it could dance.
I'm the one that tried to turn my pain into poetry,
But all that came out of it was a wasted notebook full of torn out pages and the same broken girl.

When my neighbors had rushed out of their apartment they left only their cat behind.
We didn’t realize until we walked into their emptied space,
to see the cat,
laying there,
hungry,
dead on the floor,
looking more bones than skin.
And oh how I longed to be replaced with it,
my lifeless eyes instead of its own,
my hunger making me look more bones than skin,
more bones than anything else,
dead on the floor.
But no matter how many times I wrap my fingers around my wrists,
or let water slip down instead of anything else,
I still can’t die.
I still don’t know if I want to die.
But every time I close my eyes I see my neighbor’s cat,
I think maybe if I were that cat people would understand,
Understand that it wasn’t my fault.
Understand that no one left anything for me,
And I was just trying to fend for myself until someone found me.
But no one will find me.

An ode to my cat and the night I fell asleep crying and watching the great British baking show.
2. An ode to the snowflakes that always seem to make my mother smile
3. An ode to everything I’ve ever hated and all the people who made it worse.
4. An ode to Netflix and every show thats made me laugh like I wasn’t sad.
5. An ode to black nail polish and it amazing ability to make me feel just edgy enough.
6. An ode to my zodiac sign even if I don’t believe in her I’ll always be a scorpio.
7. An ode to every Arctic Monkeys song and the way they make me remember what I said I’d never forget.
8. An ode to Thursdays because they’re the loneliest day of the week and I can relate.
9. An ode to every poet who has inspired me to keep writing for just one more day.

I wonder if these people I pass in the hallways everyday remember.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it.
Do they remember the things I said to them?
Do they even remember my name?
If I remember it so vividly,
you’d think they’d remember at least a little.
Right?
But I guess not.
So to that girl who I gave all my secrets,
and to the boy who I told my best jokes,
and to all those people who I’ve talked to,
listened to,
made memories with,
I remember you,
no matter how much you’ve forgotten me.

My skinny jeans will never be skinny enough,
just like how I can only wrap my fingers
around my wrists so many times,
How the lie "I'm not hungry"
is easier than actually eating,
and how my parents still thank me after I eat
the dinner that they made
and my brothers voice cracks every time
he asks me to "please eat lunch"
and still packs a snack in my bag.

I've been fighting to survive my entire life.
Just trying to stay alive
But I forgot the most important thing
surviving is not the same as living.

She sits in class,
Her hair full of dry shampoo,
The dark circles under her eyes
seeping through her concealer.
Every class goes by slower than the one before
and its getting harder to pay attention.
She didn't sleep last night
but at least her math homework is done.
She doesn't remember the last time she ate,
But by now she doesn't really feel it.
Her phone sits full of unread texts,
invitations to things she wished she had time for.
But she doesn't have time for anything anymore.
Sleeping was supposed to be her escape,
but by the time 2am rolls around
she's still wide awake.

If ever a word I would be labeled with,
Untitled would be perfect.
Feeling ever so entitled to my uninspired opinions
Can my name be considered my title
when all its ever been used for is to call out,
is that what a title is?
Have I been mistitled all my years,
or does the title not define the person?
People define you by your title either way,
judging a book by its cover,
judging a person by their title,
judging a poem by the author.