I keep my distance from salt.
I eat lots of veggies.
I can make my eyes look in different directions.
I leave a trail wherever I go.
I am tenacious.
I am flexible.
I am soft and mushy, I need to be vulnerable to move.
I also can't completely let go of my logic.
I'm often overlooked.
My eyes extend past myself and my (in)sight can often harm me.
I'm weird, but strong.
I sleep best when my body melds with that of another.
My natural world is one of wonder.
This shell hardened as I was forced to grow up.
When I touch you I taste you, I mark you, I trust you you.
I carry everything I am with me on display.
If you look at me just right, I have a pearly sheen and always seem to smile.

You use a pseudonym perhaps better suited than your given name.

the click of heels on pavement

Spread throughout the world of fantasy with no hint as to the true origins, branching out without tangible roots, enveloping and magic.

puffs of breath floating in the old stale air

My man of the red earth, you are my ground, let me place these roots to steady you.

eyes staring out from the darkness

You see the beauty in the world and maximize it, cultivating brightness and emotion, let me show you the same within yourself.

the chase-stumbling-caught-impact

Our hearts need not bleed if we stitch them together.

squeezing, short of breath

Charge my spirit and I'll help yours to fly, yearn for me, and I will find a way to you.

impact, pain, staggered breathing

Forget the world and all of it's concerns, forget the word "if."

the flick of a knife

In our world, darling, fear is the drug, not the bane.

threatening release from mortal bonds while the earthly body is bound tightly

I'd carve all your names into myself, keep them at least scrawled on my skin forever, knowing that I belonged, if only you would know you were worthy of it.

teasing out the cries that were stifled in the night, the tears too scared to be shed

We all have demons, but some of us know how to embrace and dance with them.

the demon knods, a greeting, an invitation, a knowing smirk of all the darkness within

Power is a gift that must be deserved, as is love, and security allows for challenge.

chains weighing down the limbs, holding the body secure, calming the panic or encouraging it in order to give better future relief

Without darkness, there can be no light, extremity allows for contrast, emphasis, and pleasure as you well know my love.

taking mind, body, soul

Let's find just how bright this darkness allows the world to look.

If I were in a fairytale, I'd be the knight to save the damsels in distress.

If I were the sandman I'd sprinkle so much sweet dreams into their eyes that they'd still see them when awake.

If I could stretch myself out enough I'd cover all the women of the world in a blanket of love and confidence.

If I were magnetic I'd hold back all of the knives they use to cut their tender skin.

If I were a telepath, I'd whisper to every girl who's ever cried, "you are wonderful."

If I were a mirror I'd show them all their best qualities, I'd show them how they look through the eyes of someone who loves them.

If I were a superhero I'd set out to save the world, or at least all of the sad and lonely girls in it.

If they'd let me, I'd give them my heart, or else teach them how to love themselves.

If I could teach enough girls how to love, then maybe one of them could learn to love me.

A pearl is a grain of sand that is kept far from its home and held captive in the dark belly of a strange creature. They're rare to find in nature but humans can manufacture them, and I've found more than most.

the sweetest pearl i've ever found was the baby i only got to hold once, who should have been mine, who stayed in the hospital because she became an addict in the womb and her parents cant stop fighting.

the saltiest pearl ive ever found was the girl with the black lipstick, screaming the show that this flower isnt part of the wallpaper and all she needed to know was that she was worthy of a love letter.

the lumpiest pearls are the loved ones who rebuff me for fear of loss, the lovers who lose me because they stood still instead of taking a chance, and the family members who own my heart but ignore the existence of my mind.

I hate the sea but I love pearls because just like me, they're a bit of sand just trying to become something great. so here i sit, waiting for someone to find me like i found the others, who'll hold me close and tell me im pretty.

me who loves too easily,
who gives too much of herself,
and feels too much like a grain of sand lost in the dark.
but pearls take time and are hard to find in nature.

This is the story of a statue.  It was found covered in ivy and so old that it could no longer be traced to a creator or considered a form of expression or art.  
  It was taken into a home where the light shone through large windows and the cold winds were kept away.  The human was rarely home, but the statue was content to always be there for them.
  Winter came and the windows were covered and the fire was often out.  Dust collected and the human lay ill in another room.
  The statue could do nothing but keep standing.
  A visitor came one day.  They looked at the statue for a long time, then asked to buy it: to take it home and exhibit it proudly.  The statue was sold and scheduled to be moved.
  But no one ever came.  Furniture moved and was taken away.  The statue was put into a corner and left to wonder.  Was it beautiful?  Was it chipped somewhere?  What shapes did it take?
  Its human sat in a chair across the room without looking at the statue.
So there it sat: sold but not taken, loving but not loved, unsure of itself, made of stone.
  It told itself that one day spring would come, or at least a mirror would be placed so that it could see its own true form.
So there it waits, loving, hoping, wondering, standing: just as a statue is meant to be.

When the boys say they "won't go as big as.." you,
When you look more like a teacher than a student,
When you see the other girls' expressions at you in the school bathroom mirror while they reapply their eyeliner,
When you sweat feverishly around those fragile powder-fresh beauties,
When you accidentally knock their things off their desks because your thighs can't fit and you were nervous to get up and walk in front of them anyways,
When they take selfies with you and your face is a mass of red, your eyes lost in your glasses, and you a blob,
When the boys you care for or even love profess their devotion to girls who are so much more beautiful than you could ever be,
When that baggy t-shirt look doesn't look chic because you have only high-neck boy shirts and are too top heavy;

Don't try to explain that your money goes to groceries so you can't afford team membership dues much less a new blouse.
Don't explain that your nice shoes need a retouch of hotglue so you really only had your snowboots.
Don't tell them that you didn't put on makeup because your mom was in the er, because even though she was, you didn't bother because you knew no amount of makeup could make them see you as an equal.
Don't you dare show them your scars.

Know that they do not laugh at you because you are not significant enough to be the topic of their conversation.
If someone says privately that they want you they will not acknowledge you in public.
If a cute person online shows interest, trust your instincts because those kind of people do not look at your kind of people.
Know that when you meet someone you might like, knowing how others see you, it's your choice if you want to hope that this one will see you any differently.

I have a shelf in my heart where I put those lost-sigh loves.
but I cannot trust myself as an empath because I wish too hard for them to come off the shelves.
I feel betrayed by my intuition because none of what I loved and hoped for came true.
I am lost and desperate, looking to my ex to hold me and show me the way because she's the most familiar face in a crowd of people who do not care.
I still want to reach out and touch because I don't know what else to do with myself.
I would put her on the shelf of "you'll always have my heart" but that shelf is too often knocked from the wall by loves who won't stay static.
The straight girl cannot let me hold her without me savoring her scent and then remembering that this same action does not make her heart stop as it does mine.
The geek boy cannot let me be or else I'll panic and all it takes is a smile to calm me down.  But then I remember that I'll never see his **** again because my heart got in the way.
And she, she is nice to me now than she ever was, but maybe that's because I expect less of her. I don't know if I sense her pain or just hope that she too, still feels.
She snaps at me that it can't be changed, but
what does that mean?
Do I try to be nice?
Do I still dream of a happy ending?
Can I be happy alone in my room with nothing but my knick-knacks to bring me joy?

Are there stars on your ceiling tonight?
Does the moonlight reflect from the snow as you, I, and all the wonderful people who feel too much wander in the cold, wishing to no longer be lonely?
Please tell em the cold hasn't frozen those thoughts in limbo,
Please tell me your primal instinct hasn't been quelled.
I found you, in the dangerzone, while I was trying not to jump.
Trying not to say something stupid, to not be that same coward for fear of rejection and my own thoughts.
I had wanted to scream and break open my chest to show my feelings,
Hoping someone would understand and fix me and hold me together.
It is in that feeling that we are not alone.
It is true that we may never catch the sunlight,
But the Japanese have a word for the way the sun shines through the trees and that is beautiful.
We cannot never be alone, we cannot fly
But we can find words, and share them,
and hold each others' hands across a bridge over time and space,
Made of words
Without knowing, but with full understanding
And take a more fulfilling plunge.

I used to believe in fairytales,
but I failed in making one.
My fairytale came,
but I'd stopped dreaming.
I'd made myself a good, real life
but some dreams change everything.
I can't live without sleep,
but to only sleep is to die.
I can only do so much when awake.
I can't achieve goals in my sleep.
I love life but I'm not a machine.
I love dreams but I'm no longer a child.
Reality isn't bad, and I can't leave it,
but let me sleep, let me dream.
I'm only here for so long.

Hold me in this moment
Let all I feel be love
Let this moment last forever.
Long live love

I still worship you
But there's a sickness I've acquired
My mind turns against me.
Shield me.

I am hollow inside
My organs lay scattered
There is rotting all around me
Save me

There is darkness in my being
I must protect you
I must protect myself
Help me

With you I can be better
Quickly! Turn away from the world.
I fear I am crumbling
Stay with me

I am weak and corrupt
You are bright
You still love me
Heal me

I fear what this pain would do to you
I was exposed and corrupted
I need to be accepted
Love me

I don't want to fail
Life only makes sense with you
Daring not to think of when it ends,
Long live love

The creature sat in the back of a room in the middle of a mind behind the ribs and looked around.
Around it was its own coagulating, dark liquid substance, like a cowl over its skull-like intangible head.  
Claws scratching from the inside out, digging from the outside in for release, to be vulnerable, so that perhaps someone could truly love it.
Ripping open the cheeks, stomach, chest of another, searching for itself, for another pair of bottomless dark eyes to look into, and crying.
The body needs to be crushed and destroyed before the soul can be free, there isn’t another creature just like it for miles and the other shells failed.
But to rip open to release the creature it loves, it would have to ****.
So it’ll just **** itself or else drown in the posion of another and hope it doesn’t live to see the repercussions of its actions.
self destructing, salting its wounds with another's lips, cracking itself open against a wall, waiting in a tower to be rescued, no one wants to save the knight.
let the darkness grow and then saving the light wont matter
drown in the devil to lose the fear of preserving a soul already too tainted,
let it fester. the creature just wants to sew the outer skins together and live with another but there isnt another creature.
it met one once, but that one harmed it in a bad way, but maybe thats what it deserved.
drown the fear in hurt and it wont have to be strong
the darkness oozes and burns and pleases in self delusion.
It wanted to be free but now it's lost and blind and vulnerable and it will have to harm in order to be rectified, verified, loved.
Maybe some things are better left hidden away.

You wrote a poem that made me want to cry,
a blue moon occasion of risk and shown feelings.
A love poem in response would be too overdone for me
and perhaps it'd seem an obligatory exchange.
You know I love you but only so many lines can be written
and I've run out of new words to excite you.
If I could I'd just hold you to show how I feel,
but I'll go slightly against my decision and write you a poem to thank you
or at least acknowledge these feelings
and then for once, I'll end up the awkward one.

SO you decided to read my rant.
So why am I writing a rant?
Because I'm an angsty teenager, but my life is good so I'll write a semi-anonymous poem and maybe if someone reads it I'll think I matter or that I'm not that alone.
The funny thing is, I rarely read the poetry of others, but I expect others to read mine.
I have an entire book that few will read and yet I expect to get somewhere in life.
But I have food and good grades and loving friends and a girlfriend, so my life is good.
My life is good, but good leaves no room for the future.
I am afraid that I can't go on like this and one day it will all crash down on me.  
I don't want to be a drama queen, but I don't want to hole myself up.
I feel these extremes and try to even them out.
I don't want to be like my mother.
My mother is in my ear complaining about all that I do and though I'm afraid that those I love will leave me, I'm afraid she never will.
She's moving with me to the state in which the college that she so optimistically says will accept me is situated.
I'm afraid I'll never have a healthy relationship or know how to function.
I'm afraid of having no family, but I don't know how a good family works.
She is so much of me I don't know which of our feelings I feel.
I don't know what of me is real.
I try to stay down to earth but she sends me reeling and yet brings me down to where I belong.
I'm an all or nothing girl, but that's a bad habit I learned from my mother who screams for milk at mild spice and cries hysterically over people she claims to hate.
I try to be my own person, but as an only child, my companion has always been my own mind which means I became too much of the world around me, and thus not enough of an original person.
I feel that even the one thing I've always been praised for (my writing, and thus my mind,) has only been praised to fill the awkward silences after an unimportant person tries too hard.
I debated about not writing this because I was afraid that I write too often and that it amounts to too little.  
I always use that adjective about myself: "too."  I've said before though that in my case it should be said as "tew" as in "too much of that which is ew" and then I think of all that I am not, but rather, "nawt" (not enough of that which makes people say "aw")
I'm an all or nothing girl but I try to live in the middle grounds.  
I like something or I don't but I don't obsess.
I know where I want to be in life and will fight tooth and nail to get there, but I fear I may end my life if I am unable.
The funny thing is I don't seek fame, or riches, I just want something that wouldn't be so **** out of reach if I wasn't who I am.
I just want to get my phd in veterinary medicine and marry a wonderful girl and live without too many bills piling up.
But I still have trouble spelling veterinary even though I'm almost a straight A student but almost straight A isn't good enough to pay for my education.
Because I'm too white, not quite poor enough, not quite skilled enough, not noticeable enough.  
I'm just close enough to the norm that people expect I fit in somewhere so they leave me all behind, leaving me with nowhere to fit in.
They all think someone else will help me until no one does.
So I search for the people whom I can make feel special and I throw myself at them praying to feel like I belong, but it never quite feels real.
I want to crack into people and find whats real about them, show them all of my all too real flaws, but inside their shells are likable things, and I am like tamarind: too sweet, in need of salt and spice, and strange to harvest for flesh.  I could be useful, but there's always something not quite right.
I know everything I do is not quite right and sooner or later someone will pull the plug.  
And leave me.
And I'll be left alone, writing or reading or crying or sleeping.
I wanted to record my voice saying this, but I knew that people would be even less likely to notice my words then.  
I'm not the person whose writing wins awards, I'm not the plucky student whose hard work earns scholarships.
I fall between the cracks because I'm too good to deserve pity and not good enough to deserve praise.
I tried to draw to spare you all from this stupid rant but though I liked the shape of a few lines, they meant nothing.
Maybe that's my problem, that I seek meaning in everything.
That I can't make anything of meaning.
I don't know why anyone bothers with me.
I feel like they're lying to me.
I'm nobody.
I'm an all or nothing girl, but I'm either too much or not enough and that means I'm in between.
I am the or in either or, in yes or no, in succeed or fail.  
I would be happy with that if it meant that I could just get the few things I want in life, but even that is too much to ask for someone who's not eloquent enough, not charismatic enough, not good enough to get there.
I know this feeling won't stay, because I'll bounce back to the opposite extreme of loving life.
I'm an all or nothing girl and even though I know in a lot of ways I have it all, right now, I'm feeling nothing.
And I'm afraid these feelings won't leave me.

The devil knocked the other day
(Or at least that's what I call him.)
He taught me that carnal hunger could be fed on any cuisine but never gave me my full.
I left all I believed in to follow him because he came when I needed someone and always does.
But when the devil knocked this time I slammed the door in his face.
He showed me that desire can be learned but that just taught me to look beyond him.
He showed me that love had nothing to do with pleasure but I learned that the only unique thing about him was the pain and disgust that he charged for his services.
The devil knocked when I had nothing but I'm learning to regain what he took from me in the first place.

Your body is so beautiful when not sectioned off by clothes that don't understand how to love a woman.

When you're free of them, you let down your walls and all of our problems with not knowing what to say or being able to show feelings melt away.

Your mouth is the most beautiful thing then because the different natural tones in your lips become more emphasized as if painting all those unsaid words.

In your full glory you are my exotic princess and no one could ever doubt that you are beautiful.

I want to drown in your curls and trace the marks left by the star-dust kisses sent down from heaven to kiss your beautiful skin.

Full, warm, moist, loving, trusting, communicating, all of these things I find in you without the costumes you wear to the outside world.

I fell in love with you more today because we broke the boundaries and I'll stay in love with you all my life if you could just stay naked, at least to me.

Even if we're covered with the quilt of life to the outside world, you've let me in an accepted all of me, never put those walls back up. Never put those clothes back on

Tell me why I still look at you.
Tell me why after all the pain I still think you look cute today.
Tell me why I want you to grovel and suffer, but mainly want you to still want me.
Most of all,
Tell me how to make it stop.

Cuando era niña, mi mamá told me to speak in spanish cuando I couldn't say mis "r"s en inglés.  Garlic made my mouth stink from the broth I drank when sick, so I ate spicy things to soothe my throat.  Muchas veces comímos tamales por la Navidad.  Cuando era niña, creí que era mexicana, pero soy blanca.  Y tengo miedo de hablar español en frente de los nativos y no sé como mostrarlos mi habilidad real.  En el fín, soy una wera, y más que eso, soy francés, y más que eso, soy alemán, and more than that, I'm finnish.

I tried to take pride in my heritage and learn this obscure language.  I tried to find similarities in appearance and personality.  I boasted of this culture that I so wanted to love and be a part of.  I thought I'd found my viking roots but no one around me cared.  I learned "tourist finnish" and forgot it because I couldn't practice.  I read the Kalevala and laughed at old newspaper articles about the joke of "St. Uhro's Day."  I pointed out weird translations in songs due to too many syllables, but in the end, I was too many generations away from being truly finnish.

Why are there so many poems about love?  Maybe it's because when we're in love we stop searching for somewhere to belong because we've found someone to belong to.  I've found my person but not my people.  I've been to seven schools and cried each time I left because I lost those I had tried to make into my extended family.  I try to fit in with so many groups because I feel like I never fit in with just one and in the end I'm on the outskirts.  We have so few people come to holidays and none of them really ever talk with me.  I have a mother but she's an island in a sea of lost chances and forgotten ties.  We seek love to have a claim to something but I've had to learn that I can lose that, too.  I strive for heritage to make up for family dysfunction.  In the end I am white, or rather, white-washed.  I was born without ethnic belonging and have not belonged ever since.

we've not had much trouble finding our land, but that doesn't make it a world.
we have the firm foundation of love and we've learned how lost i become if i try to leave it.

however, sometimes, when the ground is so built up beneath me i stand on a mountain and at such altitudes the air is thin.

the wind brings me soft caresses and subconscious gestures that blow away my fears and deliver hope

I was always taught that air fanned fire, but that doesn't always happen.  Take this chill from my heart, burn off the stains left by others and show me that i can experience this heat and desire with someone who wont hurt me.  Crack my back against the wall and devour me in the flames that i might be born again.

I've never been fond of water, of that inexplicable eternity of life but the waves do not suffocate if you hold me up, and we can get through it together so long as we have air to breathe, fire to warm, and land to return to in this, our new world.

Have you noticed that the most influential spoken word artists out there are lesbians?

Maybe that's because only someone who loves women and is a woman can truly understand how to heal a woman.

Maybe it's because we deal with so many downcast looks that we've had to break the chain.

So many of the best speakers and poets take on a certain pattern that I thought was the sexiest thing and couldn't quite understand.

And then I realized it was confidence.  That's why although my speaking voice may be low and crass as soon as I talk about something I care about I just speak and let my own voice calm my fears.

Maybe that's the secret, we are the children left to self-soothe or those who learned too quickly to have to soothe another.  

We weep for the world that many think wouldn't bat an eye for us.

Let me tell you this, my love makes me feel closer to god than any bigoted church and my tranquility is found in her presence.

Let me tell you that I would fight to ensure that all women, all people can stand tall and if it takes some husky girl with short hair and glasses to show  a woman that she doesnt need make up then so be it.

But neither I, nor the most influential person of our time can make a woman love herself if she doesnt want to.

Dear, you have to love yourself and stop fighting it, stop denying yourself happiness because its the only thing you can control.

Stop going to others for help if you're not going to listen, stop sitting alone if it doesn't solve your problems.

Realize that only you can turn your ember into a beacon and you owe it to that little girl full of hope and wonder that you once were to become something better than a liar who's too scared to be happy.

Learn to speak with the voice of all those activists you admire and learn to believe in all the fairy tales you laugh at but learn that only you can save yourself.

Learn like I did, even if you didn't learn it from me.

I am a bird flying towards an instinctual destination and sometimes I lose sight of the ground.
Sometimes I carry quite a heavy burden.
In my claws I carry my achievements: the things I wish to present to show my worth.
In my beak I carry my soul for to share with those I love.
At my side flies my flock but sometimes there are problems better solved on your own.
On my wings I carry all my misdeeds, my misgivings, all my pain. Sometimes I can regrow flight feathers when they are broken but the load I carry puts me off balance and I still can’t fly well.
Only with rain can sin and regret be washed so I sought out rain so that I could move on to my destination and be cleansed.
In her presence it finally rained and for an instant I wondered if I could have been cleansed any other way.
I had made myself anew but she gave me a new beginning.
I don’t know if I should keep flying with her. Sometimes I think she’s my salvation
Sometimes I’m afraid another storm will follow
I could fly on without burden, alone, I could fly healthily with her. Sometimes the way ahead was clouded, and now the sun is shining and I am at peace.
One day I’ll have to make a decision, but for now, I am a bird flying towards and instinctual destination far away and sometimes it’s best not to think, not to ask or decide, but just to fly.