"you are so strong"

my eyes stared into nothing,
burning with the absence of tears.
i knew there would be a point
where i could not cry anymore.

what was everyone seeing?
because all i felt was weakness,
pain,
emptiness.

my exterior was bruised and beaten
but only inside could i feel the effects.
i was not strong
i was fragile,
scared,
and vulnerable.

frustrated by words of praise
i sank deeper into my delusions,
and perfected my 'brave face'.
i was not strong
i was struggling.

listening to the vital carts
wheel in and out,
my door never a separation
but a portal to demons
wielding gurneys,
needles,
charts and machines.
i was restless in my immobility.
i was not strong
i was numb.

calling for my mother at 4:00 am
she carried my weight,
she held my hand,
she washed my hair,
she changed my clothes,
she slept, barely,
at my feet.
i was not strong
my mother was.

days piled on;
hours lost in isolation
maddening my mind
and diminishing my willpower.
with every test,
measurement,
and procedure
i felt helplessness
swallow the living light in me.
still, i complied,
i waited,
i did what was asked.
i was not strong
i was a quiet fire.

looking at my damaged body,
examining my inflamed veins.
my face was swollen,
my hair matted.
i shook in my skin
disassociating my identity.
i was not my condition
i was not my self disgust.

i can not say that i feel better
just different,
which is neither positive or negative.
reflecting on 10 days as a ghost
getting acquainted with myself,
filling in the blanks.
i was not strong
i was surviving.

I see now that I kept asking for your attention in some desperate validation that maybe one day you would see me the way I saw myself with you; as a partner.

It was easy to believe we were working when I thought I had something to fix, but then someone told me I was not broken to begin with.

I waited and wasted so much time and energy working at your at your impossible process, but I can no longer be romantically employed.

I love you, but I do not love the way you have me trained. I comply with your  terms and regulations and never complain.

You are so good at finding ways to keep me in line, but this contract you keep presenting is something I never signed.

Trading “I love yous” like playing cards
in the backseat of my car
and my hand doesn’t look very promising.
They say you gotta know when to hold ‘em,
know when to fold ‘em,
but I am always walking away
when I should stay
and vise versa,
I just don’t want to hurt you.

This game we have been playing
is fixed and unfair
and you have some tricks
up your sleeve,
I can tell.
And I can skip my turn
but I can’t leave.
You must think I am
a joker for the way I keep
breaking my poker face.
I can’t help it,
you’re just so good at this.
My heart sinks every time
you ask me what I have to give,
because I would go all in for you
if it was worth the risk
but at the end of each round
all I can say is “go fish”.

You were born like a bullet from a gun with that much tenacity and silver in your blood/ a baby girl given to a world and a family too eager to end/ fated to live a life filled with fear/ you had courage and a set of arrows in your arsenal/  in a small town you found friendship in girl hidden within herself/ and loved a boy with golden eyes and good intentions/ you were scared but you were happy and fell into his arms along with harms way/ little did you know your stay would soon soil in tragedy and grief/ before you even had the chance to graduate/"Can't I be strong and go to prom?"/ an angel among demons/ you fought like Hell against the darkness that claimed the hearts of your mother/ your aunt/ your grandfather/ where was the loyalty when your loved ones left you for dead?/ a young huntress grasping for her chance to maintain the matriarchy and still keep peace/ everything you were taught had to be abandoned in order to protect your friends/ your friends, the only family that ever felt like home/ and they looked to you for strength/ they came to you in strife/ they clung to you in danger/ you heard the screams of your best friend pierce the night more than you heard her laughter/ you remember how she told you to smile/ you remember how she taught you to hold on to better parts of yourself/ you hear your father tell you he is proud/ he is so proud of you and all that you have sacrificed/ but you had no choice/ there was never an option or an exit sign glowing in the distance/ you stuck to your morals with persistence/ "we protect those who cannot protect themselves"/ but tell me who exactly was protecting you?/ the heroine of the hysteria/ the knight in all her honor/ who died in the arms of a man/ at the hands of another man/ i will never forget you and i will never understand/ you were everything that we needed/ i will not see your image ******

There are good places
where your mind can go
and there are city parks
where little gardens grow
and there is safety
in phone calls
to your best friend
and there is more than
just one way
in which a heart can mend
and bravery can be the days
when you leave your bed
and strength can be
the times when you say
what is in your head
if you feel scared to be alone
and like Hell has become your home
there are people
and there are places
that will help you to feel better
just give me your address
and i will send you letters
your mental health is important
and your feelings matter
pay attention to the cracks
before you completely shatter

I am watching manufactured rainbows dance
across familiar basement walls.
And on the floor,
there are littered flecks of light
racing around my feet
to the rhythm of tonight's jam band.

And I am missing you.
And I am missing nobody in particular.
I am just missing a part of me.
I don't think I have found it
yet,
but I feel this void.

We all talk about feeling complete.
Maybe we all
have it in us.
There are strangers moving
next to me,
and sometimes we trade
smiles or cigarettes
but I am growing tired
of their empty trance glances.

I'm still hoping that you answer this.

North of somewhere,
cradled by the coast of the Atlantic,
is a place where the world
has pressed pause.
This seasonal paradise
seems abandoned,
preserved under the pretense
that summer will return soon.

Frozen,
in winter and in time
the seaside town waits patiently.
The salty shores continue in community.
Vacancy signs glow in windows,
stores apologize for being closed.
Littered remnants of past visitors
sit silently in the snow.
We walked the streets like ghosts
returning to an unfamiliar home.
The locals carry on with their routines
while others cling to summer dreams.

Fantasy and adventure will resurface
as the ice begins to thaw.
Life renews with ocean views
and a reality so raw.

In your journey,
do not take your impatience or discontent.
Disconnection from the world you inhabit
will not make you deep, desirable, or devil-may-care.
Instead you will find yourself departed.

When you reach your destination,
when the long, rolling roads have turned to gravel and dust
and when you stand,
on the head of a giant,
overlooking your conquered feat,
you will look beside you and see nothing.
Behind you and see no one.
In front of you; yourself.
And the cold, bitter wind you brought with you,
where there once was love.

i tried to keep you,
like smoke in my hands
and though you promised to stay with me
you slipped from my fingers.

i kept looking up,
in hopes that you would return
but the ground has always been closer to me
than the sky.

I used to rip the roots of new relationships
out of the fertile soil
because I couldn't stand
to see another one wilt.
I guess I stopped growing.

But the neighboring plants
did not stop reaching for the sun
when my petals started to drop.
You asked me for an inch to bloom,
and I gave you acres.

Me;
With my too-tiny to look intimidating frame,
but my picture is so much bigger than any wooden cage
you could try and house me in.

You;
With your blank stares and too-cool-to-care attitude
brushing me off, sweeping me under the rug.
I will not take a permanent place collecting dust.

Us;
A scratched record that is loved
for a favorite song that lasts long enough
before skipping over the damage.
If only you hadn't been so rough.

I realized it was not your job to keep me afloat, so I stopped looking for places in conversation where you said something shallow and I tried to add depth. I stopped saving the text messages you sent past 3 AM because those words were not formed with love for me to cling on to, no, they were baited lines waiting for me to bite. Hook, line, and sinker I surfaced gasping for breathe in unfamiliar air. Writhing around in my discomfort, hoping you would throw me back into the water rather than watch me struggle. They never tell you how many fish in the sea are actually sharks waiting to sink their teeth.

after we ended things
you stayed on my clothes and sheets
like cigarette smoke
and i didn't mind
but i guess we don't recognize
things that are toxic
when they comfort us

and the thoughts of you
lingered in my brain
like the coffee stain
on the passenger seat
of my car,
maybe we didn't get as far
as i had hoped
but i wouldn't trade
that summer for anything.

She is the house that built me
when my heart had nowhere to grow
and hers are the hands that held me
when i was scared to be alone
she catches me every time i fall
like it was her assignment at birth
and she makes me feel like in this world
i finally have some worth

she has taught me lessons
i could have never learned
in a classroom
sitting behind a desk
she is the reason my heart is still beating
in this tiny chest
and even if i only see her
when she's home for holidays
or if i pay the airlines
to take me across the states
my favorite part of this world
is only a text or call away

it is so hard to put her into words
because she is so much more
than i could ever describe
and i want her to know,
and you to know
that she is the sunlight in my skies
she holds me together
i am the storm
and she is the better weather
and whether or not
i have promised it before,
i am hers forever.

The spring air kisses my neck
like the ghost of a loved one.
I am comforted by her touch
but I still shiver
from time to time.

it’s funny how wax becomes translucent when it’s hot
and it reminds me of how i could see right through you
when things got tough and you couldn’t stick around
long enough to watch me burn but
you had no trouble lighting the fire

when you told me you liked
kissing my thighs
because they felt soft and warm
you took my biggest insecurity
and made it beautiful

and when you took my hands in yours
and told me we fit perfectly
i stopped thinking of myself
as a puzzle
and more like the missing piece

and when you left me
it hit harder than the rest
it was like swallowing fire
scorching my chest,
desperate to put the flames out
i tried drowning myself from inside

i drank so much
that i could not feel
my own hands,
but i still knew you
were not there to hold them
i don't know what hurt more
the hangover or the heartache

you planted so much sadness
into my veins
i thought about digging them out
i might pretend i am alright
but that knife in my heart
is still wedged in
so tight

you could have told me
i was nothing to you
before i made you my everything
you could have predicted
six more weeks of winter
instead of promising me spring

there are things that exist in the world
that we never think about
like the kelp forests in the ocean
and thousands of bird species in the trees
that surround us
we were made to be observers
and instead we reached out and touched
the exhibits that never belonged to us
we have strangled the Earth,
cutting down the very source of oxygen
and then ask why there’s no air to breathe
you cannot beat and bully a planet
and then expect it to renew itself
the same way you cannot
throw punches at your friends
and then ask for their embrace
when we have all come face to face
with the horrors of our human ways
our beautiful host will have rotted and decayed
i just hope there is no one there to picket that funeral

I've been spending most of my time
finding ways to feel fulfilled
but honestly I am twenty-two and life is a cycle,
monotonous,
i sleep more than i ever have before
and i avoid responsibility like
the plague.

to be worthy of someone's time would be great
but i am in a constant tug-of-war
with my standpoint on relationships.
yeah, having a partner could be fun
'cause i could belong to someone
and i guess now that i think of it,
that sounds exhausting.
i should go back to bed.

i stay up until 3:00 am,
listening to the same songs on repeat
tweeting my thoughts like a lost prophet
serving a sermon to her open palms
i'm hopeful you will think i'm clever
i want your attention,
not your surrender.

my mom tells me to be careful every time i leave the house
i shrug and say "yeah okay" but promise nothing else
we drink beer in basements and watch kids sing their hearts out,
only alive when it's dark out,
i end up on some foreign couch with two beards and a ukelele
you couldn't thrill me if you paid me.

i feel like a flower wilting, planted in soil that is toxic and dry. i could stretch my roots to reach nutrients and fresh water but i have no energy or desire to help myself. i see myself losing petals, depending on my neighbors to hold me up, and feeling like a slight breeze would be enough to rip me apart.

You look up at the stars
and admire their scattered patterns,
embracing their sporadic beauty
as they fade in and out of view.
I hope you see the constellations of scars
mapped across my skin
in the same way.
I hope I look the same to you.

I have come to find that two broken people don't make a whole.
Half-full or half-empty hearts,
regardless of perspective,
do not refill when spilled together.

On this new day I was born from my bed with a fresh but somehow still tired perspective. It is early but the world has been orbiting for hours. I am always late to everything. But I still try and pry open my eyes with cups of coffee, hoping and hungry for what has not happened yet. If I survive the blank stares and empty prayers of strangers, avoid the ****** and the danger, then bless my ambition when I rest my head with my decisions.

a furious fire was forged
inside me again
from the embers
of a former scorn.

it burned unknowingly still,
until you revived the flames
with her name.

i laid next to the open window
letting frozen air in,
debating a sober slumber
in the snow.

i will always be second –
competing with a ghost.
i guess that's why you haunt me
like this.

There is something living in me,
an anonymous being devouring my dreams
and driving me out of my mind.
I have stepped down from my position to
operate this machine,
and the creature has turned autopilot.

I wake up suddenly when I have not been sleeping.
I forget my lines.
My smile has gone into hiding.
The dark crescent moons waxing below my eyes
are swallowing my face like the night sky.
The skin that shelters these two residents
has become more and more translucent,
and still I cannot see who has moved in with me.

How can you defeat an invisible enemy?
One who always knows your strategy,
whose voice and footsteps sound like yours,
who leaves on lights and opens doors,
who gets to breathe every time you inhale,
I am failing constantly
and through this, it prevails.

If you spend enough time with demons,
they soon become your friends.
A part of you to love and defend.
But careful that you do remember,
how easily your heart dismembers.
Do not trust the darkness inside,
who feeds on your doubts and batters your pride.
The parasite feels no remorse
when it feasts on its final course.

I know it is hard to find the light
with wool pulled over your eyes.
You are the sheep, but deep asleep
a lion is ready to rise.

everything has wilted around me
the air has become cold and stiff
and wind cuts deep into my chest
the same way your words have.
i bury my face deeper into the sheets
i tuck my fists in tight above my forehead
as if to plunge the tears from my eye sockets.
my phone is on but i will not respond
i do not know what to say
my thoughts are barren like the world outside
and every last leaf has fallen and decayed
there is no trace of life or the love that bloomed
from spring to summer.
it always surprises me to see
the change in seasons,
and the reason i will not answer you
is the same reason the snow falls
the ponds have frozen over
and the trees are empty.
everything ends in silence and isolation
what makes you think i would be different?

you need not ask me who i am fighting for
my dear, we know the outcome.
i transformed from victim to victor
and still, you see me wounded.
Bleeding from seemingly self-inflicted injury,
it was you who held the knife all along.
Cuts will cauterize,
scars will form and hide behind my sleeves
the same way you mask yourself in alcohol
and kiss anyone you see.

I am stubborn as a seashell.
With persistence,
I keep washing up on your shores,
begging you to keep me
and hold my hollow bones like precious stones.

would you be ashamed
to wear my lipstick
like secondhand smoke
a mark made monumental
on the collar of your shirt
on the rim of your coffee cup
on the sharpest cheek bone
i have ever kissed?

would you be angry
to wear my lipstick
on your bony shoulders
on the mirror of your room
on the pillowcase where you
sleep and never think about me?

I would be honored
to wear your scent
on my sheets
on my neck
and under my skirt
but most importantly
on the skin above my heart.

the water has been calm for months,
not a wake has wandered from within this body
and still
something is amiss
i miss
you.

and not in some deeply important
or wildly romantic reminiscence
but in a way that makes my throat dry,
my hands hurt,
my eyes water.

it is not that we are cold,
but there is an absence of heat
and by that i mean passion
time is passing
and the water is rising
so why was it surprising
to see the tide?

i feel silly.
when my heart skips and flips and i feel like
there is not enough blood that could
drip drip drip into my veins
and give back the breath that you take from me.

i feel strange.
when i can not stop re-reading our texts
and i'm vexed and perplexed because i'm not
next to you. i don't know what to do.
my cell phone is stuck to me like glue.

i feel weird.
when i have not known you long
but i believe that we belong
and i hope you don't think that's wrong or creepy
or too early because ****,
my feelings are strong and i just want to see you soon.

We made hearts of paper mache and gave them to each other.

I saved yours in the bottom drawer of my desk
carefully kept, away from the dust and decay
of my adolescent bedroom.
It was safe, clean and pristine,
and I had no intention of hurting it.

I think you shoved mine between the spines of notebooks,
littered with skateboard stickers.
Over time it splintered and withered and
while you were digging for your printer
You found it.

When you gave it back, it had turned black
and blue with ink and paint residue.
I held it broken, battered, and used,
I felt the fragment pain ensue
I guess the best things you give end up coming back to you.

sleeping next to you,
your breath tickling my shoulder,
my head spun and my heart grew,
as the night got colder.
a twist of legs, a heavy sigh,
a smile set in morning sun.
waking up by your side
was like a prize i had won.
at last,
the boy i pined after was mine.
but my bliss went missing soon,
and though the morning had been fine,
he was gone by afternoon.

i remember slipping into a whiskey induced slumber,
and nestling my body next to yours.
i buried my face into your broad shoulder.
i clung to you like i might fall over –
and it was true, i was falling.

my common sense and reservation
took the back seat to complication.
we drove off in your jeep,
on the dark and deceiving road
of mixed feelings between friends.

i hope it's not a dead end.

i will never feel your hand on the small of my back,
or hear you breathing softly in an afternoon nap.
i will never hold your hand while you drive me home,
or kiss you goodbye as the moon begins to show.
i will miss out on your achievements and victories,
someone else will wipe your tears when you scrape your knees.
i will never get to watch you play guitar in person,
or snuggle and watch LORD OF THE RINGS: THE EXTENDED VERSION!
i will be absent at your birthday parties, decline your invitations,
but please understand i loved you without any hesitation.

on the bus,
anticipating my journey.
i see strangers around me and i want to know;
What is Your story?

at my stop i wait to cross the street.
cars whirr past me frantic for speed.
they have a destination,
a place to be.

It would be easier to step out whenever I please.

Little things I love about you; the way you say "don't go".
Or when your eyes settle on me like a fresh blanket of snow.
That goofy grin I adore that swallows most of your face,
is the same pair of lips that I wish my kisses traced.
The way you hold a conversation is how you hold a bird;
steady, calm, and careful.
I cling to every word.
I was never given a title,
I stopped keeping score.
But for the record, let it show
that I was always yours.

It's hard to watch something deteriorate in front of you. You spend so long building it up, creating this beautiful thing. A structure put together with so much love and tenacity. You put everything you have into it. And for some reason, great or small, your magnificent creation breaks. Sometimes it's instantaneous and all at once. Everything collapses without a warning. Or maybe, it was never that sturdy to begin with. It's possible you overlooked the foundation on which you started to build. You might have taken what was there for granted. And when you're left alone, standing surrounded by debris, you might feel a little lost. But do not forget that even if it's all in pieces, those fragments once made a whole. And who is to say that they can't be put back together?

Missing somebody i haven’t met yet.
It’s like, having a persistant shiver. And I’m so cold. No matter how many things I wrap around me, nothing could compare to what it would feel like to be held by you. To be, well. Kept warm.

Rising and falling,
your chest creating ripples across the bed.
Sunlight cascades down your face and leaks onto your limbs.
I am lost in a world of you.
The gentle thudding of your heartbeat,
keeping in time with mine.
A barely audible exhale escapes from your parted lips,
that which I hold the privilege to kiss.
It's simple.
My favorite memory,
kept snugly between you and the sheets.

a work of fiction left to the shelves,
i would read us every day.
i would memorize the chapters,
i would cherish every page.
if we were truly just a story,
i could never set us down.
i would respect our safety,
just like other proper nouns.
if we were truly just a story,
i could even make believe,
that you and i,
we are alive,
and this, reality.

I'm sorry lover for I could not carry the weight of all the stone and bone tied to your shoulders, the darkness only thickens as you grow older. Try as I may I will never succeed and I fear that I am never going to be what you need.

A familiar sadness swells in my lungs like I refuse to breathe, when I try to stand up tall I quickly fall back on my knees. i am weightless, gravity has forgotten me it seems. the walls dissolve and darkness crawls in around my feet. you turned out the lights and you're angry I can't see.

i think the scary thing about ‘losing’ somebody (not to death but just a parting of ways in general) is that depending on how close you let them get to you, they saw you for who you honestly were. it’s like if somebody takes a candid photograph of you and then keeps it from you. they get to take that snapshot, that moment or fraction of you, and bring it with them.

sometimes they distort the image out of bitterness, or anger, and even jealousy. and they share that misconception of you with others. and those other people will hear your name and pin that ugly thing next to it and say “oh I heard about them”. and that’s the thing. they didn’t see you, they just heard about you. they haven’t had the chance to get behind the viewfinder and capture that raw and real photograph of you. a memory of you that is all their own. something special and unique between the two of you.

and sometimes people take their photographs of you and put them in a box under their beds, inside a desk drawer, or shoved between books and loose paper. you’re still there, floating around. but out of sight, out of mind. you do it too, you know. everyone does.

but then there are those people, even though you haven’t heard from them in years, who have your special candid photograph framed. right next to their beds. and you don’t even know. maybe you never will. but there you are. your stupid expression, your laughing grin, that embarrassing haircut. right where they left you.

It is a burning feeling. It ignites in your chest and the fire spreads from your heart to your head. Your mouth putters and pouts, and whispers of breath fight for words. There are no words. There is just the raw empty feeling of being forgotten. And the flames fill your lungs with thick, heavy smoke and you choke on your own sobs because everything keeps falling before you have the chance to hold on. You are the balloon tied to a very thin string, and he's cutting you loose. He’s done with you. It’s a wicked and terrible thing that another human could do this to you. And it's even more horrible that you let them.

i’ll read before bed, and you’ll do as you do. my hair in pins from the day, falling out. and you’ll help me, gently, hunt for each one in my mess of a mane.

i’ll count them and count them before i let myself sleep because if i’m not careful, i might lose one.

and i’ll lay next to you in the dark and count the breaths you take because if i’m not careful, i’ll miss the last one.

how hollow are the bones in me
that call to sea when i am out to sleep
what simple steady breath that swells
inside my chest and overwhelms
a faint pain resides in my mind
the eb and flow of a stronger tide
and though tempest turns to storm
the love i lost was never scorned

We have long, sheer, pinkish curtains that reach the floor of our room on each window. My roommate and I always leave the left window open because it gets so stuffy in here. On windy days and nights, the gusts pull at the curtains making them dance and flutter. Sometimes it's with great violence and they get ****** against the screen, accompanied by the great howls and whistles of the wind. And sometimes when it's barely breezy, the curtains ripple. As if a child playing hide-and-go-seek is anxiously waiting behind it, unknowingly revealing her location.

when i was younger, every time i dove into a pool, i would test myself to see how long i could hold my breath. i would count the seconds in my head, in the eerie silence, in the muffled utopia that swelled around me in the deep, weightless water. and every time i got closer and closer to the end of my breathe, i would feel a tight pressure around my neck, and my eyes would swell, and i would for a moment lose myself in the most exhilarating and most terrifying experience.

and then i would shoot out the air from my lungs into the water. the bubbles would burst and jet out from my nostrils and mouth. and i would resurface, breaking the water - gasping for a new gulp of oxygen.

i feel the same way when i let somebody in. when i trust somebody new. i feel like the air i held on to for so long escapes and i need to hurry to the surface for safety. i need to beg the atmosphere for air.

I took a little spill and I scraped my knees.
I tumbled down the stairs,
and I fell into the street.
The bruises I could handle,
the cuts, the aches, the swells,
but when the blood dripped
from my mouth,
back down the hill I fell.