She accepted love
That was torn and ripped.
Love that had sharp curves
And cut into her soft skin.
She accepted what she could steal
Because love was love.
Right?
She accepted second hand kisses
And lies in the form of promises
But love was love
And promises were promises.
Right?
She accepted affection
that made her cry.
But affection was affection.
Right?
Wrong.
Get out little girl,
Run while you still can.
Love doesn't mean
That it has to hurt
Promises don't have to be hard
Affection doesn't have
to make you cry.
He is bad
No matter the excuses
That he makes
He is bad
If he makes you feel like
tangled licorice ribbon
He is bad.
Get out little girl
Run while you still can.

On the back of a math worksheet
You wrote down reasons.
Then on the back of a history worksheet
You wrote down ways.
The back of your physics homework
Had “im sorry’s”
And they all had tear stains.

On the back of my hand
I wrote down reminders to call you.
In the note pad on my phone
I wrote down plans to come talk  
And in the back of my mind
I wrote down ways to make you happier.

At 2:30, right after school
You were in your basement with pills.
You had your math,history, and physics worksheets
All laid out on the floor around you.
At 2:45 you dialed my phone, pills in hand.


At 2:30, right after school
I was on my bed looking up spanish vocabulary
I had my homework all laid out around me
At 2:45 I received your call slightly worried because
You never call, only text.

What are you supposed to say
When your best friend is on the other line
Dying before they’ve even taken the pills.
How are you supposed to make them feel better
Because at this point you both are at a loss.

Dialing 911 on the home phone
Doesn’t seem to difficult
But it really is when you can practically
Hear the minutes going by
Minutes that could determine a life from that point on
Minutes that did.

I heard that you tried again a couple months later.
I guess you smartened up and didn’t tell me this time.
You seem to have awful luck
When it comes to following through with your intentions
But while it may be unfortunate for you
Its so lucky for me because even though we don’t speak
Id like to think that one day you see that
I only wanted to stop you
From hurting yourself.

You will always be the ocean
and i will always be the sea glass

you will be wearing my hard edges
and i will be swaying to your every current

Until you wash me up on the shore
and start to only come around every once in a while.

I heard you ****** it up again
It never feels right and you are left empty
on the couch with the taste of someone who won't kiss you goodnight.

Its funny how i expect you to talk to me
when every time i see you i duck in cover
and cross my fingers that i didn't look as bad
as i did in that picture someone took this morning.
Why do i think that if i don't have enough guts
to simply look up and smile, that'd you'd have the guts
to come over and converse with my high-pitched comments.
Maybe its because i don't want to smile in case you don't smile back
or maybe its because i don't want to be too available or then ill look desperate.
I really need to be more confident and move past my phase of seductively doing nothing

My future is probably all sprawled out on his girlfriends bed
Just like you’re sprawled out on mine
Both crossing their fingers for forever.

Love is pretty much every single person involved
turning into a ****.
Curling, griping, grasping someone so tight
that they squirm.
We like to say that this is an act of affection
but really, whats so lovely about latching on
to something that always changes?
because as far as I'm concerned, that is not lovely at all.
That is just plain self harm.

The smell of brains frying
nerves running short
teenage desperation
all mixed with lubricated hail marys
poisoned self medication
because we know best
and we best know
how to do it ourselves.

The failed attempts at self justification
cling to the lockers trying to remember
a time in the last 4 years that they took a breath.
Anxiety floods the student population
when they realize that the alcohol
can't drown the reality anymore.

If you though that having me wrapped around
your finger was something to be proud of
prepare to suffocate because i have nothing
else to hold onto and i am drowning.

Mistaken silence for criticism

“I want that one” I exclaim pointing to the unicorn on the bottom shelf. I choose this one because she seems sad because all she’s ever seen was peoples feet. I pick her because maybe no one else will buy her because she’s at the bottom shelf and taller people wont even see her. She is soft and white and has cotton candy pink horns, hooves and bows around her neck.
“It looks cross-eyed” my brother Charlie observes in a critical way that night at dinner. He’s just upset that he didn’t get to pick anything because it isn’t his birthday. It doesn’t matter though, the new member of my stuffed animal collection is named Sparkles, and nothing anyone says will change that she is my new best friend.
After dinner everyone goes to walk the dog and I bring Sparkles, because it would be silly to leave her home by herself. We drive down the road and pretend to have tea on the beach. To my happiness, everyone sits in a circle. Sipping on tea and complimenting each other on clothes we aren’t wearing, food we aren’t eating and things we didn’t do, I’m surprised that even Charlie is partaking. The sun begins to set and we begin to pack up, or rather my Mother and Father pack up while Charlie holds Sparkles by the scruff of her neck and threatens to throw her in the bushes.
“Sparkles is gonna get lost Em, too bad you cant catch me” he cries running towards the thick brambles.
“Stop it! Stop! You’re hurting her!” I screech after him, desperatly trying to overcome his head start. But i’m too late. By the time I get to him he is already preparing to throw her into the prickers.
“NO!” I yell as I watch Sparkles get launched into the 8 foot tall bush of thorns.
I shove Charlie into the bush, which results in cuts all up his arms and back.
“Emma,what are you doing?!” my parents exclaim coming at the sound of Charlies cries.
“He threw Sparkles”
“Thats never an excuse for pushing” they scold.
“But..Spark”
“No Emma, you should have thought of that, we have to go fix Charlie” im cut off
They don’t understand. Sparkles made it so that everyone drank tea together, and stood for the small things to be noticed. She was my best friend, we were both small things standing up to big people. Of course they don’t understand. Big people don’t know about small people problems, they only know about fixing what has been broken. I want to rewind to when we all were talking about the fantasies of castles and secret twin siblings, where we were all small people for a minute.

I hope your happy
You are officially
The only person
That I've lost
a full nights sleep over.
I don't think you understand
Though how much
Of me you hold in your palm
Because if you did
You wouldn't be
So **** careless

I feel so small
in the comparison to all of the people
who weave their words
into a web of emotions and thoughts
with confidence.

I feel microscopic
in relation to all the experiences and responsibility
that everyone carries in their complicated minds.

This is because all i have to remember
is to take the chicken *** pie
out of the oven.
and all i have to write about
is how i feel so small

I struggle with the in-between moments.
In between the ice-cold glasses of water
In between the way bodies fit together
In between the way that they suddenly become
two completely different pieces.

FWD: you didn't even have to tell me you lost feelings, I ******* felt it.

You struggle with seeing the important moments.
The day you decided that brown eyes aren't so boring
The day you introduced me to your mother
The day that we had the conversation that changed us from a perfect fit
to a square that a toddler is trying to shove into a rectangle shaped space.
Close but not quite.

FWD: I grew up, you didn't.

Absentee opinions accompanied by a faulty mouth
I hang in the silence in noose of other peoples needs.

I wanted to be special in the eyes of someone else
I played the body of her, while you imagined her face on mine until you realized

I am not her
Will not be her
Cannot be imagined as such.

For this I cried
and for that I feel empty.

I hate this
I hate myself
for knowing what i wanted
for knowing you weren't able to give it to me
for doing it anyways.

You taught me how to voice my opinions and goals
then you taught me to be ashamed of having dreams.
You taught me how to take it one day at a time
then you taught me to hope for tomorrow to be better.
You taught me to laugh out loud at everything
then taught me to laugh even when it wasn't funny.
You taught me to wear my heart on my sleeve
then you taught me that the consequence is people can spit all over it.
You taught me how to stay
and then i taught you how to leave.

Our cluster of disfunction consists of
wake up and miss you
get up and text you saying i ****** it up again
Understand that in order to make up
means you can't **** it up
and then you realize that you are being held
to certain expectations.
This is were we crumble
wake up dread you
get up ignore your texts asking how i am
Understand that if i ignore anymore of your texts
this will be over and our nights of quoting jack johnson
and eating red gummy bears cause your ******
and me eating green ones just because they taste like fruit
will
be
over.
And every ******* time,
i give it up.
I willingly sacrifice my wits to over thinking
to the little things that make my brain turn and turn and turn
and let them spin and spin and eventually explode.
And then i tell you.
I never lie even though you think i do.
i promise you on my dead dogs grave
i never stopped loving you
i just can't put myself in a situation
like so many times before i am nailed to a stake that has all the things
people expect from me taped to my vulnerable body
and i never stopped loving you
but see i never started loving myself
so the trust you have so kindly filled me up with
just drains out because i have holes in my feet
where the faith seeps out and fans out into a pool similar to blood all around me.
And now we start again.
Wake up and miss you
though this time i don't have the luxury of talking to you because you hate me more than i hate myself.

We can kiss. We can kiss, and only be friends. And we can tell ourselves that it'll stay the same, because for a while, it will. We can continue to kiss, and continue to go on with our days like it doesn't effect us. But if we do proceed to let our lips touch, then someday it'll hit us. That things like this don't happen for fun, or because of physical attraction. They happen because somewhere along the lines, we decided in order to go on with our days, we needed those kisses. And the day they don't happen, will be the day that things change

The first time i brought you to a party
i drank so many ***** sodas that
i could only mumble a barley audible
i wanna go home 3 hours later.

You politely excused the both of us
giving the correct amount of goodbyes
or so I'm told, and you wrapped me up
in your fuzzy coat, picked me up like a baby.

I heard that you laid me down in the backseat
of your 1975 navy blue volvo.
Kissed me on the forehead
and turned on the heat.
You put on my favorite band, and played my favorite song
and drove very safe, checking on me
every 3 light posts.    

You brought me back to my apartment
and very respectfully stripped me of my clothes
and replaced them with one of your old t-shirts
and a pair of gym shorts.
Laid me down on my bed
and climbed in with me, pulling the covers
over our bodies. You wrapped you arms
around my drunken skeleton
kissed my shoulder and slept.

But really what happened
was i drank so many ***** sodas
that i didn't see you sneak off with the nymphish  
looking redhead. So many vodkas
that i could dream out a gentlemanly situation
and enough alcohol that you could take credit.

The ode to saying yes before you should.
To allowing yourself to let him take
much more than you were ever sure you wanted to give.

i'm having a really difficult time
trusting the process.
That if i do everything
that is expected of me
i will be okay.
Because I've done
almost everything right
and i am most definitely
not okay

Things people do to avoid talking/acknowledging their feelings.
Are
Change the subject
Play with you’re hair to hide the fact that you’re feeling
Hows the weather down in california?
I saw you today touching someones shoulder
To get them to stop talking about their divorce.
As a matter of fact they probably were trying to pick you up
Which made me feel
Did you dye your hair?
You keep playing with it
Whenever I bring up how we used to sit
And watch movies and talk through them
And how when ever we were having conversations
About our pasts that killed us
You would kiss me in the middle of my sentence
To stop me from opening up.
That specific kiss overwhelmed me with the feeling of
I should just leave and stop talking
Because thats what you did when it got to hard
To realize that you loved me and that I loved you back.

Write so that people can relate to you. Consider your audience.
I do not put my thoughts on paper, so that i can ease the minds and feed the mouths of the people who can't take my being. I don't need to relate to anyone, because i am enough of a human to move mountains myself.
2. Write so you get all your feelings out and move on.
I write to have something to remember my state of mind. Because when my experience has packed up and moved on, how will i relive my puddle jumping, my cigarette burning through your ***** wife beater, my tear stained photographs.
3. Make sure to edit your work for grammar.
********, you're irrelevant if you tell me this

The reason i go on carnival rides
is because they spin faster
than the thoughts in my head.
I just needed to know that that was possible

Its kind of like the reason i go to horror movies
I like to know that i have a reason
to be scared out of my mind
even if i actually scared
of myself
not the things in the movie

Or the reason i drink ***** from the water bottle
Its nice to feel all over the place
and not have anyone judge you or think
that you a mess
because you can't handle the stress.

But really the reason i do these things
is because they do an excellent job
of simply hiding what a train wreck i am.

You were there to either be saved
Or to be made an example of.
You were between too much pressure
or insanity.
You were old enough to know better
but young enough to fail to meet your own needs.
You were stable enough to pretend to be content
but sick enough to try to commit ******.
You knew me long enough to tell me most things
but different enough to not tell me anything.
I love you enough to visit you in prison
but am stupid enough to be scared of you.

You were put in the same Lit class as the boy with ****** knuckled and a taste for poison
So he could beat your heart into a tiny ball of tangles veins and crushed muscle, and then throw up his whole stomach onto it.
He was there so that you could decide that your heart looked better intact.

The type of silence that can't lie for anything, who everyone knows that something is itching to seep out of her mouth, yet it only seeps out her eyes and not everyone can read it.

The type of silent that is so loud that you can't ever understand the meaning. The type that refuses to say what they mean, and leaves you with a handful of tissue paper but no gift.

The type of silence that is love letters written on the backs of receipts, that you put up your sleeve. Why do you do that? You'll throw them out anyways.

You feel guilty for wishing
he didn't love you as much as he does
It makes you feel like you're letting him rob you
of the ability to have problems with a relationship
to experience heartbreak
to experience unsolicited love.
He gives you nothing to write about
yet you can't tell him that because he hasn't done anything wrong
other than loving you the exact way a person would want to be loved.
In the times of experimenting you're promising him that
he is as beautiful of the stars
and he'll tell you you are as beautiful as the moon
except you want to be the sun.
The fiery hot mass of untouchable energy.
But how can you ask someone to love you less
so you can experience unneeded hurt.
It makes no sense
and is impossible to fix
because you don't want to be 30 someday
wishing that someone would love you the way he did

its not okay, if its only okay for you

If we could love a type of untainted love
we would be alive forever.
But love and hate are bordering countries
and sometimes they wash-up on each others beaches.
We were created by love
So hate is what kills us.

When laying on the bathroom floor
With your thin highlighted hair being
Held up by my shaking hands,
I realized that you were my best friend.

I hate it
more than anything else
when people negatively comment
on how much energy someone has.
No need to be so excited  
Yes there is sir.
As a matter of fact
we have a great need to be excited.
We have to make up
for all the negative
grumps like you.

Why do we waste so much time on things that don't make us happy

I refuse to let you wrap me up
in your ***** hands.
Because you will only hold me for so long
before you remember that I'm not what you want.

Maybe id be a better daughter
if you were a better mother

Sometimes you sit empty
bleeding out
red on the rug.

There is a certain amount of pressure in the fact that we live somewhere we can basically determine our own fate. The idea that one can simply change their life by filing for divorce, changing religion, applying for a new job makes it that you have no reason to whine, or ***** about your current situation. This is terrifying. The entirety of your life is placed on your shoulders and your shoulders only. In another country things might be laid out for you. Who you marry, what your job is, how your expected to act. I don't wish for this type of life, and i recognize that there is a different kind of pressure, but the type i am most afraid of is right in my own backyard. The expectation that you are in charge of you and if success isn't in your future its because you made it that way.

When you say let's get wasted
I'm sure that you don't mean
That you wanted to be a waste of space
A waste of energy
A waste of a perfectly good night.

I'm sure you don't know
That wasted could mean
To say words that cut up others insides
Like they swallowed the bottle
That is holding your poison.
You get the silky numbness and
they get the brutality of the oblivion

And you definitely don't know
Your son giving you CPR
As you collapsed right in front of him
In the middle of a poker game.
You were even sober.
And then you were dead.

You had wasted all your time
Wasting your chances to say I'm sorry.
Wasted your life being wasted

I dare you to reclaim yourself as human of the year
don’t be scared
You have won.
You are so inconceivably right.
I am, a matter of fact a piece of property
And I can’t thank you enough,
For making people ask for your permission
To touch me in ways that you never could.
Thank god I have you to set some boundaries
Cause god knows if I didn't
I might actually become...
Happy?
Thats silly because you make me happy
With your ability to set expectations
For me, made by you
Thank god none of them surpass
Your abilities because I may find out ...
I can do better?
So reclaim yourself as human of the year
Everyone always hates the phoenix
And I'm sure
That I hate you.

We came home.
She got sick overnight
over an hour
over a minute.
Over a dinner table conversation
Over a “i think we need to talk.”
I felt nothing.
We came home
She got sick
I felt my mother turning into
something more like a child
that needed to be tiptoed around
because she could no longer feel the sun
or the salt that was from anywhere but her eyes.
Leaving me to try to make shift something as wonderful as the sunlight

You are leaving me and i hate you
and the way your feet smell
and the way you never put the ice cream back.
I don't know what I'm going to do without you
I became accustomed to your ***** sock smell...i even like it now
and i enjoy my ice cream a little melted anyways

You are leaving me and i don't care
i can do better than you anyways
I bet you'll never find a girl who won't question your sexuality.
I don't know what I'm going to do without you
What if i never find anyone who can be my best friend while ******* me
you're definitely not gay. i don't know why i said that.

You are leaving me and i am crying
I didn't even love you
It wouldn't have worked anyways
I don't know what I'm going to do without you
i love you and it was supposed to be forever
*I love you and it isn't going to be forever

Why does growing up seem so amazing
when your 11 years old?
Why do you want so badly
to receive trust
or independence?
Because to get that
you need knowledge.
and knowledge
requires seeing your heroes
turn human

I want you to come back
and lay with me on the rocks
with our hands intertwined
on top of my soft stomach.
Arguing about whether
people are overrated or not.

Kneeling on bruised knees
Holding callused hands
breaking already broken hearts
you wait for someone to help you fix your voice.
You've been raspy for a while now
never having been this half spoken
The words just get caught in your throat on the way up
half because you don't want anyone else to hear them
and half because you forgot what its like to be heard.

n

They are tall. They have freckles. Their voice is presumably lower than yesterday. They make you laugh. They look at you when you speak. They answer your calls at 1am. They smell nice. Their smile, their hands, their vibrance can suddenly invade your conscious and you aren't really sure how they never did before.

I know you hate me
with parts of your heart
you never even knew existed
and i can't deny
that i deserve it and that i was selfish
with your feelings
and careless with your heart
but please don't let your life suffer
because of my mistakes
don't fall into the trap of sadness
because you deserve better than me
and the only way you'll get it
is by taking yourself seriously
dont ***** it up
you don't get a rerun

Throw up your words and worries all over my lap
until you are left with nothing but an empty brain
and a quivering body sprawled out on my floor.

Spill the ideas of someone else’s existence
all over my new shirt
and don’t even offer to clean it.  

Fallen face first into a puddle of your word *****
with a *** and coke stained blouse
I will clean it up  for you anyways