Forcing a smile, but
All you can manage is your
Cheap, laughable smirk.

If you love someone
Do not ever let them go.
They will not come back.

You stay on my mind like a compliment.
Something that stays there making you smile
Through all the troubles you might come across in a day.
A comfortable place where you can run to
When you feel most vulnerable.
For me, that place was your arms.
On my most troubling days,
I would immediately feel at peace when I was with you.
Your lips would press to my forehead
And my brain would begin to calm down
As my heart would start to race.
We were so young,
And maybe our youth is what ended us in the first place.
But we attempted to face the odds of lasting forever
Solely because we thought our love could conquer all.
We would drive through neighborhoods and look at houses saying,
"That's the house we will live in.
White panel siding,
Black shutters,
And a red door.
Our three kids would love the backyard.
Don't you think?"
That was our dream.
What you didn't understand is
That you are already home for me.
I don't need a fancy house
Or a big yard
Or even children to make my life seem fulfilled-
I just need you.
And when you got down on your knee,
I knew you were serious.
We may have been young,
And I might have seemed doubtful at times,
But I swear to you I knew
From the instant I said, "I love you too"
That you would have my heart forever.
It was supposed to be me and you.
Happy together.
But we let the movie fade to black too soon and our
Happily Ever After
Was all just a dream.
Those don't always come true, you know.
I know that I've been talking too much,
And I shouldn't be saying these things,
But I want to be the one to make you happy.
I want to be the one who lives life with you
After the screen fades to black.

I love you, but you do not love me.
It is torture
You say you love me, but you do not.
You only want me,
And you make it very obvious.
Telling me your wants and desires
To feel alive.
To feel wanted.
To feel love
I say I love you, but you do not believe me.
You don't believe anyone can love you.
But I do.
I love the way you look at me
When you think I don't see.
I love how you randomly just lay on me
And let me play with your hair.
I love the way you hold me
So lovingly
Without even realizing it.
You kiss me so intensely
I feel my blood trying to pass through my skin.
That may seem gross but it's what I feel.
I also feel other things.
For example,
Butterflies.
I didn't know I could feel them anymore.
I thought that he killed them.
Then you brought them back to life,
But they aren't just in my stomach anymore.
They fly through my entire body
Making my hands and knees shake
Every time you touch me-
Even though it's not often.
You take my breath away
Every time I see you.
My hope is to never breathe again.

Every message I write,
I write with the impression that
No one will actually respond,
But you did.
What do I do now?

Lost.
I am last
In a little place
With the human race.

I am just a girl.
Always second place
Second... place.

Your words always
                        cut me deep,
But lately they're starting
                        to burn.
I'm getting used to
                        the pain,
But I don't know how to feel
                        seeing flames on your tongue.

... muse
... ambitions
... reasons
... restraint
... happiness
... friends
...passion

"I just don't know how you can love me."
Ignore me.
You never look at me in the light.
Are you so ashamed
To look at me longingly?
As I look at you?
See my eyes.
See the pain you cause
In the name of "love."
You think you are always right
When you say there is
No one who will love you.

"I just don't know how you can love me."
Insult me.
You never speak to me kindly.
Are you so afraid
To be nice to me?
As I strive for you?
See my eyes.
See the pain you have caused
In the name of "coolness."
You think you are always right
When you say there is
No way I can love you.

*I just don't understand how not to love you.

I wasn't looking for this, but
Listening to you sing makes me so happy.
Of course this is new and exciting, but
Very rarely do I ever think these things could work out.
Every so often I would want to feel special, but
You never make me want to feel special because I always do.
Only in an alternate reality could I be happier.
Ultimately,  I just want to make you happy.

Passion is such a hard thing to control
When I have none myself.
People wish to prove their integrity
But I want none of it.
To me, words are the only things that speak-
Not actions.
Actions have never mattered to me.
You don't have to prove your passion
Because I already believe your words.

I really hope the
Unseemly image of me
Burns right through your soul.

I cannot fathom
The fact that you are not lost-
A fathom away.

And I
In my infinite wisdom
Just replied
That I'd love to see you again.

When will we get to dance?
All I want to do is be twirling with you.
Lead me across the room in this waltz.

Would you even want to waltz?
I long for you to ask me to dance.
I close my eyes and wait for you.

Why do I even want to dance with you.
The last thing I should want to do is waltz.
Especially with you because you don't like to dance.

All I want to do is dance with you and waltz across the room in your arms.

Maybe all of this will go away someday
Everything that haunts me will vanish into thin air
This seems so unreal, but most things do.
How do we even know what is real or not?
You never really know how to tell.
Letting different things control your brain just makes it harder.
Everything is heightened, you are heightened
Never looking down, never going down
Energy is restored, you feel alive!
Doubts are gone, what are doubts?
I don't  even remember.
Of all the things going on in my brain, I can't pick one out singularly.
Experts can't even decipher who I am.
You have even told me that I am hard to read.
My mind has never rejected so many things before
Even when it rejected everything that used to make me happy.
Transform me into who you want me to be because I lost myself.
How can you tell me to leave you when you hold me up 89% of the time?
Anything we do is to benefit the other.
Maybe we can just leave each other without pain
Pain is inevitable in every situation.
How could you leave me alone without you
Even when you knew that you were everything that I had?
Together, I could breathe
Apart, I hyperventilate.
My mindset is that if I run fast enough maybe I will catch you my dear.
I will keep on running until I reach you.
Never have I ever tried so hard to keep someone in my life.
Everyday you stay, I am thankful to have you.

I know the error of my ways
Is far more valuable
Than the attempt to be breathtaking.
There is a poor result due to
My lack of kindness.
For some reason,
My heart won't warm to
The standard of living.
Cold takes over my body-
My hands like ice
Trace the constellation of
Flowers in the garden of your mind.
Diluting the individuality,
Accentuating a new found harmony
Between your words and
My breath.

Starving eyes,
Cold tongue and cheeks
Whisper very bad things.

Placid ears,
Sharp hands and feet
Creep up underneath.

I've never been admitted to a hospital.
But yesterday I was.
I went through registration and
They put this bracelet on my arm to identify me.
I am sitting in my bed now.
It moves to adjust to my body
So that I don't hit a pressure point while I sleep.
Doctors ordered an echocardiogram.
They did an ultrasound on my heart.
I could see everything.
All of the valves and movements.
The technician doing it said that even
My heart loves to dance.
Everything was normal with my heart,
But I will never forget how the aortic valve looks.
It is quite terrifying with all the other valves around it.
It looks like a face, just distorted.
And it moves,
But the two smaller valves on top that look like eyes,
They never stop looking at you.

Love like laughter
Lives forever
Your love is my heart
From which you will never part

Maybe we can
Endure forever
Your love is my fire
That fuels my desire

You are half of my whole
Your love is forever burned into my soul

You are who I've been looking for
Your love is everything to me and more

You have my heart

**You have my heart

I thought you would make
Me beautiful, but you just
Thrived on my slow death.

I'm not one to move this fast,
But please just do what you can.
Just kiss away the tears
Please kiss away the pain.

People keep asking me if I still love you.

Of course I do.
I would yell it from the rooftops.
A first love is one that blossoms before
Your eyes into the most beautiful and innocent
Bouquet of intertwined stems whose necks lead up to petals kissing.
The feeling of butterflies
Swarms you when he kisses you for
The first time, for that feeling just continues to grow
Up and out until it leads to the revealing of a sudden, "I love you"
In my heart
And mind.
Is it my heart making me feel like this?
Or is the swarm flying around all through me that
*Makes me feel as if my mind is no longer only for my soul's desires?

Look me in the eyes.
Do your best impression of a lover
And hold me
A little too tightly
Not like you're trying to squeeze a smile out of me
More like gripping me
In your arms.
Make me feel just uncomfortable enough
To try to escape your grasp,
But make sure I can't.

Whisper in my ear.
Do your best impression of a secret.
Echo through my entire body
A little too rapidly.
Not in a euphoric sense,
But a violent shaking.
Loosening my limbs in an attempt to
Fight back.
Trying to cause a little damage,
But you're stronger than me.

Touch my skin.
Do your best impression of a flame
And burn me.
Push me aggressively and enjoy it.
You always did like being violent.
Pin me up against a wall,
Tie me onto it,
Put your knife collection to good use.
You always brag about having good aim.
Let's see how you do with me as your target.

(Don't be scared, you were the one who promised our love made us immortal)

i cannot agree with the expression of sympathies in this day and age

you remind me of a winter's day
              TEMPERAMENTAL
and not at all genuine.

Everyone is
Far too vulnerable when
Gazing at your smile.

I will never be someone's first option.
I get that,
Or at least I am trying to.
But for once I actually thought
That I might not get used.
Maybe that's all I'm good for.
And maybe I'm taking this all too far-
And too personally.

It was my favorite song.
You would sing it to me all the time.
We would dance to it.
We were in love and
Our life together was
La vie en rose.

Now I am sitting in a coffee shop.
It just came on at
Exactly 9:30
And I feel like my brain
Will explode and
Scatter on the walls.
I want to rip my hair out
To distract from this music.

Why did you ruin all of my favorite things?
Why can't I enjoy things anymore?
Why did you ruin me?

All of the flowers
Need some amount of sunlight
In order to grow.

I would stop all my
Lying, but it is my sole
Attempt to forget.

I hope to be your
Sunshine, but if you are my
Sun, than what am I?

The caressing wind
Brushed against the
Careful gaze of lilies
Across the folds of the
Honest chaos.

You are three hours away.
It's not that far
But still I have to say,

I miss you more than you know
I'll try my best
To let that go.

I just might go insane
With only an image
Of you in my brain.

And I just want to be alright
So I'll have to settle by
Listening to your voice every night.

Quick shudders surround-
Porcelain shadows on skin-
A shattered silence.

You say that you love me more than anything,
Yet I see that it is not true.
Your heart doesn't love just me.
Your love for me doesn't pump the blood in your veins
As my love for you does.
I know your heart wants more.
More than me.
More than money.
More than anything,
Your heart wants to stop.
You want to stop.

I don't understand how love works
When you said you loved me,
You decided to kiss her.
When you said you needed me,
You resented the time we spent together.
When you said you couldn't live without me,
You moved to another state.
If this is love
Maybe it's fine that you're gone.

The cringing sigh
Conjured the moon
To sanction light
Into the depths of the
Fragile stillness.

His muscles contract.
Arms extended, one front and one side.
There is so much concentration-
You can tell by the face he always makes:
One eyebrow raised, lips pursed, eyes focused.
He bends his knees,
Opens his front arm to the side,
Relaxes his face,
Barely closes his eyes,
And then returns to the intense gaze.
Then he is spinning and spinning and spinning.
The pirrouette is flawless and he even holds a balance at the end.
His leg that is raised shows his sartorius bulging out in the lights.
Then he extends his leg to the side parallel to the ground
And then kneels for the final pose with his eyes closed.
When he opens them,
All he sees is his reflection in the mirror.
No one is there to congratulate him,
But he gets up and starts it again.
He did 7 turns-
He wanted to do 8.

I walk under a dark cloud,
Rain seems to fall from my eyes
And the sky constantly.
It wasn't my choice to live
In such bleak conditions-
My mission? To be free.
I've never felt secure before
Always uneasy and never safe,
A slave to my own memory.

But one day, the sky cleared
My mind took a veer towards happiness.
The rain decided to stop
And something mopped it all up.
For some of the few
There is no other view than sunshine.
And since I met you,
I know what to do- I must remain in the
Sun, and my sun is with you.

Is it too hard
To understand me?
Or do just want to break my heart?

Well look who's crying
On the cold floor
Now.

There is never a time in
Which I feel more
Obsolete than when I
Am lying awake knowing
People are sleeping
Close by and I miss
The 11:11 wish.

"I was walking and then I fell into a prickly bush."
Darling, I know what you have been up to.
You don't walk near prickly bushes,
You don't even like walking at all.
"No I promise. The leaves scratched me, look."
Then please tell me, my love, why they are all straight lines?
Why are the marks in evenly straight intervals?
And why can I see the beginning of a word under your sleeve?
"IT WAS A BUSH!! YOU NEVER BELIEVE ME!"
Oh, yes.
It was a bush alright.
It was a bush made out of flesh and bone.
With muscles and tendons and ligaments making everything work.
But the leaves, the prickly leaves.
The leaves were made of metal.
This I know as a fact.
A random blade you pulled out of a razor that you broke.
And I know exactly where you "fell" into this "bush".
It is in your bathroom with the shower running to wash the blood right down the drain.
Your parents would never suspect because "Oh, he's far too happy to even think of doing that."
The bush is you, sweetheart.
And you are destroying your beautiful branches.

Somewhere in the forest
Where we truly met,
We walked along the highway--
It was soaking wet.

You took my hand and pulled me
Further from the lights,
"Just pass the edge of darkness
and we'll make it through the night."

Somehow I believed you
I listened to your words,
I clung to every sentence
Like it was the first I'd ever heard.

I saw you take your mask off,
But I didn't shy away
Because you told me that you loved me
And I believed it anyway.

You cheated and abused me
More than a person ever should
And I vowed that I'd avenge this--
As if I even could.

Things aren't as simple as they used to be
It's not like when one hug from you could secure me for a day.
Not just one reassurance can calm me anymore.
I need more than just  one conversation with you to feel sane.
But you haven't spoken to me in months.

Today is Monday
But I would rather it be
A new day with you.

Please lay your heavy head upon my chest.
All I want is to hold you all night long.
It would make my day if you do say yes.
It has been you forever- all along.

I should not have let you go, my darling-
What mistake!- a poorly made decision.
I need to be taught the law of Starling
So my heart can know its own precision

But when you gave me all your affection,
My eyes were already for one cruel boy.
He was a mess and a wrong selection,
For his mode was only set to destroy.

I know I am too late to be your girl;
I just thought I would let these words unfurl.

I used to hate goodbyes,
So every time we parted
We said,
"See you tomorrow"
"See you later"
"See you whenever"
Because it left the hope
Of seeing each other again.
I've started saying my goodbyes now
And I think it's because
When you left me
I really felt what goodbye was
Supposed to feel like.
I didn't like it.
I still don't.
But now that I know
What never seeing you again
Feels like,
It is a lot easier to say
Goodbye to everyone else.

It was one of the best years
Of my short 17 year life.
I managed to drown
In the lake that was your eyes.
I managed to tumble
Down a hill into your arms.
I managed to fall
In love,
But for me it was an easy feat.
I wanted to fall in love,
And I wanted it to be with you,
But maybe love isn't so easy to come by.
Maybe I was
Drowning,
Tumbling,
And falling
Into another reality.
One where we were both happy
100% of the time.
Not just happy 30%
And angry or upset 70% of the time.
Is that love?

I could listen to you talk all day. In fact, I have. You have so many interesting stories and accounts from your life that I want to hear. I want to know everything about you. I want to know your successes, failures, trials, and fears. I want just want to help you.

The last time I saw you, you were complaining about how awful your day was. I just watched your performance, and we were standing outside the stage door in the freezing weather. My right leg was shaking terribly and I couldn't make it stop.

You kept talking about your day, but for some reason I didn't hear a word you were saying. For some reason I could only focus on the way your lips were moving and how you tilted your head back when you were getting angry and how when you finished talking you would take a deep breath before throwing me your stunning smile.

"Well I should go," you said.

"No. You should never go. Just stay with me and I promise everything will be okay. I will love you I promise. Just give us a chance. Give me a chance. I have such strong feelings for you- please just stay," is what I should have said, but I actually said, "Oh, okay."

I reached in for a hug because I could no longer wait for your arms to be wrapped around me. I wanted you to hold me forever, but I knew it wouldn't last more than a couple of seconds.

When you pulled away, I thought you would just pick up your bags and go, but you are always full surprises. I felt your hands pull me back in. A kiss. A perfect kiss. Much more than I could have hoped for from you.