probably because i keep putting you first,
before everything else that i ever thought of before -

these feelings of missing people before i love them too much
haunt me everyday
you don't understand,
you still go home to the same people you laid next to on a changing table, have beers with people who learned to suckle on their thumbs
around the same time as you

the people i go home to
i shook their hands as we both signed our 1-year lease
and soon i'll shake their hands goodbye and good riddance

i hold these ******* fears and horrifies and terrifies and tears
in my chest, i can't afford to keep loving people and letting them go
into the world without me at their side -
i hate loving people and cutting these red strings that connect us,
i love so deeply and i just want to see you succeed and give you
flowers and kisses, and hold you in my arms when you feel the world
crumbling down around you -
i promise i can love, my love is a wicked one
i just cant keep loving and breaking, loving and breaking

when can i love and love and love and love
without end

with you
you terrify me
you're here and then you're gone
and you try to reassure me that you're always always here
but i can't trust it when you only come and peek
into my life for 5 seconds at a time and then you're gone
living your own,
i'm so scared you'll love someone else and leave because i am
so in love with you and loving and breaking with you
will **** me
it'll **** me
let me **** my heart first before you try to do it yourself

i wish i knew how to put some pretty words together;
in a way that you could read me and cry without realizing it,
in a way that you don't know how it all suddenly made sense
but it all fell together - so right - till the end.
with the steady hand of a seamstress and the persistence of a theorist,
i would string together wispy letters, carefully taking away
and holding all the guilty, lukewarm feelings of self-romanticized nostalgia,
with those hollow, deep pangs of shamelessly missing you
from the somewheres and over theres beneath my ribs.
sometimes, i really miss you - and all of those times, i hate it.
sometimes i stare back at you longer than i should,
but i'm beginning to think that even looking your way
is much worse than a waste of sweet time at this point.
i don't want you inside of my mind anymore.
my wants and needs and maybes of tomorrow are foggy and furiously blinded with
what you used to make me feel. will i ever want anything that much again?
i see you a lot in my mind, smiling handsomely in a way that kind of ****** me off.
in some way, i am overwhelmingly upset in a way i can't describe, in such a strange dialect that
i've maybe only begun to understand when you spoke it to me with watery eyes and an offkey tone:
"i can't do it." i think i know what you mean now.
you were trying to say something deep, i had thought all along,
but i think you were just trying, just simply trying to go along
with something that was safe; you know, i forgive you for playing it safe.
we're just trying to protect what little good we think is left.
i wish i could have tried just as hard; tried harder/ to be with you
because i'm just so tired
(i need to rub my eyes clear)
that i will exasperatingly admit that i am lost after you.
i'm so ruthlessly childish, in a curious way that i refuse to let these warm,
painful feelings for you go.
ruthlessly, still into you, i'm so hardheaded that i will even ignore myself
to forget you
over
(this is the last time i'll look back on you)
and over
(i swear his name won't come to me tomorrow)
again.
you replay in my mind;
maybe one day i will
forget that you ever really meant everything to me once
anyways.

i'm so head over heels in love,
i've forgotten about myself-
about my grades,
about my work ethic,
about my friends.

my grades have definitely slipped massively.
i call in sick for work when i feel like being in bed with him is better than paying the bills,
and i feel like i only talk to my friends when he has done something cute.

who am i
anymore? the only person i have,
i forget about you each time i am
caught up in something good, i
love you so much but for some reason,
i am in love with others before you.
you are single-handedly, the most
beautiful, and more important person
ever. i am sorry, i must take better, better care of you -

*"if you don't ******* take care of yourself," he had said as he was scratching his messy bedhead, "i'm going to have to." and although that was the most loveliest of thoughts, the me from a year ago cried out in anguish: "no! don't you dare put your own well-being in the hands of someone else ever again. we both know how that could end."

i wish that i could make you smile the way that she does

ive always competed
never been first
never won gold
never been the one that anyone
wanted
first

option number two,
why does this hurt me so much?
it never bugged me before but i put you first
when you thought i was second

second best
second i wish i was the best
best for you.

i ditched an exam because i wanted to spend more time in bed with my boyfriend.
i ditched work because i wanted to spend more time in bed with my boyfriend.
i spend all the money i don't have because i want to spend more time with my boyfriend.
all my grades, all of them. are slipping. my life is slowly spiralling out of control. i'm losing all of my friends. i'm self-destructing, i don't care about anything else but him. he is becoming the focal point of everything that i am.

my boyfriend.
i am utterly hypnotized by him. i crave him. i feel like, i
am nothing without him - i have no meaning without him, i
don't know how i ever got along without him, i
can't get along with myself with him, i am so obsessed with him, i
need him so much, i can't stand a life without him, i
have no life of my own without him, i've destroyed
what little i had of myself without him.

to me, you're like a song that makes me feel like i belong.
not the kind that everyone else listens to, just because everyone else does it, too.
those songs get played out, and over time, they lose their magic
because every other song begins to sound just like them, too.
to me, you're like a song that refuses to be ignored,
like a heart that pounds viciously in your head after you've
run miles and miles to beat your old time -
who knew how violently alive you were?
like a young child, ankle-height, who will tell you
definitely
that this is right; this is right, and what anyone else says is wrong.
you have a melody of a thousand lost symphonies
simply forgotten in the face of sleepy inspiration and final conscious sighs;
you have the still rhythm of a heartbeat,
reminding me effortlessly that i'm still here, still breathing and with purpose,
you have the drop of a cliff,
and the verses of a bible; i would graciously live by your words, this,
is your song,
and i cannot stop singing your name.

i've done it so many times, missing people
missing love. it's become a profession for me,
missing people who i separate from -

i've come to face these bitter feelings of
abandonment, being forgotten -
like, i, was ever someone to remember in the first place
years and years ago -

10-years-old and missing the other little children
who tugged on my clammy hand but laughed anyways
at my shy eyes and bugged out baby hairs
because their sandy hands dried out my nervousness
on the playground among giggles and "sandman!"s
their hair whirlwinds on their heads as we spun around
on tire swings until we were scared we'd throw up on ourselves
and we'd smell the whole way home
together

i still remember the day that i told you that your
bracelet of popcan tabs and little hair rubberbands
and dollar store beads and bells was
cute - i liked the way that it weighed in my clammy palm
and how colourful it shined,
how stretchy it stretched and never threatened to snap in
my tiny sticky fingers, it was the loveliest thing i'd ever seen.
and i still remember the day you showed up at school
with one for me, too, because it was only the next day
and your fingertips were raw with little cuts from yanking
aluminum tabs off of cans and black circles ringed your eyes as
you smiled and held it out for me

i couldn't ever remember feeling any warmth like that before

why was i ever so sour in the first place
of being forgotten anyways? maybe it wasn't that i was terrified of
being lost among people's "remember that one girl" and "what was
her name again"s, but perhaps i was just horrified of the things that
constantly switched up around me, and these warm memories
were the only things that would never switch up on me
without me being able to catch my breath first.

i still remember the day we skipped down high school hallways
with our eyes drooped and red and our mouths bone dry,
smelly hoodies draped over our uniforms,
i couldn't believe how clammy
our intertwined hands were but we still laced our fingers and spun
in sharp turns, laughing down quiet corridors  -
"did you know that i'm gay? i've never told anyone before."
you whispered in a rush to me, and you confided in me like
i was important -

why did i call it being abandoned when i was just as near
to you to reach out and grab you as you were near to me?
you've reached out to me and tugged on my sleeve but i'd sit
there and watch you and i'd feel your warm fingers slip away from my
skin,
i'd never felt your skin on mine again.

and i still remember the times we'd laugh and share jokes,
make personal whispered secrets, "we'll probably only
have time for each other again after work when we're career women,"
but even as i sit here in the same ******* room
of the past week and a half of wallowing in wonder,
wondering why i feel so empty and at a loss and like a hole,
my hands are clammy and miss the warmth of a pretty bracelet in my hand-

"you never wore it anyways."

-and your fingers between mine-

"you never text me back when i want to see you!"

i feel so lost,
i don't feel missed
although i probably was,
but i missed
something
and miss it so much

is the way i flip my phone every ten minutes hoping that youve texted me back

is the way that i sob into my hands over a love that i had to build myself
i understand that you put all this effort into

pressing a finger over my name in your phone's directory
to bring your phone up to your ear and hold a conversation
with me that you only contributed "yes" "no" and "i've gotta go"s.

as i searched up your favourite bands and tried to tell you about
how close the date was to them coming to the city,
or how i kept trying to remind you of a better time between us
and tried to keep us alive, i tried so hard to keep us alive.

it's the way that i can't seem to hold a job to my name
or figure out my own life after school,
but somehow, i always find the money to find my way to get to
you, find the time to invest in you, although our time
had run out weeks and weeks ago

to have you sleep all day as i sit on the edge of your bed
playing trivia crush until you wake up when i plug my phone
into the outlet beside your head
"i fell asleep" you'll say 2 hours after i arrive,
my shoes are still on my feet because i was too nervous to lay down
beside your sleeping body,
and i'll smile and lie, "i understand"
and even though i do, with every "no worries" and "i get it"s,
i feel that weight on my chest grow tons and tons heavier

it's the way i want to leave school now because i want to start a life
with you, but the way i have to close my eyes to the dreams 18-year-old me meandered over with my roommate excitedly,
"hey, one day, we'll have it all figured out." we laughed
"hey, one day," you'd tell me as i cried over the phone, "we'll have it all figured out,"

"it'll all be okay."

pure ******* poetry is the way you text me paragraphs
of how much you adore me, and want me, and want to marry me,
and how you still love this mess that has been slowly and chaotically
falling everywhere in a heap of nothing -
it's the way you tell me from a distance,
"i'll still love you no matter what you are"

and i'll cry into my sweater because you don't know what i am,
you're too far to understand- that the monsters have come out
to play unfairly
i don't know where you've been and i don't know what truths
you've been telling me but

your hands on my face as you begged for me to look at you
as you pressed quiet kisses on my eyelids
and how you held me for hours as i cried over nothing

pure ******* poetry

of trying to forgive anymore

i just don't think it's worth it anymore
i'm sorry,
love wasn't enough this time
and everything that i thought about love
has been ruined

i remember telling you that you were worth being destroyed over
but no,
i let you completely **** me up and i regret it all
i was sad through it all
i wanted to leave through it all

but i felt so worthless without you
but i want to take a stand,
i am so much better than your 2am "hi, work was good, go back to sleep, goodbye."
better than your **** toy - you haven't made me ***, you never knew how to make love to me anyways, i realized how much of a scumbag you were because of the way you ****** pathetic little me
and i ******* hate the way i've become some little begging ***** in bed for you to **** me, i think all this time i've been begging you to love me better
better than your excuse to travel,
better than your excuse to hang out with your best friends who love each other more than they love you anymore,
better than everything you've used me for

i'm so tired of being the convenient one for you
instead of the one you want to be with

i think i'm ready to be selfish
i think forever was *******
and i've always known that from the first time you told me you wanted to marry me, and confirmed my thoughts every time you urgently denied that we lived together

our server the day that i decided to leave you had said, "your man is bored" as you pushed food around on your plate as i tried to listen to some ******* ******* story you had about you whining at work
and i couldnt help but agree and think that i was over this ******* ******* too

that have ever made you cry, or have ever hurt you.
you mean the absolute world to me.

i don't ever want to let you hurt again.
never want to let you feel like your feelings mean nothing to me.

i am beginning to truly understand the quote:
"hurt people only hurt people."
i don't know what i am hurting over, at all, anymore -
because you have made me feel so wanted and loved over
these past few months. i think this is the most love anyone in my
life has ever shown me - never have i felt so appreciated and beautiful
and smart and like a someone since you.
maybe i've just been too scared to show my emotions for as long
as i could remember, without realization even striking down;
i have my fair share of too many sad nights crying to myself -
wishing i could reverse time
just dreaming about how things could be different
if i was just someone different
in all of the aspects that make me who i am -
and hating what i've been reduced to, hating the faces
i make when i cry, hating the sounds that gurgle in my throat,
the loneliness around me when i wish someone would grab
me and say, "it's okay to not be okay!!!",
detesting the way my shoulders shake when i cant stop
the tears that come pouring out of my eyes.

baby, you have loved me in my darkest blacks and blues,
my saddest grays and silvers, my angriest reds and oranges,
and my crazy greens and purples.

i am so sick of hiding from you, being dishonest in my feelings -
it's not that i didnt want to show them to you, i was just
terrified of how you would react to them -

now i'm beginning to understand that it's probably because
i never fully acknowledged your love for me -
i've always been so paranoid that you'd laugh in my face
and pick my heart up and go once i decided to fully give it my all.

is now a wrong time to believe that you love me?
is it too late? i beg to god that it isnt, because i will love you
until my ******* heart explodes.

the other day you were infuriated with me because of a stupid joke
i thought would be hilarious. instead,
i made you feel stupid - made you feel upset - made you worried -
and i belittled your feelings entirely.

entirely.
i cannot believe i had ever tried to stay ignorant to your feelings,
it still hurts to think that i ever did that to you.
i love you much more than that, but still, i sit here and
let myself hurt you without even trying to change who i am,
for you.
i am so in
love
with you.

i cannot believe how much i have put you through, it completely scares
me
that i have the power to do that to you. the power
to make such a sweet boy like you CRY, and WORRY, and HURT,
and OVERTHINK.
i can do that to you, too?
i am beginning to realize that it's not all about what you do
for me, to me, around me -
no -
love, it has a lot to do with what power i have over you, too.
it has to do with how i can hurt you, because of who i was
before you - and how i so eagerly WANT, DESIRE, and CRAVE
to become someone better, so that i couldn't ever let another
tear crawl down your face.

i don't ever want to hurt you baby.
but deep down,
i am PETRIFIED to be hurt, too.
this is what love must be -
sometimes i wonder if it's worth all the headaches and all of
the tears, all of the paranoia, and all of the hurt that we're banking,
and then you're wrapping your limbs all around me in the cool darkness
of my room,
whispering, sleepily, into my hair with your
warm breath and husky voice, "...pretzel."

and i can't help but laugh and spin around into your chest
before your kisses cover my forehead,
and you're groaning forgotten and sleep-infused 'i love you's into my
bed head hair.
you never catch the way i smile cheekily and stare at the front of your
sleeping eyelids as your teeth grind momentarily and you sigh,
pulling me closer into your body.
"i love you, baby." you will always say as i open my mouth to say it first.
"i love you." i will always reply. in every other life, and forever, ever more.

you are d e s t r o y i n g me in the most impeccable of ways.
i've suddenly stopped trusting you, and it makes me
reach out to you and hate myself when your arms are wrapped around me.

i don't know if i can do this anymore,
i don't even know if i really can love you anymore;
it feels like you are worlds away from me, when you sit next to me,
it feels like all this passion i have for you is just the passion i have
to fix myself. am i directing it all wrong? i'm so exhausted
with myself and my thoughts and my feelings.
i just want out. i need out. i can't keep doing this.
*but i need you.

are you listening to the way the cars outside are speeding down the highway?
can you hear the rushed conversation of the young couple outside of your window?
darling, i'm sure you can hear the panic of the man next door, slamming on his alarm clock as he sleepily cursed his way out the door.
they say if you stand at the corner of yonge and bloor at 12:25pm,
you should take note of how quickly strangers will bustle right past
you without realizing that they were ever a thought in your mind,
observe how they rush, remember their thinking faces, see how
focused they are on what's next.

i hate the familiar awareness of the leaves changing for autumn,
and how people get so utterly sick when the weather decides to flip.
i can't stand how okay i am with cutting people out, although
the world tells me it's fine, that's good, you need to move on eventually,
anyways.
it feels like i leave parts of myself with people and i forget where
these pieces have gone -
it feels like i should be okay with losing parts and creating new ones,
but it feels, god, it feels
it feels
so
sickening.

i dont know why it is all i am aware of;
the way we tell stories in one, single breath,
the way we ask, "what's next?" in a moment of heat,
and the way i feel so miserable about your heart changing tomorrow,
i like the feeling of resting on your chest
and being allowed to rest my entirety on your body -
i like the slow movement of your chest rising and falling -
and the way your breathing refuses to rush.
i can't pull myself away from the sound of your heart pumping in your chest.
did you ever think that by the time your heart has pumped its 896,738,112th pump, i was already waiting millions of pumps ago
for you to make it this far?

i wish you were here
to hear these things i can't ignore.
the screeching of tires and the messy, rushed mutters of a young girl behind.
i hope you don't hear them as that, just as
the way a car is ready to adventure
and the way a girl is so eager to live.
it's just that i get so lost in the chaos and i wish
you were here
to hear these things
i can't ignore.

i always thought saying goodnight to someone was the most romantic thing in the world,
because every night that my head hits the pillow,
it is like the thoughts in my head are knocked awake
suddenly crashing in chaos and begging to be heard-
i would do anything to shut those 2am thoughts, those 2am
thoughts that eat you alive and cry for your attention, your undivided attention-
and when i lie in bed, arguing with myself to ignore the words
that remind me
of all the mistakes i had ever made and how they will never wash off my skin,
i know that tossing and turning will do me no justice,
will not somehow shake those repeating words out of my brain.
for some reason, darling, hearing your goodnight would whisper
those thoughts asleep, rock them to bed-
those words that cut deep and laugh wretchedly in my ear are suddenly
silenced; blushing; bashful; they have suddenly lit up, and they mean no harm;
"goodnight sweetheart," you would simply say, and i could see the
way you're looking down the bridge of your nose as i
held my breath and smiled so easily-

did you know that i've been terrified to love you this entire time?

and now i miss the way we would eagerly fumble for our phones before bed,
call each other up and fill each other in about our days-
share what made us laugh, what made us mad, what made us think throughout the day-
check in and make sure you're okay, that you're staying on your grind-
make sure that you know that i still love you after all this time-
most of all, baby, i miss telling you goodnight, even if you don't let those 2am
monsters take you over like i let mine-
i just miss being the last voice you hear,
i just miss being the last thought in your mind,
i just miss you being the one to silence it all.

i love him so much but i just can't live this life anymore where i am always wondering where he is. what he's doing. what he's thinking. he is so far away from me all of the time, and it feels like all of this fight is for [what]?

i crave him. and i love him. but is love ever enough? is love ever enough to keep me sane? i wish he were here to shut these thoughts up, i wish for him to reassure me that things are okay but i am just so insecure and scared and so ******* horrified all of the time

i love you so much, and i am so scared to hurt you
but i'm hurting. all of the time. i'm really in a lot of pain, baby.
i wish i was being dramatic but not a day passes where i don't cry
just
wishing for you.
longing for you.
waiting for you. i cannot do this anymore, baby boy, even though
i love you so.
i really can't, no matter how much i tell myself i will wait
i keep feeling my heart break every day just waiting for you.

you are worth all of my time in the world,
but these trust issues that have knotted in my belly
keep whispering that i mean nothing to you
and that im just your anchor at home while you play
with all of the fish in the sea.

i'm sorry,

i just can't afford to let you come closer anymore.

i'm  just  tired
of feeling like i'm not your only one anymore.
i  just  never  forgave  you  anyways
and i kept trying to trick myself into believing that i am a good person,
who knows how to forgive, but
i  don't  know  how  to
i still can't trust you again -
but  maybe  i  do  forgive  you
but i think you just ruined what we had
because i don't believe in your feelings for me anymore
even after all of this time

i   still   hate  you  so  much
for the way you made me feel
i don't care what you do for me now, i don't think you could
ever make up for all that **** you had ever put my through
i  just  guess  i
thought i could never find a love like yours anywhere else

but i'm beginning to realize that
you  never  loved  me  in  the  first  place  anyways
or i couldnt give you everything that you were looking for
and i'm just here for pleasure
i'm sure i am enough
i've spent too long thinking i'm not
but i keep sitting around feeling worthless
feeling like
you  will  do  me  wrong  again
and i don't deserve to feel like this every single day anymore
you  make  no  effort
to lessen that feeling
i  don't  know  what  to  tell  you  anymore
i can't keep asking you and begging you
to love me more and more

i'm being selfish
and i'm acting in ways i know i don't want to anymore
i'm  over  it
i  just  don't  want  to  keep  doing  this  ****  anymore

i just don't want to see anymore of you
i'm tired i'm exhausted
i just want to move on and find someone else who will love me
the same way i know that i can love them

to the point
where i miss you so terribly,
where i need to stay high to genuinely keep you
off of my mind, almost every second,
where i can't bear to even let you touch my thoughts
for longer than a breath because
i miss you so much;
i love you so much and i need
you more than i ever thought i would allow myself to
depend on another soul.
what have i been reduced to?
it's like i never knew a life before you, and i never
want to go back. let's drop everything and see the world,
i am so in love with who we've become.
i am so in love with what you've become to me,
and with the way that you see the good in me
and with the way that you seem to love me back.
it looks like i've really fallen for you, pathetically,
and it drags me down because i know you can so easily
slip through my fingers, i can lose you so quickly
and it terrifies me into numbness, i
don't want to remember a world without you.

but the next day, he felt the need to tell me he'd been drinking the night before.
"i promise i meant every word i said." he soberly said. "every single one."
but darling, do you remember the way you breathed so quietly as i asked you to tell me again tomorrow? do you remember the way you stuttered when i rebuttled?
no one had ever told me they had loved me before, but
for some reason, hearing your words pointed at my ears
felt awkward -- although it should feel right, all utterly right,
you had said my full name, and i still smile when i hear my name on
the tips of your lips.
it felt like, you don't know how i feel about those lovely, lovely words
like, you don't know how i feel
like, you don't know how.

i want to eagerly love you.
in fact, i already eagerly do.
you are already in my bones. you are already in my blood.
it will be impossible to ever erase you from my mind, from the stories
i will share with the new people i will meet.
there is no way that i could forget the way you made me feel,
the way that you had lit a fiercer fire in my heart after i was sure
i would be dulled forever. i love you, for everything you have done
for me, for everything we have talked about, for all the laughs
you've dug out of me, for the way that you've showed me that
second ******* chances are so ******* worth it.

love takes trust, and i'm not quite there with you yet.
it takes a lot out of me, to trust.
i can barely trust my own mother to hold me down when i need her,
i can barely rely on my best friend to be there when i need him.
it must be a reflection of who i am as a person.

i was lying in bed this evening wondering about what i would
like to say to you, and i found myself crying into my sheets like a child;
the last time i had cried over a boy, he had broken my heart
into a million little pieces,
and i think i'd only found about a thousand parts of myself after him,
parts of me still gone, away with him.
darling, i couldn't help but think about how devastated i would be without you,
and how much i will need you more than you will ever need me,
and how much i adore you; everything about you, i adore.

baby, i can't push down this looming feeling that you will destroy me
when i least expect it,
and i don't know if i will be able to pick myself up again if it ever
comes to that.
my demons eat me alive every morning, every night, and they
won't let up, they never have.
as i rubbed my eyes at 8pm in nothing but your discarded boxers and
the same shirt i wore out with you the evening before, i couldn't
help but think about how i wouldn't want my monsters to scare you away,
for them to destroy you, too, as they had long ago taken me.

it just feels like i will never love myself enough
to allow you to love me too.
it just feels like, maybe drunk you really does love me,
maybe sober you loves me, too.
i wish i could believe you, have faith in you, trust in your words.
you told me once that i was the one good thing in your life
that you had ever felt okay about
and i skimmed over your words as if what you said didn't completely
shake my world.
you say the most beautiful things, but there's a broken person inside of me
who has a hard time understanding the way you whisper into my ear.

i love you. i will always love you.
i hope you will not hurt me,
and i will not hurt you.

maybe if i worked harder at being the wonderful person that i know i could be, i wouldn't be so jealous of the people around me, and be stuck in these horrid, eerie thoughts of inferiority. maybe i need to focus more on myself, rather than being so insecure about the people around me.

maybe i need to secure myself first

do Not write for the sake of people understanding your pain
and understanding your story.
people are unique with their own twisting plots,
their own gorgeous freckles and their own crooked smiles.
Beauty.
Yes,
there is something inside of me that wants to be everything
Right, Beautiful
for Someone Else,
some kind, distant voice tries to assure me in a shouting whisper that
"i can never do someone i love no wrong."

do Not
try to explain your storyline to people who don't like stories,
they are just people, people don't think - they rely on what they see
you can't blame them, because to them, you are just people as well.
do Not
find the need to twist your story to make it "sound better"
to hoard more love, more fake love for a fake story
do Not
feel the desire to explain yourself for what you have come to love;
love is crazy, love is numb,
love does not arrive when you beg for it to come.
love swoops in when you least expect it and consumes
you when you blink for a second;
it may be a hobby, a thing, or a person,
you cannot tame a desire, you cannot calm a storm.

Yes,
there is something inside of me that aches to be something
Perfect
for someone Else.

You are not the one,
the Hero,
the knight in shining armor.
I don't know your story, I can't be the one to tell you that.
I am not your main character, the protagonist, the focus,
You sit in your limelight, in the glow of the spotlight,
this is your stage; you are your own playwright.
You are not a cliche, you are not mediocre,
You are not just people,
you are someone Else
and you are perfect for yourself.

i seem to have forgotten what it means to
fulfill myself
behind your sweet, sweet smile.
i have become horrified of what i am without you,
petrified, anxious, terribly sad
at the thought of losing you.

i miss something,
and the way i used to laugh at tiny things.

i can't believe how quickly i fall apart when i win
your disapproval.
i can't believe that my cheeks have not pruned or pickled
in the salty tears that i so often cry
at the thought of you disappearing from my life

i miss something,
and the feather-light weight within my chest.

i seem to have missed something
because i miss this something that should be there,
ms. something-after-you i pray to be following you,
i miss something i have lost
but i cannot lose you

because i related to them so well.
i guess i am really morbid, because reading happy
poetry about love and other drugs never made me
feel a thing. i don't like getting high for that familiar
happy feeling - because those happy feelings never
did anything for me, they were never things that i desired to feel.
just, numbness was all i wanted - all i wanted was more, more, more
to the point where i can't feel my toes, can't feel my tongue,
i'm laughing because it feels so good to not feel anymore.
i fell in love with my sadness,
i fell in love with the feeling of my chest collapsing
in and my world falling apart.
i have so much sadness pent up inside that each line of poetry
helped me pour out a drop at a time. smaller doses.
a drop in the ocean, a drop of the ocean, i don't know how
many sad poems i need to read in order to let this tightness
inside of me go. i feel like i am constantly fighting a battle
every day, and i don't know what i am fighting for anymore.
i don't know what i'm battling off at this point any longer.
it's been so long that i've felt this sadness that it's just becoming
a part of who i am. i am so bitter because i hate who i am
when i am sitting in my room at 3am, crying into my hands so
i don't wake my roommates and letting snot dribble
down my chin so my sniffles don't echo throughout the house.
what a horrible sight it must be - i can't even stand to stare at myself
in the mirror after these kinds of times, so why would i want to
bear such a face in public? i'd rather be angry and ward off the world
than allow someone to see me for who i am.

I've found the person that I
want to spend the rest of my life with.

they say "better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all".
and i find myself repeating these words like a mantra on those lonely nights that i sit out on my front porch watching cars zoom by and young love stumbling out from the pub across the street.

sometimes i can still feel the way that my heart pounded in my chest when you leaned over from the driver's seat and planted a quiet kiss on my lips before your whispered "sweet dreams" danced in my mind along with the smile that i swore i could never get sick of. your hands leave my skin and i smile widely at your eyes. i watch myself step over my huddled form on the front steps, dazed as i wave goodbye, goodnight, and thank-you to you from behind the glass of my front door. the smell of extinguished candles fill my nose as i shake off my shoes, and the pitter-patter of bare feet across tiles to hardwood tick-tock through the air as i get mad at myself for being so utterly infatuated with your hands and that look.

i want to take a drag of the imaginary cigarette i am smoking on the front porch as i take some time to think about where it all began to change. i want to feel the cancer spread throughout my body and **** me before i could ever admit that things are no longer the same, but i smack myself in the head and bite my tongue and resist that familiar urge to cry until i am nothing but skin and bones.

maybe we are two mature people who acknowledge some kind of sick value that love cannot completely take over our lives any longer. we are not teenagers who can be lovestruck and completely wrapped up in each other, making each other each other's worlds - oh, i can't help but feel ashamed at how much i adore you when i am second, third, fourth to so many things in your life. i just want to be your first, like you are my priority above all else.

maybe i should admit that things are still the same for me - that you have always been and still are number one before anything else. maybe i keep telling myself that both of us have changed, as if you aren't really the one that's actually leaving me behind in your journey towards something better. better. better, and bigger.

i want is a love so deep that the big blue would turn green with envy.

there are so many words i should have said to you.
front and center, i never had any idea what it meant to care for another;
i just wanted to love you so eagerly and you made it
too easy
to laugh so obnoxiously with a terribly light heart;
to listen so carefully with no judgement in my brain;
to look you in the eye with no nerves shuddering down my spine.
left and right, i feel like i should have chased after you.
with these words that eroded the back of my throat
and burnt the roof of my mouth,
alas,
there are quiet 'i love you's beneath my tongue and
'no one ever hurt me quite like you did's on the insides of my cheeks,
eating my flesh and burning my insides.
i wanted to rip open my chest and break open my ribs,
hand you what's inside and only hope that you, too, could feel
see
understand
just how much i've missed you since our last 'goodbye's.

with each person who begs me to creak a bit open,
allow them a peak inside
from within these sudden walls that suddenly stand so tall, too tall between us,
i begin to realize how hurt i've allowed myself to feel after you.
running my fingers over these scars, they stretch around my body
further and deeper than i initially ever thought.
with months between our last forced conversation and today,
and weeks since the last time i've yearned for your skin,
i am sure i will never want you again-
to reign such hurt on my heart again.
but these words, they sit impatiently and loudly inside of me,
begging to be heard
painfully waiting for their turn to roll off my tongue,
press against the temples of your head and be understood.

i could never run after you,
i don't know why you ran in the first place;
i hate that men and women think so differently;
i am constantly conflicted between "it's not my job to chase after you"
and "maybe he never cared at all in the first place";
these words, like people
are used a million times over
but that does not change the beauty that they hold.

a cliche darling,
but i care so much about your feelings that
i would never impose my own on you.

I think what's so beautiful about being a poet
is reading your own work
and feeling yourself slip right back into that same spot of
what you were so eager to describe once upon a time.
When writing that perfect poem in a frenzy of
intensity, you get that annoyance, that irritation
eating away at your skin like a disease,
bubbling on your fingertips and itching on your palms
that maybe, you will never be able to properly capture
exactly what you're feeling,
that you may never be able to once again understand what you're
experiencing right now.
You laugh and wonder if you'll ever become an uptight parent
who completely forgot what it meant to love for the first time,
or forgot that sharp, aching feeling you felt when you finally
realized that the World isn't really at the tips of your fingers.
They say that sometimes, there's nothing more soothing than hearing
someone say "Me too"
validating that we are, in fact, entitled to feel as we are.
"If I can't understand it again one day, how will I ever
know I once ever felt at all?
Is this all real?
Have I gone mad?"

And I think it's important to remember these feelings,
these mythical things that have torn gaping wounds into
our souls and broke us open in ways we had never once thought possible.
What doesn't **** you makes you stronger versus "we are only
products of the experiences we have".
Sometimes we urge ourselves
that the pain isn't worth it, that we shouldn't allow ourselves
to break down and crumble and shatter and fall.
It isn't worth it to feel this way, it's not fair to who I am.
Protect and hide and cover your heart,
We are only out to protect what is rightfully ours;
ourselves, just us, the only things that we know are for absolute certain.

Why should we ever forget
and discard what reminds us that we're here?

As poets, we never want to forget that
we can feel;
that this feeling ever existed, and that it deserves to be
clearly heard, never forgotten.
Acknowledge how my breath tickles your cheek
as you listen emptily to me speak.
I want these words to be in every book, every library,
every Bible you ever open, every newspaper you ever pick up,
don't you dare forget that you are a l i v e,
left and right,
heart throbbing and brain whirling,
mouth watering and eyes blinking.
"These feelings must be translated into wisps of words
and rhymes and prose, whispered and yelled and cried and shouted.
My throat is raw and I am feeling it down my spine,
please don't try to shut me up or complete my sentence,
I want you to know that these words, used over millions
and millions of times, are beautiful in their way
because, like people, no matter how many times we decide to
use them over and over again, they will never lose beauty -
they will never fail to make us feel so alive."

and why do people always feel like it hurts them the most
to tell me that it won't work out?
you are so selfish to think that you breaking my heart is the
worst thing that you can do, the worst thing that is happening,
the most horrid sound must be the sound of me choking,
"what did i do wrong?"
but, love, if i can even call you that anymore, perhaps, i should
call you loved, or so i'll try to convince myself for the next while -
i wish my absence would have left a foul taste in your mouth, but it looks
like i just leak mediocre, i am just like all the ******* others, never
meant something, anything, nothing particularly special to you;
i was always forgettable from the beginning, it seems you had
already forgotten that i had known this all along,
when you told me you'd loved me too early anyways.
i never had the ability to leave an impression, i was
never the type, i was always just a type, a kind of person you knew
you'd easily forget, the kind of person you were eager to love and use
because i'd never capture your heart the way you knew would hurt
in the end. in the end, by the end, you knew this was coming, you
knew i wouldn't expect you to throw me away, but although
i knew, in the end, this would happen, it still hurts anyways,
god, it ******* kills me anyways, like day one, it's like day one again.

but for so long now, i have been absolutely horrified of him doing me wrong. there has been nothing else i could focus on, other than the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this person that i've invested so much love and adoration in would hurt me, badly.

his reassurances have been constant, and his love has been consistent. it has been half a year since i had met him, and it has been three months since we had decided to give a name to whatever existed between us.

i don't know how he does it.

these demons i've let reign and conquer had basically eaten me alive in the past two weeks; i was sure i was losing my mind, i was sure i would never see things the same way again.

i don't know how he does it.

but he is slowly killing these demons, one-by-one. surely, i am on my toes, waiting for him to push me over down onto my face. but, at this point, i am on my toes still trying to kiss his mouth. to thank him. for shutting these monsters up.

i remember the first time you had told me you loved me.
you had called me one warm night, when it was barely summer,
but barely fall
and i was hopelessly nervous
to speak with you with my roommates in the house.
they hadn't met you yet, but they might as well have known about
that kind smile and the impeccable way you had of
forcing me to feel things that turned me into absolute mush.

you were slurring your words, and talking about god-awful
things that had happened to you that evening.
i always wondered how you got so caught up in such twisted
situations - situations that felt like, i wanted to protect
you from, somehow, with these god-awful tiny hands.
if i could somehow calm the storm inside of you by cradling
your face in my hands, then i would hold you all the time.

i had missed you so much, i remember thinking, because
the butterflies in my stomach were unceremoniously unsettling,
detached from my thoughts, i wanted nothing more than to
just have my head on your shoulder with your fingers wound in mine,
i wanted nothing more than to promise you that i would never
give up.

i remember realizing that i wouldn't be able to have you as often
as i could have when school began and slowly started to gobble
up time i wish
i never wasted on books, on paper, on facts i won't ever need.
what theory means more than the fact that i needed
you more than anything?
- it petrified me to realize that
you were one good thing that i knew for certain, and every thing
else felt like a game, you were so real in my face, like i've just been
going with the flow this entire time, that this whole charade i've
constructed around me has boiled down to be utter *******.

love, you stuttered and stumbled, and stopped yourself mid-multiple-sentences.
you kept telling me that you appreciated me, and i don't know why,
to this day,
why on earth you decided to love me the most out of all the girls
that you could have, any time.
it never felt like i deserved it - never felt like i was enough for
you to love me this much.

and suddenly, you had just said it. and when you had said it,
you had repeated it, you had told me that
i was worthy, somehow. i don't understand, still, to this day,
why,
you ever
loved me at all.

it felt like a dream baby boy, i had loved you all along.
it felt like you were suddenly all mine, and it felt like things
were falling so neatly into place.
i had loved you all along,
i had loved you all along.

but i felt a distance between us after you curled into me and squeezed my hips in bliss
and pleasure and moans and groans
i wondered why you didn't kiss me,
distance,
i almost felt like i'd been dis-respected by the ghost of your lips on me -
when my hair was tangled in your right tight fist
you pinned me down with your left hand by my wrist,
listen, love...
there's still something that i miss about the way that i felt in the beginning -
something that i am willing to be angry about, *******, i want to scream out and shout, these doubts are clouding my ******* mind -
i can't seem to think as straight as i used to take such pride in.

maybe that's why i couldn't stop the tears running down my face
before i even realized i had felt an emptiness in my chest
that marinated in some kind of broken heart over something...
i still miss something...

i don't know why i cried,
when you closed your eyes and i shamefully picked up a towel
to wipe my ******* dignity off my thighs.
you were snoring gutteral z's that echoed off spiky hotel ceilings
before i had a chance to ask
if you needed me.
to give you a hand
with anything else.

i never have enough courage to do certain things for him - whether it be showing him my writing, showing him my **** side, or being utterly honest with who i am - why am i so scared of showing him who i am?

*"you are so weird," he said, shaking his head. "wow. sometimes you just knock the words right out of me. i don't even know what to say"
"but you love me," i had almost asked, although i had definitely meant to sternly state myself factually. as i was catching my breath to correct my tone, he had suddenly cut me off with a smug grin:
"i do." he rang. "you being weird. that's the best part of you."

instead of victimizing yourself to the consequences you've bestowed upon yourself.
you need to change yourself and take ******* responsibility for your own *** if you're unhappy with where you are, and who you are.
you need to discover and play with your own ******* potential.
quit sitting around waiting on someone to save you, on someone to promise you "forever", for someone else to change YOU. because nothing is forever, everything changes.
nothing will ever be the exact same way that it is right now. at this moment. this is just one of the unique times in your life that you will live through - you will live through billions more of these.
and you yourself can decide where you want to go at this point in time.
**** it. even if you're happy. do not ******* settle. ever. keep striving.
nothing is forever.
nothing stays the same.
everything around you changes. do not be stationary.
change with the times. adapt, evolve. keep your heart.
but always remember that life will keep going on, with or without you.
do not sit on your *** for too long when life knocks you down.
it's not easy, whatsoever.
you are allowed to cry, and sob, and yell. you will be discouraged. it will ****. you will hate yourself sometimes, but you shouldnt for too long.
you need to forgive yourself and bring yourself up. you need to fight on, keep pushing, do you, and ******* prosper.
stay humble. stay focused. keep your heart. fight on.

i am jealous.

i am jealous that my best friend is absolutely beautiful
has her life together
is a natural social butterfly.

people flock to her.

it kills me to think that

i have lived in her shadow all of these years. she is the only reason i was able to survive throughout university.
she is the only reason i was able to hold any friends,
participate in anything, and essentially...
be who i am today.

i hate it.
i hate who i am today.



i feel so inferior. i am inferior to her, and i hate it so much.
i just want to be better. not better than her, but i think these feelings of not being enough stem from the very issue that

i am not where i know i should be

i am not the best person i am capable of being

i am not currently living the life of the person
that's inside of me
i

feel like i am worth so much more
and being blinded by the light of someone who is so spectacular
kills me,
brutally, i
love her for all of the things she has done for me,
appreciate all of the love she has shown me over the years,
been there for me, and sometimes, it feels like i should hate her for being
the best, but then i remember that i really just hate myself
so much
so much
so much

for not being
who i think i should be
where i should be

and I will love you until the end.
I'm sorry I say such stupid things; I'm so used to riling
people up. and I hate doing that to you.
I guess I've always wanted to affect someone, and the only
way I could do that is by being such a *****. no more, baby,
I can only do you right for ever doing me so ******* good.
I've always been so paranoid that people will hurt
me, and I hate being the one to be left in the dust.
I've always tried, since the beginning, to be the one
who never put her heart in, in the first place,
so I'd never get hurt again, never be the one to
cry over someone else again. I've felt so pathetic
being the one to cry, but in the end, I've learned that
being the one to cry is actually the better end - I would be
the one, in the end, who felt anything at all in the first place,
and through the ******* sadness of it all, I've somehow
convinced myself that hurting, cringing, ******* dying
little by little was the worst thing on earth. "it was never worth
the tears, my god, I wish I had never put my entire self
on the line like this. how will I ever find myself again?"
but his love,
his love,
his love... just saved me, and I feel so mediocre, so
stupid saying something so typical, so average, I wish I could write
so much better, articulate the way my muscles freeze up
when you look at me, without a word, you've got me wrapped
around your finger. how can i
describe the warmth you've torn open in my
chest, from the pits of my belly, you, baby, had
reminded me,
that it feels so ******* good to feel again, no matter what it
is. I've numbed myself for so long, like sitting on my foot,
cross-legged, arms crossed, waiting pathetically
on someone
to tell me to get up, losing all
stupid feeling in my toes, in my ankles
in my calves, and in my legs,
I was just losing interest in ever knowing what it was like
to stand proudly again, like we are meant to do.
but he appeared out of no where,
pulled me up on my feet, yanked me
by the wrist and his fingers found their place between mine,
and somehow he had me standing on my feet again,
static shock through my toes, I felt him on my palms,
silly electric fizz in my calves, I've never felt this
***** smile on my face before.

how can I ever repay you?

and now i can't get to the bottom of where these bad feelings are coming from. i can't tell if i'm frustrated that i miss you, or if i'm upset at something you said; maybe i'm angry with myself for not being able to trust you yet; i just keep thinking the end is near, and i hate thinking like this, hate trying to predict the future.

i just want to enjoy you now, love you now.
but these feelings are blurring my need for you,
it feels like these other wretched, horrible, scary feelings are overwhelming
my love for you and im beginning to lose sight again
of what's important.

i miss you so much.
i really, really, really do. but there are these demons that are slowly chewing me
up, swallowing me piece by piece every day.
i'm beginning to forget how much you love me,
i'm beginning to forget that i ever loved you at all
because i am so selfish, that i'm allowing these thoughts in my
head to overpower everything. every thing. i can't do it.
i need you here. i need you i need you i need you
and i think that's it, i wish you were here to hold me love
and tell me that it's all in my head, i really need you
even though i told you to leave me and live life, to go somewhere
else

baby im just so ashamed that i need you this much,
i hate myself for it because i've grown up with these values
to depend on no one - NO ONE - but myself
but i am constantly letting myself down
but you, you, you are so competent and able and the one
sure thing ever and i am horrified that i need you more than you
need me. it scares me. it's so scary.

never mind other people

i hope they never open again

i've ruined it all

eats you alive
but don't you ever, for a second, downplay my own.
i will acknowledge your pain, i will give you light in the darkness,
but the moment you even dare to brush my pain away,
i will be gone like the ******* wind.
i have already been consumed. i know i'm already
someone different from the person that began this battle,
from the young girl who lifted her sword with a courageous
promise to fight for herself and win;
her skeleton already lies in the empty halls,
pieces of her dragged away to different depths by vicious demons
undefeated,
that will remain this way until the shell that is left learns to crack
the tall gates that locks these pieces away; these pieces,
never to be seen again, god, i wish i had put more faith in the
young hero.
i have been in this for too long,
been staring up at these gates forever, to ever allow you
to say that it's all in my head, for you to say that this pain
isn't really here.

is the toughest thing that i have ever done.
it completely changes you, and the way that you view yourself,
the world, and the people around you.
it makes you reexamine yourself, and makes you explore the
parts of yourself that you don't want to explore.

love is the hardest thing that i have ever done.
it's because i'm beginning to realize that maybe,
since i never chose to love myself first,
i am absolutely sabotaging a boy who loves me so much.
in my heart, he means the world to me. and he chases me,
and loves me, loves my scars, and fights so hard for me.
and here i sit, denying the idea that someone could love
someone like me. but he is always there beside me,
begging with me, crying with me, that his heart is honest.
that it is completely with me.

and i keep wondering if i am okay for him. if it is okay
for us to keep fighting for each other this way. i mean, it's when
there's no more fight when there's a problem.

i don't know who i ever was without love.
i don't know who i ever was without him.

there have been multiple times where i've wanted to throw
my hands up and give up. but he has never given up on me.
he has never even considered giving up on me, even though
i had collapsed and cried and blamed him for such a silly, silly
little mistake that was so easily forgivable.

i am no longer afraid to be completely
immersed in his love, because every single doubt
i have ever had has dissipated. i have never felt
so loved
and accepted
and cherished
and wanted
before. and it is a truly, truly, truly amazing
feeling, to feel absolutely loved.

it was never meant to be easy, and we knew
it was always meant to be hard. i feel like a big baby when i admit
that i'm done with trying anymore, and it feels like i'm throwing in
the towel, kind of giving up on myself instead of giving up on others.
but i don't see why i should keep trying to put on a show
for these people who don't care what happens next, just want
to live in the moment and fizzle out in the next.
what a crazy thing life is, that today's utopia can
turn into tomorrow's apocalypse.
i'd prefer to be a beautiful shooting star burning out across
your vision rather than be a dim, flashing light somewhere
among your vast galaxy. i want to stir something within you and
have you wishing for something
better
for yourself when you witness my spectacular light,
have your heart crying out for more, have the better part of yourself
desire something better for your worst part.
however, i never want to burn out, i selfishly desire constantly,
maybe it's just my ego hoarding love for herself
but it feels like i am fizzling, popping, vanishing from where i am.
(i just want to ignite something inside of you)
it feels impossible to ever really mean something much to people
for a long time unless you leave a legacy of sparks within hearts
after you disappear
into the night. i hope you can build an inferno with the sparks
that i leave behind, and i hope that one day
i, too, will catch fire

the way that you melt into my arms when i tell you that i love you is my definition of bliss. i adore the way that you hide your face in the crook of my neck, and ask for me to repeat myself as your large hands find their way to the small of my back. tell me again, sweetheart. i love you so ******* much. i don't know how i ever got along without you.

and i will tell you again, while looking you in the eyes, baby. believe me when i tell you this. i cannot stand a life without you. and it feels like you're hearing my words syllable to syllable,
but you're not
hearing
me.

and she had to grind her teeth into powder before she felt the skin on her palms go raw from the way she tried to keep her fists to herself.

and why did she have to say it anyways when all that she did
every day,
every moment
was for him

and why did she have to say it back
when she had to urge him
beg him
to say it anyways

she whispered his name in her sleep
and reached out for him when she was able to doze off for those
couple hours
in the night.

and when laid awake at night, he was the only thing that floated
through her thoughts.

"you can't even say it back"

she had to bite down on her tongue in fury,
she wished that she could rip the muscle from her very throat with
the same lips she kissed him with, with the same
teeth she grinned at him with,
she wanted to spit 'unsaid words' in his face
with the very spite she held in the audacity he had

"you can't even look me in the eye"

i've tried so hard
but the street that i've walked down alone is a two-way street
and i guess all that meant is that i came running down to you
and left all on my own too

"i think i'm at my happiest when i cut people off
when they don't show me any feelings of mutuality.
honestly, i don't think i'm meant to **** with anyone
of any sorts; i don't know if i'm meant to interact
with the kinds of people i keep finding myself with
and i'm happy being cold, happy protecting my little
old self. i don't know why i felt the need to tell you this."

you should love me harder,
whether you plan to keep me tomorrow
or leave me tomorrow

before you left, i could already feel my bones aching to be next to yours.
you were sitting in front of me with my hands placed in yours,
and your thumbs brushing against my knuckles,
"i think i might have to leave for a little bit" you had quietly said
"but only for a little bit"
but before you could even reassure me, i was already
trying to pull my hands out of yours, but hold them all at the same
time,
trying to sit further away from you to take a better look, but trying to
keep warm next to you.
i need you to do what you need to do for yourself, i need you
to keep getting better and improving every second, i want you to succeed,
achieve, you are plenty of amazing all in one person and i question every
moment how someone like you had kept smiling with someone like me.
i need myself
to stop feeling so ******* let down every time you are away
because it's not your fault, it's just how life goes -
sometimes things happen that tear us away from each other,
it just feels so hard being away from you all the time because all
i want is to be with you.
i've been realizing how many bad things are in this world and
there are not many more good things left that i can appreciate
and you, darling, you are one of those last good things that i can
depend on to always smooth the goosebumps out of my skin.
i love you so much. i love you so much, it nearly kills me
to admit that i need you and i wish i didn't need you this much

"i will always love you

but i am no longer happy.

thank you for everything."

it seems like you've taught me well,
taught me how to hate myself even more.

is loving you well
while you are away from me?