1: take that key to your heart and throw it into the lake where you watch the sunsets every Sunday night
2: even when times get tough, remember who you're here for
3: cough syrups won't help you in this situation, but the arms of your significant other are medicine in itself
4: don't get rid of your heart just because there's a chance it'll be broken
5: finally, and most importantly, **never let that young love die

That cup of coffee that's been sitting too long is more like you than you may think.

It's a little too cold for anyone's liking, and you are as well - but deep down there's heat waiting to be felt, and I know you're clinging on to that.

From the time the heart first knew how to feel, and the eyes distinguished rain from tears, few have hidden behind the walls within me. Whether they found it a safe place or a jail cell - well, I guess we'll leave that to the imagination. No matter if it was a cell or heaven, the space within always felt alive. Even at my deadest times, the heat within coursed like it knew something more valuable was in store.

Somehow, some way, a wanderer found a pathway in. Had he known better, perhaps he would not have been in the hands of the girl with wisps of flame at her angered fingertips. The burns don't sustain, but the more that's lost, the more it dissolves all other slivers of hope left to grasp.

Fear is the real culprit, you must see. The fear I must face by harboring a false love; a fear of committing my own sins; of breaking my own promises.

I've never understood a "true understanding." Anger can be cooled by the calm, as does the rainbow after the storm. With the storm blown over, his eyes shone bright and revealed his intentions clearly - you can still love with a straight face and a frigid heart.

There's going to be times where you pull at your hair and gather tears in your palms

and times you'll wish it was daisies and ink instead

but Honey - you'll be okay tonight

He told me his love was like a religion: his heart a god and his embrace a prayer. He told me he'd shed some light on my dim world…

He didn't know that God has never been on my side and the stars had never aligned to answer my prayers. He didn't know that I liked the mind games I played and that a love like his was one to keep distanced.

word of your alleged affiliations reached me weeks after it was all said and done; she was now queen of your world and I became a mild sore in your side like I feared I would

I don't know why I'm surprised. I never amounted to much anyway. I often let my feet burn in the running bath water just to feel something besides a building wall of anxiety in my chest.

I often dreamt about you. also about her - that walking prayer with a Devil's torch. I could've handled my tears if it weren't for the coffee shop you two were admiring in my dreams. do you remember my favorite place?

a nightmare is a dream until it becomes your reality. sometimes when I wake in a cold sweat complete with tremors, the breeze still smells of expresso and pastry

they're all hardcovers and I'm just a paperback

but it's a metaphor, you see

everyone else isn't necessarily "hard," but rather definite, and they are wanted

I'm merely a paperback; easily ripped, torn, shaped, a 2nd choice, and forgotten in the back of a dusty, old attic

Dear Future Child,
You'll soon learn that 'sorry' is my favorite word. But don't fret if this trait is passed along to you. Some day it'll be 9pm and you'll be crying about a boy upstairs in your room while your parents are downstairs clueless, but I'm telling you know it does not have to be that way. Do not reach for a bottle of liquor, or for a cigarette or a weapon. Your pain will pass because I will have raised you to do so. Dear Future Child, I will not let you end up like me.

Purple, for the strange bruises that litter my body

Green, for running rampant through the back woods

Red, for the blood-stained rocks beneath my knees

Grey, for the pale faces that remain unrecognizable

Black, for the sky's ability to cover my 3am thoughts

Blue, for the blood-filled veins that keep me alive

Yellow, for the delicate flowers off in the distance

Pink, for the rosy cheeks I wish to awake next to

Orange, for the memories of the sunsets we missed

No matter how far you reach out, our fingertips will never meet again, and I think maybe that hole in my chest will finally close itself and heal.

Your hand is too distant to grasp but the gaps between my fingers are becoming smaller and smaller nonetheless. I think it's easier this way.

You held me hostage by the throat, but I'm still breathing.

I am not another person. I am Myself, not Yours. I am Control, Emotions, and Desire of Individuality.

The bones beneath my skin are burning and oh God, I can no longer tell if it's from the hate I have for me or for "you"

Is this you?

There's seven days worth of apologies but I don't think "you" deserve to hear a breath of them

Is this you?

I'd walk barefoot to "you" even if "you" are the one who put broken glass in my path

Is THIS you?

People are just definitions that are still being written so be careful how "you" finish yours

TELL ME, IS THIS YOU?

"You" are one of those poems that took so long to find something to write about & once I did, it made me wonder why I wasn't able to write you sooner

THIS IS YOU... RIGHT?

So tell me...
Who's the "you" that YOU speak of?

Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out
My mind can’t decide what to say
I wish I knew what this was about

Part of me wants to give up and pout
But my heart tells me to try until the break of day
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out

Some days in my sleep I’ll let out a shout
The words of this poem decide they won’t stay
I wish I knew what this was about

This assignment fills me with doubt
It’s causing my brain to decay
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out

Looking for a sign this is the right route
But the horizons are faded gray
I wish I knew what this was about

This poem has begun to sprout
In the end it’s finally okay
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out
I wish I knew what this was about

That girl is lethal.

She'll drink your poison and fill your cup with her own when you turn the other cheek.

Her hand may be warm, but the flood gates holding back her bitter zeal will only hold for so long. She isn't unbreakable. You should know; you damaged her.

She'll siphon her tears down your throat until you're gagging on your own harsh words.

Never believe a word she says. She was never happy anyway.

I've failed to find anything more frightening than making my way through a candle lit house. The eerie shadows the flame casts against the wall seem as if they brush my arms as I pass, raking my skin to make me obey. Even the safety of my own room doesn't prevail in snuffing them out of my head.

It's a shame you were always the house.

Sleep called faintly, so
Whispers tucked me in tonight
Poems, I dreamt of them

But what is a poem
If a writer cannot write
Words that come to mind

Blankness overtook
So they reside in my mind
And not on paper

The world sent me a girl as sweet as a peach
and as scorching as the sun itself.

In that moment,
I knew love as it was meant to be known.

In that moment,
I wished she wasn't 2,000 miles away.

In that moment,
I begged for my heart to let me down gently.

It didn't.

The ink in your pen froze from the ice stirring in her heart and now I'm beginning to ask myself if that's why everything you write to me feels like frostbite on my tongue

Why do I have day dreams of blood running from the place in my chest where my bandaged heart remains?

The wounds are scars that no longer bleed so why

(WHY)

Am I still waiting for it to heal?

"what do you think of your body?" he asked me.

"it's a trick" I said, "wearing clothes that make me feel good, but once they're removed I'm huddled in a corner of my mind, afraid of my body once again."

"everything's a trick. that's what life does to you"

love'll hit you like a piece of poetry
the time it takes to learn the meaning
is nothing compared to how it'll rattle your rib cage when your heart begs to be set free

Your eyes told stories that I failed to read

My blindness killed my youth;

I am not made of you.

If you would see the truth,

Then you could know it too.

"don't waste your time on me you're already a voice inside my head"

funny that you didn't realize those were my favorite song lyrics, not my conscience telling you to go

It's a song of pain and of sadness that often comes hand in hand with love; its beat is faltering and ever-changing, matching the pounding in my head and the ringing in my ears. Sometimes I hear your voice, and the way you said you'd regretted almost every part of me is the temporary melody of this new tune. The undertones are constituted of tear drops falling from tear soaked eyelashes, a sound ever so faint but if you'd ever see it happen, it's like an amp overload. I'd like to compare you to myself and put you in this new song - but you're the reason for my hate tonight, and for that, the show will not go on.

"does the sky look odd to you?"

"no; I've been waiting for the day that the clouds would finally part and be able to speak to him for me, for the day that I wouldn't have to fear that a storm would ruin my chance of a kiss, because now the tables have turned. the sky can scream and rain all the words I've never been able to say to his face and I can lean over and whisper 'we're through.'"

I dug a little too far into myself and ended up staring at you

Love is varying but you were not what I expected when the word first tarnished my vocabulary. The word is sinful and leaves such a foul taste in my mouth; no one will ever get as sick of the word as I did.

No one's ever surpassed the absurd expectations of this vile word & I don't want to stick around to find out if I’ll fall into its clutches too.

even as the stranger that I once was, I knew something could come from your untied shoelaces & my tied down connections

We are woven together - I cannot free myself

No matter how many ties I cut

I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GIRL THAT EVERYONE LOVES BUT IM NOT AS INNOCENT AS THEY ALL THINK AND ITS BEGINNING TO PROVE DIFFICULT TO HIDE MY PAST AND IM EMBARRASSED. EVERYTHING I DID WAS AGAINST MY BETTER JUDGEMENT AND I JUST WANT TO SAY IM SORRY

Blue, Blue, Blue.*

A blue haze often clouded my eyes and invaded my nose and enveloped me in the mere thought of him.

All shades:
His eyes
The glittering sky
My deep down disappointment

My insides were blue too. He jumped in my head and drowned.

The cool cobalt color swam in excitement on his lips; he finally had another heartbreak to add to his piggy bank.

As an afterthought, he pulled me out from the rest and claimed that I was just "too **** blue."

knowing that something
less dense than me
could **** me is the
reason i tend to stay
underwater a second
longer than most
others deem fit

growing up is forgetting the priceless moments that came so naturally

and being told that tears are meant for the little ones

growing up is learning more than just the alphabet and simple addition

and learning that money can't buy everything

growing up is facing new challenges

ones that don't include climbing trees and being afraid of the dentist

growing up is losing yourself

in the simplicity of the past and the complexity of the future

Winter has tortured me for years, with each year bringing a bigger blizzard to battle. The ice cold, barren feeling drifting within me felt all too much like home.

With a touch as gentle as the sun's first kiss, and patience more plentiful than the stars painted in the clear night sky, I found myself taking shelter from the storm I'd been putting myself through in the most unexpected place. The branching frost that once took root deep inside released its icy grip upon me and in return, a soul as warm as summer filled the gaps left behind.

A friend, a home, a declarer-of-love, a lover-of-the-seasons; he taught me I didn't need to shiver every time I peaked at myself in the mirror over tortoise-rimmed glasses... he sensed the warmth I was capable of. The lengthening of nights doesn't equal a shortening of hope.

I'm no longer gripped by the trembling fear of my own self. My skies have cleared. Winter is my Summer.