i am broken and scattered across seven continents
but give me time;

just a second
to gather myself;

you’ve got me stuck in the empty spaces
between the pages that nobody talks about
and i can’t write because my fingers are broken
and my hands are so numb

and all my melodies fall flat
because i can’t spin a beautiful cloth out of
this ugly tale

nothing can thaw me;

wasn’t it yesterday that
you held my hand at a crossroads
and told me
love,
it doesn’t matter where we go
as long as i’m with you.

and the winds were harsh and my heart was cold
but i want to say you were right.

"love,
it doesn’t matter;
as long as i’m with you."

but i’m not with you
and i’m floating
because my hands have gotten used to
the cold
but my vision is blurred and i think
i’m chronically dizzy because
you probably took a piece of my mind when you left

why did you leave?

i am going through the motions,
and i am breathing again
but nothing feels real anymore
and i can’t even tell if you ever really existed.

over the last week i realised how many girls
don't even eat their lunches in the bathroom stalls
but sit and let the pipes keep them company

because food and empty stomachs built on empty hearts
never got along
but i found comfort in the soft sighs of the girl sitting in the next stall
tapping her foot along to nothing in particular

it scared me to chew too loudly on my food
so i'd wait until someone flushed a toilet or laughed really loudly
because they didn’t need to know i favoured
bathrooms to the loud silence of high school kids

i didn't particularly love the smell of dettol, the beige walls
or the idea that someday
my recollection of high school would consist
of just that

but to all the kids who destroyed my resolve
lied to me and told me i was translucent; i want
to tell you

that i like the sound of creaking pipes
better than the venom your sharp tongues spit
and i am so glad to say that you are only
a marker of a discovery
that there is so much more to this campus

so trust me when i say
when i’m old and wrinkled, a shell
of who i used to be
i won’t think of you

you, my love
taught me how to cut my hair
and shed my clothes

you, my love
asked me to go for a swim
and left me drowning because
i didn't know friends could take your breath away too

somehow, you’d drawn pretty lines
between every good thing in my life
and your pretty hands
all you are is a pretty girl
but your skin was so different from mine
i couldn’t help but try and mimic you
become you

i was never as good as you were
at batting my eyelashes at the right guy
i always chose the ones who broke hearts for sport
i never quite got the hang of the distant act
that even i would fall for
and i would never be good at mind-numbing small talk
that we seemed to beg for, just to fill the empty space between our hearts

your life was never real
because pretty girls like you
aren’t just pretty
but mean
and hurtful
and they will leave you
broken and bleeding on the side of the road
because you were a failed experiment

i don’t want to be mesmerised by your eyes anymore
because when i walk past you,
all i see is the despair under your eyes
you can’t fool me
like you did every other pretty girl
you’re just as broken as i am
but i swear to you,
i sleep much easier
knowing i don’t always have to be pretty.

fifteen and fourteen
don't seem worlds apart
but tread lightly, my love
for some lines are so thin,
the clock striking twelve
will push you over.

at fifteen
strangers picked me up
battered and left in pieces
and told me i could pass
for seventeen
so i guess that made me seventeen

fifteen brought love
that lasted one night because a rumor
was being spread that i spread my legs for another boy
but my heart is not a pit stop
and i can only take so many half loves
before i break underneath the weight

and i've learned not to sell small vials
of love
because boys would rather hear that i have a boyfriend
than that i'm not interested

fifteen was my only friend
in an open field where kids held
shards of glass close to their chests
and stabbed people recklessly

fifteen, you left me
and i got cut bad but you came back
and made a sappy poem of my blood
so fifteen, i loved you

or i loved the idea of who you made me
i never let my summer depression define me
but you broke me and rearranged the pieces
into someone that made more sense
someone who hid in every corner of parties
who didn't stand out against the alcohol stains on the couch

i didn't know who i was
until i told myself fifteen made me
because fifteen brought the realisation
that if i didn't **** myself soon
college was a real prospect
and life was a real prospect
that wasn't waiting for me to gather my bearings

where does fifteen end?
you follow me everywhere i go
and i can't seem to shake the feeling that
twenty won't look a lot better
just with larger fields
and sharper glass

fifteen, you held my hand
and poured salt in each of my wounds
and i want to tell you
i wish i never needed you
but my bones have healed
and my heart's set on more
so thank you;

i need you to understand that you didn’t make sense when you went from loving me, to hurting me, to wanting me; to be your firsts, to be yours, to forgetting i was ever that.

all in the span of a short-lived friendship. how am i supposed to wrap my mind around anything? around how distant you are now, and how nothing will make you want me?

how am i not supposed to reminisce, when everything that has happened was only a month ago? or two weeks ago, when you told me i was beautiful, and don’t you ever forget that, or when you spent a whole summer in europe texting me?

talking to me about the most mundane things, those are the conversations etched in my memory; those are the conversations i still don’t want to look at, because that is a low point i can’t ever reach.

you spent a whole summer in europe telling me you wish you could see me and saying the nicest things to me. i spent a summer rooted in my spot, waiting for you to see me, waiting to see you beautiful as always, but happy, nonetheless, that i got to talk to this sweet summer boy.

you talked to me like i was your girlfriend; don’t ever tell me that there wasn’t a point where we were almost that, because i thought: this is what good love must feel like, that comes easy and doesn’t destroy you.

then you did.

the easy answer is you’re just as broken as i am, and just as confused. that could also explain the girl who has swiftly replaced me.

but please be mindful of the hole you left in my life, because you were my good mornings, and goodnights, and afternoons when we weren’t too busy, and on the forefront of my mind when we were.

this is a bandaid ripped way too fast, and i still can’t reconcile the person i fell in love with over the summer, and the boy who won’t even look at me; the cold boy who has it in him to do awful things to me. you are not the same person, but even that doesn’t make it easy to fall out of love.

i am in love with someone who doesn’t exist except in my memories and texts. and if sweet, summer you isn't dead, i need you to never love me again because each time you stop i am left with even less. i'm starting to read again, and smile on days on which we don't talk, and getting here wasn’t easy; so i need us both to stop.

each of your fingers has a body count
of girls wrapped around them,
waiting for you to tuck them in the crook of your neck
girls who are stone cold sober
trying to break your ribs and get to your heart

i am one of those girls
who are naive enough to think it is any warmer inside
and that you are capable of radiating anything
other than temporary lust

and it is disgusting that you think
you can store so many inside your mouth
under your tongue
inside your cheek
because you know they all would probably **** for a spot
and you slowly feed on their insecurities
chipping away at their self esteem

then you spit them out
that is, if they haven’t died in your palms
and they are colder than ever,
if it is even possible
your fingerprints embedded in their skin
they all carry the same scars,
but none of them have thawed enough
to see how truly ugly you are

you are the boy who had me wrapped around his finger
writing poems about how obscenely evil you are
when i know i am going to see you tomorrow
and grasp at your fingertips, trying to claw my way into your heart.

do you want to know
about all the boys who have my skin burned into their memory?
or the boys who’ve touched me enough times that their fingers
move in a certain pattern across my hips
but their minds can’t differentiate between me and the next girl?

you say you want me to tell you about them
but do you want to know about the people
who have rearranged your daughter into someone you don’t recognise?
it’s possibly my fault you don’t know me,
but, mother, i don’t think you would love the fleshy redness of my inverted skin

there are small, but important tokens of me that you’ve collected
like a few of the scars on my wrists,
ones i told you i stopped carving years ago,
but how do you not notice the accumulation of darkened skin
and bandaids in the bin?
mother, i think maybe sometimes you see my rearranged body parts
and then look the other way because it’s not who you want me to be

in your head,
am i just your daughter
or my own person?
am i so indebted to you for giving me my life that you now own it?

i don’t even know what being my own person would mean to you
if all you know about me is carefully selected
by an idiot daughter

mother,
you ask me if i’ve been lying to you,
if i’m sure that last week i went out where i said i would
and i think neither of us are so stupid that we would be fooled
into thinking we are built on anything but an awkward bed of lies,
so, mother, please stop asking me
because i think my mom should be the type of person i can tell about boys
and wrists, and i wish there was some part of me
that felt you were more than just mother

who has never been fifteen and lonely,
who has never thought she was in love with a boy
how can you ask me to be honest with you
when your smile is painted on,
hiding judgments and disappointment before i’ve even disappointed you?

mother, i love you,
but i can’t be honest and perfect at the same time
and i need room to breathe
without having to hide every exhale from you
but i also don’t know how to change my perpetual lying
and awkward movements around you
so, mother, who do you want me to be?

you fell in love first with the curvature of my hips.

your love started at the base of my spine,
where skin and bone and all that was in between
were imbued with lust;
hips that moved of their own accord
against your own,
hips that jumped at every touch,
however rough or delicate,
and drank in your hands

then your love manifested in the indent of my waist,
fragile and so breakable with your sturdy hands framing me,
steadying me through the frantic rut of our bodies.
next, it materialized in my collarbone, all over my chest
in deep kisses and in your mouth on me,
in the desperation as i pressed myself closer to you
and the sinful things your tongue did to me

and then you kissed me;
between my lips, in every crevice of my mouth,
your love had infiltrated my soul,
marking my insides
and i reveled in the pleasant hum of my body,
knowing this is what it was made for
and that you were all i wanted

it was not sobering enough to realize
that this is not where love was meant to go

your love, in fact, was meant to reside on the surface of my skin,
nowhere near my fragile heart;
i had not planned for the shocking warmth of it there,
or how quickly attached i’d grown to it

it transpired that you hadn’t planned this either,
that you weren’t ready for someone to take a hold of your love
and make a home out of it

now, the memory is on the forefront of my mind,
stuck in my throat mixed with hurt,
because still you kiss a path down my throat,
hold me and bruise my skin,
my heart;
my organs are cold now,
only ceasing to shiver when you touch me

but when you are talking to other girls,
or ignoring me,
the nipping at my heart is merciless
and i feel like i am being devoured alive

i fall in love with hickeys that litter my skin,
praying and hoping i see you once more
before they disappear
taking your love with them

perhaps this is not love,
for it hurts too much to be kindhearted,
soft love that i mistook it for

still, i look for it in your eyes every time
before you close them and kiss me hard.

get yourself acquainted with new smells
and let them fill the sad corners of your home;
two months ago i would've told you
i wanted to bottle up his smile and keep it in my pocket
to remind me that i love him even when it got lost between all the heavy words

but he left a heart-shaped hole in my life
and the shape is too intricate for me to fill
with empty love
so i abandoned the space

beds can only be so comfortable
when you get used to them
and sink further into the mattress each day
you become prisoner to an idea of safety
and the feeling of emptiness

i left and found green gardens
roses and sunflowers; i thought
i'd never seen a flower in my life
he'd painted me a life so bleak i think i'd stopped seeing color

maybe i don't love the garden for its' flowers and grass
but i can finally feel the sun against my skin

i'd always thought i was too sensitive
because he was my sun

i promise you
this is not a sad poem
or a love poem
but rather an ode to
me
and all the gardens growing within me;

or even remember that
despite my sheer smallness and insignificance
writing poems helps me sleep
like weaving my own tapestry of bedtime stories
something larger than life to me

but i’ve forgotten how to write, i guess
i’ve forgotten how to sleep
and how much i loved both
granted, they felt like secondhand talents
thing i’d learned to love only because this pretty girl did
or this pretty boy told me i made words dance and twist

i’ve forgotten how to breathe, as well,
without every other breath sounding like a heavy sob
that i can’t stifle, simply because everyone keeps me at a distance
i might as well be standing alone
in a hallway with the whitest walls;

again, i’ve forgotten how to write poems
i can’t even find the words to tell you
how empty walking near you feels

it’s a distant memory to me,
writing poems
sleeping
breathing

a bit of the distance i’ve wedged there myself
like when i see someone being held
held like that is the only thing keeping them intact
i feel just a little more cracked

but believe me,
being touched makes me cower in fear
and i feel nothing
not the warmness of another body,
not the softness of someone’s heart,
whose made themselves vulnerable enough that you can see right through them

i can’t make myself that sheer
maybe invisible,
but not so crystal clear that you know what is inside;
it’s disgusting,
and you would not be in in the least bit interested,
unless maybe i was crying.

you are decidedly not the boy i love
no matter how closely you resemble him
and how sweetly you tell me he doesn't love me
i can't mould my fingertips so they fit your skin
i’m sorry
he’s all i think about
and all my fingertips crave

when his smile can be a lifeline
and break me all the same
i can not fool myself, or you,
into believing i love you
when your name is a placeholder that has never fit right
because his is sweet as it leaves my lips
and yours is dry and bland

that is not to say that you are dry and bland
but your smile pales in comparison to his
i’m sorry to tell you i have more love for that boy
than you have words to describe how beautiful i am
even when we both know you don’t find me that pretty

it is entirely possible he doesn’t find me pretty either
but i find him so beautiful i could spend days looking at him
and fall in love with him in a new way each day
even in my head
the thought of him
and how cruel his absence has been to me
makes me love him so much more

and i can safely say
you are decidedly not the boy i love
because i am a little glad every time there is distance between us
and there is always a cloak of insecurities and sadness draped upon my skin
that grows a little heavier when i touch you, and i fumble as i walk
but he manages to pull it off gracefully
tucking it away with care
because i think even my ugliness can be soft to his magical touch

i love him
so much more than i ever believed i could
in a way that is safe and caring
because cold and love spiked with thrill is something i no longer crave
now that i know how warm he is
please don’t touch me
when you know my heart and body belong to him
because i would not want to taint the love i have for him with your fingerprints;

this room is sad
drab
empty and unloved
i think
stupid, useless
aren't exactly the words i would use to describe myself
but you can see signs of wear and tear
recklessness in every corner of my room

incompetent, incapable;
here's the pencil, now make it work
except i've never been taught how to hold a pencil
i suppose that's the type of thing you should know
hold a pencil
and just
write

but the life has been beaten out of me
out of my hand
by poems i'm told i should appreciate
by blanks left in the sky
which beg to be filled in by me
what do i know?
about skies, about poems

i'd love it if i knew what my own room looked like
but lately i've been turning off the lights
only turning them back on in small corners
where i need to see pieces of my poems
i'm not so completely lost,
but then again, i am
ask me where i keep my clothes,
where my books are

the books i'd once known like the back of my hand
mean nothing to me in the dark
my hand means nothing to me in the dark
i may as well be the stuffy air
floating aimlessly

i swear, everyone else has soft nightlights
elaborate chandeliers that cast beautiful shadows across the floors

i know i am standing on the floor,
that i am sitting on the floor,
and those very same floors trap me in;
so i know no more than the floors.

i’ve been grieving
for the girl who used to live here
who was sprawled on this bed
disgusted by her own body,
my own body,
and yet

i am grieving for her
and the bedsheets are privy to my despair
because i am shapeless and nothing
even though i am still the same body
except now it is the only thing of mine
that i’m not disgusted by

this is a body you want, is it not?
that you wouldn’t mind touching,
getting lost in for a fleeting moment
before you discard of me;
i used to think my body was the reason
i bored you
and that if you didn’t love it,
i shouldn’t either

but i think there was a lot
of my awkward laughter and awful jokes you had to get through
before you realised
maybe i could be
hot

and then it became a matter of
convincing me that you could like my jokes
and me, for all my faults and shortcomings

and there is no one i expected this less from
which is why i handed myself to you
with the tools and a handbook on how to dismantle me
and i told you things that made me
me, things i could never have back

and i gave you my body
with confidence i didn’t know lived within me;
you were the only one i wanted
the only one i wanted to want me
and for one night
i didn’t feel like a pit stop
but someone in love
who could be loved

i didn’t expect this from you
and i don’t know what to do with my body
because i didn’t expect our friendship
to be synonymous with you wanting to **** me
and i couldn’t imagine a world where
sweet, sensitive and awfully bad at flirting
you would make my body disposable

but my body
has been disposed of;
and so has my laugh,
and my jokes,
because you loving me
meant me loving me
and i don’t think you are mean
or evil for not wanting me

but i can’t even hate myself
because i don’t know who i am anymore

i’ve been grieving
for the naive girl who put you on a pedestal
and herself right next to you,
who was more ashamed of herself
than her love for you;

and
one thing
i know about the nameless person
lying in my bed
is that she no longer has it in her
to love herself.

take the time to know your body
and love your twisted brain

i don’t like the way he looks at me anymore
because it scares me how fast his eyes turned hateful
and my skin is too sensitive to bare the heat
radiating from the sun

and it’s taken me so long to say it without any edge
but i need to find somewhere,
where the air is cleaner
and smiles are softer

and i’ll probably stay here for another year
but i’ve begun to favour bathroom stalls to open fields
filled with sharp kids who cut anyone weaker

and i’ve begun to understand that short
shy girls don’t have to fit in the same mold as everybody else
and i don’t have to break my back for anybody

now that i can breathe
maybe i’ll be alright.

a change of scene
from a boy whose hands are tainted with my blood
whose heart knows the ins and outs of my love
to one whose last name still sounds new
what was his last name, again?

a change of scene
to a boy who smiles demurely
like it is a secret he is capable of something so beautiful
demure isn’t a word you would associate with a boy
but this one is;
soft in every sense of the word
and i’ve come to enjoy hearing him talk
about mundane things and important things

but often i feel i am falling
for the feeling of falling
loving for the sake of loving
often i feel i am being redundant in my proclamations of love
because i simply don’t love him
perhaps a change of scene is just that;
a change, nothing more,
nothing less

but it is entirely true that my heart trips when i see him smile
and that when my face is close to his my mind goes hazy
is this not how i felt last time? was i not in love before?

maybe i love him, i think i love him

maybe the third time’s the charm
maybe this one will stick
this love is somewhat uninspired
like a stand-in to convince myself
i can love someone else
and i can love artificially
without bleeding on the carpet
but it is also innocent
in the way i watch his lip curl
and get distracted when his eyes widen

this love
probably isn’t love
but it is warm and taking its own shape
and it does not cut me deep like i have been before
so what choice do i have?

lodged between thoughts in the middle of the night
you creep up on me and steal little pieces of me,
for safe keeping, you say;
you are guarding them
but i miss myself when i am alone
and it is still and quiet outside

i need a cup of tea
and while the kettle boils
the cold granite counter grounds me;
for a split second
i am just someone
standing at a counter, waiting for the kettle to boil

but the steam on my face grows cold
and it reminds me of your volatile love
i like you better when you’re hot
and the warmth in my throat is exactly the opposite
of grounding
which is why
i need a cup of tea

what are you doing to me?
there is a deep well inside me
that always needs to be filled
by anything i can provide, but the ever-present hunger has never left me
and now it is shaped in such a way
that only you can satisfy it
and i keep trying to satiate my hunger
and i write
but none of it makes sense
and i fall in love with another guy
but i don’t really love him
at all

i don’t love you either
i just can’t get rid of you
because you are stuck in every joint in my body
in the air that i breathe
and i think
you probably hate being stuck there
just as much as i hate the discomfort of carrying your weight
but it’s not that easy
to pick my brain, my body apart
and extract you

so i make a cup of tea
and try to go to sleep.

poetry fuckboys exist solely in the notes folder on my laptop
and are only enigmatic because i make them so;
dressed in beautiful metaphors, skipping
to the measured cadences in my voice,
they are a lot more colourful

really, though, my poetry fuckboys
are nothing like the real ones who touch you because they’re bored
and leave grey marks on your skin
and probably i only write them the way i do
because it makes my ugly skin seem ethereal, etched with history
rather than scratched by years of carelessness

poetry lovers aren’t really real either,
at least for me;
more than anything, they are characters
that i fall in love with
because they are made of love songs i listen to
and the illusion that i am capable of love;
fiction based on lovers whose smiles, really,
fall flat and move nothing in my heart

there is nothing real, or subconscious
about the way my fingers ache
for no one in particular,
and attach themselves to those closest to me

boys who sometimes smile at me,
girls that seem to exist only to laugh
full belly laughs

and there are elements in my poems that are perhaps true
and visible if you knew who i wrote about
but this is not even remotely real,
living between pages of poetry
taking comfort in their warmth

and no matter how dressed up poetry is
i am not talented enough to pass a fake
as anything remotely genuine;
even poetry fuckboys and poetry lovers,
to whom i desperately show my poetry to prove i’m real,
realise i get stale pretty fast,
and eventually stop reading my poems.

after i’d gotten rid of the vines and thorns
cutting off the circulation in my arms
i’d finally escaped you, my love
you were no longer a constant reminder
that i am broken
and i am never enough
i’d become my own person

and ever since then
floating alone has been so blissfully intoxicating
because, yes,
i was still covered in scars
but i couldn’t hear your voice
or even remember it

now
my feet have touched the ground
and my skin is shocked at how harsh the wind can be
you were ugly and cold
but not all ugliness
and coldness in the world belongs to your heart

and i am so lonely
i will kneel on the ground
grasping at soil and far-gone corpses
in hopes to find someone

to just spend the day with;
not attach myself to,
but someone who’s company doesn’t suffocate me
that i can tell about the pretty girl i may be in love with
and about how sometimes i have dreams
that feel like nightmares

it would be okay
if i had someone
i don’t
and so much of the time i’m numbing myself
building walls between myself and my feelings
i can forget that it’s not okay

but it’s not,
and i wish i had someone to make it okay.

girls
who blur my edges and kiss the sharp lines away
have no place in my heart
which they've teared and cut into a worn ornament
i'm nothing on the outside
and i was cold before you cut me open
but now i'm numb

and when i'm not,
i notice all the blood
down my chest
down my arms
under my eyes, there is nothing flowery
or frivolous about this pain, love
except in your twisted eyes

you're not really in my heart anymore
because girls like you
eventually move onto bigger,
better things
but i'm never the same as i was
you broke me beyond repair
and i have no more breath to invest in loving you

please;
go back to where you came from

so i know you remember the first time you kissed me
how you kissed me
despite how drunk we were

this was a moment i would've loved to remember a lot more clearly
and i know you would too
because you told me

i am too beautiful to kiss drunk
when my two eyes could be four
and my lips aren’t really moving

i think i should not be so naive
to suspect that someone that coherent when they are intoxicated
could have anything within them
other than dark caves and voids that can not be filled

the next day
you taught me how to put pen to paper
and i felt so heartbroken that nothing came out

you drew beautiful portraits in red blood
that moved something in my heart
and made it click right

i do not think i quite understood any of your poems,
but they were so undeniably elegant
i fell in love with them almost as much as you

and i told you so,
so you kissed me

softer than before,
because this time you had the balance
and i had the anxiety boiling under my throat

your kisses
spilt blood over my paper
because you bit my lip so harshly
but then smoothed over your bites
and made them feel like the softest caresses

you were hurting me, though
with every touch
you chipped away at my armour
until i was naked
and i loved the feeling of your eyes dancing over my skin

but you didn't stop there
because underneath your pretty eyes
was a calculating look i ignored

how could you best break me?

and you would shake me until my parts couldn't hold up
throw me until there were individual pieces you could hold between your fingers

i don't know what you did with them
where you kept them
but i didn't miss them when your hands were on my waist
and when you stole my mouth
i couldn't exactly protest
but i wouldn't have if i could

my notebooks saw blood, though
more blood than they'd ever seen
spilling relentlessly like it was held captive in my vessels

this is probably a feeling i will never understand
because as much as i hated my body
and all that it held within
you made it feel right
in hindsight
you probably only ever touched me
because you wanted to make a home out of my body

still, that made me beautiful in your eyes
but you were draining me
just how long could i keep my skin youthful
and glowing when i was losing blood every waking minute?

i think i became a little deaf
to anything that wasn’t your voice
until one day you stopped telling me how beautiful i was
when you stopped writing poems about me
and started writing about another girl

this is how you cut me the deepest
and made me your very own poem
an artwork bleeding pain
and left me empty

and i used to think i had a bottomless pit within me
filled with blood and pain
but i’m running out
and i’m starting to see a little too much of you in my poems
i am starting to look at other girls
with the same calculating look you once cast my way

and i am realising
you never forgot me
perhaps you never intended to hurt me
if you were so empty you sought shelter in me
and killed me when you were trying to survive
i don’t think i could really blame you

besides
you still read my poems
so i know you still think about the first time you kissed me
just like i do

i don’t want to be thirty
and wasting brainpower on
not
hurting myself

i don’t want to be thirty at all
because for three years
i’ve thought that sixteen was the cutoff line
maybe college
but surely, someday,
i’d find it in me to **** myself

but one more year becomes two,
and i don’t even remember
any of the last few months
except crying
and writing poems to make myself feel better
and then not
feeling better

i don’t want to be spending thirty minutes in the shower anymore
digging my nails into my skin
teetering on the edge of picking up a knife,
feeling jealous of fourteen year old me
who got the chance to break my skin
or one month ago me
who was selfish enough to keep cutting her hip
even though she said she'd stop

but to present me
who hasn't drawn blood since then
the milestone
doesn't even feel like one
because this is the worst i've ever felt

and i don’t want to be this volatile,
that talking to someone for five minutes keeps me floating
and that not talking
to one person
will sink me;
this is not life,
and it is killing me
that all i do is not **** myself,
and i am tired of having each sentence start with suicide
bone tired, chillingly casual suicide
because nothing stops it

i’m going to **** myself, aren’t i?
i don’t know where my threshold is
and when i’m going to reach it
but i am barely scraping by
through days that should be a breeze

but what selfish ******* does that?
cuts herself and then promises people who love her that she'll stop
then promising herself to die because maybe they don't love her

me, i guess

i am just
so miserable
and sometimes i don’t care that my parents would be permanently broken
or my friends scarred;
maybe when i’m eighteen
and just a little more alone

maybe when i’m eighteen
i’ll finally **** myself

i’ve loved and been loved,
seen smiles so whole my heart grew tenfold,
then crumbled because it was too full.

a self-destructive act,
i fell in love with a girl who put all her love
right between us so i couldn’t see her anymore,
and i had to yell to reach her.
so she stopped listening because
all my words turned ugly.

and it took all the breath i had in me
to search the souls of others
and forget how soft hers was to the touch.

an alternative,
i found solace in the mouth of a boy who said
nothing ever could quite measure up
to the beautiful curves of my body.
somewhere in the midst of empty words
and miles of beautiful skin,
i found myself wondering if i fell in love with
the soft way his mouth find mine,
or the pretty words he spoke against my skin.

and so i broke him to see what was inside,
each cracked piece vanishing right in front of me
cutting my fingers
until i could only hold onto a bloodied memory
of the corners of his smile.

i found love in the details,
in two heart-broken heartbreakers
cut from the same cloth;

and i am the reckless seamstress
who holds scissors like they are
a toy, love like it is a toy;

and i am the defect.

no matter
how well i know that you still love me
in your twisted way that isn’t really love
i can’t help but wonder if that is a tale i’ve spun myself
to distract from the beautiful boy by your side
whose name is always on the tip of your tongue

i can’t deny that he’s beautiful
perhaps in the same way i was before my skin fell in love with my bones
and begun to cling to them like a lifeline
but when you put me next to the pedestal on which he stands
i want to break him like you broke me
because he is shiny where my skin has dulled
and soft where i've gone rigid
how could i possibly compare?

it does not help
that i think you really love him;
when i say you loved me, i usually mean the animalistic obsession you had with my innocence
you did not love me, not in a soft
and warm way
i almost don't recognize you when your eyes land upon him
immediately erasing me from your memory
my heart stops
because still, this is the hold you have over me
and i harbor more jealousy than i ever believed possible

i haven't touched you in what feels like decades
but i haven't forgotten your skin,
or at least my romanticization of it
and when your hand is on his cheek
my body aches
to wrench you two apart
and force you to see what you once loved about me

but this was never the type of hold i held over you,
in the same way i melt like putty in your hands,
you are hard and unmovable;
of your own volition,
you read my poems
but you don't touch me
you touch him

perhaps you find them laughable
after all, your poems remain masterpieces that carve my soul with pain
even to words,
i couldn't compare.

why are you so much nicer to me
when the sun sets?
no, why are you only nice to me when the sun sets?

this didn’t seem to be much of a problem during the summer
when i only ever the saw the moon
beautiful as ever, but still so sad;
when summer doesn’t feel like summer,
you would text me;
rather, i would text you
but it didn’t make much of a difference because your words
hung like stars themselves
suns,
delicate and ethereal
like i was privileged to see their light

when i only ever saw the moon
stars were awfully pretty,
stars that i clung to
like parts of a middle school production
hanging from string;
lifelines that glowed
and were warm, not scalding, to the touch;
and there were grown adults in the crowd,
watching a child monkey around on stage
but i was so awfully happy
i was so happy
it didn’t occur to me that i looked stupid

then the sun would rise
around the time i would fall asleep
and suddenly, miniature suns couldn’t hold a candle to that
this is something i was blissfully unaware of when i texted you at 3 pm
when i miraculously found myself awake and cold
this is something i was painfully aware of when you responded
at 3:02,
clipped and courteous,
like you were wasting your breath on me
in just those few syllables

at 6, i tried again
maybe
your stars needed to warm up
maybe they needed to rest
still
there was no hint of the warmth i remembered so vividly
from just last night
and even as the sun beat mercilessly at my skin,
reminding me it is summer,
and that i shouldn’t be glued to my phone,
summer didn’t feel like summer

you see, i’d come to learn that your stars
are ephemeral,
or in fact, your stars shine for whoever it is most convenient
to shine for
there are far better people to entertain in broad daylight
girls whose water soaked skin will glitter by the poolside
boys whose laughs are warmer than the asphalt beneath your feet
i couldn’t hold a candle to that

still, when the sun sets once more
and i text you, because i am once again cold
iwasneverwarmtobeginwith,
you glow
and radiate
and i hate that you glow and radiate,
and that i want you to emanate light for only me;
even so,
in the few hours i have before sunrise,
i will pretend you only glow for me
and that you always glow for me.

in which i wake up one morning
and find myself no longer cold and starved
in need of the warmth radiating from your eyes

or at least find you
a beautiful still
a video stuck on repeat
of the rise and fall of your chest
so hypnotizing i'd fall in love you at every
inhale;
exhale;

sleep suited you so well
when you were no longer stagnant and rigid
sharp lines melted into the mattress
and water was left to move
as it was meant to be

partially i'd hoped distance would blur every memory
every instinct to be close to you
but i'd begun by having nightmares so bleak
i saw you everywhere in the waking hours
behind my eyelids and right in front of me;
it'd become so distracting i could never really tell when you were truly there
tangible and so authentically you;

then i'd had the dreams
that have burned into my memory
and left a beautiful scar
that i would secretly love to wear with pride
in which some spectacular instance would make you realize
beautiful girls come in so many shapes
and perhaps i could be the beautiful girl
with whom you were enamored
it seemed real because i'd memorized every kiss you'd carelessly throw in my direction,
no matter how fleeting, it was your skin nonetheless
and i cherished it and twisted it into a beautiful tragedy
a real tragedy because i knew i could love you all the same.

then i wake up;
the rise and fall of your chest
the rise and fall of your chest
i think
if i say the words enough they will lose the gut-wrenching impact
and i'll no longer feel this dulled pain
that follows me wherever i go.

girls
who write about boys that can pin you down with their stare,
have fingers made of daggers
and even if they are drowning in oceans,
scattered enough that they can not cling to each other like a lifeline,
they will cut themselves gills
and swim until they forget what it’s like to not;
they are made of daggers
because boys like that are a type of poison
that ruins you so fast
and stains the inside of your skin
that makes you burn if anyone else tries to touch you

these girls know that skin can be infinite,
and forced upon yours like a messy graft
by someone who doesn’t even know your last name;
something as personal
and delicate as your skin
suddenly feels tight
and there is not enough, because skin can also be the size of a thumbnail
that any boy can twist
and break however he sees fit

there is something unfamiliar about your own body
which has grown with you longer than anyone,
once it has shrunk down to half its size
because suddenly
the birthmark on your hip feels ugly and foreign
like an intruder that has no business touching your hips
forcing his hands into your skin
your birthmark is tainted by his hands
and it is him
and your chest feels unnatural
like you hadn’t noticed before
but it is hugging you too tightly
and sticking to your body
even though it is your body;
this isn’t your body

it doesn’t matter if he butters you up first
and makes you feel lucky you can wear this skin
or if he immediately pulls it off
without even trying to convince you to let him
there is nothing remotely comforting about taking it back
once it has touched his bones
it never sits the same atop your bruised soul

but no matter how much it may hurt
for your bare hands to touch anything
you pick up a pen
and you put it to a piece of paper;
the ink bleeds until you lift it off
and there is a power in controlling a bleeding
so much like the one in your heart
there is a power in holding a pen
and finding your hand steady
the stillness so alien now, but welcome

and you may not know it,
but it takes a particular bravery that does not grow within all hearts
to write things you couldn’t admit even to yourself
to yield all your control to a pen
and make yourself vulnerable to it
is both weakness, and strength,
softness, and rigidity;
you are irrevocably damaged, skin and bones,
but you are not broken
and so you write

you write him death threats,
composed of ugly words that match his face
and you tell him he didn’t deserve to touch you,
you now realise he didn’t deserve to touch you,
and you write your mother;
it does not matter what you write her
because you are finally breaking a hard crust that has covered your heart for so long
and the ink mixes with tears
and when you read your poems aloud
you heal a little more;
your words used to be guarded
stiff, no matter how fluid you tried to make your writing
but now that your skin sits easier,
the words lounge across the lines
and it is unimaginably beautiful that anything that profound came out of you

girls
who write about boys that can pin you down with their stare,
have fingers made of daggers
and hearts made of steel
whether they ever heal completely,
if they can heal completely,
they have swum to shore
across miles of water that was made to drag them down,
and found soft sand that pillows their bruised skin;
there is pain
and there may always be pain in being
but there is also warmth
and comfort
and a sweet ache in your muscles now that they have finally
stopped
i promise you,
you can rest easy here
this is a safe haven in which you do not need to worry about him
or any other boy
because you found it in you to swim far enough to get here
and that is much more powerful
than any force he could muster up within him
to convince you
you aren’t worth the skin you wear;
the beautiful, soft skin
that hugs you just tightly enough
finally belongs on your body again.

she is a pop song stuck in a teenaged girl’s head, lyrics to your caption. a tune that is so persistent, but one you can’t quite remember.

i wonder who wrote the words to my song; was it me, a hopeless romantic in search of a melody i couldn’t tire of, or all the guys i use to validate my body? was it me, the girl who holds sharp objects to her skin and scars the words into her heart, or the girl who broke it?

i am every pop anthem, the ones you get drunk to, the ones that preach acceptance and self love. i am the ones that girls get ***** to, and the ones that advocate feminism. i am black and pink.

but i am also a sad poem, the kind that you write instead of killing yourself, the kind whose words are itching to break out of your skin, break your skin. i am the poem that hurts your fingers as you put pen to paper, as you bleed your soul out.

it gets a little pathetic
when i'm writing poems about boy number four
and they ring the same tone as the ones before,
when their touches and words and kisses
are interchangeable
and they are reduced to nothing more than
a number

i’m throwing myself a pity party,
in honor of a new milestone;
a pattern repetitive enough that i can predict it months in advance
but do nothing to stop it
i’m throwing myself a pity party,
and you’re all invited

share your stories with one another
about dear old me,
the girl who once had the brightest smile and the sweetest hugs,
who fell slowly and hard for the idea of a boy,
convincing herself she could love him, forcing herself to love him.
how similar are your stories
about the one who thrived on your love
until she was left cold and starved?

i say she loved you, but really
you know she didn’t;
now you know you are a number on a list,
one she doesn’t even know about,
knocked down before she moves down to the next
you now know she is a master of manipulation,
for she has tricked us all into thinking she is the victim
but how conscious of her own manipulations is she?

this girl’s sleep comes in restless fits,
interrupted by images of boys that blend in together;
the one who ****** her in the dark,
the one who turned her heart into a pit stop,
the one who smiled into her eyes while he twisted a knife in her back

and you, boy number four,
the one who has already managed to break her
maybe it gets easier the more worn down she is,
the closer she is to the bottom of the list

maybe she doesn’t know there is a list,
a cut-off line,
a pattern of boys;
the harshest truth this girl has ever faced
is the inevitability of loneliness
and she is blindly going through the motions
of someone looking for love,
though perhaps she can’t even do that

so i am throwing myself a pity party,
and letting my ghosts keep me company.

i like being held by you,
head on your chest,
heartbeat echoing in my mind

i like being close to you,
enough to feel the rise and fall of your breathing,
or the smallest twitch in your stomach

i like your arms wrapped around me,
making me feel small
but safe in your hold;
i like it when you squeeze me tighter
like you're scared of letting go
or losing me

i like how warm you are,
how soft and pliant your body is against mine
like it is made to meld
just for me

i like when you trace patterns on my back,
nonchalantly run your fingers up and down my arm;
when you rest your head in the crook of my neck,
and the sensitive skin jumps at your touch

i like your hand on my hip,
on my waist,
under my shirt;
your skin belongs on mine,
and there is an exhilarating warmth
spreading through me at every touch

i like the way my skin begs to be touched,
grabbed, soothed,
triggered only by the heat radiating off you;
i like the way it jumps when you do touch it,
like a christmas wish fulfilled

i like anything that exists in the same space as us,
when there is no room left between our bodies,
like you are my lifeline and i am yours

and, to be honest,
i quite like you too.

bring everything i love just within reach
joy with a noose tied around it
and smiles
have become insufficient
because only when we've cut them down
and weighed them against others'
do we find solace in knowing
at least i'm doing something right;
at least i'm normal

of all the people standing in the same room
staring blankly at each other
i seemed to struggle the most
with reconciling words on screens
and human interaction
which has become so alien to us
i almost forgot how to reach out to you

this boy that i liked
that i had invested oxygen and beautiful poems in
had given me fleeting glances and midnight inklings of loneliness
embedded his own pain in the corners of my smile to carry
i let him
because he told me he loved my smile
but it was never enough that i only wept silently
in the privacy of my room

because even there
he'd seemed to find a way in
through my screen
he'd trace every jagged word
and every dark thought
back to me and i'd watch him break me
over and over
paralyzed with the fear that he'd stop loving me
because i wasn't there to make him see through me

i wonder how differently i could write our story
if we weren't so separated
two
different
distant beings
i suppose i was able to see how little you cared
to have never picked up the phone
and ask me how i was doing.

i found that you are my great big love

these are usually decisions i make myself,
roles i assign to innocent boys,
but you have filled this position regardless of my objections;
though i don’t really have any.

you have become the beat-up sneakers
that are strewn in the hallway of your house,
white and *****,
fraying at the edges

you have become the stuffed animal i bought you,
which you hold every night in your sleep
and i love the ****** bear almost as much as i love you

i see you in your sweater that hangs on the back of my chair;
i am almost too scared to wear it,
to defile its essence as something that belongs to you,
but i can not help but bury my face in it from time to time.
it is like a little pocket of you i can carry
whenever you are not with me

you are the books i lend you,
ones i now associate with the words falling from your lips,
upon which i trip;
you speak beautifully about books,
and though i struggle to keep up,
it is a soft fall that i endure,
one i will gladly endure.

you are a playlist i made
of songs that lay a roadmap of our love,
songs that remind me of different points in relationship,
though you nearly always plague my mind;

it has come to a point where everything
that happens to coincide with your presence in my life
is inherently you;
the joy i possess is you,
the warmth that swarms my body is you,
the smile tugging at my lips

and i love finding you everywhere,
because this is exactly where you belong.
in every corner of my room, of my own skin,
you are proudly displayed;
because you are my great big love, my dear,
and this is exactly where you belong.

as much as every perfectly chosen word
inked onto the pages of a love story;
the glances i quickly steal when you look away,
the words i tentatively send at three a.m.
confessing things i didn’t know lived within me
now forming and taking space between us

your arms host thousands of my insecurities and fears
and you seem to hold them so lovingly
so i am no longer scared of giving them life;
the love with which you hold things that are pocket-sized versions of me
is a love embedded in my memory, sparked to life every time i look at you,
you look at me,
i really think we love each other the same way
because the beauty i see in you,
could be seen in me by someone who handled fragile things with care
i think i could be beautiful in that way
which is to say, i think i could be revered,
because this is a beauty i worship,
ever-present in my dreams, and fresh in memory during my waking hours

i am not so delusional to believe i am a god,
but i must have mistaken the softness in your eyes
for a sort of appreciation
love that only you could harbour for me,
because you do not love me
i’ve learned, painfully,
that i am a fool for loving so easy
and that most people do not toss such a delicate feeling around so recklessly
and trustingly,
for good reason
because now this is love blanketed in pain
and anxiety that does anything but cushion the fall

on paper, i swear we make sense
and i can believe that you do not love me
but there are several pieces missing
i must be seeing myself differently in the mirror than you do
because i thought we made sense
but if you do not love me, maybe i am not the person i thought i was with you
that girl is not stupid enough to fall into this type of trap
but i am
you should have told me how ugly i really am;
i must be, if my heart is not one you could embrace

and i need to take back all the pieces i gave you
because it no longer makes sense for you to hold them the way you do
even if there is still space, empty,
i do not want to be touching you
or for you to be touching anything that is remotely me
because i think i could easily believe you love me all over again.

this is not love
but a fetishisation of
drowning and dying breaths

don’t try and tell me this is how it should feel
that the lack of blood on your hands
somehow makes you innocent
you are implicated through the slashes on my heart,
love, there is no getting around the fact that you wielded a knife
and recklessly stabbed at me

to say that you loved me
is to say you fell in love with how bloodied you left me
don’t misunderstand,
i am not the pain you embedded within me
love is much too fragile for you to understand
or even recognise
and if there was ever any trace of love between us
that would let you blink for a second
and touch me softly
you murdered that

the distance remains, and the empty space helped me see
you are twisted and dark, love,
and i could never fall in love with you
or even look at you

don’t try and tell me i’m broken
i am, but not because i love you
you arranged the pieces of my heart
into ugly slurs that made me feel so worthless
how could you love me, or even pretend you did?

this is not love,
but the residue of the unhealthiest of attachments;
calling you love is kind and caring
and you deserve neither, love.

there is nothing less comforting than the whiteness of a hospital
clinically and methodically assaulting your senses
which have already endured enough to last you a lifetime of pain;
for a place made to heal people, it is awfully lifeless
and cold

i was so cold
the whole time
and i don't know if that was anxiety or real
normal cold
but i was shaking
even when they gave me the scratchy, paper thin blanket
i was shivering

mom
i'm sorry we're even here;
if i'm sorry for what happened, or for telling her
it doesn't matter
because the awkward
and silent acknowledgment of how artificial our love is
is broken;
this is a discomfort that's far worse
because more than anything
this is discomfort

how do i tell you i lied
about every time i left the house
until i was lying about things that didn't matter
inconsequential details i still wanted to hide away from you?
because showing you any part of me felt uncomfortable
like exposing a healing wound to the cold air

a hospital waiting room
is probably the worst place to have this type of conversation
so instead i carry the weight, and sit stiffly next to you
and distract myself with nurses and women in wheelchairs

why are they here?
are their stories as tragically stupid as mine?
because it really is tragically stupid
a poem titled **** kit
should probably be about a girl who was *****

i don’t know if i was *****
i thought i was
then i thought i wasn’t
then it didn’t matter because i was speaking with a nurse
who told me we’d have to report this

i don’t even have any metaphors tucked away
waiting to be eloquently written
about how still the air was
i don’t remember a shift in noise;
all i remember was crying uncontrollably

what an effective way to wreck a girl’s life;
for a minute,
i thought this was karma for lying
surely i was lying
because this wasn’t happening to me

but it still didn’t matter
because i was now talking to a doctor
and my parents stood at the edge of a hospital bed
looking at me like i was contaminated

and when she took her leave
i wanted to beg her to stay,
because i didn’t want to be locked in a room,
feeling contaminated and disgusting,
with such an ugly reality choking the air
shoving itself so far down our throats
that every time i found the courage to speak through the knot in my throat
my dad would look down at me
like he hated me
i think he hated me

i hated myself a little, too,
because nothing would ever be comfortable again
and we would always be sitting on a ticking timebomb
waiting for it to blow up, any minute

when would we acknowledge this?
when would my parents realize
this was realer than any of us were comfortable with
and blow everything to smithereens?

this is what it feels like
to push a boulder down a hill;
because i’m reckless and stupid
i am not a coward
and i’m not scared of some guy who got drunk
and got me drunk
but i am, if anything, stupid

this isn’t a thought experiment;
i have to keep reminding myself,
because what i set in motion would **** people
my parents were just collateral damage
and i think my mom still beats herself up for not standing up to my dad
and he beats himself up for letting his own daughter get to a point
where she felt it was wise to lie to him and hook up with a guy in an abandoned house

but once the dust had settled, and they'd both recovered from the shock of realizing
i was no longer their daughter,
but an incredibly stupid person,
i had become collateral damage as well

there is probably nothing that can prepare you
for the feeling of your own dad calling you a *****
in so many languages,
and so many different words,
you’d think it would lose its’ punch
but it never does
and each time you take a blow
he yells louder
because, why are you crying?

why would you be crying,
when you did this?

i was a stranger to my own family
not because they think i was *****
but probably because they know i don’t think i was *****;
this hospital
has broken me more than anything that boy has done to me

because he is a stupid fifteen year old
who gave some girl he liked ***** because she begged him for it
but these are big, white walls
fully conscious of what they do to anyone roaming these halls
because my life isn’t now divide into
before he ***** me
and after

but before i stepped foot in that hospital
and after.

for every poem i'd ever written,
i wondered what my near candid thoughts
sound like to a stranger;
when i wear my heart on my sleeve
except it's draped in metaphors and vague sentences
how is anyone meant to understand
that this is the beautiful boy i'm talking about?
or that on some very specific day
i endured a trauma no one will fully know?

often i feel sad
in an empty way
like a mug no one drinks out of
and i don't even have enough emotion within me to write poems
so i read other people's poems;
perhaps it will fill some void within me
if i find the perfect set of words to explain everything away
and yet
none of them make sense to me
every trauma, every boy loved
doesn't make sense to me when i haven't experienced it

and perhaps i love poetry for all the wrong reasons,
because i never just
find it pretty;
but instead put the ugliest words inside me on paper
and shape them until i can stand to look at them

and there is little to nothing honest about it
but i am usually choking with these words
and anything remotely true on paper
may just ease my heartache,
so i write;

you've properly terrified me
of ever letting you exist outside my imagination
where i can paint you however i like;
however i need to before i fall asleep
and dream of you once more

you've properly terrified me
of my own smile
and made the stretch of lips across my teeth
feel so unnatural and foreign
tight and uncomfortable
i hate smiling, love
so much so that i’d rather weep in front of you
than feign a smile
you’ve shattered my smile

i've forgotten
what soft can be
after i’d gotten so used to the harsh distance between me and your skin
i can’t even remember if it was truly soft
or if that is another figment of my imagination
i just know that you broke me
along with any illusion of love and safety i harboured within

and then
halfway through this poem
you stepped outside my mind
and, realer than ever,
put words in my mouth
so sweet i never thought they could exist within me

you broke any delusion i had of you being perfect
with apologies sewn into your heart
but you weren’t evil either;
you existed in a realm somewhere in between
that my fragile brain could not comprehend,
but one in which my fragile brain could exist
i wasn’t going to break,
because your hands held me up

i was happy enough that my smile made home of my face once more
until, that is,
it started feeling tight and unnatural again;
love, i’m beginning to understand
not even a dozen roses
engraved with ‘i love you’s and the right words in the right order
can rearrange my broken,
rotten heart;
i love you,
but love in this fragmented desert
does not grow that much,
through no fault of your own,
i assure you;
you just chose to damage the wrong girl’s heart.

if you shake me hard enough
that my brain liquefies and pours out my eyes
i couldn't tell you what would come out

a translucent stream of drunken mistakes,
the putrid smell of a thousand unrequited loves,
the anxiety biting at my nails,
or nothing, maybe.

maybe the things that fill my head
until it swells
are made purely of oxygen
and the belief that i am anything more
than an animated shell of a human.

nonetheless, my head throbs
with empty and full thoughts,
they resonate within my limbs,
traverse the edges of my fingers and manifest in shaky hands.

my empty thoughts,
they lead me nowhere,
walk with me in circles until i get dizzy.
i have rationalized every feeling of mine
until it's become a linear code i force myself to operate,
until it is no longer what it is

i've built myself into someone i'm not,
because i only have my thoughts,
but they are not me.
so if you shake me hard enough,
until my heart falls through my stomach,
i couldn't tell you what would come out.

there is a boy i've mentioned in my poems
only a few times,
not enough to elicit the thought that i love him

but i do;
in actuality, i probably don't
since i have a tendency to label things love
from corpses to blooming gardens;
i wouldn't recognise love if it knocked me out
but i like to imagine my poems are about love

so i love him,
and the songs he sings to me
and the words he sews especially for me
but after thousands of love poems,
the word becomes a little bit redundant

even when he says it for the first time
and it tastes new and foreign on my skin
it becomes stale so fast
and i anticipate it

maybe he also misunderstands love
and only likes my corpse
but to me
they are the same

kiss me
even though i choke on your name
and burn when you look away
i promise you i am fragile
in a beautiful way

you are not like any other boy who's touched me
but i won't get mad if you break me;

self-destructive chaos ensues:
the sinuous arch of her back,
the thrill of seedy stalls.
empty words, empty stomach,
on which i drink gasoline.

i drink gasoline.
it tastes bitter,
it tastes like her.
i chug gasoline.

burn my lungs,
fry my brain,
but fill my heart, alas.

can i chalk up my prudish ways to a stifling, arab upbringing?
one where my mother would often comment on the bra strap showing beneath my shirt,
or my dealings with a boy in public;
where *** is never isolated from marriage

i don't care about *** and marriage,
*** before marriage,
but perhaps it is difficult to scrub my mind clear of that kind of thinking

conservative, we called it;
more than anything, it suffocated me

but perhaps i could chalk it up to the first boy
whom i gave the privilege of proving my mother wrong;
proving that *** and love were not mutually exclusive;
perhaps i could blame the boy who abused this privilege,
kissed and touched me of his own accord,
and scarred my appetite for anything that intimate

perhaps he is just an overeager boy, me a shy girl

but here i am,
incapable of kissing another without shaky hands,
the feeling that it is distinctly not right to be here
kissing someone,
despite how much i want to

so who’s to take the blame?