Early clumsiness
Spilled coffee on my white shirt
Friday the 13th

A body
three times
renewed

When did my life become all about other people?
Instead of focusing on myself,
I focus on others and what's going on in their lives.

There is a fine line between caring about others,
And mothering others.
I think I've crossed the line.

Even when I go to counseling,
All we talk about is how I can't change people.
I can't be responsible for people.
I can't always help everyone.

All we talk about is others problems and why they might act a certain way towards me.
Not really how I can block them out or anything.

I'm tired of being angry and sad and scared everyday of my life
And everyone just acts like it's nothing.
Like I need to put aside what I need for me
And put them first because my problems aren't nearly as important.

It's scary because I want to focus on myself,
But I feel this responsibility over others
Like if I don't watch them, no one else will,
And sometimes I don't really think they can watch themselves.

I am caught.
Trapped.
With no way out.

I could work on myself and forget the others,
But some of them might do something drastic.

I could work on others and forget myself,
But then what will I become?

Lost.

You are a kind of comfort
I want to wrap myself in
A type of warmth
That I have never quite known
It is christmas in your arms
There are street lights in my stomach
And I am dancing on pavement
Dimly lit yet glowing
I have never been
So content with feeling small
But I want to be folded into the pocket
Of your favorite winter jacket
And found when shuffling hands search for memory
Admist chilly air and temperature
I know
That California
Does not know cold as well as I do
But if it did
I'm sure
Would want to be under your shelter
I'm certain
If California
Knew you
It would envy
Your warmth.

in summer,
steel-hearted girls
play dress up,
hiding fears
in secret parts of their souls,
swallowing keys
to unvoiced thoughts,
and swearing
to keep their lips sealed tight

in summer,
steel-hearted girls
play dress up,
searching for the
perfect disguise

Never trust a white man,
Never **** a Jew,
Never sign a contract,
Never rent a pew.
Don't enlist in armies;
Nor marry many wives;
Never write for magazines;
Never scratch your hives.
Always put paper on the seat,
Don't believe in wars,
Keep yourself both clean and neat,
Never marry ******.
Never pay a blackmailer,
Never go to law,
Never trust a publisher,
Or you'll sleep on straw.
All your friends will leave you
All your friends will die
So lead a clean and wholesome life
And join them in the sky.

In my despair will you be there tonight.

I have been trying to stop romanticizing introductions
Attempting to grasp the reality
That not everyone I meet is a potential soulmate
My mind was just born open I guess
Conditioned to want to love at first sight
I am more so addicted to people than I am smoking
I have been trying my hardest
To keep my expectations low
Understand that not everybody has the intention of staying
I have had too many hellos turn into goodbyes
And
Too many hugs turn to leaving
I had been trying
To learn the opposite of welcome
Embrace temporariness with arms as wide as my eaget heart
So when we met
On a directionless sunday
In the living room you were calling home for the week
Know that
It took everything in my power
To not let down my guard
It wasn't until the quiet of the night
That I realized
I had already dropped
Goodnight turned to words to questions
To 3am caress
I was in your arms before I could even stop myself from letting go
But you
Are not the meaningless
One night momentary bliss I am used to
You
Are everything I have tried to avoid
For fear of losing again
I am trying to figure out how it is possible
That you are the kind of thing I'd been attempting to refrain from
Yet exactly what I want at the same time
You are the nicotine from the 5am cigarrette on your last night in town
Your goodbye serving as reminder to everytime I have been let down
But there was more hope in your seven letter goodbye
Than there is in any poem I have ever written
I am saying grace in a language that I still do not fully understand
And although both distance and time
Are two names that usually define ending
I see beginning
I see different
When we kissed
I could taste the promise of future on your lips
My hands spelled out in the creases of your back
Said exactly the same as you did before you left
Said please don't forget me
So please
Don't.