it always hits trees before the ground:
sunlight, rain, snowfall, moonlight.

last night i forgot myself;
told you that sun burns but doesn't warm,
rain wipes memories and leaves amnesia,
snow muffles what rain doesn't drown,
and moonlight does what the sun couldn't:
scorches skin to ashes.

last night i forgot myself;
told you how i was meant for the stars,
not the planet beneath.

last night i forgot myself
but you offered to be the trees
if i would be your earth.

i wish i were a hero
so that i could save you
from the enemy:
myself

people compare depression to
not being able to get out of bed

for me it's always been more like
getting up and not knowing
what to do
next

i lived on prayers and bon jovi
screaming only the good die young
at the top of my four-year-old lungs

my address is on 8th road north
but i was always more at home
where the streets have no name

i still remember september 11 2001
when my father turned off his radio
i called it the day the music died
and learned to dance with myself

now i sign my love letters with
"yours", "wish you were here", and
"don't let the sun go down on me"

(i think it's gonna be a long, long time
before i forget you and the music
you made me hear)

sometimes i wish i were a poet,
if only so that i could tell you
the impossible with words.

my body's an atomic wasteland
after the explosion that was you
my heart's just a geiger counter
counting the years since we blew

once upon a time*
and we all know how this story goes:
there's a princess in a tower
waiting for true love to find her.
don't lie: you wanted to be royalty
back before reality set in.
you outgrew it.

i never did.
i've always loved fairytales
but i never wanted to be the hero.
i'm no damsel in distress.
me? i wanted to be the dragon.

i wanted to plunder and pillage,
to put myself first,
to take instead of give.

i wanted to kidnap the princess
and feel the rush of power
that comes from leaving
a kingdom in fear.

i wanted to live for myself.
i wanted to not care when
someone told me to do better,
when people called me failure.

i wanted to burn people with my fire
like i wished i could with words.

i wanted to be legendary,
divine,
better
than
before.

i wanted to be the dragon
because the dragon always dies.

you laugh long and loud
tell me anger is uncalled for
tell me "it's a compliment"

i want to tell you this:
my ancestors killed thousands
conquered nations
burned kings alive
yet somehow you think
that i can't do the same

maybe i'd just like to know
what makes you human
when you've torn me down
so inhumanly

AVA:** drinking sriracha so that i can feel something
GRACE: *** how'd it go
AVA: not well
GRACE: *** ava u liar u r practically a genius
AVA: that's hilarious
AVA: sayS THE GIRL IN GENIUS MATH
GRACE: wish you were here
AVA: what???
GRACE: nvm, ignore me
GRACE: wrong person

GRACE: i'm sure ur test went fine

maybe i don't tell you how scared i am of hurting. maybe i want you to know anyways. maybe i keep quiet even though my mind screams wild like the summer sun. maybe i wish that someone knew me well enough to know when my mind burns, and that you never throw water on a grease fire unless you want me to explode.

i am tired of being tired.
i am tired of being.

these dreams can never be realized.
these emotions will crash and burn.
these thoughts drive me insane.

i am tired of imagining
better days,
better years,
better lifetimes.
i am tired of imagining
worlds not at war.

i am tired of my mind whirling
and rushing and breaking
over and over and over -

"let me go."
"never."

i am tired of being tired.
i am tired of being.

here's what i remember:
fighting over whose laugh was better
(yours, no matter what you say);
pounding our feet on the dance floor
like we could shake our worlds;
loving you so much that my teeth ached
at the very thought of you.

my friend says i only remember the good,
reminds me of tears and heartbreak.
i tell her memory is fickle,
just like you.

i love you in sixteen ways:
one for each year of my life.

don't fear me fading.
with every breath that passes,
i'll just love you more.

numbers pounding into my head,
equations holding the universe
black and white before me

yet there's no variable,
no function to solve
that tells me the secret
of your love

poets are the people with the words in their veins
worlds in their minds beating against the curves of their skull
syllables in their palmprints

poets are the people who look at you and see
the galaxies underneath your skin
instead of the spiderweb cracks
on the surface

poets are the people who fall easy and live hard
(you've always been jealous of them
and you're not sure why)

(maybe it's got something to do with
the wisdom you know they know
and the seventeen ways
they know how to live)

i am not a poet
i'm just trying
to figure out
who might be

i met you exactly once.
i was five and you were tall
and you'd brought me some toy
(stereotypically girly).
i've never played with dolls
and you apologized for assuming.
a week later
you sent me some legos.

i've seen you exactly twice.
the first, i barely remember.
the second i recall all too well
because my parents were crying
but my cousin,
your son,
wasn't.

i find myself wishing i'd kept the **** doll
because the legos you got me
were mixed with the others
a long time ago.

twenty-four hours spent on you,
and i think i'm done mourning
the one thing we never had.

WHY CAN'T YOU TELL ME
THE THINGS I TELL YOU

I WANT TO BEAR
YOUR BURDENS TOO

how lucky i am
to have loved
and been loved by
you.

(luck
has never been
on our side.)

i tell you, yes. i know.
alexandria burned
brighter than my soul.

you are 17 and still breathing.

you know there are people who have galaxies in their hearts, stars in their hair, and moons in their eyes. you're not one of them. you're not one of them and that's okay.

you? you know where the true secrets lie.

they do not reside in universes humans will never know, in stars light-years away. no, true secrets can be found only in what we think we know. we have never seen many of the stars. we have all seen birds' nests and clouds in an otherwise clear sky. we have all seen someone cry and someone laugh and someone breathe.

we have all seen two people look at each other like the person in front of them is the only thing in the universe. we have movies and books and songs and stories all about love. but we have never known it. we have never understood it.

you tell me i don't know what the secret is? i tell you, of course i don't. you don't either. that's why it's a secret. that's why it will never be solved.

you are oil on asphalt.
when it rains,
you glow.

i can't breathe.
my lungs are filled with
your words,
your hands,
your skin.

i'm drowning.
i'm suffocating.
but with every breath
i don't take,
i feel.

(you bring me alive.
it's funny 'cause
you're killing me.)

we were born for greatness.

let us ride this out,
take this town for ourselves.
let us chain smoke on the rooftops
and drink in the alleys.

let us shout the iliad
at the top of our lungs
to those who will not listen
and those who will not care.

let us travel the globe
in the name of life.
let us dance in korea, brazil, italy,
and return better than before.

let us learn of language,
of the universe inside us,
of people long dead
and of people still living.

we were born for greatness.
let us be great.

i don't want to drown, you say.
you jump back in anyway.

he and you are a whirlpool
save for one thing:

the two of you will burn.

i'm getting tired of waiting on you.

and i'm starting to think
that you're getting tired, too.

v.
you, my dear, are cruel -
a cruel girl for a cruel world.
you'll laugh as they burn.

vi.
i tried to save you
from a monster. it turned out
the monster was you.

vii.
hunt us down. watch me:
i will pledge my heartblood oath
if it's in your name.

viii.
swallow the earth whole.
you're the titan among us.
none can stop you now.

do you hear me, stars?
draw me into your constellation, cassiopeia.
tell me how you were once beautiful.
i'll tell you that you still are.

do you hear me, sky?
orion hunts comets, supernovas, galaxies.
every night, he catches them all.
he lets them go alive.

do you hear me, moon?
tonight perseus and andromeda escape
to the milky way, sing over neptune.
feel them in venus' dunes.

do you hear me, earth?
tomorrow i'll count the countless stars.
if you knew how to measure infinities
you'd discover our worth.

do you hear me, stars? (i know you do.)
hercules, break open my heart.
teach me the secrets inside.

the night they wed,
cinderella slits the prince’s throat.
she won’t trade her prison
for a pretty cage.

the beast conquers nations,
but beauty’s the one telling him how.

aurora wakes herself.
she’ll spend centuries guarding
a city that never stirs,
and she never questions
her duty to people long gone.

rapunzel burns the tower.
ariel rules the sea.

blood is thrumming in these veins:
to the beat of the sun’s breaths,
to the pulse of echoed birdcall,
to the rhythm of screaming life.

this heartbeat is dripping lava beneath the earth;
these eyes are morning mist draping pines;
these bones are hollow like the first snow;
these fingers are peaks brushing icy clouds;
in the right is held an ocean; the left, the desert sands;
and every inhalation mirrors another’s death.

try and tell me you are indestructible.
try and tell me you are paramount.
try and tell me you are not of the earth –
i dare you.
(these tides will rip you apart.)

this is a love story told in metaphors,
because words can’t say how gravity
pulls on planets and suns and stars,
but they’ll be gone before they touch.

this is a love story told in metaphors.
giving voice to drowning in an ocean
of red will never be possible – despite
our myths of old, we’re only human.

this is a love story told in metaphors:
we are of fire and ice, forever apart;
of twilight, when night and day strain
for each other but always fall short;
of science, faith, and all in between;
of concepts of “peace” and “human”;
of two things that shall never coexist.

this is a love story told in metaphors
because i do not know why i am still
reaching for you when we’ll always be
stopped by something greater than us.

we are a love story told in metaphors.
outside of words, our souls will surely
explode.

i have felt hanzi in my blood
fireworks in my skin
dragons in my bones

i have looked at a cloudy sky
and thought of guangzhou
of shenzen
of nanjing

walls and death and power are my legacy
i was born the descendant of a tyrant
but i have changed it
twisted it
and now i am the ancestor of a diamond age

once upon a time we bound our feet in rags
and hobbled on dirt-packed roads
but not anymore
not anymore
now we sprint full-out to the east
the rising sun calls us like silken whispers
and we laugh at those who would hold us back

walls and death and power are the legacy
of those who reach for it
of those who write defiance on their chests
in ****** pinyin
and above all
of those who take the fireworks from their skin
and scream them alive

her eyes hold thunder
and her blood is magma.

what matters love
to a goddess of death?

power and love
cannot coexist,
but the sun told me
you were made for both.

the moon told me
you took them in your teeth,
burned them with your words,
and spat out the ashes.

they say history is written by the victors,
but the conquered are the ones romanticized.

i want to be remembered.
i want our love to sing through the ages
echoed louder than any battle, any war.

i want our enemies’ grandchildren
to liken themselves to our passion,
our desire, our madness.
i want to be the next scarlet letter
and i will waste away in moonlight
if someone remembers me for it.

if history is written by the victors
then i don’t want to win.