If I have learned anything
in the sixteen years
that I have existed,
it's to:
1. Drink coffee even if it's just because you like the taste
2. Wake up early but sleep in when you want to because the world can wait for you
3. Take chances
4. Give second chances
5. Get piercings, they'll heal
6. So will broken hearts
7. Go for walks because life is moving too fast to run
8. Listen to live music when you can
9. It's not karma if you haven't done anything wrong
10. Don't beat yourself up over the bruises on your heart when someone else put them there
11. People are just people, don't be afraid to say something
12. Read
13. Love
14. Love again
15. It's okay to go somewhere by yourself, enjoy it, drink your tea in peace and watch everyone else around you
16. Growing up is not a trap

By Chloe Elizabeth

it's not that I want to ruin my body,
but you ruined it.
you did this to me
cuts
they don't make me any stronger,
in fact they make me weak.
all the pain, all the truth
I wear like a battle wound.
you
you did this to me.
and for some reason, the loss of my own blood doesn't upset me.
the loss of my dignity doesn't upset me.
but, the loss of you does.

girl swirls dreams in her drink.
boy spills ink on the carpet.

they swing below an oak;
laugh and dream, kiss and consider.
their feet curl, intertwine,
touch along the fallen leaves.

in hands and time
is the condensation of what is said to be true love.
only they don’t know.

later that night;
they drink and cuss, they fight and ****.
their feet curl, intertwine,
play at the end of the sheets.

they warm.
boy writes librettos,
girl reads them,
together they cook delicious dishes.

girl disappears into the distance,
one day.
& boy spirits away,
to the elephant burial grounds.

days,
months,
years later, they run into eachother on the streets
of a northwestern city.
smile mostly,
say not much.

boy has his poetry.
girl has her *******.

He is the extraordinary one,
the one who grew wings and flew away.
Went to the City of Angels to prove to me
that he belonged in that atmosphere.

He took my heart and shattered it
into a million tiny pieces,
reached into my body and
dug his fingers into my organs to empty
out all the blood and bad in them.

He emptied my translucent veins
out onto the cold bathroom floor,
making me cold like stone,
unable to move and see and breathe,
without as so much as an apology.

He was the humming in my veins,
but I wasn't even the ******* dust
on his  f i n g e r t i p s.

& if he was to fly back to me
and smile that smug smile of his,
I'd let him hurt and empty me
all over again.

i'm still in love with a boy
born in the hottest days of summer
with hair as wild as the winds of the north.

the boy with a heart of gold
and the soul of a small child.

the boy who could probably be a time traveller
in his next life,
just inches away from the galaxies
of his imagination.

Pine tree horizon,
stretched to the point of rupture
over the divine cardinal points around
A round world
which's center is me.

Roads I'll maybe walk,
most of which I won't
but the voyage goes on anyway
as long as I have feet.

Nothing this generation gets:
I chased this out of a bad bet,
and found heaven in a net.
We ate the scenery that day
let it drip onto our ***** sleeves
drying in the cold night
the stars,
God they were bright.
It makes me feel alone here in suburbia,
where the buffalo don't roam,
it's impossible to feel so small and so free,
so careless, in this city,
For there is more to Electricity
there's more to useless junk,
there's boy Scouts going
on a real adventure,
their adventure out of their hell
tha smelly parisian cage of pipes,
tubes, teachers and tests.

They get to breave here in Eden,
they see they're missing out,
they cheer the sun all morning,
till the nightime dries him out.
They get to hug the moon,
to face the secret truths under a piece of cloth,
a brown sky tent from which they
feel like they get it:
Men were apes and
they still are
they cannot live inside a jar
and when we breave that honeyed
air, when the smelly brezze rushes through
our clotted hair
we finally get to peek over the mountain,
and love it with
all we got.