we both got sweatshirts for christmas
i hope we can trade sometime

someone told me i fall for kind people because i can't stop letting everyone walk all over me, and at least the kind ones will try not to leave bruises. and i laughed like it was a joke and i was the punchline, but i found another bruise in the mirror last night.

i fell for another kind person, but the problem is that kind people lie. and i never know how to distinguish the black and white from the grey. i'll never know if you like me because you treat everyone like stardust and glass.

but i actually am stardust and glass. i am precious and fragile and everywhere and i need to be held. i want it to be by you. but people that weren't as kind already broke me and now if you touch me the way i want you to you'll cut yourself. and blood doesn't wash out of a doormat.

so i don't initiate conversation. i hope you can't see my broken heart on my sleeve because it has your initials written on it in ink. i haven't decided how close i'll let you look. but maybe one day i'll let you walk all over me and hope that i feel like home.

sitting in traffic staring
at a horizon of red
thinking of her unintentionally

i dyed my hair again
taking comfort in being able to look different
looking different than when i fell for people that were just shells
of bad decisions and ****
people that gave me goosebumps because they were so cold
but i used to mistake the chills for butterflies

i've been worried about repeating myself
cycling around my bad habits
like i'm on a ferris wheel that doubles as a perpetual motion machine
but i haven't texted her in a few weeks so
that must be a good sign
still

i listen the playlists i made when i was so busy over thinking i didn't have time to do my fvcking laundry
i wore her sweater for days on end and i hummed those songs under my breath
and now the melodies just remind me of how starving i was
laying in the bed of nails i made for myself
and they remind me of her. always her. and how she never gave a **** about me, but somehow taught me to give a **** about myself.
these stupid, beautiful songs remind me of how much i pretend to hate her. and they make me want to write poems about the idea of her again
even though i swore i wouldn't. on several occasions.
and so this poem isn't about her, or the idea of her, or the stupid playlists i was obsessed with when i called her mine

this one is about the horizon of red
as i sit stuck in traffic, staring
blurring my vision on purpose
as the crimson lights move at the speed of my slowing heart
trying. trying. trying.
trying to forget about her, as i think of her unintentionally.
trying to live in a world where people don't always mean the 'i love you's that so carelessly drip from their open mouths.
trying to care about those people anyway and pretend that i don't.
trying to love.
trying to love myself.
trying to write more poems in the first person as a form of self care.
trying to figure out if that counts.

trying to not be so fvcking lonly all the time.

my roots are growing in ashy
i can't stop looking at my acne scars

i taste everything good in me
and lick the sin off my fingers

but no one told me that loving myself
would be this exhausting

today my wish at 11:11 was that the fire alarm would shut up
some freshman had pulled it, trying to get out of class
but it was making my sensory issues go crazy between the blaring sounds and flashing lights

and at 11:11 it stopped
"all clear, false alarm, all clear"

i.

i wore ur sweatshirt when i wanted u to hold me; when i wanted to feel safe
i fell asleep with it next to my pillow so your scent could keep the nightmares away every night

my sweatshirt hung in ur closet
i saw you wear it once. one (1) time.

i wish this was one of my twisted metaphors, but it's just a fact.

i should've seen it sooner.
i was never ur safety, never ur comfort.
i couldn't keep ur nightmares away
so i guess it's time for mine to come back


ii.

i need someone to keep me grounded
one thought can ******* into the clouds

i thought you were the answer
but that was my imagination again

you were on the ground
but you had no interest keeping me there

kisses that sent me flying
meant nothing to you

you could let my lips go with an unfazed smile

i saw it on her story
as you rode the ferris wheel

the same one you would give me
the same one you give your mom
even when you're mad at her

who means something to you?
who knows you?
i thought i did
you mom thinks she does

i bet the ******* the ferris wheel thinks so too


iii.

if i knew that would be the last time i kissed u
i would have done it differently
i would've left a sweeter taste in your mouth
and more of me on your tongue
i would've given you a piece of me so tender and secret
that u would regret losing it
every day for the rest of your life.
i would've poisoned you
because i am spiteful and vicious
a storm rages inside of me
full of memories and want and desperation

i don't think you would've changed a think about our last kiss
it was just like u
short and a little sour
with nothing to say except goodbye