this is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

now this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some
someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again

my stomach has become an hourglass
digesting the sandy grains of time we have before you leave me
i can count the days on my fingers now

but you still whisper sweet forevers in my ear
you still kiss me like we have all the moments in the world
you still hold me like you don't have to let go

and i have to remind myself
that i don't get to keep you in my pockets
that you signed a contract with your future
and my name isn't on it

i have to whisper the bitter "nows" when you're not around
and hold myself together when you let go

i wish i could forgive my mother
let go of those bible verses she stabbed me with
but i keep using band aids instead of stitches
and forgiveness feels like a heaven i don't believe in

i wish i didnt flinch away every time she touched me
my mother never hit me, but she never needed to
i still confuse her gentle brushes with pain

i wish i didnt talk to her with gritted teeth
but i have to keep myself from spilling somehow
and if the words come out, im scared they will sound like my inner child screaming
why why why why why why why why
i was just Trying

i was a child
and you wanted me to be a gold star

you text me when you get home
to tell me that you got there safely
and i smile wide
but i wonder

how can you be home
when you just left me

and by more i don't mean
"i love you more
than you love me"

i mean
"i love you more
and more each day.

i love you more
each time you text me goodmorning
and even more when you whisper goodnight.
i love you more
after every softly stolen kiss and more
after holding your hand across the parking lot.

i love you more
even when you're leaving me
and more when you beg me to come with you

hitting save on another task as my spotify playlist sways in the background. my yawn reaches my stomach. my dark circles bring a great contrast to my greyish-bluish eyes. i'm learning french again. maybe because it's supposed to be the language of love and maybe because i want to watch Plein Soleil without subtitles.

it's june still. my ex who said she was still my friend went to a pride parade without me. it's fine, maybe i'll get to wear my colors on my sleeves next june. maybe i'll meet some queers in college. if i ever finish my housing application.

california state university northridge. blissfully away from home, but achingly not far enough. beautiful to it's core and yet i can't shake this churning anxiety in my fingers, in my brain, in my heart. i wish everything wasn't online so maybe this yellow brick road winding me to my future would feel more real.

this town is so ugly. it's not big, not small. it isn't even pretty if you genuinely enjoy the look of washed out suburbs. all the colors are dulled by the sun, and not in the soft pastel way. it's like the skies rained gallons of bleach, if it ever once rained here. this place is full of skeletons hanging on to purgatory.

but i'd suffer damnation if i said i wasn't scared out of my mind about leaving it.

you complain about how people
can hardly see the difference between your pupil and your iris,
because your eyes are so dark
but i love the way
i can see my reflection smiling after your lips turn up

you call me hot, babe, honey
i call you ******, loser, simp

you have to leave me in two months
when your future catches up to you
but i'm the one with 'goodbye' hovering on my tongue

i'm trying to make up for three months of love poems
that i couldn't bring myself to write
but i can feel my bitterness leaking through

i can’t immortalize you now that i can count the days until you leave me on one hand

and you tell me horrible things like
“i’ll wait for you” and you say terrible words like
“i promise” and i cant seem to do anything but cry and need you

consider this my goodbye
it’s the only one i can bear to give