i feel like i drank too much coffee.
just a side effect of my heart strings pulling
trying to find you, even though i was the one who dropped you off
at the airport.

i got home feeling cracked open
no coffee spilled out
just 'i miss you's and lint

you left a t-shirt for me. i wanted something to smell like you.
i fear i will never wash it again

i always fancied myself a eurydice
the perfect victim in a perfect tragedy

but you have me feeling like orpheus
and i can't stop wondering if i would have looked back

and i know i would have if you asked me to

i wrote so much poetry for her
because she was always busy not loving me
and i had to fill the time loving her somehow

but see the problem is
now he and i are so busy loving each other
that i don't even know how to write him a poem
and valentine's day is tomorrow

not being able to call you

when i get off work
when my favorite character dies (again)
when i buy myself lunch for one
when i can't sleep

it's devastating, it makes me rot

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

sometimes my heart aches a little
when people can't keep up with my growing
like i'm being pulled back to a version of me
that i don't fit anymore, that i don't even know

like when an old friend still gets me things in grey
even though it's not my favorite color
and i was a very sad person when it was

and i blame myself for not showing them enough
this new person that i feel i've grown into

but really, it's nice to look back and see how far i've come
and remember everything that we shared
and if they loved me as a bitter sapling,
they are sure going to love the flowers i've grown this spring
i just hope they take the time to stop and smell them

rolling on the floor
screaming the lyrics to 'funkytown'
feeling crossfaded
when i've been sober for months

the sun is warm and the light is liquid gold
and we can't breathe, laughing so hard
but this is the freshest air i've tasted in a long time

maybe i like poetry
because i can't commit to things for long

your smile is sweet but i'm trying to find cracks
these kisses taste like honey, but i'm thinking about going vegan

you talk about the future and my tears taste like salt
so you hold me tight to keep them in

but you don't say everything will be okay

my skin is finally finished peeling
i swept up the old layer into the dustbin
and now i get to be grown (past tense)

i'll keep growing and i'll have to shed another layer of me
but the molting is over
i can feel the winter sun on my lips

it feels like salt

step one.)
say goodbye to your mornings, don’t grieve them
set your alarm for an ungodly hour, no breakfast
drink your coffee, try not to taste it. the caffeine is all you need
sit at your desk and complete your tasks
attach your self worth to numbers :)
don’t think about it

step two.)
work during your lunch, eat your silly little tasks away
your worry will go away if you keep working
look. look at everyone working harder than you
compare yourself to them immediately
unrealistic expectations? standards too high?
look. look at them again. they did it. why can’t you?
compare your worst to their best :)
overthink it

step three.)
stay late. try to be the last one there. your superiors will be so impressed!
count up the number of tasks you have completed!
now count up the number of tasks you still have to do :(
eat take out for the third time this week
don’t worry about your arteries, those silly tasks are more important
ignore calls from your family, you have an important call waiting!
you’ll call them back. your phone dies -_-
stop thinking

step four.)
drive home exhausted. might be dangerous, but who else is on the road this late?
only your competition.
fret about the silly little tasks you have when you get home
you’ll take some of the tasks from your desk to try to beat the rush tomorrow
your bed is covered in tasks. your laundry is overflowing;
clothes stained with takeout and coffee you didn’t taste
complete your tasks. don’t worry about the sleep you aren’t getting.
there will be coffee in the morning :)
recount your tasks. are your numbers up yet?

don’t think for yourself :)

repeat steps 1-4 until dead.


why aren’t you happy?

you gave me the first feelings that i don't have words for

i got some things to do, but i don't want to do 'em
i got some things to say, i will never say 'em to your face
i lost my lungs, i don't really need 'em
i lost my heart, i don't really need it anymore
I AM IN LOVE WITH SOMEBODY AND GUESS WHAT? IT'S NOT YOU
IT'S NOT YOU
you are in love with somebody, yeah, you love yourself so well
love yourself so well
smokey hands and sweaty palms
black water and half-clear lungs
and now i'm not going home
broken bottles and ***** dishes
acid flashbacks in your kitchen
you know i'm not going home
i am in love with somebody and guess what? it's not you
it's not you
you are in love with somebody, yeah, you love yourself so well
love yourself so well
there's someone else
they love them well
someone else
they love them
i got some things to do, but i don't want to do 'em
i got some things to say, i will never say 'em to your face
i got some things to do, but i don't want to do 'em
i got some things to say, i will never say 'em to your face
to your face
there's someone else
they love them well
there is someone else
they love them

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

i didn't have a single wish to make
at 11:11 today

i would like my flannel back
but i don't know how to ask for it
and i really don't want to talk to you
but in my head i know that means
you've won
in a way i really don't want you to win

can you give me back my copy of Paper Towns
i know you didn't read it, but i don't care anymore
if you read it, maybe you'd love me
or maybe it's the opposite, and maybe if you loved me
you would have read it
but i don't have the time to think like that anymore

what i really want back is the two years i spent on you
treating you like a droplet of tortured heaven
giving you all of me to fill the cracks in your heart
but the real cracks were in your head
for letting me give you everything, and never giving back
you didn't even say thank you

but i'd settle for the book and the flannel

sometimes you gotta bleed to know
that you're alive and have a soul
but it takes someone to come around
to show you how

she's the tear in my heart
i'm alive
she's the tear in my heart
i'm on fire
she's the tear in my heart
take me higher
than i've ever been

the songs on the radio are okay
but my taste in music is your face
and it takes a song to come around
to show you how

she's the tear in my heart
i'm alive
she's the tear in my heart
i'm on fire
she's the tear in my heart
take me higher
than i've ever been
than i've ever been
than i've ever been
than i've ever been

you fell asleep in my car i drove the whole time
but that's okay i'll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine
i'm driving here i sit
cursing my government
for not using my taxes to fill holes with more cement
you fell asleep in my car i drove the whole time
but that's okay i'll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine
i'm driving here i sit
cursing my government
for not using my taxes to fill holes with more cement
sometimes you gotta bleed to know
that you're alive and have a soul
but it takes someone to come around
to show you how

she's the tear in my heart
i'm alive
she's the tear in my heart
i'm on fire
she's the tear in my heart
take me higher
than i've ever been

my heart is my armor
she's the tear in my heart
she's a carver
she's a butcher with a smile
cut me farther
than i've ever been
than i've ever been
than i've ever been
than i've ever been

my heart is my armor
she's the tear in my heart
she's a carver
she's a butcher with a smile
cut me farther
than i've ever been

i don't want to write
i want to bleed out
and water the daffodils with my crimes
i need to be cleansed by fire
and buried in the wet earth of my grief

i cannot breathe without your steady hand
pressing me awake
but i suppose i cannot breathe
when your ribs sit in front of me,
waiting to cracked open

do i reach into your chest cavity
and drink of your secrets?
for they do not fall from those lips i so freely kiss

i have waded through thick fog
with your fingers interlaced with mine
but perhaps i have blindly followed my own demise
holding the hand of a stranger

my mask lies on the floor at your feet
and still you ask me to the masquerade

this is not a castle,
though you were once my queen
jewels are heavy
i hope my broken heart was worth the price
of having the pieces inlaid in your crown

i want someone to notice the way i laugh at the wrong parts of movies
and know what weird thought i had about the scene
to hold my hand and kiss my dimple and write about how witty i am
we can joke about it every time we rewatch it

i want someone to read to me under a fading sky in the wintertime
as our breath curls around our throats and it's hard to keep their voice steady
but the words are pretty, and so are their fingers as they wrap around my hair
sylvia plath for the darker days,
robert frost when the sun starts peeking through

i want someone who will dye my hair in shades of pink and green
our noses curling at the scent of the overwhelming bleach
laughing hysterically as we get high on the fumes and try to be quiet when we hear my mom's footsteps outside the bathroom
i'll cut their bangs choppy to match

i want someone who will sing duets with me to a blown out car stereo
as we drive aimlessly through the nights of this ghost-town-to-be
i'll steal the aux cord more than once, and mess with the windows like a kid
but they'll tolerate it because they like the wind
almost as much as they like me

i want someone to dance with me in the rain like we're in a bad romance novel
and enjoy it anyway because it smells like promises (and i keep those)
we can waltz badly and laugh until it hurts to laugh, and then we'll just sway
i'll splash them with puddles and they'll splash back harder
and we can ditch our clothes and get hypothermia together

maybe one day i'll want them enough to have them

but for now i'll watch movies by myself and still laugh at all the wrong parts, knowing that i'm weirdly clever

i'll read poetry in my own voice under the grey sky cut open by leafless branches, because it's pretty

i'll dye my own hair and cut my own choppy bangs and i'll feel untouchable

i'll scream 'bohemian rhapsody' by myself driving down main street in the middle of the night

and i'll just wait for it to rain so i can catch in my mouth and pretend it was a kiss from the sky

i make these lists in my head
of my ideal partner
and i know that it's not fair or healthy
but i do it anyway

they have to wear jewelry and have their ears pierced
it would be good if they had a sense of anarchy
love of reading is a must, and they'd better read my suggestions
i want someone with a pretty voice
to read me poetry and sing duets with me in the car
speaking of, i'd like them to have a car
because i believe in the inherent romance of the passenger seat
i would steal the aux cord and blast the playlist that they made me

i want to love someone who loves things
who loves to love things
almost as much as i do

they have to love art, and it would be a plus if they made some
because i can't draw for sh*t, but i can look at paintings until i die
i want to go to art museums with them and symphonies and plays
we can sit in the cheapest seats and throw pennies instead of roses

god, i want someone with strong hands
that can hold me and i will just know that they want to
i want to love someone with dyed hair
so i can sit with them between my legs as i reapply the color
and have stains on my fingers for weeks
i want a poet, because i want to be immortalized
in raw phrases in a moleskin journal

but i just haven't met this person yet
i don't know if i ever will

i grow, but not like flowers toward a healing sun
i give up, but not like the kids in calculus
i love, but not enough for you to love me back

my teeth ache from clenching my jaw
my jaw aches from tensing my neck
my neck aches from sleeping on it wrong
my sleep aches from missing you
i miss you because you don't miss me
you don't miss me because i was never yours
i don't know why i was never yours

i wish my house had a basement
i wish this town had a lake

maybe my stories would be better if i could tell them right

i can't connect my thoughts these days.
i can't connect my own pieces together.
my heart is in my arms, holding you
my mind in some far off movie scene,
catching the rain on it's tongue
i gave my lungs away because i don't need them anymore
my blood evaporated on the surface of the moon

and your lips taste like **** and peppermint chapstick
mine taste like ultra violet monster energy and aluminum

but i don't love you, and it isn't poetic

this was never technically our song
but i only hear you when i listen to it
smoking in the dark

i found places to kiss
and you found a way to let me

i want to be mad at you for letting me

this is the first time i have let myself listen to this song since...
well, since i realized that you didn't have a song for us and i did

it sounds a little sadder than it's supposed to
and i know that's my fault
i let my heart bleed into it too much

i want someone to hold me
but for the first time in two years, i don't want it to be you
i think that's progress
but i'm sitting here with my earbuds in wanting to be held
while you stay up with her on the phone, later than you ever did with me

i hold myself and let it be enough
i make this my song instead of ours
and let it be enough

you wanted to kiss me
i just wanted to kiss
i feel guilty, but not enough i guess
i keep kissing
and you keep kissing me

you did nothing for me
and yet i'm still here immortalizing you
why can't i give it up?
i held on to loving you for so long
but now i'm just holding on to hating you

let me let go

all the poems i wrote you were exaggerations
to make up for the love you never gave me
i can admit that now

sure, the 'i love you's were on your lips
but your kisses tasted like, '*******'s

you never listened to me
you never listened to the songs i asked you to
you never set up your ******* voicemail

you broke up with me over text. while i was with my family. in utah. having panic attacks every day. telling you about them. see above: you never listened to me.

i'm sick. sick of you. sick of this.
you're over it. my mind is over it. why isn't my heart?

i'm done coming up with metaphors for you
for how much you took and never gave
i'm done making excuses for you, and taking the blame
and i'm not going to do the 'just friends' thing with you
if you're going to tell our friends to cut me off
and smile at me like nothing happened
smile like two years took nothing from you

and i guess they didn't

i broke my heart for you
and you don't even know my birthday

i want to drive with you at night
steal the aux cord from you after fighting about the music
and put on The 1975
cause baby i'd love it if we made it

i want to wrap your hair around my fingers
while you read to me from your book written by a dead russian guy
because everything sounds interesting in your voice
and i'm happy to be the crime to your punishment

i want to smoke with you in the sun
as you call me a bad influence
we can blur the edges between us
and call it poetry

i want you but i'm just a little too embarrassed to ask
if you want me too

i wanna fall in love in october
so we can have a song written by girl in red
and pretend it was for us

but i'm falling and you're not

why do i always fall for the ones
that are unable to talk about their feelings
and get close without getting close to people
the ones with fires in their mouths
and ash in their eyes

maybe i have a passion for self destruction
by someone else's hand
or maybe i just have a kink for
people who empty me out
people who i empty myself out for

you didn't love me and i accepted it
because that's what i deserved
she doesn't love me either
but i don't want to accept it

because somehow by not loving me
you taught me that i deserve love

your comfort movie is three hours long
and it makes you cry so hard you get a headache,
but you watch it so much you have every line memorized.
does anything about that seem even a little bit healthy?

you think all of your friends find you annoying
but they don't want to hurt your feelings
so you don't go to them when you need to

it's so hard to belong anywhere
why don't you belong anywhere?

you've had this poem in your drafts for months
not knowing what to say
the other one was so bad
but it didn't really get that much better

i know you wanted it to get better

but i won't apologize
because i was ******* right

i won't get better until you do
and right now you just surround yourself with people
who don't want to love you all the way
and you do things that you know will leave you exhausted
because you think that people will want you
if you just did more things
do you see where this is going?

because i can tell you that you're going to end up burned out
and full of regret so heavy that you'll drown
i can say over and over again that you're wasting your time
and everyone else's time

and i'd be right
because you're doing everything for the wrong reasons
you're keeping people around for the wrong reasons

but i can't do anything
because i'm just the sick ******* in your head
putting you through hell
so it doesn't seem as bad when you get there

you don't have to listen to me
but i can see the ******* future

and you don't get better until i do
and right now the people that surround you
don't love to want you all the way
and you exhaust things that you know will leave you
because you do things
that people think of wanting

do i see where this is going?

i might ask her to
go to homecoming with me
but what if she says

More than just a dream
More than just a dream

40 days and 40 nights
I waited for a girl like you to come and save my life
All the days I waited for you
You know the ones who said I'd never find someone like you
'Cause you were out of my league
All the things I believed
You were just the right kind
Yeah, you were more than just a dream

You were out of my league
Got my heartbeat racing
If I die, don't wake me
'Cause you are more than just a dream

From time to time I pinch myself
Because I think my girl mistakes me for somebody else
And every time she takes my hand
All the wonders that remain
Become a simple fact
That you were out of my league
All the things I believed
You were just the right kind
Yeah, you were more than just a dream
You were out of my league
Got my heartbeat racing
If I die, don't wake me
'Cause you are more than just a dream

You were out of my league
All the things I believed
You were just the right kind
Yeah, you were more than just a dream
You were out of my league
Got my heartbeat racing
If I die, don't wake me
'Cause you are more than just a dream

More than just a dream
(More than, more than)
(More than, more than)
(More than, more than)
More than just a dream
(More than, more than)
(More than, more than)
(More than, more than)
More than just a dream
(More than, more than)
(More than, more than)
(More than, more than)
More than just a dream

we burn the skeletons
of creatures buried deeper than
the fallen stars that took them
pouring them into our automobiles
so they can take us to the places they roamed

skeletons can't talk
but we tell their stories amidst the quiet
they left us

i wonder if we got them right

i can't look at anyone with purple hair without seeing you
even though you dyed it silver just before you.... before we.... yeah
it *****, but i'd rather see you in people that aren't you
than not see the you that you aren't when i look at your face

that makes no sense

i keep confusing the you that you showed me
with the you that i made up
and i still don't know which one loved me

but i know it is 'loved'
past tense

i'm pretty sure it was past tense
even before you sent me that text
oh god, that text

i didn't know a heart could shatter so slowly
and yet completely all at once;
like an ice cube that cracks as soon as it hits the water
but takes hours to fully melt

i hear you in all the songs we used to listen to together
and these days, that's most songs i play
even though i finally mustered up the will to delete the playlist i made for you

it was just a part of the melting

you connected the freckles on my arms
with your calligraphy pen
like they were constellations
and i was the night sky

your hand held my arms still as you inked them
and i stopped breathing and started breathing faster at the same time
my mind couldn't remind my head not to fall in love
and my heart was beating in my arms
right under your hand
right under your pen

but the illusion shatters when you say,
don't worry, i torment gwen like this all the time

and i wish it didn't
because ap government is dismal
there's too much reality in there
and i just want to be wrapped up in the idea of you

but that's not fair
so i just stare at the constellations you made of me
and wish they meant something
as i try to stop getting so dizzy around you

i tell myself it works

you took my hat off and wore it
it looked better on you
you took my shoelaces and
tied them around your wrists like bracelets
i wanted to hold your hands

you showed me your poem
something a little dark, but i liked it
and you always tell me what book you're reading
you tell me to watch your favorite animes
even though it's been years since i've watched anything at all
i watch them all as if they will show me the world through your eyes

i thought i was special but i learned you do that with everyone
you told me a list of her favorite anime characters from memory
you told everyone in ap government the books you were reading

my shoelaces weren't even the only ones you stole
i wish i could stop pretending i mean something to you

i wish i meant something to you

she told me you cried over me
and i was surprised

i hate that

i get over things
right away. i'll never get
over anything

i wear a bracelet i made
with rainbow beads around letters that spell out
"g a t s b y"
because we're both gay as ****
and i think i'm funny

you asked me if there was a
"n i c k"
pointing to my wrist
and i just blushed as i realized what you meant

because i wish it was you
i want you to be the nick to my gatsby