seven (7) drafts sitting lonely
seven (7) always was a cursed number

maybe that's why i can't write anything now

maybe i'll keep this in my drafts, too
so i can make it

eight (8)

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

i looked into the abyss
so much weight and rot in my pockets
ready to meet the terror that made me
        
but the abyss looked back
so i stayed

i don't feel very poetic

and i never thought the ceiling i stare at each night
was worth a poem
because i'm sure you'd rather hear about the star splattered sky
with it's infinite universes that envelop beating hearts
and tear things apart just to make them novelties once more

but the white stucco above my head has constellations of it's own
that have kept every secret i ever told
on nights that i'd rather cut off my hands than write a
single godforsaken word

maybe the ceiling is it's own kind of sky
decorated with daydreams the clouds could never carry
it's not poetic by the usual definitions

but neither am i

my smiles have been glowing and holding in my *****
so i wanted to read a pretty little sonnet
gasping and choking on laughter mottled by blood
the words come in tears, the poems in a flood
it's been ages since i cried, i was doing so well
but every sad poem brought back my screams of hell

my demons didn't go away, i just painted them gold
and i'd be fooling myself saying i had a hand to hold
life is a joke, who gives a ****?
it's just a mix of bad timing and luck
so i kept laughing and choking and holding my own hand
remembering some song from my new old favorite band

telling me love is a labor and to slave 'till the end
swinging life away with scars and a friend
so i didn't have to read a happy poem today
i just had to write one and send it your way
so smile with me, break open your face
'cause life is just a vat marked toxic waste

the way you love
says a lot about you

but the way you break
says a lot about where you came from

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

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.

we were on the phone really late
and i'd rather hear your voice next to me
but this will have to be close enough

the conversation lulled as we both started to yawn
and i hoped after we said goodbye you'd dream of me

we said goodnight and you said 'i love you' first, this time
i said 'i love you, too' with a smile encasing my whole body
and you said 'yeah-yuh'
like me loving you too meant you won the jackpot

and i have never felt more like gold

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

"i am so lame" i whisper to myself
after putting your flannel in the dryer
so that it would be as warm as it was when you gave it to me
fresh off your skin

your scent is waning, but i can still catch it
i wish i could hold it in my palms
because god knows it's my favourite smell in the world

i wear it until it get's cold again
but by then i'm already asleep

dreaming of you as i pretend you're holding me

who can tell us
that clawing the thorns out of our chests
is wrong?

these roses aren't for you

skeletons of tulips
floating in the warm, silk water
tantalizing breaths
interrupting hazy memories
of clear thoughts
refracted through curvy paths
made by hungry mornings
and sick gift wrappings
covering charcoal
lip gloss

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

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

i miss the idea of you a little.
is that wrong to say?
i miss it when i could look at you and imagine what it would be like to make you laugh.
i miss memorizing your routes to class and pretending that we just happened to cross paths.
i'd smile at you without meaning to, trying to take my heart off of my sleeve.

i miss crushing on you a little.
the same way you miss breaking curfew.
but now we're all just so tired.

i just want you to kiss me and say it's okay. say it's okay that i miss my imaginary you. because i miss the real you more.

love,
grey eyes

candles burn slowly
but paper burns all at once
i gather up the letters i never sent you
in my charred fingers
the scent of blood and embers
coating my breath like a chord progression

the ink that spilled from my pen so freely
melts just as painless
and through my graphite tainted tears
i hear your name in my voice
and see your skin in the fading sunlight on all hallows eve
so radiant against the decaying trees
you wouldn't let me take a photograph but
i didn't need to. i didn't need to.
i'll always remember you swathed in the golden flames
falling from the sky

the letters are really burning, now,
reminding me of how hot your skin is to the touch
no. now i can feel you under my fingertips
as i tell you about how dead serious i am about faking my death
and moving to the woods
you look so, so alive
at the prospect of pretending to die
and it's then that i realized, that you've been pretending to live
for a long, long time

and i laugh
my teeth flickering yellow with each dance of the kindling
a smile stolen from a memory
and i know that is all i will have of you
just journal entries and photos that i'll never be able to burn
like these letters
because these were just ideas of you
that floated in my head before i could make you laugh
before i memorized the way you smell in the winter
when a fire burns in your house

a fire so much warmer than this one

your mother tongue never needed to distinguish between
house and home

missing you is like
resisting the urge to shave my head

sometimes i read my poems to find the person behind all these lucid dreams
but i get lost in the secondhand smoke of all these apologies
getting high on delusional compromises

maybe theres nobody there, maybe there never was

but i can see your eyes through the sticky haze, made of sky and ecstacy
they look through me, seeing the worlds i gave to you
worshippers kiss all the skin i used to

but its my name on their lips

symptoms include:
brushing my teeth in the middle of the day
wearing my pajamas three days in a row
failing classes i understand
listening to regina spektor's old albums on repeat
wearing your flannel to sleep
talking to myself, forgetting you aren't around

fatality rate:
high

recommended:
a soft kiss on the lips at two am
as we fall asleep
talking about committing arson

you call me creative
but my mind is the place
dreams go to die

they embark on a quest to impart me with
gold stained teeth that smile with some kind of weight

but they drown soaked in the ash
of too many stale apologies and
late night '*******'s screamed at the sky
so hollow they ring on their own

i'm so tired of pretending my words have meaning
but the only things bouncing in my skull are the nightmares
that survived me

so i don't go to sleep

tw// language. self hate.

do something, do something, do something
*******, waste of space
what are you even doing with your life?

please please just get up
i'll leave you alone if you do something
anything

brush your teeth, please, you smell like death

do something, do something, do something
******* just get up

fourteen missing assignments, and that's just one class
you dumb ******* i hate you

get up
you're the reason for every bad thing that has ever happened

y'know what?
don't do anything
sit there
you're gonna mess up anything you try anyway

are you going to cry now?
of course not. that's doing something.

don't go to sleep

your lungs could collapse right now
you could die
no one promised you forever
you only get a now
and you're spending it on your twin sized bed
might as well be in a coffin
you ******* waste of decomposable matter

do something, do something, do something

no one salts my wounds like you
lemonjuice pouring from your eyes
your tongue dripping with expired syrup meant to fill me with ash and guilt

apologies bleed from the aching cuts you made
but you add another skeleton to the closet
and steal away the trusting stars in my eyes
blaming them too

i wish i could look at the sky, but all i see is smoke
from all my fires
you tried to put out with gasoline

sticks and stones
will break bones
and a knee will take a life

tear gas and barricades
will need first aids
and rubber bullets will take eyes

signs and chants
dismissed as rants
and a point that will keep being missed

i picked out my shiniest penny
and threw it in the wishing well
crossing my fingers
and whispering 'pleasepleaseplease'
as you filled my thoughts

eleven years hasn't made me any wiser
just more sarcastic
but i still pick out my shiniest penny
for that old wishing well
and wish for you
with crossed fingers

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

overwhelmed and breathless
but
in the way that makes you
tired of existing

until the realization
that i have not been
drowning
deep in the ocean

my feet are planted
in the sky
and it's only my head
under water
and
if i just keep walking

i'll be in the clouds

moonlit streets
and empty promises
falling from
broken bottles
and cigarette smoke

eyes that are
rimmed with
too many
sleepless nights
close

as the lips below
share the smoke
that brought them
here

not caring
who will be blamed
in the morning

i want a smoke
to fill all my empty places
(**** there are
so many)

but it can't fill my
arms

so i guess you'll have to come and do that

adults make me scared of
becoming two dimentional

is this my last year
of seeing in color?

if my eyes start to look like yours,
all lifeless and disappointed

i'd rather die young

my new years resolution
comes out more like a suicide note;
all languid lines and
lists that won't mean anything to the dead

i'd rather swallow it than keep it
i can live with a few scars

god was always just a pair of eyes
on a chipping billboard in the centre of it all

he either doesn't have hands
or doesn't use them
i guess i'll never really see exactly
what you meant

but i know he's never done anything but
stare

when
will it be
okay

to be human?

when
will skin be

beautiful?

when
will we
be able to

breathe?

my shoes
are only size seven and a half
so my footprints
are quite small
but i leave them places
where giants have walked

nosebleed
black heart
making paper mache knives
sitting on pottery thrones
cause we're the reigning water
falling from the
quilted sky

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

when i'm nothing but a skeleton
i want you to make music with my bones

i have a scar, on the inside of my wrist
not from a blade

it's from my own fingernail
that time i tried to peel my skin off
tired, so tired, of being a
person

i told everyone it was from the curling iron

i.
every moment with you
feels like another memory
to keep me warm at night
when you leave again

ii.
every jacket i take
loses it's 'you' scent a little faster
or maybe you just stay away longer this time

leaving me with a jacket smelling like my empty room  

iii.
memories and jackets and "this number has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet"
you have spent more time in my dreams than in my arms
this isn't how i thought love would be

holding you
is like
embracing the
sun

i am the only one
that gets burned

i'm such a
paper person

and i've got
the same
design as
everyone else

i'm in a
different frame
but the story
has all the same lines
the same oxford comma
punctuating
the same lies

and i scream

thinking
that my voice
sounds
different
than the others
screaming beside me

what *******.

you told me i smell like a mix of my vanilla bean chapstic and sin
a combination of caring too much and the smoke i just had
just the right balance between sweet and unholy

but i still smell only dryer sheets

i spit out
the words
you put in my mouth
so you feel
okay

but the taste
of rot
and rust
still remains
on my
tongue