vulnerability is something i have always struggled with.
to give another person the ability to read my mind, to pity me;
it's something i tend to regret.
so when i opened up to you,
and you blew me off as though what
i said was meaningless,
like you'd heard it all before,
i hated you.
i had handed you the ability to sew shut my insecurities,
but you brushed me aside with such force that the gaping hole just
opened wider and i
have no one
left to
trust.
so i am forced to turn in on myself
and with fumbling, numb fingers,
i sew myself shut
from the inside.

every time
i leave the sea
i feel as though my soul
crawls back into
the deepest corners
of my body
to hide
and slumber
until i am reunited
with glittering waves
and soft sand
and windswept
dripping hair.

life has stripped me
of the ability to shed a tear

my throat tightens
a clenched fist
in my esophagus
making breathing painful

and still no
******* tears

we're all standing on the edge of reality,
millimeters from the precarious cliff of horrible,
beautiful truth.
the glow of our iPhones, tablets, flat screen TVs, etc
illuminating our placid faces.
ignorance is bliss, they say.
wake up!
wake up,
and turn off your alarm,
and flip on the news;
start your coffee brewer.
we depend on the technology.
we live in the the technology.
we live in a computer.
you are not real
and neither am i
but we aren't dead either.
if we can think,
we can exist,
right?

i am drowning
another blank face
unrecognized and vacant
passing in the hall
in the empty eyes

bleeding out sleep
stress headaches
dehydration cramps
anxiety stomachaches
keeping me awake
through invisible sores

the teachers eyes
indifferent and glazed
too tired to care
why are we so tired
cut me through and through

to think we were best friends this morning
and now,
i bite the back of my hand
to keep from screaming obscenities
into your ugly face.

you sit on your pedestal,
immersed in yourself,
and accuse me of immaturity
when i walk away
when you say
"i don't care
about you."

you think
that i act this way
because i am
"insecure"
"pathetic"
"sensitive"
but really,
darling,
it's because
i have realized that
i
  deserve
     better
         than
                          this.

I think of you often
i hardly remember you, so i suppose i’m not really thinking of you

maybe it’s more like i’m thinking of the idea of you
you’re a foggy landscape in the back of my consciousness

your name is a taste that comes only in the fleeting space between dreams
my mind has lost the ability to pronounce its syllables

looking back on “us” is sort of like looking at something right under your nose with the wrong end of a telescope
the image is distorted and far too magnified to see
any semblance of a bigger picture

to this day i still wonder what exactly it could have been
what we could have been
had we changed our views

please
take your blade
and carefully carve
the envy out of my bones.
steal the ugly weight
of doubt and greed
from my tired heart
and burn it
so that i may
be light
and love
again

you are the sun,
pulsing with heat and energy,
radiating heat and life into the dark.
i held darkness inside me
before i met you.
it clung with icy fingers to my bones
like the roots of a **** in a crack
on the sidewalk.
you brushed me once,
with your gentle touch,
and the dark was stripped away,
burnt, shriveled.

i   was   ignited.

i still haven't stopped burning
for you.

what do you do when you want something to happen so badly
that it makes your lungs heavy and your heart flutter?
what if you know it will never happen?*
take your time.
come to terms with the fact that it isn't realistic to hope for something that won't happen.
understand that it isn't the end of the world;
the earth will spin on and orbit the sun even if your heart is breaking,
even if it has gone off like a hand grenade inside you and the shrapnel has punctured your lungs.
be your own hero.
lay yourself down and with steady,
careful hands,
extract the jagged pieces from your damaged body and lay them in the sun.
let them sit until they have absorbed all the heat you can stand,
then cup the pieces in your hands.
close your eyes.
savor the feeling that comes from knowing that you can heal your own heart without help.
you'll need to remember how it's done -
this won't be the last time.
when you're ready, swallow your mended heart whole,
so that it rests in your stomach instead of your chest.
this way it won't be so easy to find next time.
now you need to learn to breathe easy again.
your lungs are healing.
they'll be stronger than ever now;
after all,
breathing underwater for so long makes it easier to breathe when you're standing,
whole,
on the shore.

i love you.
your words make me dizzy;
my thoughts like ants who've lost their trail.
i hate you.
one glance sends the blood rushing to my face;
i can hear my heart pound like waves against a stony shore.

get out
of my head.


i love you
because you're sweeter than honey
and sharp as a tack.
i love you
because you make me laugh
and make me feel special.

i hate you,
though,
because you love
                               her.

and yet you still have my heart.

they say "'team' is a four letter word
for 'family'"
and i can't help
but agree
because every time i turn to look
at these lovely people
every time i laugh till my stomach aches
at ridiculous jokes
i know that they
are a part of me
that i never want to give up.

if you are the sun,
i am the moon.

you are spring afternoons
wrapped in sunshine and birdsong.

i am crisp autumn evenings
cinnamon scented and starlit.

you are a swimming pool
on the hottest day of the year
that appears cool at first glance
but smothers with its heat.

i am crinkled red, orange, and brown;
drifting with the breeze.
i am melting ice with tiny air bubbles trapped inside
releasing frigid air in tiny bursts.

i think that even if i
drank all of you in
while i had the chance
i would still fear
death
by dehydration.

i think that
as long as i know you
possibly longer
you will cling to the innermost
recesses of my mind
to the notches in my spine
to the cavities behind my eyes
and the creases of my elbows

but i
i will only leave traces
of myself
on the soles of your shoes.

i used to
like to think of myself
as a tree.

maybe
a weeping willow
or
a crooked pine.

but now
i have grown tall
and strong
and my bark has grown thick
and my roots have taken hold.

i am no longer
weeping
or crooked.

i am as strong
as the strongest oak.

and this is the first time
i've thought of you
in two months.

it goes like this:

my toes curl over the edge
the stone ledge is warm beneath my feet.
i tense
and leap
and for a fragile second i am hanging, twisting
above the dancing water.
i swear,
i can fly.
the sunlight reflecting off its surface
stains my retinas
as my body plummets.
the ocean reaches up
and swallows me whole
with a splash of chilly water.
i open my eyes
to see millions of tiny
light-filled bubbles
float to the surface,
leaving me alone
in the dark.
i sink slowly,
as though drifting off to sleep
and am only conscious enough
to register the cloud
of sediment
that surrounds me
as my body reaches
the bottom.

and then there is you:

you watch from the shore
smiling
as i leap.
after all,
this only recreational, right?
i have every intention
of resurfacing
a moment after the plunge
of course.
but you
you see that i have
not risen
and you must think
you must
"her lungs,
they must be starved
of air".
and rather than rush to my aid
for i am clearly drowning
you sit back on the shore
and prepare
to yell
and scream
and cause a scene
but not for help
no
you will scream at me
because you
feel betrayed
that i could so easily leave you.

don't you know i wish i wasn't drowning?
don't you know that i could have been saved?

don't touch me
i am drenched to the bone with
gasoline
and one touch is all it will take
for us both to go up in flames.
don't touch me
i am a forest fire
a white hot rod
i will burn your finger prints right off
and then
how will they identify you
when i'm through?

on days when i feel
as though i may actually be getting over you
i find myself
looking,
searching
the eyes of those who pass by,
hoping
fearing
that i'll fall for a
stranger.

tonight,
as i sat with my family
in a cozy restaurant
my eyes found a boy.
he was beautiful.
several times,
we locked gazes.

but the problem was,
he looked just like you.

it's 6:12 in the evening
and i have just arrived home
after a long day of listening
and seething
(and crying)
and drowning
in a sea of oppression brought
upon me not by my choice
but by my mere birth
while those around me argue
that i can't be drowning
because they don't know what
water looks like

"when will this change?
oh, i don't wanna wait."*
a mantra in my head,
this song plays in loops
echoes
in my mind.
every autumn,
despite the beauty of the trees
and the perfect weather
i find myself becoming distant
and cold.
my mind returns to me with
the coming of spring.
ironic, though, that
spring
is my least favorite season; while
autumn
is my favorite.

I eat overripe fruit
bags of chips
bowls of cereal
and drink hot
cups of coffee
hundreds of water bottles
leave everything strewn about
for weeks.
my clothes lay mixed
clean and *****
covered in dog hair
regardless.
I can't bear to organize.
every item shifted
reveals an image of you,
some remnant from a time
forever lost.

on and on
from the moment i wake
till the moment i sleep,
i will be by your side
just you try and stop me.
i'll be waiting in line
just to see
if you care.


did you want me to change?
well,
I changed for good.
and I want you to know
that you'll always get your way.

i am
free floating
held at a distance
from almost everyone
i drift along
staying close, sometimes,
to others - only to fall behind
invisibly, unnoticed, as they
move on

i am
the weakest
most easily forgotten
the hopeless
and painfully awkward
the least likely
to keep a conversation going
the easiest to forget

i don't want to see you
ever again.
please,
just let me be.

where are the warm people?
i find myself baring my soul
to cold people
who take the heat of my burden
and use it to insulate themselves.
they shed no heat
no light
no empathy.
where are the warm people?
who will share their flame
as i try to share mine
when my has flickered out
and lies smoldering?

i need to stitch together
these nagging, slippery thoughts
and form a coherent train of thought
with a purpose and a sense of direction
so that i know where to place my focus
and how to spend my energy
so that i can move forward
and stop looking over my shoulder
and
stop
thinking of you
thinking of you
t h i n k i n g   o f   y o u
when i need to be thinking of
my sanity
and how the two
are polar opposites

i worry that i have
lied every time
i told a boy
i loved him.

i fear that i have
only ever been
and will only ever be
"in love"
with the idea
of love.

and most of all,
i am terrified
that every boy
who has ever told me
he loved me
was in love
only with the idea
of love.
         not me.

i have so much love to give.
i'm brimming with it.
it moves in me like water,
leaks out like the tide of the sea.
when the moon gets too close,
the love in me rises
and struggles
against my boundaries,
pushes itself up my throat.
my biggest obstacle is swallowing
it back down,
calming it,
when the moon
is eclipsed.

winter is settling in my bones
and with every inhale my lungs take in freezing air
until my head throbs and my thoughts slow to a dull ache.
the flowers on the sill are still in bloom
despite the coolness of the glass beside them
and i wish i could ignore the chill and open up
but winter is unkind
to my fragile heart

i hope the beast we share
(our only remaining connection)
keeps you up at night,
pulls our old photographs
and the letters i wrote you
from the drawer where they rest
and make you remember.
i wonder if you kept the poster,
the collage of our memories;
i bet you burned it
(just to see my face warp
like you claim my heart did).
i know you act like you don't care,
like you're better off,
like i was a bad friend to you,
like i was never anything but
exactly what you asked of me
(i tell myself the same things,
except when i say it,
it's the truth).
i need this beast to stalk you too.
i can't be the only one to shoulder the weight
of our heavy silence
(why does it still hurt?).

i hope when that song comes on
your lips curl up before they curl down

i hope when the first note registers your remember happy moments
the long runs in autumn
the conversations held at 1 am
the days spent just lazing in each other's company
the unforgettable concerts

and i hope that when the second note registers,
your stomach drops and your heart soars up in your throat

i hope a lump like a coal forms in your throat
and salt water rivers course down your face

i hope i ruin all of your favorite songs

i hope it burns you when i leave

i spend
the e n t i r e year
lusting
and
craving
for summer

but by the time
it arrives
i find that
i really don't
care for the heat
or the sweat
or the smothering humidity.

and so
i lust
and crave
for autumn's grace
and the death of
warmth
so that i may
feel alive
again.

please don't change the subject
when  tell you something
i wouldn't tell anyone else
like:
i feel so alone
i can't find my meaning
i'm not really going anywhere
i'm lost
i'm scared
i'm so **** exhausted but i sleep just fine

you just tell me
"huh, that *****,"
or
"it could be worse. everyone feels like that,"
that doesn't make it any easier
i want to scream
you tell me to trust you
and get mad when i say i can't
but you make it so **** hard
when i can tell you don't care.

sometimes i still feel like i wont ever
be good enough
to be loved
or trusted
or even
important.
and i'm so scared.