when i came out of her,
i was her daughter

when i came out to her,
i wasn’t

family can feel like a prison

the trick is—
if you make your personality
so big

you can burst right through
the steel ******* bars

i’ve always been attracted
to men who admire the sea;
i’ve found that such a man
is more likely to admire me

you may never have asked
to be my poem

but i never asked
to be a poet

adj—extremely delicate and light
in a way that seems too perfect
for this world.

i guess i could
stay at a safe distance
and watch you
brighten the world
from afar

but i would rather burn
trying to get close enough
to touch you

a rebellious soul like mine
never thought to romanticize stability
until the blue in your eyes
felt like my first cloudless sky

you give life’s hardest moments
a softness
that i could live in forever

the word ‘was’
carries a lot of weight
so that you don’t have to

i let you use the back of my throat
as your punching bag
when i know you need
something to hurt for you

but it’s not enough that i gag for you,
you want me to break for you

and though my mouth
may hand them out—
it’s not my heart’s job
to take blows

i have this tendency to believe
that i only become more broken
as i crash into more obstacles
in life and in love

but the river reminds me
that water only becomes more pure
with every rock that tries to stop it

on the nights
when my eyes
bleed harder
than my heart—
you let your own
bleed out for me

it’s time to accept
that you can’t possibly be
my soft place to land—

not if falling for you
always leaves me broken

it’s not that
there’s someone else
in the picture

it’s that
someone else
is your picture

and i’m the sun in the corner
begging not to set

—
i am sorry.

i love you.

three words
eight letters

i have no problem
saying both to you

you have no choice
but to say one to me
because you can’t say
the other

and though i knew
you’d never call it home,
i built this love meticulously
and lived in there defiantly
completely on my own

so as i feel
the house lose its roof
and the walls lose their blue

i can’t help but feel
homeless
in the house i built

the sad truth is that
many of the same people
who preach that love conquers all
actively try to conquer a love
they don’t understand

i’ll always matter to you
but i’ll never be your person

i’ll always just be a
significant
other
...

i know how terrifying it is
to press pause

to lay in bed
feeling the unrelenting rotation
of the world pass you by
as you try to sleep your way
through the pain

but let me tell you a secret,
my dear—

the more you try to
fast forward through the hard,
the more you’ll have to
rewind back to it in the end

so feel it.
pause it and exist in it.

yes—the world will keep turning,
but don’t let that scare you

someday so will you

against all odds
the cactus
finds the will to live
in a perpetual drought

and i'd rather be prickly
than dead

i cannot
and will not
apologize
for loving him

i mean

you would never expect
the moon
to apologize
for being attracted
to the earth

i got distracted
by your laugh

so, if there was a sign
at the border,
i missed it

all i know
is now i’m in a place
called love

and all the houses
look like you

ironically

those who dare to
take up the most space

often think

they deserve the least

what if this time
when you step off the jet bridge
and into the next chapter

what if this time
you don't stop by baggage claim

i've cried oceans for a man
whose words moved mountains
and whose eyes challenged the stars

and as i stand here
and look at the mess we made,
i think...

we really could have had
the world

at the end of the day—
it doesn’t matter
how meticulously folded
the envelope is

all i can see
are the big red letters
stamped across the top

RETURN TO SENDER
...

if a girl ***** a guy
she doesn't even ******* like
just to **** with a guy
she ******* loves
who is *******
a different ******* girl

who is really
getting ******?

if you stop thrashing
for long enough,
i swear you can hear the ocean say

i’m trying to make you a swimmer

so that you have a reason
to come back
...