How can you say I go about things the wrong way?

Do you remember the summer night I pulled you
by the hand to find fireflies? I could not believe
something so small, so delicate, could hold
so much light. When they went to sleep we laid
on our backs with a bottle of wine between us and stared

at the stars. You used your scientist’s eye to show
me the constellations I’d never been able to spot
before. I loved the idea of a story unfolding
in the stars and you loved the idea of us.

When the wine was warm and I could find the Big Dipper
without your help, we undressed by moonlight and jumped
in the envelope of the lake. We pretended everyone
else was asleep and could not hear our words of ***
and love and mortality. Just as they could not see my legs
wrap around your waist in water too deep to see

the bottom. That night I asked you how you needed
to be loved. You said you didn’t know
how love felt until we met, but sometimes, you would lie
awake next to me at night and wonder, “is this it?”

And how can you say I go about things the wrong way
when I did the human thing and loved you in the only way I know?

And we are humans and need to be loved, but just because you love
someone does not mean they have to love you back.

And just because you once loved someone does not mean you should continue.

How ironic that your most played songs are an ode
to the devil, and my most played songs are an ode to you.

Our love was punctuated by music. You held it so close
to your chest, I had to peel it off your fingertips.

From the moment I met you, you were linked to an album
of *** and lust and love and guilt. You listened
to the whole thing in one day. Your favorite was the song about doom.

You always handed me your phone when you drove, “Play
something new.” When you liked the song, you drove slower. If
the roads were quiet, you would drum on my left leg
with your right hand, putting my song in your body, you always

kissed me at red lights. You picked the music when we cooked
but it was always an album I had shown
you. I cooked and you cleaned, and you always worried when you ran
out of things to clean, but I never gave you a task because
when your hands went idle, they locked around my waist

and these were the moments I fell in love. Our love stopped
quietly. Music poured from your bedroom that did all the yelling
and wailing and pounding for you. You played drums

at your church and on me and on you, and I wonder if this pounding
on your legs is too your chosen self harm. Was loving

me your chosen religion? Am I more heaven or hell?
I left church and only fondly remember the music.

Your favorite band is Make Them Suffer, which is how I imagine
Hell and how you imagine our love.

Relationships are religion and I don’t wonder
if there’s a god when I’m in love.

I am accustomed to being a first
love. This is not an infatuation with pure
or loving the untouched. It is
an infatuation with the losing
dogs. In school, my best subject was always
English, my second best subject:
history. The past is important. I only
know how to work through my history
with words. I cannot work through
someone else's history with my
words. When I am not a first
love, I want to write to the loves
who came before me. But how do
I write to a love that was not mine?
I imagine it would start with
an apology.

For the first time since childhood my bed was in the corner and this felt safe to be tucked in by walls.
Sometimes, I woke up with bruises from hitting it, but I never moved my bed.

You have thin walls and broken blinds and crumbling brick and leaking windows and I cried when my parents first walked out your doors because I fear people walking out on me.

And you became this one place of safety and home.

There is the living room where I sat with two strangers I was suddenly contractually tied to.
There is the bed that I sat on the end of with my fingers measuring my wrist one morning and Clara suddenly said, “you’re going to be fine” and there is where I realized I do not hide so well as I think.
There is the tile I stared at when I purged the last time.

There is where Jack read my poetry.
There is where I lay laughing and living like my younger self dreamed.
There are the stairs we tumbled down, high and happy, and there is where Clara and I sat talking until four am.
All around is where what happened at the party stayed at the party.

There is where I had *** the third time and the two hundredth time.
There is where I popped the shame and admitted it.
There is where I asked Joseph where his life turned and went wrong. And there is the spot where I fell in love for the second time. And there is the spot where Sam almost caught us, like suppressed teenagers, skin to skin.

There is the picture window we loved to leave open while we cleaned and cooked and baked.
There is the door we left unlocked for Michael and Sam and Sarah and Tommy to breeze in and out of.
There is the window and door we kept closed and locked from the prying eyes of the neighbor downstairs.

There is where I sat when I looked Clara and Abby in the eyes and lied.
And there is where I stood when they caught onto the truth.
And there is where I cried when the second love shattered.
There is the spot on the floor I talked to when I said, “maybe this is what I deserve.” And there is what Abby widened her eyes towards when she said, “I wish I could make you see it’s not.”
There is the wall I leaned against when I told Michael and Bret, too drunk to know my words from each other, about the moment of force. And there is where they said, “do not ever date men who treat you like that again when you deserve a perfect one.”
And there is the corner where Michael sat months after I admitted I had done it again.

There is the spot where Conner said he was falling in love. And there is the spot where I did not say it back.
There is where Andrew picked me up to kiss me in the glow of the street light before he went home.
There is the front step where Caleb said, “Wait, first, will you kiss me?”

There is the floorboard where Abby set her laptop and we drank whiskey and ate clementines and watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower on her last night.
There is the counter where Michael taught me how to do tequila shots.
There is the parking spot where Rhiannon and I unraveled our lives and then intertwined them to put them back together.

You have seen these broken hearts and drunken nights and ***** filled violence and maybe I am walking out with more bruises than I walked in with, but you became this one place of home.

Walk through my antique assortment of recollections
and lining the shelves you will find a de trop amount of regrets,
superfluous surplus that will remain behind when I cross state lines.
But tucked back in corners are stories and memories I’ll miss,
the figurative trinkets who, in absence, I will not and could not forget.

I will miss the childhood films watched while curled up on the couch
with a bowl of still warm popcorn and the symphony of pet snores.
I will crave our 3 AM conversations that just preceded sleep,
when we filled the air with words of nothing and created memories sweet.
I will yearn for the sound of your laugh, his voice, her smile
that echoed through any room the personalities occupied.

Walk through my antique assortment of recollections
and lining the shelves you will find a de trop amount of regrets
mixed with valued, treasured memories that I am sure to miss.
But tucked back in the spaces is room for new worlds
so I close and lock the antiques away, save them for a rainy day.

He wears his feminism and kindness and quietness well

as a garment to pull on when he's cold and lonely
and one to cast off when he's hot and *****.

He is not the quiet, feminist, nice boy.
Not behind closed doors.

At Primrose Hill, I wonder what happened behind that door to push Plath a few streets over and her head into an open oven.

I wonder how often she smiled with lipstick painted lips
when people complimented her husband's poetic genius.

How often did she want to scream,
He's an abuser, not a poet.

He was a romantic poet with a marker in Westminster Abbey.
He was the flame in the oven and the smoke in her lungs.

How many people have stood here and revered his stone?
I made sure to step on it.

I am tired of being a protector for the alleged nice boys.
Of letting him be shrouded in pity and good intentions when it's convenient.

But I am not in the business of ruining reputations.
I am in the business of watching him ruin mine.

I let him paint me into the ***** who broke his heart.
I let him speak his coward's laments where he thought they'd never find me.

What goes around comes around and they snaked back to me
in a telephone of whispers through lips of those more loving than he will ever be.

I let his smoke fill my lungs, cough once, smile and say
What a nice boy.

I do not say what happened behind closed doors.
I do not scream Look at how he abused her and her and her

I do not set him all ablaze.

You and him would sit side by side
in a classroom arranged alphabetically
with your last names falling C D and first
names sharing a J. Although I try not to sometimes
I cannot help but see the other things
you share: the fall of your hair the green
of your eyes the music you love the ***** of your chin why
you like me. Five years stand between you two and I fear
only one year will stand between the mistake
of you and the maybe mistake of him.

1.My mother's favorite color is the palest blue, the same as her eyes. For years, my favorite color was hers because I wanted to be just like her. At nine, I fell in love with green because everyone else loved blue and I wanted to be just like no one. At sixteen, I fell in love with a boy who had green eyes. And skin the color of sunshine and honey. I thought it a coincidence his eyes held the orbs of liquid green in the very shade I found so enchanting.
2. At twenty one, I have been hypnotized by and loved romantically and loved platonically and ****** a sea of green and still think it a coincidence because I am oblivious to eye color. I did not notice my roommate's eye color until our second year of sleeping on mattresses on the floor, laid a yard away from one another.
3. My roommate has green eyes.
4. I am writing this, like the Duke's servants who moonlit as actors, in a green room, behind the scenes. The room where actors reside during a play when they are not on stage is called a green room. Sometimes this room is painted green, sometimes not. This green room where I wait is green. The green room took its name from the fact that its walls were often painted green to rest the eyes of actors after exposure to stage lights. The green room may also derive its name because the London Blackfriars Theatre has a room in 1599 that was green where the actors waited. The origin of the term has been lost. There is no definitive place from whence it comes.
5. Acting is almost lying. In acting, one is meant to become a different person, not quite a lie, but not quite honest. Actors have the ability to become different people, consider motives, achieve an objective. Subsequently, many actors are brilliant manipulators. Many actors are brilliant liars.
6. I am not one of these actors. I am a terrible liar.
7. A wave in that sea of green was a terrible actor, but a brilliant liar.
8. One day, we took a walk just before it rained when the sky turned a gray-green and streaked with gold. A man stopped us and asked, "Hey, what's your favorite color?" "Green," he said without missing a beat. "Your favorite color isn't green, it's black." "I know." "Why did you lie?" "I don't know."
9. That was the first lie.
10. I thought it was a coincidence that he had green eyes, just like other people I love and loved. Mere coincidence. Or divine intervention. Or a sign. It started to pour right after that first lie. Mere coincidence. Or divine intervention. Or a sign. After him, I ****** blue eyes. I sought love from brown eyes. I kissed anything in between. anything but green. I wanted the company of brown eyes blue eyes anything but green. My roommate's green eyes are the exception.
11. Green eyes. Honey, you are the sea upon which I float and I came here to talk. I think you should know, the green eyes, you're the one that I wanted to find.

Someone once asked me,
"If you could go back and undo having loved him, would you?"
At the time, I said no.
Because even if it hurt to be used and abused,
I really believe the old adage that love is always better.

If I could go back in time, I would not undo loving him.
But I would undo how long I did.

I did not realize that perhaps this makes me damaged goods.
I do not believe that you can only love once in a life,
but I forget that some people do.
I forget that new men may think I have used up my once in a life.

And when he asked me,
"Did you really love him?"
I said yes, once upon a time. But wondered if he wondered
if he couldn't fall for me since I already used up my one time.
And when he asked me,
"Do you still love him?"
I said no, end of story. But wondered if he wondered
if I was telling a lie.

At the top of the Empire State Building
There are obstacles so you don’t end your life.
I don’t remember precisely what they are
But I remember that they were there.

Simply because you don’t remember all the things
That once kept you alive and whole
Doesn’t mean they no longer exist.
So I have to plunge upward while writing this poem
To remember them all again.

Each mind has its own method.
You go to be teachers,
to become physicians, lawyers, divines.
Statesmen, naturalists, philanthropists.
I hope, some of you, to be the men of letters,
Those whose minds have not been subdued
by the drill of school education.
How wearisome the grammarian,
the phrenologist, the political or religious fanatic,
or indeed any possessed mortal.
The fears and agitations of men who watch the markets,
the crops, the plenty or scarcity of money,
or other superficial events, are not for him.
I wish him to live by his strength, not by his weakness.
Our people have this fear to offend,
do not wish to be misunderstood.
Do not wish, of all things, to be in the minority.
Rely on yourself.
Every thought is a prison.
The rare gift of poetry already sparkles, and may yet burn.
The world has a million writers,
But the constructive powers are rare,
it is given to few men to be poets.
The writer restores.
Speak, whether there be any who understand it or not.

He's following me,
I see him over my shoulder.
Beside me.
In front of me.
I wish I could escape,
but his words fill the air.
He's following me
and I can't run any faster.
He's here.
Love is a terrible game,
but hate is a worse one to play.

Hold fast
what I give you.
I am an expert
at this game.
Give and take,
take and give.
I stay on guard.
Ready in a moment.
I rip back.
A glance, a word, a kiss-
framed the wrong way-
I dissipate.
If you do not want to break-
disappear.
I stitch my heart to my sleeve,
seam ripper at the ready,
I rip it out of your hands.
What I give you
hold fast.
*
Hold fast
what I give you.
I rip it out of your hands.
Seam ripper at the ready,
I stitch my heart to my sleeve.
Disappear-
If you do not want to break.
I dissipate.
Framed the wrong way-
A glance, a word, a kiss-
I rip back.
Ready in a moment,
I stay on guard.
Take and give,
give and take.
At this game,
I am an expert.
What I give you
hold fast.

I am the kind of girl that boys dream
about. A subconscious afterthought who arrives
in darkness and idle, lazy ambling. I am not
the kind of girl boys think about. There
is no conscious decision made behind my arrival,
no, I am under the cloak of dark and sleep, too
muddled and nonsensical to possibly be
a product of waking musings.

I have never failed a class
But I have failed at the things that matter.
I have failed at eating
I have failed at sleeping
I have failed at counseling
I have failed at psychiatry
I have failed at friendship, sibling-hood, being a daughter.
I have failed at living well.
I have never failed a class
But I have failed at the things that matter.
However, I have not failed at the thing that matters most.

Hello. Do you know who I am?
No, I tell her. How could I?

Hello. Do you know who I am?
Yes, she lies. How could I not?

Would I recognize her on the streets?
Would intuition tell me who she was,
even though I could not understand her tongue?
Can you know someone you’ve never met?
Can you love someone you do not know?

I IMAGINE MY MOTHER READING THIS:

How can she write that?
She doesn’t know.

She would not be wrong.
I do not know the whole story.
I wasn’t there, so how could I?

Is it fair of me to write of someone I do not know?

How can she write that?
She doesn’t know.

I don’t think I can stop until I do.

Are you sorry about yesterday?
Did you note the damage you inflicted
on an already broken being, a girl,
fighting to keep her tears at bay?

Are you sorry about tomorrow?
Will you regret the stupid decisions,
the way you choose to spend your life,
or your actions that will lead to sorrow?

People say the past is the past,
to stop obsessing over every little thing.
I try to tell my mind to stay out of tomorrow
but it wanders and the unknown is vast.

I’m sorry about yesterday,
and all the horrible things I did.
I’m sorry about tomorrow,
and for all the terrible things I’ll say.

There sit the scuffed soles
lying on the bedroom floor
collecting dust on their gleaming tops.
Sometimes,
they move, from room to room,
quietly clicking and clacking
echoing hollowly through the hall
moved by a woman of air.
Sometimes,
he sees her.

When you get in his bed,
The shame clicks its way towards you.
It wraps itself around you,
Crawls between your legs,
Fills your cold mouth,
Settles in your stomach.
You are doing something wrong.

When you get home,
It leaves you heaving in the bathroom.
Chaos has erupted through your body,
Runs rampant throughout your mind,
And you wonder if he wonders
What he did wrong.
You were doing something wrong.

When you were in high school,
Your mother finds a ******.
She douses you in scripture,
Scalds you in shame,
And sets you all ablaze.
You burn quietly.
You have done nothing wrong.

Now you’re a grown woman
Who can **** her way across the world,
If she wants
But you cannot figure out if she wants.
You do not know how to douse the shame.
You do not know how to have *** with him unafraid
And then ask him to pretend as if you’re human.

To say our love is in its death throes
is to give it the gravitas
of a body. And like a dead body, it is
slowly bleeding out. But when a body
reaches the end, it has lived
and our love has hardly taken shallow
breaths. maybe it was never born.
Our love is closer to an orange left
in the decorative bowl of fruit,
not in my own home, but my mother's, too
long and forgotten until it begins to smell.
This love-is it rotting or soft.
Or maybe not at all.

Hello!
Welcome! Are you new here? We can tell!
So we'll start slowly, don't worry, you can follow pretty well.
First things first, hand it over, forfeit your idea of freedom
Always be aware that you are in someone else's kingdom.
Second, take this nine to five job! Yes, we know you had other dreams.
No, no! Stop crying, we have no use for those emotions and streams.
Third, don't live from milestone to milestone, live by paychecks instead.
And don't forget about taxes! You'll pay those until you're dead.
Lastly, there are a few minuscule and final things that you must do.
Settle down, get married, have kids, and send them here too.
Isn't adulthood great? Childhood happiness was just a lie!
Wait! One last thing I forgot to mention: You're here until you die.

A / Korean / friend of my mother’s returned
from Seoul with a gift for me / a Hanbok /
glowing with violent shades of pink and yellow

when I settled the / chima / on my shoulders
and tied the / jeogori / around my waist
I felt like a / white girl / in an / oriental costume /

The year I turned six / my white brother /
brought me to his school when they talked
about / South Korea / a real live / Korean /

to ooh and aah at while a map on the whiteboard
displayed my far off land for them to ogle
with / wide eyes / I leaned into the mirror

that night and ogled my / small eyes / that no
amount of widening could make / white /
All those / white / kids called me / ***** /

Like / ***** / in your armor? I thought
When / my white brother / got married no one
thought I was there for him everyone

thought I was there for his / Vietnamese /
wife. We’re here for the / white boy / his / Korean /
friend drawled. My ally in this sea of / white /

I fell in love with the boy before you slowly,
With the kind words dripping from his mouth like molasses,
Sugar coated compliments that melt on the tongue
To reveal sticky lies and deception,
Sweet remarks surrounding insults.

He would trot out his trustworthiness
And give me the names of other girls he loved in the same second.
He would tell me I was beautiful
And a list of ways to change on the same day.
He would swear our relationship was built on anything but ***
And describe his idealization of **** as revenge in the same month.

He told me the worst thing I ever did to him
Was not say I love you even if I meant it more than enough.
The worst thing he ever did to me
Was say it too much and never mean it once.

I am still learning how to not love a ghost,
How to stop painting in rose streaks
Over his terrible actuality.
I am still learning to hate the reality.

I do not want you to become another poem.
For your sake I wonder,
Is it harder to be the girl stuck on someone cruel
Or to be the boy in love with that girl?

The drunk man in the bar
slurs that women are jewels,
capable of giving tender love.

The men we kept as company
could never understand us.

The drunk man in the bar
warns us to only act out of love,
never out of anger.

How about when we’re out of love?
How long will we last?

If women are jewels,
we have already been put
under immense pressure.

Pressure is how we learned
to become precious.

Anymore and we will crumble.


Or maybe we will explode.

Her life is a rollercoaster
Full of highs and lows.
Sometimes scream inducing or euphoria filled.
Sometimes mild, barely detectable.
High for a minute, a week, a year
Low for a moment, a sleepless night,
A lifetime, she feared.
Her life is a rollercoaster
Full of highs and lows.
And she is afraid of rollercoasters.

The skeletons in her closet
are clawing to get out.
The scratching sound scares sleep
and she is not prepared for them,
it’s not Halloween.
Inquiringness invites her
to crack the closet door.
The bones butcher beatitude,
the framework forays her future.
Subsequently the spine-chilling skeletons
withdraw to the wardrobe
until she consigns them to oblivion.  
Then they claw to get out.

Mine is indecisive skin:
somewhere in between yellow
and off white,
mottled with red at some times,
mottled with scars at all times.
Yellow enough that when mono
ravaged through sixth grade
with symptoms listed as yellow
discoloration of the skin
a kid pointed at me and asked
like that? of it.
I do not write it beautiful
the way Rachel Rostad does:
“[my skin] was pacific sunset,
almond milk, a porcelain cup.”
I prefer to indulge in the comfort
of sweaters and long pants and hair
framing my cheeks, hiding
what my eyes my hair my name
give away. Joseph loved me
for my eyes my hair my name not
my skin, said
I don’t like your skin tone,
and I took this criticism as cruel and probably
fell a little bit out of love with him that night,
with his asian anime schoolgirl fetish
with his white boy privilege
but do you really think I’m talking to you about my skin?

“You *******!” Flung the lady on the soap opera
while my mother painted on her lipstick. She
turned the volume down. I asked my mother
what a ******* is. She said it’s someone
whose parents are not married. I asked her
if that made me a *******. She said it’s not
a nice word. “But I am one.” She said women
can’t be *******. What does that make me? For
every genealogy assignment in elementary
science class, when we listed inherited traits,
I always left mine blank. A piece of white
papered shame, the proof that my father left
my mother. The proof that I am a ******* mistake.
One day, I want to meet the man who walked
away and fill in my blank paper with his passed
down traits. One day, I want to meet the woman
who I must have made so afraid. One day, I want
to prove that I am worth the trouble. The malicious,
******* part wants to make them regret walking
away.

I knew that I was beginning to care about him
when I asked him about the train tracks on his wrist.

I noticed them the night we met,
illuminated by flickering candlelight.
I asked him about his mom and his dad,
his sister and his friends,
his high school and his college,
trying to find the moment
where life twisted and turned wrong.

The question spilled out of my mouth.
I tried to catch it, but it had already overflowed.
He clapped his right hand to his left wrist,
as if trying to stop the no longer flowing blood.

The last boy I loved stared with sweetness at knives
and he sliced his skin as a sacrifice
to the man he wanted to be.

We sat on a park bench the summer we were seventeen
and he grabbed my wrist and he drank my lies.
But he did not mention it. And I did not mention it.
And we raced each other to die.

I have found that there are many ways to hurt yourself.
I have found that many people I love are hurting themselves.
Writing about being desperate to die,
trying to expedite the process.
Hiding weapons under pillows,
pressed like petals between the pages of books.
We do not see one another.
At least, not in time.

When I am at his left side,
I run my right hand over the inside of his wrist.

I want kind fingertips to have touched
the painful spots although they cannot erase.
I want his skin to know it deserves softness
and not sharpness, not all the time.
I want to thank him
for letting his cuts become scars.

I want to thank them for staying alive.

The little boy stood up
and dusted the chalk from his knees and wrists
and he admired the drawing on the pavement.
Chalk dust had smeared and danced in the wind
while he looked at his tree and the blue sky behind it.
When another boy, a bigger one rode by
and let his bicycle tire cut through the center.
The boy laughed at the little one
and the little one cried.

The boy drew with careful concentration
and Crayola crayon gripped tightly in his small hand
while he colored in a coloring book to make the unnatural possible.
Another girl laughed and tore his page out
saying that pigs weren’t blue and grass isn’t orange.
Everyone snickered and pointed
and the little boy snatched it back and tossed it into his backpack,
ashamed.

The teenage boy painted carefully across his canvas
and let the blue paint drip like pieces of the sky
as he created the ocean waves and swells
and his classmates laughed at him because he wanted to paint
and not play games and the boy had stopped caring,
had stopped hearing the laughter.

The man hung his canvas on the wall
of a fine and elegant gallery
and people came and stared in awe at his creations
and no one laughed or pointed
and he didn’t feel ashamed.
He only heard praise
and now he was laughing.

english teachers detest me
because i never capitalize my i’s
but they never once bothered
to come and ask me why

uppercase is a privilege
at least, it is in my mind.
it’s reserved for war heroes
or a painter who is blind

i have done nothing remarkable
i have hardly even tried
everything good i’ve done
is eventually cast aside

why do i deserve an uppercase?
or for that matter, why do you?
we’ve done plenty of bad
when there’s plenty of good to do

english teachers detest me
because i never capitalize my i’s
but i will have reason to someday
and i hope that is not a lie

The floor is made of lava*
It’s a well known childhood fact:
If you want to survive you jump and leap
you do anything to avoid crashing into
the volcanic and scorching stream.
Then as children grow they test their luck
they believe in their invincibility,
and don’t proceed with caution to molten rock
that has the power to make them scream.
As those same dumb and naive children
race onward towards adulthood
they crash down to the magma ground,
they plunge directly into the pain.

In my hours off I wonder
To how many alcoholics
Have I offered wine

He stitches his eyelids closed
And from the kaleidoscope of colors
Formulates a picture from his memory
Of his Emily.
A ballerina encased in satin
Set spinning when the lid of containment is lifted
Graceful, enchanting, alluring
Mapping the stage with movement,
Creating constellations to mesmerizing melodies
He watches from the wings.
She takes flight across the sky
And extends her hand,
Inviting him to join her,
A gift, a granted wish.
But he hesitates.
The words dangle off his lips,
And--
The seam of his eyelids is ripped.
The motion picture stops.
For he is too late.
He is always too late.
And his 'i love you' goes unsaid.

To the little boy in the diner,
I’m sure you didn’t notice me, I barely took note of you
but your clear, childish voice traveled
it reached my booth and seized my ears.
You were gabbing on to your parents
(who were more mindful to your stains than your words)
about all the things you want to be when you grow up.
A teacher, a veterinarian, a doctor, a policeman.
Your naive string made me smile, until the commentation flew.
“You don’t want to do that,” the parents promised.
“You’ll change your mind and give up.”
And you were quiet, but I’m sure you shrugged it off
because that’s what children do.

I am still a child, not too much older than you,
but I can’t shrug off people’s doubts of my dreams like you.
Somewhere along my journey towards adulthood
I began to accept that my dreams are unreachable.
Our whole, young lives we’re told to reach for the stars
but gradually we will be told to lower those stars
until they’re within arm’s reach.
Parents like yours and mine will say our goals should be practical
and with our current lifelong dreams we won’t amount to much.
Uncreative adults like this will instill the dull principle in some,
but I hope not you, and I hope not me.
Everyone has to be someone doing something
so why not try for the stars a million miles away?
I want to look up one day and see
those far off stars are dangling just above my head.

And as for you, little boy in the diner,
I hope you do what you want.
Speak words people will hear across nations,
or whisper melodies for only those you treasure to receive.
Perform actions that millions of people will be touched by,
or be one person’s superhero to lift them off the ground.
I hope you go back to that diner someday,
accompanied by your aging parents.
I hope you tell them that you’re successful
I hope you tell them that you're happy.

Sincerely,
the girl in the diner
P.S. I hope you prove them all wrong.

If you look into somebody's eyes,
you can tell a lot about their lot in life.
I looked in your eyes, you looked in mine.
You looked tired. Exhausted. Beaten down.
One look at the man you were with, and I could see why.
His speech was slurred.
His laugh was manic.
His legs could not untangle.
This was clearly not your first intoxicated outing with him.
You were clearly tired.

I'm tired too.
I'm tired of running through parking lots.
I'm tired of having to check my backseat before locking the car door.
I'm tired of the men who make me live this way.
I'm tired of men like your drunken company.

When a drunk man calls you pretty, it is no compliment.
There's an unspoken threat beneath the innocent words.
For a moment, you're not a girl, you're a target.
For a moment, you're not pretty, you're prey.
So when your drunken company said it,
stopped his singing to the sky and spoke to me,
told me I was a pretty little girl and should watch my back,
I ran. I dove in my car. I locked the doors. I drove way.

You. You stood and watched silently.
You watched fear wash over my features.
You did nothing.
And surely not for the first time.
No one goes through life long without bearing witness
to a spectacle like what your company created.
You did nothing. Just like most.

To the man in the market,
I do not blame you.
I looked in your eyes.
I get it, you're tired.
I'm tired too.
But you looked in my eyes.
Do you get it? I'm afraid.

I am a poet who fell in love with a scientist.

I wrote him odes and pulled him through the grass to look at the stars.
He read studies on how to love me and pointed at the placement of the planets.

I saw his traits as the ingredients to compose a flawlessly flawed face.
He saw them as biological components to create a recipe for evolutionary disadvantage.

I knew that I loved him because I felt it in my bones.
He woke up beside me and pondered, while I slept, if he truly did me.

I saw him as the perfect person.
He saw me as trial three in this experiment of the heart.

His hypothesis: I will always love you
The results: Hypothesis proven wrong

Years and years,
I held so tightly to my body
in a game of tug of war
with you who gave
and saw me as something to take
even in this bed you never saw
between these walls you never occupied
your whispers still creep between the sheets
so how strange it is
that the first man who asked for my body
and gave the gentlest of tugs got it
with no pull back
and when I lay between his sheets
I can forget your hands and lips
once in the very same spots
and wonder if he's touched them more yet.

There goes another little red flag
In the soft soil of my heart
That I so stupidly watered and fertilized
To make it all that much easier to stab

I stopped loving you
The moment you stopped loving me
And I wonder what this says about me
That I do not love other people
Unless they love me
And I do not say I love you
Unless they say it first.

A little boy once asked me
why I want to go away tomorrow
because he doesn’t understand
that’s what gets me through today.

Why is *** called making love
when there are so many other acts,
far less physical, far less cheap, than that?

The world reveals pristine, porcelain skin
over untouched and idle thoughts.
Undresses limbs over addressing morals,
Grips headboards over words,
Scrambles bedsheets over aspirations.

But fine, go ahead, call it love,
and wonder why young generations
grasp blindly at the concept
and consider themselves fools,
falling down again.