dear younger me
i beg you
keep falling in love
with your heart
not your head
and please
remember that no one
ever fell in love
being cautious and afraid
remember to be
open and truthful
patient and forgiving
and above all else
be the person
you wish to
fall in love with

my heart goes out
to the guy who
claimed to be the
last poet in Aleppo;
w/ a ham radio
in his basement
broadcasting his verse
to whoever would listen;
whoever still can
listen; overheard
over pilots' radios &
for a few minutes
the bombs stop
falling; why bomb a poet

I don't ******* food when I eat.

Love isn't supposed to make you want to go back to therapy.

I felt good about myself when you held my hand.

My comfort zone was so big with you, I was able to step out of it.

You think I'm stupid for not knowing how to love you.

You think I'm broken because I can't love you.

My bones are so heavy they can't get away,

My heart is so empty it wants to scream.

I don't think this is what love is,

just because you do.

she believed that love was an unwritten language
and that his kisses were words
and each "I love you" was a novel that she could reread forever
but like all novels, this one came to a close
and she was left with nothing but a cliffhanger

you are told
your whole life
to be beautiful
as if being beautiful is the only thing to be

but what if
i want to be
intoxicating
provocative
intelligent
sensual

to live a life
just being beautiful
is like
standing under an umbrella
while everything else rains down around you

what if i want to be the whole entire storm?

sometimes i just feel like the words clot in my veins and the ink is spilled on my soul and my heart is ripped like the pages of my favorite notebook. my lips are the cracked leather cover from too many forced smiles and the light in my eyes is only the artificial light bulb i use at 3am so i can see what i'm writing. my verses are as repetitive as my endless reassurances, condolences, apologies. mother, i have nothing to be sorry for. my limbs are stiff like the spines of all those bound books i asked for for christmas, sitting somewhere in my room as a heap. i said i wanted to be a writer; i did not want to become my writing.