Sixteen wasn't too far away
But I can remember it
Feel it
Like it was yesterday
Hearts beating out of chests
As if to reach for one another
Speaking language on skin
Goosebumps as braille
That only we could interpret
I do not remember every second we spent together
Only certain moments
Sacharrin memories that have stuck to my tongue
Can not be washed off with mouthwash or salt
They are far too sweet to erase
I do not remember it all
But I do remember feelings
I remember movement
The involuntary curve of upper the lip
Brought on by overwhelming delirium
Contentment
Happiness
I can feel your smile more than I can picture it
I can picture
The lone tear that would escape an eyelid
Every now and then in the heat of an argument
To remind us
That this is real
And it was
Our distance was never anything more than a few miles yet
We always stayed up to make sure
That the other
Was home safe
Tucked beneath the covers
After driving home
2am in pouring rain
It's funny how
Love comes in more than just four letters
In more than a word
In more than just saying it
An announcement
It comes in
Reminders
In ensuring well-being
In wishes
In thrown pennies into wells
In nostalgia
In remembering how lovely it is
I know we were never ideal
Maybe we fought way more than we should have
Our persistance got between us more than once
You a virgo
And I, a taurus
I'm sorry for being a bull
But I never meant to bully you
I used words like grenades all too often
I was a detonator
When I should have been shelter
Protectant
It was silly for me not to be
I was sixteen when I met you
And sixteen when I loved you
I'm older now
Slightly wiser than I was back then
But in reality
I'm no different
The scariest thing to me is that
It seems as if
Years are nothing more than days
It seems as if
This was all yesterday
That time hasn't even begun to graze our youthful skin
But it has
And it is
Time has touched us in ways I never imagined possible
We have already grown apart
Streched to other sides of country
Dipping our bones into different waters
But if there's something you've shown me
Something you've taught me
It's that
Your first love
Will always be your first love
Regardless of how life goes on
Regardless of who you meet
Where you go
What you see
Regardless of distance, time
Whatever it is
Your first love
Will always be your first love
And love,
You will always be
Mine.

This skin that I live in
Has not always been home
When people ask me why I have turned my body
Into a canvas
Into a picture printed piece of art
I respond
With a smile
And a shrug
But I know that the reasons
Go much deeper in me than the needle has
That there is
A volcano explanation
Waiting to errupt from my mouth
But it is not worth the energy
So I lift my shoulders up
And let them fall back down
I am often asked
What I would do
If I woke one morning
With regret burning inside of me
Filling my lungs like smoke from a wildfire
What I would do
If I learned to hate
The self-inflicted artwork that adorns my limbs
My response to that is not one I can cover with a laugh and a movement
Too many times
Have I awoke with a hatred for myself
So strong
That I've had to water it down with whiskey
Too many times
Right before my eyes
Have I seen my skin morph into alien green
Into stranger's clothing
Unfamilarity becoming a familiar concept
When people ask me
About fear of regret
I want to tell them
That my only fear
Is not having any
That if
A drawing on my skin
Is my biggest remorse
Than lucky I will be
I am told
That when I get old
When my skin is
Wrinkled and worn from
Years of experience
I will be embarassed of the photo albums glued to my body
But if I live long enough
To tell the stories
Of my limbs
If I live that long
I will know that
At that young age
It was
And
They were
Exactly what I wanted
I would rather have
A painted complexion
Than a vacant blank page
Rather have
An ocean of color
Than a sea of scars
If the filling of ink in my pores
Is a step towards
Learning to love myself
Then who cares
My tattoos do not read ****
Do not read rebel
Trouble
I have hope written all over me
And that is something
I do not plan
On regretting
My body
Is something
That I do not plan on regretting
I am trying
To make this house a home again
I am determined
To find shelter
Under this leaking roof
I am determined
To become
A masterpiece
Because I know
I am
A masterpiece.

When you love someone who is not there
Your mind will learn to create
Draw images of how everything should be
Erase ones that depict how it actually is
Eventually you will forget what is real
And what is make believe
You will convince yourself
That you are not forgotten
And that even though you haven't heard from him in days
He still thinks of you
You will tell yourself
That you are still wanted
Regardless of the fact that you barely want anything to do with yourself
You will somehow believe that someone else does
He will not tell you though
You have to remind yourself that he is too busy
Too involved even for a hello
You will have to remember
That his life never intended on having you be part of it
And that you
Will probably never be a part of it
You will constantly be reminded of every time you were promised future
And your wanting for it will become unbearable
You will lay awake at night like you always do
This time tasting of more than just alcohol and regret
You will swallow your own tongue wondering why fate never seems to be on your side
Thinking maybe you were never meant to love in the first place
That meeting him was a mistake
You should have known better anyway
To fall for a guy
With a heart already occupied
You know all too well
That there is not enough room in one for two
And you are the tenant with the most vacant body
Stop trying to fill yourself with things that don't exist
You will need to recall
Every single time you have built yourself up
Your expectations piling above you
Never anticipating the crash
You always seem to be staring blank eyed
When everything around you crumbles into disaster
You learn to pick up the pieces
And glue them into something decent enough to look at
Your mind is still painting pictures
On a canvas that will most likely never be tangible
And you will be reminded of it when you're laying in bed
And your hands grab for someone who is not there
When you love someone who is not there
You will spend every second of the day
Searching for them in crowded rooms
When in reality
You know
They weren't there to begin with
And they probably
Never will be.

Note that when I say boy
I say it with purpose
I say boy
Because only men know how to hurt with intention
And you never did

I knew it then
And I know it now
You were too good for me
You are the glowing sun on a california morning
And I am a rainy dark seattle afternoon
The only time my city ever saw blue skies and sunshine
Was when you were in it
You made me laugh
On days when the weight of the world fell on top of me
You always made things light again
I am stubborn
I always have been
I was a bull that you never tried to tame
You never asked me to slow down
Only waited patiently with open arms
For me to come to a halt
I was rough
I would pluck and pull at your thorns until you reached your breaking point
You never did though
And in my moments of panic,
All you wanted to do
Was comfort me and try to understand
I'd push you away before you could even attempt to
I remember laying in bed
Your arms outstreched and caring
And me refusing to give in
Because of some grudge I was still holding on to
We fought a lot
But every time you were the first to forgive
I mastered the art of crossed arms and silence
While you sat laughing out of frustration
Because I was so ******* ridiculous
I picked at you until you bled
Waiting for you to hurt me back
But you never did
Only men know how to hurt with intention
And hurt was the one thing you were incapable of doing
I don't think you could have
Even if you wanted to
You were the first one who didn't try to break me
And I guess I was just expecting you to
I could say I only treated you this way because I didn't know love could be stable
But I think the real reason
Was that I feared if you knew
How great you really are
You would leave
I think the real reason
I treated you so poorly
Was that I was afraid of losing you
I want you to know
That I never intended to hurt you
I know now
I should have loved you better
I should have loved you
The way you loved me.

I am the kind of person
Who has mental breakdowns in the line at subway
Decision making is difficult
Or maybe I'm just crazy
And I might be
Every day is unpredictable
Every day I wake up in the same body
A different person
People never believe me
But believe me when I say
I change on a daily basis
My mood is completely erratic
And always shifting
It is not desirable
To be this unstable
With the daily possibility of hurricane
And ever-present disaster
There is bound to be destruction
I think deeply about everything
Too much and too often
My personality is introverted
Yet I get upset when I'm alone for too long
Human contact is critical to my being
But sometimes I get upset if I am looked at the wrong way
I push people away
And then get mad when they don't come back
I don't make much sense at all
Really, I don't
Potato
I got a massage once
And cried for the whole 80 minutes
Because I had realized
I needed to pay someone to touch me for that long
It was still worth it
It's not normal
To fall apart this often
But I do
So often that it's become my daily routine
A repetition
Of overanalyzing
Freaking out
And then worrying
Followed by bouts of hysterical crying
I cry at the most irrelevant things
But never serious situations
I've been to two funerals in my life
And didn't cry at either
I didn't know how to
I am impulsive
I have seven tattoos
All of which were added within a span of three months
I make my decisions at the last minute
I'm addicted to netflix
I bawl my eyes out every time I watch lilo & stitch
Which is often
Sad music makes me depressed
But it's still the only thing I listen to
I say I hate hookups
And then spend a night with someone who will never speak to me again after
I look for love in all the wrong places
And then get ****** when I don't find it
Yell at happy couples because they are happy and I am not
I smoke cigarettes only because I like the smell of them
I drink too much
And then not enough
I look good some days and then like hell the next
My pillow has a permanent imprint of my head because I sleep a lot
Some nights I don't sleep at all
And then cry about it in the morning
I think I cry too much
And most days I realize this
I realize that I am
A mess
A whirlwind of ugly
Black and white
Back and forth
Thunder storm tidal waves
That constantly pick up and crash
A kaleidoscope of everything wrong in this world
All put together in one single being
I am the definition
Of insanity
But when you look at it
In the right perspective
I guess it starts to make sense
Starts to fold into something other than just breakage
I can't see the appeal in the chaos
I can't see the beauty
In any of this
But maybe someday
Someone will.

I fell in love with the idea of you
The thought of who you might be
How your hands might touch me
How your lips might feel against my skin
The idea of you loved me
Patiently
And kindly
Never selfish
Only selfless
The idea of you knew how to listen
I poured myself empty every time
And still managed to feel whole afterwards
Did not need a bottle to fill me
I was drunk enough as is
The idea of you gave me all there was to give
No need to ask for anything
No need to beg
Or wait
There was always something to grab onto
There was never any chase
The idea of you kept me company at night
Held me in moments of despair
And sung me to sleep
The idea of you always knew what to say
And when to say it
Knew words to untangle me
When my tongue grew tied
The idea of you was everything
I could have ever asked for
But you
Were not what I asked for
Your grip was rough
Your edges too sharp
Your caress anything but sweet
The only time you held me
Was when your arms had no other obligation
There was never any time made for me
You were running so fast
That I could hardly keep up
Always busy
Too consumed by everyone else
Too distracted
To pay attention to what lay in front of you
It is often the brightest lights
That blind the hardest
I must have been far too fluorescent
For your eyes to handle
And although it took me a while to see it
I finally do
I have come to realize
I never really wanted you
I wanted someone
Who didn't even exist.

This is not a love poem
I do not love you
Although I know I could
This is not a love poem
This is not a questioning
But a way of saying
I care more than I let on
A way of confessing
I think about you
More than I wish I did
I wish I could hate you
It would be much easier that way
I could write about it
And move the **** on
But I am stuck
Aware of the time I am wasting
By contemplating it all
By thinking too deeply
I can guarantee you
This is not a love poem
If it was
I would speak about the light in your eyes
How your smile
Is one of the brightest things I have ever seen
Your personality
One of the most addicting
If this was a love poem
I would tell you how much I want to kiss you
I would outline your lips with metaphor
Compare your tongue to honey
Write your body into a sonnet
And tell you how badly I crave it
I would tell you
How much
I long to be with you
How I want to waste
All of my moments with you
I would tell you
Everything I wish we could do
But this is not a love poem
So instead
I will tell you of how badly I want to slap you
Tell you that I hate you
That I want absolutely nothing to do with you
But the problem is
None of that is true
I could very well
Write you a love poem
But I don't think it would do much
I still don't think it would be enough
To make you have enough time for me
And the thing is
You are far too busy
For a girl who has all of the time in the world
She will never admit she's been waiting
But is a ticking clock in disguise
So much time has already been spent counting
All of the seconds
Each minute
Every hour
Days are milestones
Time is limited
It is better spent together
And I would much rather
Be alone with you
But this
Is not a love poem
I cannot incite beauty in something inconsistent
There is no romance
Only disappointment
And let downs
They are easy enough
To get used to
Do not ask me why I have trust issues
Ask everyone who has ever left
My hands do not touch without prints
Without leaving some sort of permanence
They say stay
Don't go
I want so badly
To push you away
But stay
Don't go
Because the way I think of you is a love poem
The way I speak about you is a love poem
The way that I talk to you is a love poem
The way that I can't get you off of my mind and out of my head is a love poem
The way I claim to hate you, avoid you, and pretend to despise you is a stupid ******* love poem
You are the love poem I cannot stop writing
This is a ******* love poem
This is my surrender
So please stay,
Don't go.