i suppose sometimes you just have to start writing. even if the words fall in fragments, leaving letters and half-thoughts strewn across the page, the important part is that you write.
right?
when writing about themselves, many writers deem it appropriate to start from the beginning--with “the beginning” meaning many different things. for me, i don’t know when it really started, but i do know when it began to end.

it was a grey wednesday morning, and i was sitting at my desk, too tired to stand but too rattled to fall back asleep.
the wavering morning light slips through the blinds and thin stripes of sunshine run along the carpet. how strange, i remember thinking, that this is beautiful to me.
looking back, i know why it was beautiful. sunlight, even through blinds, is bright. and it’s warm.
then, i didn’t know warmth was a commodity, or that i should have been savoring the light; holding onto its rays; devouring its heat.

back then, i didn’t know a lot of things.

vulnerability isn't openness,
it's generosity.
you aren't showing yourself to others
you're giving parts away to them.

“why are you so afraid?”

one hundred fleeting thoughts run through my head and i can’t seem to hold onto any of them because none of them compare to how much i want to kiss him in this moment.

i love you like the polar bear loves the beach
wistfully, between a sigh
and early morning dreams,
scattered between autumn snowflakes
and flowered halloweens
with all the adoration of
a dying bride-to-be,
sowing kisses into letters,
tucking love into the seams.
darling, i love you
but it's not meant to be.

i can't write these things to you like i used to. you are ... less desperate than you used to be and i am
increasingly inconsistent and brimming
with the desperation i used to see
in you and
i love that, i swear to god i love to see you happy
content, at peace, at least, but
i think you were a crutch
or something
too much
but now that it's gone it's not enough.
all of this
to say
i miss you
and i miss you missing me.

depression is back like a prison sentence i forgot i was serving.
freedom felt like a vacation instead of a destination and
summer ended months ago.
there is so much more weight than there used to be but
there is also nothing there and i don't know
how to explain how much slower i'm walking.
i lie more, cry more, sit alone inside more and
i'm left wishing i could go home but
a little voice inside me says
you are.

my hands dont shake like they used to
and i am hesitantly
content

been on this earth a whole 18 years and truthfully it feels longer. i'm set in my ways, set in the rhythm of rigid days, set believing morality is an endless maze and people are never who they say.

break! monotony is a dream! monotony is only real on the days you don't scream

i guess problem-solving becomes a skill when
you need it to survive. i wish i could learn
something i could use to thrive.

“i kissed you because i wanted to kiss you,” she says. “isn’t that enough?”

no! i can’t bring myself to honesty. looking her in the eyes is like dancing with fire. dangerous. “i kissed you because i want to be with you,” i offer, looking away.

she tenses. it’s the most affected i have ever seen her.

loving burns,
but we can't get off it
lighting cigarettes and hearts
with the same matches
kissing, gasping
between the flames,
choking on smoke, ash
and asking each other's names
pretending they're not the next
candle, saying they're not the same;
everybody wants to feel loved,
everyone wants to feel sane
so between the kissing, the asking, and
lighting the same dead flames
we paint wildfires and suns
and pretend we're not mortal
we're not insane.

you ask too many questions
as if i know my mind
i don't know anything but the way
your name rests
on my tongue.

and the Stars. looking down at this
boiling pit
smile softly,
wickedly,
murmuring to each other
do they know we see them? do they see us?

and the Earth, groaning
as she turns,
mutters
*do they see each other?

the fear is still here. i feel it, rising
when you look at me.
when you love me.
each of your words string together like
rope
entangling and
erasing me. i wish
i could crave affection even
when i have it.
the things i cannot reach for
drive me away.

the last thing i want to be is away from you.

i dont like the dark i dont like the dark i dont like the dark i dont like the i dont like i dont i dont i

dont know how to not lie or
how to always do my work on time or
how to laugh like i'm trying to not die,
how to stop saying half the time i can't breathe
but sunday nights taste like stale anxiety and
i dont know how many more i have in me.

there is nothing to fear
           the words in my head,
                      the way my fingers shake, the darkness
        of a night without stars, the
 loneliness of a night

                                               without

                                                               ­           you.

the sky flings rain on grass and window screens
flowers grow
but glass just blurs like tears

“truthfully, i'm not sure I ever loved him,” she says. i can see the glint of tears in her eyes, but it isn’t sadness as much as it is shame. she looks away. “but god, i loved the way he looked at me.”

his knuckles are bruised and swollen and his hands shudder slightly as i brush my fingers across them. i feel the pain radiating off of him as intensely as the sun on my neck, and it leaves me with a weight in my chest i can’t seem to shake. i can’t look at his eyes when i whisper

“why do you do this to yourself?” i know, i know, i know,

“every time i am harsh with myself,” he says, turning his hands over to grasp mine, “i remember to touch you more gently.”

my heart is the plate untouched and the last kitten picked from the litter. the wilted wildflower and brown bird. you judge my painted feathers and detest my naked petals. leave me to find solace in the ditch when you spit me from your window as you drive.

only romantic when i’m alone in bed

i guess my whole life runs on these feedback loops, constantly dependent on the words i receive from you. everything good you've ever said to me rings softly in my head like my grandmother's wind chimes. your insults are alarms beside my bed.

i wish i was deaf. deaf to your loves and dislikes, the way your eyes look before i change myself to fit your type. maybe this one i'll get right. another half second and we're there, i am everything you want me to be; nothing more and nothing deep, the words that spill from my teeth fall right off me. i claim my memory has always been this bad and it's not a lie, but the truth is i can't remember what's real because i'm lying all the time.

but you know this already, you see me, you recognize the flaws in other people so clearly that even the reflection of personified perfection gave you displeasure.

i'm sorry i made myself into someone you dislike.
i don't know how to unmake myself.

an iron bar in my chest, pinching my lungs,
my stomach. tears and taunts erupt--recoiling from your
touch, pleading
    crush me
                         set me free .

“people used to describe me as innocent,” she said, gazing unaffectedly at her reflection. “i always thought that was bad. i tried to convince them otherwise.” she paused, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “these days i’d do anything for people to look at me like that.”

i turn over in bed
again, feeling flames
lick my stomach,
digging fingernails
in my palms
against the pain
on nights like these
i forget my name,
forget why
the sparks in my eyes
leave me dry
and burning.

my fists are beating themselves again and i dont feel .

if you hold his hand and he doesn't love you,

i mean,
if you hold your own hand
in his
             if you love him and he doesn't love you
are you holding your heart together? is this
hard for you
yet

      i said never hold the hand of the boy who
cares
in all the wrong ways

i said these things
i said

be loved

when my body bends
and breaks--
a flower stem
plucked from her
pretty face
i feel your fingers
pulling petals,
stealing smiles,
scattering pieces
of me on the asphalt.
is it my fault?

.

sugar
here, there
addiction is rare and
everywhere
holding your hand is
as much a need
as desire,
caffeine stings my
veins like
fire

cliche. here,
take two sips of
chamomile and be
at ease, sense the wariness
and illusion of pleasure
you force yourself to drink.
an un-addiction. is this
conviction?
someone told me beliefs are
things you hold and
convictions hold you. is
that true?

my anxiety holds me.
am i a convict
behind the bars
in my mind? i talk so
frequently
of the sentence i'm serving
i forgot jail was a place
inside me.
my reflection is my only visitor.
will you be visiting?

sleeping on the sun
and dreaming about raindrops

do words float beneath your fingers like they for me, do you
hover above them, in awe of the rawness of freedom,

do you see freedom when you look at me?

do feelings and butterflies mix, rewind, do you feel
color-blind looking at anxiety and butterfly wings?

don't look at me--
between the fluttering in my lungs and my mind
there are ten thousand colors you couldn't see
if you looked at me.

you say it is a "noble thing" to "be the same person to everyone" as if that is a choice i know how to make. you criticize my defense mechanisms unaware you activate them in doing so. don't you understand your wise and less than well-intentioned words perpetuate the behavior you claim to hate? i don't know how to stop changing without changing to do so.

i guess i am doomed to displease you. my mistake.

are you ever scared of the people you won't become

i feel too angular for the round world we live in. i still can't figure out the difference between an inferiority and superiority complex, to me they look the same, and every step i take in my broken shoes feels like misspelling my own name. my fingers feel the wrong size but they're purple now so i guess that makes them better. i'm not better but i'm better at being worse. the words i write have lost their mystery. fitting myself between the lines on a page means paper-thin has become my identity. is this happiness? am i at ease, lying flat beneath a sheet of emptiness with pencil pressing into me?

i scrape by with poems and songs and each of them says "there is purpose, there is love," and I hoard them as my senses ring and touch turns intangible and the music sings "you are something, God
i don't know what,
but you're something."

sitting and wondering and laying flat
on a tile floor so cold
it feels wet
and wondering whether you stare at the ceiling
wondering too, wondering whether
i am staring.
or thinking of you.

Ne verse aucune larme—Verse aucune larme !
La fleur fleurira une autre année.
Ne pleure pas—O ne pleure pas !
Les jeunes fleurs dorment dans la terre.
Sèches tes yeux—O sèches tes yeux
Parce que j'ai appris au Paradis
Guéris mon coeur de mélodies—
Ne pleure pas.

I AM SO TIRED OF BEING TERRIFIED

i have never been
scared
of the dark before but
this dark is different
this dark is the dark
of a man, the dark of
fallen footsteps
groping hands
as i lay
in the dark
breathing words that stay
trapped between what i fear
and what i want to say

do you feel darkness like a man? is darkness
a groping hand?

tremors, returning and climbing around in my irises, tackling and entangling my arteries, purple and blue tinges rising in my wrists and fingernails,

, i feel them, all of them,
                           and i am clenched fists and chapped lips,
the fragility of the unbreakable,
a tender undeniability  who scr-
eams

                                        the caterpillars in my bones just wait
                                nestling in the blank caves they still think are
canvases

                                                      ­                   i am alone. afraid afraid afraid
.

he said i make people feel special.
i said i'd heard that before.

i'm forgiveness alone in the booth. Ten cards from the deck of promises, two glasses mirroring my own. French. fingers shaky but on the inside, she holds her own hand. old. wood and wooden tables People talk. they hold their eyes and legs and wish they were not talking as they do. The talk is more, the talk is less. Words forget and for the Window Booth sit. alone. forgiveness.

and maybe i'm stupid or dumb but i never craved ******* love i just wanted someone to fall back on.

romance is lovely but butterflies are overrated.
i just want to laugh and feel at home.

when you write and the words slip off your fingers like gloves
my hands are cold
and you're writing and fingertips fly like doves
feathers fall and lay with the gloves
do fallen flames grow old?
do growing icicles always do as they're told?

tip tip tip toe
down the way to hell hole
stepping in the prints
left behind by the bell boy
waiting for a hint
that- ****
guess we all go
down.

the dark-eyed girl, audessa, laughs. her laugh sounds like red velvet or crystal champagne glasses and it’s magnetic. even nikolai seems enraptured by her, and he is never impressed with anyone. envy rises in my throat.

stop DRIVING me INSANE
i ask for NOTHING and you still disappoint.
i just want you.
you just want destruction.

i asked you to share yourself and
you told me there wasn't
time
or trust
and i said if we don't make it,
there never will be