I still live in 5 years ago
I am stuck
Between a rock and a hard place
Not unlike how I got stitches in my face
Stagnant.
Unmoving.
Rushing water
Staying afloat
Affixed.
In a river
The current is moving on.
Time travels
Weirdly.
Fast.
Now.
Slow.
5 years ago I was building anew
Remaking
Running
Changing
Figuring out who I was before
Who I am.
Today
I feel 17 again
Unable to see the future
Struck by vivid images
Unknown

At the edge of seventeen I can’t believe I made it this far.
Never saw this moment coming
Not out of fatality just momentum-based blindness
Rocketing into the realm of time at 460 meters per second
Can seem kind of damning
So the self-proffered lies in order to sleep? necessary.
“I’ll do it tomorrow”
Do you own tomorrow?
Have you seen it in existence?
“I’ve still got time.”
As if time is something one can purchase
Except it wasn’t ever ours
So we have to give it back
And like all borrowed things it has a time limit
Ironic
At the edge of seventeen I don’t know what mine is

Because
At the edge of Seventeen I am doing the splits
Stuck between two time periods of my life and one is still putting up a fight
Don’t let go
Stop changing
Caught between a rock and an avalanche, one is coming at me much harder, faster
At the edge of seventeen I’m working all the angles and learning the equations trying to equate my life to a formula
Except formulas are predictable
At the edge of seventeen I realized that life isn't as mean as I’d always act as if it was

and at the edge of seventeen I realize moments go by really quickly.
At the edge of seventeen I realize the edge is really high
At the edge of seventeen I have never been high
At the edge of seventeen the end of the earth starts blending with the sky
At the edge of seventeen the limits seem to disappear and reappear in new forms
Like a regenerate limb of a starfish my boundaries are reappearing
I feel sometimes like the universe spit me out like a rejected blood transplant I just never fused

At the edge of 17
I am arrogant
Never mortal
Watch me defy death every morning
I will rise
I talk about the rest of my life as if it has become a tangible thing for me
I consider my existence? prophecy
there are 7 billion 45 million people on this planet and I have the audacity to believe that my three existential crises all before breakfast are the most significant occurrence since the creation of time

At the edge of seventeen I am standing on the ledge with you
Laughing at the sky
At the edge of seventeen I am swimming with you in the lake
At the edge of seventeen chlorine has made me a green haired monster
At the edge of seventeen we have caught baby turtles and put them into the back seat
At the edge of seventeen I am flying down the highway with all the windows down
At the edge of seventeen you never let me go
At the edge of seventeen you never made me say goodbye
At the edge- you pushed me off

And I flew.

Dear Savannah wildflower
I meant Rose,
Savannah my wild rose,
I love you
Let me start this by saying that much.
This; this is a love letter
From me
To you
Correct the speelibg if tou nust
But these words are overdue trust me, I know
We both share the "procrastination" gene
I need to tell you this before the world ends
Before the lights go out
Before you forget you are powerful!
Before we are old
Before I forget to call
Again
So before you stop reading,
know that you are my favorite poetry
You write my every line
I hear it in
Your tears
Those silent sobs made me steal words from another poet because I cannot even describe
The pain.

Your laugh however,
The way you
Let it free but keep it close
And you
Keep joy warped into your bloodstream
Like an addict
One
Two
Three
Hits a morning
Just to survive
Don't sell it
They kick you out of school for that,
But let others know where they can find it
Let me know where I can find it
Because without you
I can't see the stars anymore
I was a star before
This big city has me all kinds of messed up
Too many people
Too little water
Too much CO2 in the air
Too much sorrow from a mournful father.
Breathe Savvy
In
And
Out
I hope I never made you use an oxygen tank
There's a metaphor in there, I swear
That I miss you
That I love you
That every broken piece of me
Is fixed when you love me
Please don't lose your dreams
because love?
You are a dreamer.
Give me one of those sometime okay?
And that abundance
Of jokes so full of cheese
I choke on the air
(Because you know I hate cheese)
because you're so corny....
That this joke doesn't make sense without you
Sister,
You are my greatest friend.
You are fifteen roses of beautiful and wild and Golden-Gate-Bridge strong.
You taught me
How to protect
How to dress
How to stay strong
How to disappoint you
How to long for someone you love
How to love you
You taught me how to be unapologetically myself
Because you know you're fabulous
Like the way you sneeze glitter
Like the way you like "clickety-click shoes"
Because they announce your arrival  
I hope you know my shoes don't fit you
They aren't intended to
(though I always borrowed yours)
We have different things in store
And You are so much better at shopping
Savvy
Let my love protect you
And don't live too quickly
Let me teach you how to forgive
Let me back in
Sincerely yours,
Klaryssa Lynn
P.S. drink plenty of water so you don't wilt.

10.  it’s like when you get to the airport
just in time to watch your flight take off without you.
it’s like when you get up dance but the music’s already over.
i think sometimes we’re all scanning the crowd
for someone who is never going show.

4. baby, you make nervous
like i’m not talking butterflies, i’m talking a mass exodus of monarchs
shuttering from the trees in mexico
like the sky’s rippling around their wings.
i’m not talking fireworks, i’m talking atomic bombs.
i’m talking terrible internal bruising
and the first time i saw you was like the first time
i saw the sun rise.

6. please, please, please love me
even when everything about me feels like ****.

8. love will never ever feel like it did when i was 16, 17, 18.
love will never feel like it did the first time again.
and first love only seems perfect
because it had nothing to measure up to.
so i stopped trying to catch it, stopped waiting for miracles or for magic.
because i’m not sure it’s out there.
i’m not sure there’s The One in capital letters
but maybe more like a lot of ones. plural.
maybe everyone you’ve ever loved was The One right then.
see, love is not a choice but the way we do it is.
and sometimes forever is just deciding to stick out
for as long as you can make it.
because, sometimes, things start fading
and we either choose to throw them out or color them back in.

2. my heart is unfocused;
love is not obedience and obedience is not deference
and i love you is not i always will.

7. i wish i could send sixteen year old me
a letter about love like “baby,
you want to rip yourself apart to find space inside of you to fit them in,
this is not love. i know it feels like it sometimes, but this is not love.”
i wish sixteen year old me knew how the **** to listen.  

3. see, i am 90% bravado and bad timing.
a lack of serotonin and a closed mouth.
more fistfight than handshake, more gritted teeth than grin.
and i love myself like you’ve got to love yourself
when you don’t always really like yourself.
i am in the room full of my mistakes
and they are telling me ghost stories about you.
see, i didn’t love you, it was… just the music.
my heart got confused, caught up in the baseline.

9. and i’m always reaching for something that burns
the palms of my hands, leaves me blistered.
i am always trying to hold onto borrowed time.

1. and i know this isn’t the love letter you asked for,
but it’s the one i’ve got.

Driving down the road and we cross paths
Two roads diverged by the confines of a yellow line and we both took the same one.
Natural curiosity casually has me glance over and I make eye contact with a stranger
Maybe we are family members that haven't met yet
Will our story be "remember when I saw you on the highway?"
Will you remember my face?
I instinctually look back
You did too
But you glanced at me as if I told you one day I'm going to the moon  
Why do we look away?
Are we aliens in our own galaxy?
Don't alienate me
We are of the same skin
We are of the same bones
We are of the same blood
In this Earth we call home

Falling in love is so hard
Especially, when you won't even look into my eyes
We maintain a heightened sense of fear this way
Maybe we are supposed to be afraid
When I fall in love
It will be fearless  
You will pass me on the highway
We will both make eye contact
And not one of us will glance away
It will be a war waged on who looks back first
Our corneas burning
Bloodshot circles from staying up all night discovering the different hues
Eighty years in a single second
It will be a universe inside of our pupils
I swear I will be able to see the stars
Taking a million leaps forward
Never glancing back.

summer in kansas is like being underwater,
humid and oppressive as our state’s current legislature.
our skin would get stuck together, when we pulled apart
it was like we were unzipping parts of ourselves.
painful.
there’s a metaphor in there,
somewhere, i swear.

some breakups are like surgery; removing a part of yourself,
coming out of the operating room and still leaving things on the table.

we spent a lot of time stuck together
then being pried apart by the air conditioner, among other things.
you make me feel like i have too many nerve endings
and not enough skin.
i think it must be a ******* talent to make someone feel like
too much and not enough at the same time.
we spent a lot of time driving with the windows down,
music filtering out of them
like we wanted people to know what we had stuck in our heads.  
you groan when i turn on 95.7 and whatever top 40 tune
dubbed the “song of the summer” comes on.
see, i kind of hate people who hate pop music
because honestly get the **** over yourself
and admit that taylor swift songs are catchy already
but i still like you.

so the speakers are blasting “fix you” by coldplay
and i’m wondering why songs that are written about things
i’ve never really experienced
are always the ones that make me cry.
my mom always says that i am the most empathetic person that she knows.
it always just makes me feel ashamed of all the times
i have felted shuttered,
judgmental and close-minded.

i am usually glad that people don’t know me like i know myself,
i’m afraid you wouldn’t like the inside of my head;
it’s not like i always do.
sometimes when i’m sad and my head feels foggy
and i want to unzip my veins
or something else ugly and over-romanticized like that,
i think that universe is trying to reject me
like a bad ***** transplant
like i was something never meant to be here in the first place
and it’s trying to right itself,
find equilibrium.
i know it’s not true but i still think it sometimes.

i think i love myself too much or not enough.
i am not good at equilibrium.

when you said, “i think i love you,” i thought you were joking.
i don’t know if that says more about me or you.

i’ve always been afraid
there is something terrible and fragile and hopeful
about young love that i will never get to know.

love is probably at least 70% proximity and i’m okay with that.
so you're kind of like my spleen,
i could survive without you
but it be pretty ****** to have you torn from of my ribcage.
because love is not completing a set,
it’s just finding something you really ******* wanna hold onto.

sometimes when you’re a poet you tend to idealize love into stanzas
instead of realizing that love is not poetry --
poetry makes too much sense.
love is a long-*** novel that you get bored of sometimes.
love sneaks up on you, it grows inside taking root like… honeysuckle.
an invasive species.

and honeysuckle are no roses, they’re prickly in a whole different way.
just the same,
nobody tells you that love can often be so ugly.
but a lot of kids still pick handfuls of weeds,
dandelions and clovers and grass stains,
and present them to their mothers
with a fistful of pride.

maybe love is not a victory march.
maybe love is just… the drive home.

Red dirt haunts the bottom of your boots
All of your curiosity cannot be contained in one suit
You will do the things most men dream of.
You will colonize a land unknown.
I asked you what your dream was
And you said you wanted to go to the stars above
Apparently Mars has always been your dream home
You want to colonize that red speck in the sky
And believe me, I know how good you can colonize
I mean you’ve already taken over my heart
Your footprints will stay there even if we were to part
Your words are more treasured artifacts in my chest
And so far I think I like them better than the rest
Stay on my planet for as long as you need to
I will help you here until Mars needs you
Use my poems as your rocket fuel
Keep them with you until they are useless
Let my hands be your shelter
Make my mind your control center
I will be whatever you need me to
Even after you’ve blasted off into the blue.