it was sunday night when you broke
the silence by asking me what i was
thinking about, and i admitted that
i was thinking about the rain before
leaning my cheek on my palm and
turning my head towards you, and
i asked you what you were thinking
about,

and it was quiet, and you unbuckled
your seatbelt and shifted your body
and admitted that you were thinking
about me, and when i leaned over the
console and placed my hands on your
neck; when you pressed your forehead
against mine without smiling; when we
just stared at each other and you silently
told me that maybe we really weren't
just friends,

i was thinking about you, too

pisces:** you paint the ocean on your eyelids so that when there are tears streaming down your face at 3:15 in the morning, it doesn't feel like you're crying and you feel like a monster because nobody likes the taste of salt water, but what you're forgetting is that salt helps heal wounds

aquarius: you don't wear sunscreen when you're drinking lemonade outside in the middle of an indian summer because you want to show people that you don't have a care in the world, but it's hard for anyone to see anything when you've constructed a barricade of repressed memories and locked yourself inside a closet full of skeletons

capricorn: "i like holding your hands because they're warm," he tells you, but what happens when they're not? you want to peel back the layers of his skin until you see his lungs moving beneath his ribcage and you want to know if he can hold his breath for as long as atlas held the earth (maybe his lungs can hold your hands when he won't want to)

sagittarius: you get drunk off of cheap thrills and doing eighty-five down backroads while everyone else is asleep, but when it comes to letting people get close to you, you still need someone to hold your hand (maybe you can't trust yourself to trust others)

scorpio: you're telling him to kiss your neck when you really want him to kiss your mind, but you're so torn between being passionate and being psychological that maybe you don't know the difference

libra: according to others, you are the one who's supposed to be balanced and content, but right now you are struggling and you can't tell the difference between a love letter and a suicide note (it was hard for me to write this) (i love you a lot) (i'm sorry, baby)

virgo: you wear more makeup than necessary when you go out and you only wear black pants because they make your legs look smaller, but i want you to remember that you are a flower that was born in the midst of a drought and plucking your own petals until there's nothing left would be a real disappointment

leo: your hands are at your own throat because you are too generous and you have been taken for granted one too many times (ask your mother for advice and she will tell you to stop ripping yourself apart just to keep others whole)

cancer: there are rainstorms in your tear ducts and butterflies in your stomach and sometimes you feel like the earth will shatter beneath the gentle touch of your fingertips, but when you realize that nobody knows how to feel the way that you know how to feel, think of it as a good thing

gemini: you believe that soulmates are supposed to be your other half, but you should also consider that soulmates could be those who help you find the pieces you were looking for in others in yourself (patience — you will find yours soon)

taurus: you do things that you shouldn't do and you kiss boys that you shouldn't kiss and your shameless flirting with self destruction won't be ending any time soon (you let others love you to the point where you are too stubborn to love yourself)

aries: you light fires just to see how quickly you can put them out and you are always three steps ahead of the person next to you and sometimes you start fights just to see how long it takes for you to come out on top, but everyone can see that you would never hold someone else's heart just to have the opportunity to drop it

my father and i were drinking orange juice at
two thirty in the morning when he turned to me and said,
“i never taught you that you could be anything you
wanted to be because the truth is that you can’t,”
and i decided he was right when i realized i was too
right-brained to work a nine-to-five job and that i’d rather
destroy a computer and call it art than create one and
call it science.

but maybe he was only thinking about the big picture,
and by now i’ve realized that the big picture is never
the most important and that the small scribblings that
mainly go unnoticed matter the most and i thought
back to when a tenth grade teacher had asked me a
simple question and expected a simple response,

and while i had given her a real answer, she claimed it
to be unrealistic and the corner of her lip twitched as she
tried to suppress a laugh, but i wasn’t laughing because
what’s so wrong about saying that, “maybe i want to be
your favorite constellation?” because it’s true —

and, “i want to be the goosebumps on your arms when you
hear your favorite song performed live. i want to be the aching in your
ribs after you’ve laughed too hard, your favorite Sunday dinner,
a constant reminder that you are beautiful and that you are
kind and that you don’t need anybody else to make you happy.
i want to be compassion. i want to be sympathy, treachery,
creativity. i want to be the reason you wake up in the middle
of the night without really understanding why. i want to be
the question, an answer, a hundred possibilities.”

she asked me what i wanted to be, and i told her i wanted
to be everything — and maybe other people don't know how
to feel the same way that i know how to feel,  and maybe that's
because we spend so much time teaching kids how to compute
and to quote instead of how to express and emote and i find that
to be very disappointing.

2006 —
"you can't run away."
"you can't wear makeup yet, you're not old enough."
"sorry sweetie, you can't do that."
"you can't. why? because i said so."

"you can't"
"you can't"
"you can't"

"you're just a child."

2014 —
"you can't go to art school, art is just a hobby. where is art going to get you in life?"
"traveling after you graduate? that's irresponsible, you can't do that."
"you can't just go around making bad decisions. think about your future."
"you can't be engaged, you're too young."

"you can't"
"you can't"
"you can't"

"you're supposed to be an adult."

i don't know if i'm feeling everything
at once or if i'm not feeling anything
at all

i. you told me that my eyes are moonbeams, and
that sounded wrong because my eyes are small and
scared like an animal cowering in fear of a predator
and you used my tongue as a punching bag whenever
we kissed and bruises started showing up on the
toughest parts of my skin but maybe that was because
you painted them there to remind me that it's okay
to be scared /
to be vulnerable /
to be human

ii. it's easy to think that i am nothing but a
jigsaw puzzle of bones wrapped in someone else's
skin with a corrupted mind and a half a heart and
you came along with your crooked smiled and your
conflicting morals and i didn't understand you, but
that was okay because i didn't understand myself, and
that was okay because you showed me that understanding
yourself isn't important, and that's where things started
to go wrong

iii. you smelled like nicotine and honeydew and you
were cliché in such a subtle way that nobody noticed
and sometimes it felt like you were a figment of my
imagination and it took me too long to realize that in a
way, that's exactly what you were because that's all i
allowed you to be

iv. sometimes falling in love feels good, but other times
it means bleaching your skin so when you're laying in
an empty bed for the first time in a sixteen months, it
still feels like it's your own and that is something i know of,
but may never understand because i still feel the need to
wrap myself around you every night like a caterpillar that
doesn't want to become a butterfly and you tattoo my body
with your ink stained finger tips and it's safe to say that i am
poisoned by the constant thought of you

v. i don't know how much distance is between us but
there is always a home for you in the back corner of my
left side brain because you were really the only ******* thing
that made any sense to me

i. i've spent all of this time running,
and suddenly you're right in front of
me and it feels as though i've rushed
straight into a brick wall of compassion
and selflessness and it makes me feel
twice as selfish because i do not need
you right now

ii. i've always worn war paint instead
of blush and i never wear a helmet
because i'm too headstrong and my
heart has been clad with an iron lock
and it's so cliche but i swallowed the key —
not because i was afraid of letting people
in but because i was afraid to need
somebody

iii. i get nightmares every tuesday about
the time you rested your hand on my cheek
and stared at me and every sunday i am
reminded of how it felt to be trapped between
you and your mangled cotton bed sheets
and mondays are the worst because i can
only think of the saturday that i told you
i hated you and i can still smell the sadness
in your eyes

iv. it's been three hundred and thirteen days
but i deleted your number and forgot your
middle name and i moved away because you
still remembered that white roses were my
favorite and i know you think that this was easy
for me but i was only trying to make you
understand something that you could never
wrap your head around

v. this is my civil war
(you cannot save me from
myself)