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."

sad brown eyes
should feel beautiful
again

i have broken too many bones
to keep bending over backwards
to try to prove to you that
i'm exactly what you need

how can i support you
when i no longer have a backbone
to support myself?

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

you've danced on the sun and
conversed with the stars and
the universe knows you better
than your mother does, but
the earth knows what you feel like and
the ocean has kissed your skin and
the dirt remembers your fingerprints;

they say that home is where the heart is,
but you're torn between who knows
your body and who knows
your mind

to: her
from: me

i may not like you but i love him,
so i'm writing this to you to ask
that you be patient with him
and kind to him
and never take him for granted.

you don't love him like i do
and i know this because
you don't know how he likes
his coffee (black), or what his
favorite movie is (hotel rwanda) or
why he's afraid of airplanes (his
sister died on 9/11)

please do not get frustrated with
the fact that he can't take a compliment or
that he might forget your birthday or
that he will put his family before you
in a heartbeat.

please do not think that because
he doesn't ask where you are or
seem interested in going out or
spend every moment with you,
that he doesn't care about you.
he is an introverted mind with
a breathtaking soul and you will
be surprised by how quickly
he will make you forget the name
of any other boy that you have
ever been with.

the last thing that i think you
should know is that he has a
very fragile heart and you
cannot fix it no matter how hard
you try. so do not try to rid him
of his repressed memories and
reoccurring nightmares. promise
him you'll never leave

and do not break

the promise

like i did

if you think about it,
clouds are just like people —

they move around slowly,
carrying all of this weight on
their shoulders until finally,
they get sad and turn grey and
drench us with the feelings
they've been holding back.

sometimes, however, i think
that i would rather be a cloud
than a person because clouds
aren't afraid to show people
their emotions —

they cry;
for minutes, for hours,
sometimes for days,
but they are not scared
or embarrassed. they are not
afraid to tell others exactly
how they are feeling —

maybe that is why there
is always sun after the storm.

There is a big difference between
Kissing somebody goodnight and
Kissing somebody goodbye.

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)

i. this poem is not about that thursday afternoon
you spent holding me in your arms, swaying
back and forth in the middle of your bedroom
because i mentioned that no one understood me
and you told me you liked my dark hair and
my olive skin and the fact that i wrote poems about
confused teenagers in love and that i had a heart
that was just as confused as yours was

ii. we whispered sweet nothings to each other and
kissed under your navy blue duvet for two years
and the reason i still cry over that is because
you knew how much i detested dancing and that
i hated when my peas touched my potatoes and
that i never went to bed before two in the morning,
but you never learned that i am an iceberg

iii. i asked you to describe me and you failed
to mention that i'm afraid of the dark because
it reminds me of a sky without stars and that
my favorite song is skinny love by bon iver
because it reminds me of the relationship that
i shared with you and you never understood
why i liked sad things (it's because i like the
way rainy days and sleepless nights make
me feel something worth writing about)

iv. this poem is not about love or heartbreak
but it is about you, and i must admit that it
feels awkward to write about you without
feeling any ounce of admiration or hatred
pulsing through my tired veins. this poem
is not about me missing you, or how i wish
that you still thought about me, because i
am glad that i no longer float across your
mind whenever you watch a baseball game

v. you were like the titanic and our feelings
were the ocean that carried you closer to me.
you saw the surface of my being, consisting
of all the things you liked about me and the
things that you could put up with. but your
ignorance became too much and every
quality you failed to pay attention to came
crashing into you all at once and i
absolutely destroyed you and i don't know
whether to say i'm sorry or
you deserved this

when you died
i threw your skeleton into my closet
because i couldn't let go of the boy
who told me i didn't need skinny legs
to be beautiful and that it was okay to
drink water when everyone else was
drinking beer

but your skeleton has skinnier legs
than i do and i'm left getting drunk
off old photographs and songs that
sing the words that you used to sing
to me when we sat in parking lots
on wednesday nights doing nothing but
laughing and not saying what we really
wanted to say

i like you a lot
i love you more
i hate you sometimes
please don't leave
i'm really going to miss you

i locked myself in the closet yesterday
with your skeleton
with the memories
i could hear you laugh and
things were okay
(for once)

you are a painter
and i am a
blank canvas.

paint a vivid
picture for me,
for us.

make sure to fill
my eyes with
the wonder and the
curiosity and the
infatuation that will
be present when
i see you for the
first time.

leave my hair
messy because you
are going to tell me
that you like it
that way someday.

include all of the scars
and the birthmarks and
the little wrinkles on
my skin that i hate,
because you will tell me
that you love every
little thing about me
down to the smallest
freckle on my cheek.

pay attention to all
of the little details.

you are a painter
and i am a
blank canvas
waiting to be turned
into something
beautiful.

if you tell me that you love me, i will not say it back

instead, i will tell you that your voice reminds me of indian chai tea and that your lips taste the way i thought cherry blossoms would and that i'd much rather sleep pressed up against your skin than under a sheet — i will tell you that i plug in my headphones to listen to your heartbeat and that you make me want to scream and cry and buy a one-way ticket to the other side of the world just to get away from you and i will tell you that i feel like i am skydiving without a parachute because i have never fallen so hard or so fast and that's scary and yet i have never felt more alive than when i am with you

we were in the back seat of his car the first time that he kissed me. it was sweet and it was young and it was innocent and i couldn't fully focus on it because i heard a song through the speakers on the dashboard and laughed about how wrong the lyrics were when i sang it to myself

take me down to paradise city,
where the tips of his calloused fingers softly run over the tops of mine because he is too shy to actually hold my hand;
                  where the air smells like the ocean and the sky is as bright as his eyes are when he's  
                  passionate about something;
   where the woods are always empty but we still run through them every
   wednesday night because those are the nights that his mother isn't home and his father still
   breaks out tequila and gin because he didn't get the daughter he wanted

oh, won't you please take me home?
and he better not ask me what my address is because he should know that a home is different than a house and my home can be found deep within the far away corners of his wandering mind, and in the valves in his heart which are accompanied by a slow heart rate because he's built like an athlete even though he's too timid to try out for football like his brother did

people usually name islands in the caribbean when asked about paradise, but if the textbook definition is a place of a extreme beauty and happiness, my answer will always be honest when i say that my paradise is anywhere i can get lost with him,

like the back seat of his car

what i want:*
to hear your heartbeat,
to feel your heart beat,
to touch your heart—

i.* tell me one thousand things you hate
about yourself. tattoo your face with flaws,
and i will correct each and every one of them
with my lips brushing lightly against your
bruises.

ii. we sit underneath an empty sky and you
are telling me about your parents' divorce and
it's times like these when i have to remind you
that you are not your mother, or your father,
or any of their mistakes, and you just nod but
your eyes tell me everything you've been
hiding from me and i bit my lip until it tastes
like ancient rust and melancholy.

iii. you were the one who told me that stars
shine brightest before they fall, and if that was
the case then you and i are shooting stars
flying in opposite directions, just waiting to
hit the ground and leave a crater in each other's
mangled hearts.

iv. my twisted heart strings wrap around my
my chest to leave an unwanted reminder that
i love you, and i loved you, and i'll love you,
and it hurts. you shined like sunshine,
i burned.

just when i thought that
i had finally figured out
who i was,

you came along and
that was when i realized
i knew nothing because

before i met you, i didn't know
that blue was my favorite color
or that my favorite smell was
old spice or that my favorite
time of day was every sunday
morning i spent waking up
to my favorite things

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

memory*
n.* the power of the mind to remember things.

i may not be the best psychology student and
i might not understand how something is either
filed into your long term or short term memory,
but i think the entire concept is strange because
i can't even remember what i had for breakfast
this morning, yet i can remember everything
about you.

i thought being an astronaut was something
that only little kids dreamed of becoming,
but i wanted nothing more than that when
i realized that your eyes were planets
and that i could float around in them for
the rest of my life and always be satisfied.

two kids run past me one day in a walmart in
the middle of nowhere and it's eerie because
they are like the ghosts of you and me.
they race shopping carts down the food aisles
and laugh when the employees chase them
and it reminds me of how you knew who you
were and didn't care what anyone else thought
and i can still feel how much i envied that.

sigh no more by mumford & sons comes
on the radio and the only image i can see
is myself, hanging on to the very edge of a
cliff made up of emotions and "i'm sorry's", and
you come into the picture with a heartbeat
so powerful that it causes earthquakes of
anxiety in my brain and you say nothing as
you watch me fall and crumble to the bottom.

i don't know why i can't remember what
i ate for breakfast, but what i do know is
that i would rather have that memory than
suffer with the ones created by the words
you said that rattled my bones and sometimes
i shiver because i can still feel the cold breeze
you left behind from you walked away from me
for the last time.

you're pretty during the day, but
you're beautiful at night when the
only light in the room is coming from
the dreams that are spilling quickly
out of your mouth and your hands are
shaking because they have never held mine
but i want to fill yours with phrases like
'i drink my coffee black' and
'tuesdays are my favorite days'
so you can get to know me without my
tongue quivering and creating broken
sentences that you wouldn't understand
and your skin is soft and your hair smells
like peppermint and i want a love with
you that's more picturesque than your cupid's bow is
and i want to kiss you so hard that
you won't forget it because
i know i won't forget
you

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 love the sea because
she is honest.
when she is angry,
she's wild:
waves of emotion carelessly tossing
boats and sailors around as
a warning not to mess with her.
but when it's quiet
and everything is still,
she is so calm and
so beautiful that
it's hard not to fall in love
with the sound of her waves
gingerly kissing the shore.

in a way, i consider you
to be my own personal sea.
you pull people into you,
only to push them away and
you have so much depth that
nobody has ever really seen.
but i have dived down deep enough
to learn that you cry during
most disney movies and that you
like the smell of my perfume and
it's hard not to fall in love
with the way your lips feel
against mine.

i loved your eyes
because they were such
a powerful blue that they
reminded me of a
perfect storm.

but you turned my
blue skies grey and
clouded my vision and
i couldn't see that
you were not even half
the man i thought
you were.

i don't think that people are beautiful,
whether it be on the inside or the out —
rather, i believe that people have beautiful
moments, like when their eyes light up whilst
talking about their dreams and their passions or
when they are so genuinely happy that it even
makes you smile or when their heart skips a beat
when they realize they're in love for the first time
and the corners of their mouth automatically tug
upwards because it's such a good feeling

people are so caught up with aesthetics and
trying to be someone else's idea of beautiful
that they're passing up chances to be and
feel beautiful every single day and i think that's
disappointing.

i. at seventeen, i should know that
the world isn't always beautiful and
that life isn't always lovely and
i shouldn't ever change the way i am
for the sake of a teenage boy,
but yesterday augustus told me that
there is something beautiful in death
and in that moment,
i wanted nothing more than to stand
on the edge of a cliff and feel my feet
get swept out from underneath me

ii. i have never seen something as
breathtaking as the constellations that
lit up the night sky. they shimmered
and sparkled in the same way that
augustus' eyes did before he kissed me
and i never had to ask him if he liked
the stars because i knew. they were *****
of old light from dead bodies that
floated around the universe and i hope
that even after i pass that i do not stop
floating around augustus' mind.

iii. when i die, i do not want to be
buried within the cold ground because
even though the earth is enchanting
and i wouldn't mind becoming part of it,
i do not want augustus to forget me.
i hope he scorches my body with the flame
that burned in our hearts for
so many years and that he keeps me
on the nightstand so that he will
be able to wake up every morning with
a smile on his face because he would still
be waking up to what he had once said was
the most beautiful thing a person
could wake up to.

how do you expect
a plant to grow if you
do not water it?

[believe in
me]

his hair,
light against your neck, like a feather.

your lips,
parted and chapped,
haven't been touched in days.

his hands,
pressing sporadically into your skin,
almost morse code for
"i'm going to leave you tonight."

you knew
you knew
you knew,
but it didn't hurt like you thought it would.

after all,
how could you resent something
so beautiful?
how could you regret something
so real?

cigarette
after
cigarette,

kiss
after
kiss,

touch
after
touch,

i think the devil knows me
better than i know myself

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.

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

"to love is
to hurt,"
you whisper,
eyes red and
bones hollow;

ah,
whispers a
voice,
*but to hurt is
to be alive

"how are you so fearless?"
he asks you.

"i have spent too much time
being afraid,"
you respond.

sadness invites you to
taste him and you
swallow him whole
instead

"this is what happens
when you get greedy,"
he says as he leaves you
in the dust

there is an aching in
your chest long after he
is gone and you realize
just what he meant after
his lips ghosted yours

you will always remember
how he touched you;
you are not sure that you
ever want to forget

you let him in;
peeled back the layers
of your skin and
showed him your bones

you thought this would
be easy, but he is not
gentle;

he takes your ribs and
breaks them apart as he
builds a home inside your
sternum

[he is no longer the breath
you exhale; he never leaves
your lungs]

he keeps you up at night;
you pray and he does not
answer and you realize that
you are so tired of all of
this

“how do you **** your god?”
you ask

[you get off your
knees]

i am always
tired.

"dance with me,"
you beg,
"you loved this
song—"

******* and your
past tense.

do not look at me like
a ticking time bomb;
do not speak to me like
i am already dead

your nightmares sound
like beethoven and your
demons smell like daisies;

even your darkest parts
are beautiful

i.* he peers down at the empty void
he has yet to create and he hesitates;
fingertips tremble at the calm and the
unknown and he can’t tell if it is dark
or if it is beautiful

ii. what creates also destroys.
strength and beauty go hand in hand,
the darkness cries out; *when did you
decide i was not strong enough to shine?
and he weeps for what he has done.

iii. “look what i made for you,” he says
to the darkness, “there is life here. it is
beautiful.” but the darkness says nothing.
it fades behind the mountain peaks.
what is beauty worth to me when i cannot
stay long enough to see it?

iv. he knows what it’s like to be alone,
so he does the best that he can. “look
what i made for you,” he says to the
darkness. “i made this new life for you.”
the darkness says nothing, but it smiles,
and the stars begin to speak to it.

v. he knows what it’s like to be alone,
and now it’s the only thing he knows.
the darkness is gone, he only has light.
“light is good,” he thinks. “but it is not beautiful.”
i may not be beautiful, light rebuttals,
but i can show you all that is.

vi.  you have created so much life, light says
but what about creating a life for yourself?
he could do so, but he does not want to. instead,
he creates what is second best: everything he ever
hoped to be, with flesh and blood and two legs and
two feet. “this one is special,” he says.
it reminds me of you, the darkness whispers.

vii. light dips away and the darkness returns,
but it is not distracted by its new friends: the
sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies;
instead, it engulfs him and all of his weariness.
rest, the darkness whispers. you have made
so much beauty already.
his eyes close.
he remembers the void.
he knows now.
it was dark.
it was dark, and god, it was
beautiful.

soliloquies drip from your lips like daydreams.
please,
sing me to sleep.

i breathe you in and
my lungs start to burn

you are a cancer
so quiet but
so malignant

you killed me
before i even
saw you coming

practice love in
the midst of war
and
peace will be
born

i am kissing him
when
i am kissing you.

your lips are on my lips
but
his lips are on my mind.

you think you have me
but
he knows that he does.

you are an arms length away but
i can't reach you anymore;
i knew better than to think
you would stay

(your body is present but
your heart, oh
it wanders)