I wonder if stars worry they’re not bright enough
If even the sun with its life giving light
Feels dim sometimes in comparison to the others.
I wonder if we are all stars,
Beautiful to other people but unknowing in ourselves.
I know that even when my light dies out and I implode into a black hole,
It will take years for people to notice I’m a burned out nothing, floating in nothing.

When will I be good enough
And not too much?

Will I ever be content
With this life I’ve built
With these strangers I
Call friends that surround me

I look in the mirror
Nothing seems to look familiar
Even my eyes have lost their life

They say don’t drink on an empty stomach
I think I will just so I can finally throw up

Maybe he doesn’t want to
Make love to me
**** me
Hold me kiss me
Be with me

Because I’m simply too fat
It hangs from my arms and chin
My fat weighs down every step
I take making the whole earth
Shake and shudder,

I’m tired of people saying
“You carry your weight well”

I’m tired of people saying
“She was prettier 2 years ago”

I’m tired of my boyfriend saying
“Not tonight, I’m tired”
Every night

Maybe the world would love me
If I lost 50 pounds,

Maybe I would love me
If I lost 50 pounds.

And maybe,
Just maybe,
I could breathe,
If I got all this weight off of me.

He was loved by pastors
And drug addicts on the sidewalks
He was loved by his parents
And all his ex girlfriends,
He was loved by Jesus
And he was loved by ****** too.

His mother worries
Satan wanted him in hell
Just as much as God wanted
Him in heaven.

I wonder what his funeral
Looked like
I wonder what irony God had placed
Inside his heart that day.
Battle drug addiction for two, three, five years.
Get clean.
Then get run over by your own snowmachine.

Let your friend find it idling on top of you.
Let your mother cry over you
One
Last
Time.
Because she’s saying “he will be loved, he will be missed.”
But she’s loved him and missed him for years.

I think of you every now and then,
How it felt to kiss you
And how it felt to be near you.
I think of how you’d message me
Out of the blue, and how you’d always say
“You were my first love, Lindsey.”
Hell, most of my first poems written on here
Are about how much I loved you.

And now I’ll never know.
Now I’ll never get to say anything to you
Ever again.

Sometimes when I think of you it’s almost like a buzz going on in my pocket.
Like you’re messaging me late
And asking how I’m doing.

I’m doing fine, Jacob, I’m doing just fine.

My friends aren't supposed to
Look like
This
Hollowed out
Sallow yellow
Cheeks.
***** teeth.

Heating up their medicine
Inside a metal spoon
Stick it in,
Just to get that feeling soon.

Wasting time,
Wasted on the floor,
Nodding off,
Giggling galore.

Jumpy eyes
And uneasy smiles
"Lindsey don't you
Want to stay awhile?"

But they've already left,
Off to their next fix,
Too bad they've amounted
To Alaska's Valley hicks.

I want to be a beautiful creature,
Whose eyes sparkle and whose smile
Makes others smile.
I want to be a poet, a writer, a
Down to earth artist that isn't ******.
I want to be beautiful.
I want to enjoy drinking coffee and tea,
I want to smoke my cigarettes and make
People think, "**** I want to kiss that mouth."
I want my soul to be open
And each hand that cradles it, or
Flips through its pages,
Feel the thickness in its papers
And the weight of its words.

I want photographers to take pictures
Of my hands and the way I stand,
Look at them over and over again,
Plaster them against their walls
And grin when they see them.

But do you know what I really want?
Even if the world hates the way I talk,
Hates the way I laugh, walk, and exist,
I want you to love all of these things about me.

I want you to think that I'm a good writer
With a good soul.
I want you to take pictures of me because
Even though we are together forever-
You just need to capture this moment forever too.
I want you to hold my soul in your hands
And plant kisses upon the dog eared pagers.
I want you to bring flowers to my work, yes,
And I want you to love me like today is our last.

Instead,
You carry my heart and soul around in your back pocket, sit on it and only take it out and unfold it and read its contents when you're bored.
You hate poetry, you hate my poetry,
And you hate the way I love it.
You never take pictures of me
Because you don't think I am beautiful enough
To be captured in these moments together.

So the whole world hates me and you don't mind me.

I pretend not to mind me either.

Two years ago I wrapped my arms
Around my body and
Sang myself to sleep,
When I woke
I woke up to chilly
Air and an empty bed,
No matter the time of year.
Wherever I went, silence followed.
Showers sounded like quiet rain
In the forest,
Eating sounded like an upset dinner table.

Then came you.

Now we sleep sprawled out together
On my full bed and when I wake up
My arms reach for you,
In the morning it sounds like
Laughter and water splashing
And me rinsing your back off.
It sounds like sizzling bacon and
Scrambled eggs. Coffee and orange juice.

Our bedroom always smells like ***
And our cars smell like cigarettes.
Your college notebooks clutter up the
Chairless dining table,
Because we are still too broke to buy chairs.

At night our neighbors hear my voice
Reading to him all the books I think
Are worth reading.

They hear laughter, giggles and *******.

They hear the beginning of a family.