when i am alone
i stand firm in myself
like a boulder in the ocean

but when i love
the tide is too strong
and i am too often swept away

why do i try so hard
to formulate my own center of gravity
if i so easily let someone else
become the moon around which i orbit

if i am a planet
with my own biome
why do i let someone else
control the weather

i am growing older
and i cannot flourish
without letting someone else
come along and destroy my garden

poems that rhyme
arent realistic
because life doesnt
flow that well

if im an optimist,
im naive
if im a pessimist,
im jaded

i took my shirt off
because it still smells like him
and since life is realistic
we dont rhyme

if im an optimist,
im left to fix my own broken stanza
if im a pessimist,
the poem is left unfinished

**** everyone who told me that poems were meant to rhyme

i never kept a diary for long
because i always found myself
ripping out the pages
of the memories that i didnt want to remember.

if my life were a book
ideally
half of the pages would be missing.

if my memory were a song
the melody would be
scrambled
by boughts of abrupt silence.

my skin feels
chafed
by eraser marks
even though erasers do not work on human flesh.

my brain feels
scrambled
by a large black scribble
desperately trying to cover the things i dont want to remember.

i wish to function as a clock
with wind up hands
so that i can tell time where to go instead.

i am ripping out my intestines
like vcr tape.

why are the memories still playing?

i would pour the stars from my irises
if it meant that you could see me
the way that i see you

the words used to flow
so freely from my brain

but then i grew older
the sky became
darker
the galaxy faded
like the peeling bumper stickers on my car

i forgot
what the milky way looked like from here

even if you cannot see me
i am shining
even if i am only an ember
i am reignited

the constellations have been restored
as i look at you
but i am
faded
to you
as the world once was
to me

and so ill let my feelings trail off
like a lukewarm ending
to what was meant to be a perfect fairytale

it is meant to be
give and take
not
push and pull

the effort
should not be
the struggle

i locked the door,
but even i do not know how to reopen it.

ice and fire through my veins
stomach meets the floor
brain growing fuzzy behind the ears
i cant see
i cant hear
i cant breathe

you can fold a map
to make ends meet
but you cannot fold
physical miles
to draw me closer to you
im sorry

i didnt want
to hold you back
and you had no problem
with holding me down

read at
seen at
not delivered
heart attack

user blocked
call dropped
disconnected
heart stopped

fingers seeking
release
gutting desperately
only finding
emptiness
the ghost of someone elses hands
the memory of love
pain swells forward
turned off

a network of scars
mapping out a painful past
like remembering a hometown

a place i wanted to leave
a place i never wanted to be
a reminder that ive finally left

i watch you
fall at the feet
of those
who will never
know your name

im here
im real
i love you
and you
are distracted

i place
a blank mask
over my face
and hand you
a pen

am i pretty now?

when walking into
a house that is not yours
be cautious of
broken picture frames

you may cut yourself
on broken pieces
of someone elses past

thinking i had
wrapped myself
around your heart,

i childishly
failed to realize
it was your ankle
instead

a cloak wrapped tightly
around the two of us

but where
is the dagger?

whose blade
are we hiding from?

he wants to sleep
forever
and she cannot stay awake
for two people

a flicker
of recognition

a glance
into a sea of faces

a pair of eyes
that were once familiar

but the feeling is
different

the emotion is
heavy

i look away

i could drive
to your apartment
but its

empty

like my head
unlike my heart
like my hands
desperately

grasping

for something

that i am

unsure of

in continuation

its been a while
since i was
hospitalized

three years ago
i nervously waited
for my verdict
at 2 AM

so when he called me
tonight
with a voice as tired
as someone who had finally
given up

i knew exactly
what was happening

and i relived
my death wishes
through his soft,
defeated words

"i love you
more
than they
loved you"

but do you
love her better?

she
bent
to your
will
until
she snapped

now
do not
blame her
for
making you bleed
from the wounds
caused by her
splintering
shards

hyper awareness

fingertips crackle with
electricity

my spine
is a lightning rod

eagerly consuming
every stroke of your fingers

body thrumming
with electricity

mind power
shifting into
maximum overdrive

they say that good things
come with time

but with you
time is an illusion
and every day spent
building up to this point
means nothing

because all i know
in this moment
is you
standing before me

how lovely it is
to be a werewolf in disguise

full moons come
in the form of pain
transforming me
into a monster

though i have tried,
i cannot break open my soul
and share it with you
because there is nothing left
to break

they expected me
to miss them
but i kept walking
in the opposite direction

you learned what happiness is
because you learned what love isnt

its funny
how we take refuge at night
stuck between
lingering and lurking
when everything and nothing
is wrong and right
all at once

thoughts deep enough
to drown us
drip dry overhead
staining our bodies black
as the sky outside our lazily cracked windows

every sound is amplified
limited eyesight
heightening our sense of hearing
encouraging us to remain
quiet
dark
calm
but never asleep

my body has been
desecrated
by the expressions of love
of all of those
who came before you

yes
they did treat my body
like a temple
but for a temporary god
who vanishes
when day breaks

little did they know
that it broke me
too

i am thankful
that i still have
my memories
because they were all
that you couldnt take

you called me beautiful
but once you grew to know me
you were quick to tell me
that i was not

and that says more
about you
than it does
about my beauty

walking away
isnt always giving up
sometimes
its realizing
that theres nothing left
to stay and fight for

that* (pronoun)
\ˈthat, thət\

used by the misunderstanding to describe the depth of thought and/or emotion experienced by the reader upon reading poetry that has been ripped directly from the author's soul

it is hard
to tell yourself
that the worst days
are behind you

when you feel like
you are still
living through them

the question is no longer
"when will i be happy?"
but rather
"will i ever be happy?"

he looked at me
with sleepy eyes

eyelids trying to hide
deep spiderwebs of thought

"smile"
he said
and when i did
the storm was
calmed

reading daily zodiac
at 4 a.m.

heavy lidded eyes
riddled by LED
heavily burdened hearts
riddled by the past

horoscopic solutions
to why our hearts
and minds fail

one star
slightly out of alignment
claims
all of the inner workings
of my body chemistry

year of the beast
ravaging all
of my relationships

house of mercury
in my bloodstream

papers take on liquid form
i am drowning in them

i did not
throw anything away

it was you
who threw me out

and i simply remained
where you left me

adapt
like a bird
building a nest
out of discarded newspaper

a small animal's bones
restructuring
readjusting
around the plastic rings
that once held soda cans

learn to stay put
if you were meant to fly
but find yourself
caged

adapt
change your body chemistry
alter your consciousness
to fit in
where you were not made to

its always there

sometimes
i get so happy
that i find myself
sad
again

how is it
that two things
that are so different
are so connected?

stop hiding behind my eyelids
let me sleep

i saw you in a photograph
smiling like someone trying to be happy
i am not sorry for you

no new notifications

sometimes
in the midst
of a power struggle
i miss him

when my head
and my heart
do not feel my
consciousness
bleed for him

but there are some
funny little things
that you probably shouldnt know
and i probably wouldnt tell you

like how i cant look at
sunflowers
because they really arent
happy

or how certain names seem
too heavy for me
to wrap my tongue around

there are some funny little things
that shouldnt matter
but somehow they do

like how my taste for rootbeer
turned sour
when a boy who loved rootbeer
broke my heart

or a certain song on my playlist
has gone silent for years
but still takes up 4 megabytes on my phone

there are some funny little things
that i hate to acknowledge
as important
because i dont want them to be

but yet
somehow
some way
they are too important
to let go of

sneaker imprints from crossing
newly shaven legs

rosy sunburn mixing with
a spattering of freckles

scraped knees from
a failed skateboard trick

wind tossed hair
summer heart