they tell you to stay tender your whole life
but they don't tell you how much it hurts

love is when you give your heart to someone in trust
love is also when they don't break it
love is when it's broken but you keep giving it
love is when they take it in their hands and split it in half, laughing,
but it doesn't matter to you and you keep pumping, you keep giving it
love is when you know someone's better without you so you let them go
love is knowing you're not always what they want
love is giving them what's best for them, not for you
even at the cost of your life-
that is how God loves us, and when in the sweet agony of love
you feel every pulse of Christ's wounds and every drop of his sweat sting
you bow your head and you have never felt more broken and
you have never felt more whole, you are at your most human and at your most divine,
the stars shine upon you with empathy because they, too, burn ceaselessly
for people who do not even see them- it is when you die to yourself
and rise in Christ for the sake of someone else-
that is what love is.

I have not yet found a soul that could settle next to mine
without cutting into it; that just fit, perfectly
without wounding, I have not found a person that
could come close without diving into me, we all
slice ourselves up for each other and bleed into each other's wounds
and maybe that's not because I haven't found the right person
maybe it's because we're all the right person, we're not meant to be
with one or the other, a perfect yin to my yang,
we make ourselves meant to be, we mutilate and we morph
into each other and for each other's perfection
that they may know the face of God
and everything's ****** up, I know that, I can't fix what's ****** up
but maybe we don't need to fix what's ****** up
because we're all ****** up and that's what makes us human
that's what makes us beautiful, that's how we can see God
because Jesus, though he was in the form of God
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being
found in human form he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even death on a cross-
maybe we're meant to have wounds in our hands
and on our feet, and across our sides, and slashed down our backs
maybe we're just a combination of different people,
we crucify ourselves for those around us,
we are who we are, and then we are not,
and it is all too raw and stinging and sometimes you are ashamed
to look upon someone who died for you, it's too powerful
and you can't make yourself do that, but they did
Jesus did, and it is in this that we are most divine
it is in rawness and confusion and shame and passion
when things are too complicated and it hurts to even move
when you feel your body and soul straining and you don't know what to do
that's when you feel Christ, that's when his heart beats inside you.

"She fell in love with the way I looked at the world, but I forgot all about the world when I looked at her."

“You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.”

we can't live without things outside ourselves
if we were self-sufficient, no one would ever have to die

it seems that other people have everything they need
but they are everything I need

when God prays, you know it's serious

spinning spinning spinning spinning spinning
throwing out as fast as it draws in and attached
so we will never stop moving but we'll never get closer either
hurtling, I'm getting sick, but if I stop
everything collapses.

God has blessed me so, so, so, so, so much

let's stop saying we don't care
because we do, and it affects us
and we can't say we won't let it bring us down
because that's admitting it's a bad thing
let's instead embrace it, embrace this life
take those ******* tests and do your ******* homework
like your life depends on it
and ******* enjoy it, why the hell not?
I don't want it to be written on my gravestone that
"She was tired of everything and gave up happiness"
or that "She wasted a good portion of life wishing it was better"
but rather "She was blessed and she was grateful".
Even doing nothing is something. Even any day at all
is still a beautiful day.

I am Taco Bell, the morning after a long night of sleepless driving through the country and you feel cold and warm and full and gross and fresh and your hair is falling around your face and your sight is blurred and you're hugging your pillow and you're there with the best people in the world
I am the moment after the moment before they hold you suspended on the rollercoaster, but more than that, I am the feeling of safety when you finish the loop and you're on a straight track for a while but you're still  rocketing through the sky
I am the feeling of hopelessness when you want to shout into the open air but you realize there are other people there so you just whisper to youself
I am waking up in a grassy field and putting on your shoes that are wet with dew and wondering how your sleeping bag got over here
I am standing under a waterfall and getting up the courage to dunk your head under it and I am the sudden and unstoppable ice cold but it is not ice, it is breathless and there is no one else there, this moment is just for you
I am when you tell a joke and no one laughs, but I am when you do something worthwhile and you know they are proud of you because they cried before you did
I am getting in the car at carline at the start of a long break and shouting back at the school as if it could hear you
I am the moment when you hear words that break your heart just after you feel them and just before you know what to think about them.

I take myself way too seriously
for a self-driven lump of meat
spinning on a rock through
finite and deadly space

I don't know what to do when I don't have to do anything

I feel like I'm missing the spring

if only there was a logarithm to solve for
how much of someone else is in you
and whether or not it's still you
when there's another there

we learn from each other, we do,
but how much is lessons and how much is
usurption? when does a soul cut into
yours, or does it just build on it?

I remember when I thought I wouldn't be whole
without someone, and I remember when
someone thought they couldn't be whole without me
so I agreed, and I left her as just a piece

who does this make me? what do I say I am
and in the eyes of God and all the angels and saints and people
whose eyes matter? which watcher can tell me?
where does it stop? When does it go?

there is no "should", there cannot-
if it is as it is now, it was supposed to be
we just have to go from here
and somewhere in this darkness, find "me".

I've never been one for halfway
never been one to lie
it's always been all or nothing
for me, every day is live or die
and it seems that even on mornings when I can't breathe
I can't, for the life of me, spell "occasionally".

Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe and it doesn't mean I have fire in my veins it just means I can't breathe

find some books to read and find whole worlds to fall in love with
because you deserve more than a fragment that someone wants to give you
you deserve a whole soul, something unlimited
but what you don't realize is you're already unlimited, you're boundless
so first, fall in love with yourself and then you know
then you know you're safe.

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."

I could destroy you, you know
I know how to make someone feel like they own me
or like they're just a face I'm supposed to have known
in the backdrop of one of my dreams- I know how to leave
someone gasping for air, to slowly **** out a vacuum until
they are desperate, until an ounce of me would give them life
I know what I could do to make you scream, but I won't, no
because these arts are too dark and too vile, and people don't deserve that
I can wrap you around my little finger but I won't
because a little finger is no place for an immortal soul- I simply
am, and I let yes mean yes and no mean no,
because my mother taught me how much it hurts when yes means
sure, but I wish you were your sister, and no means if only
you were brave enough to handle it, and so
I will not be like my mother, I will be simple, I will be beautiful
I will make you feel like the queen of the world and the only one for me
because I can, and because that's the nicest thing to do with what I have,
but darling, I never want you to underestimate my power.

there's no way you're missing this
no way you can't see

I have never felt such a huge and sudden urge for something
something else than what I have
I want truth and I want reality
wake me up, I'm ******* done with dreaming
wake me up, I'm too **** tired of sleeping
I'm so ******* angry and I don't know why-
I've been robbed. I've been robbed. They're taking from me everything that ever meant anything, they're taking from me everything that makes me who I am. What is happening, why am I letting them? Surely there's more to humanity than to just keep breathing.

no one should have to lie about their very own soul
your heart should not remain concealed
the most tragic of tragedies is in my voice, but sealed
I'm sorry, so sorry, but I don't know if we'd still be whole
but then- were we ever whole? Were we ever real?

it's driving me crazy and I'm so tired of lying
but do I really have a choice

do I have to fight for the right to be me?

"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge."

love is something people try to describe over and over again
they write books and poems and songs about it
it's nothing, really- but it's everything
it's the sun and the moon and the stars, we all know the words
we've all heard them, but those moments
when you feel it, when you feel like the world
has its arms wrapped around you, when you know
God is holding you in His hand and stroking you with His thumb
suddenly, there are no more wishes left
there are no more eyelashes to blink away, no more shooting stars
no more holding your breath through tunnels.
Sometimes it's as simple as knowing you have a rock of a friend
sometimes it's as complicated as leaving home just to be with someone
it burns, sometimes; but it never freezes your heart, never
it's a breath on a wind, a slight reassurance when someone glances
your way just as often as you glance theirs. It's something you never
thought you'd have. Someone you never thought you'd have.
You're safe now. There's no need to be scared anymore.

lightning in my veins
I can hardly even believe the electricity I feel now
my mood and my life is burning and shocking me alive
walking on clouds because baby, I'm made of sunshine.

Cigarettes, love, and spring are all that really matter.

I knew what I was doing, I always do
I moved my mind into believing that I was there
that we were paired, alone, that the world
forgot about us but it was okay, and I was so warm
so warm and so beautiful that I woke up and realized
that it was not- and for that, I cried, but not really
because I cry for fear and not loss now
I realized that the most tender and valuable thing I have
is my heart, and I've neglected it for so long
****** it dry and left it there- and only now
can I feel myself healing.

can anyone write a poem without mentioning love, cigarettes, or spring?

the timing is right

but sometimes even at all costs you aren't enough
and sometimes you have to be okay with that

"What could be more important than love?"
"Friendship."

Suddenly I want to feel again

baby you're like lightning in a bottle
through all my lives I never thought I'd wait so long for you

"It's like giving alcohol to people who haven't had a taste of water in years."

it's as though all the stars are aligned except one
every time the steps fail, every time it seems, doesn't it?
we're all lost, foolish dancers, bustling- far away from the sun
just planets dancing, burning too hard, scorching paths
into dark corners and flung across galaxies we are cast
I know our eyes will meet when it's over and done
God's hand has finished sculpting, his work here at last complete
and we lay down to sleep, sleep, sleep, as somewhat-one.

God touches earth and we all feel him but very few of us call him by his name.

in spring, suddenly the sky falls
one minute it's sunny and clear and you feel
your skin toasting, the next the clouds overcome
and fat droplets swirl up dust and sink onto you,
sizzling and cooling, and it's dark again but it's all a blessing
it's all a blessing and maybe you don't see it
but God is on your side.

"You are already enough."
"Oh, my child, you already are."
"It's time."
"Come here."
"Follow me."

how can you say that it would be better for some not to have been born
do you hear the cruelty in your voice? do you know what that does
to people's souls- it shows them that some are worth it and some aren't
that maybe they shouldn't have been born, that your sins
weigh alongside the value of your life, the real value is not there
the real value is just in your life, it's not what you think your beauty is
your mere existence is true enough and good enough and beautiful enough
you're already worth it with no qualifications. You're worth it. Don't listen to them. You're worth it. You're worth it. You're worth it.

"If there's even one thing we can do, if there's just one life we can save—we've got an obligation to try.”

being to timelessness as it’s to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land
(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy’s
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

—do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools, all’s well

step back, I keep writing advice
and don't take it myself- breathe.

it's almost better not to be focused on certain things,
this is only a part of you
when it begins it begins with you,
it'll be over and you'll still be there-
feelings are temporary and so is your life
step back, take a moment, and breathe
don't waste this.

I'm stupid and angry but at least I'm not tired anymore

you know that we know next to nothing
and even of that, we know very little of what we do not know