my words seem to be so tragic
in my heart i’m screaming
in my mind i’m crying out
and my face is just complacent, smiling
never truly satisfied

a crowded hallway
music pounds through my ears
your laughter aches in yours
and when we pass by
our eyes lock
and it’s as if some unknowable force has sewn my lips together
something in my eyes ache
begging, reaching
desperate to hear you call my name
and sometimes i think
you want this too

poetry was destroyed
when my words were used against me
despite not wanting to believe
they were really true
here’s my clapback
here’s my call
my words are my weapons
and you can’t use them against me any longer
my life isn’t a love story
my poetry isn’t a love song
it’s a life
it’s a reckoning

all the words i’ve let dry on my tongue
now like blood underneath my fingernails
from the unseen wounds i’ve dug too deeply
from looking too harshly
in hopes that one day
you’d finally see me
i just wish
god, please just see me
i can’t fall back into you
only to keep falling
ultimately to my raw and horrid destruction
because you aren’t even there at all
to push me back up when i fall

what happened to ink on parchment
pen on paper
long-hand love letters sent with anxious glances
hopes and prayers that the postmen would be there soon
that my letter would arrive safely to you

one day i wait, outside the door
looking to the postman
"a letter for me?"
"no," he says,
"just some bills for he."
days turn to months as my heart begins to crack
like old parchment paper
torn through the back

as years go by, i flip back through the memories
with tears in my eyes
remembering the old days
when love letters passed by

i miss my love letters, to you i would send
for now all we send is a vague text message
jagged and cruel, for how truly impersonal they are
unlike long-hand love letters
to you i would send
with warmth in my heart
and love in my hands
just waiting for you to open
what is sealed within a man

why do i dream of love
a man running to me
whispering, "it's you,
it’s always been you."

i crave it every waking second
in every sleeping dream
why can't i just find the person i was meant to see?
but patient i will be, anxiety will not define me