I used to pray that I’d never be loved by
anyone I couldn’t love back,
but then I remembered how many mountains
I grew strong enough to climb when
you didn’t love me back
and I realized that
there’s no use in praying for
the absence of pain
because it will always find you
whether it be through sunburn or aching silence
and broken bones grow back stronger
so I won’t pray you’ll never get hurt
I’ll pray you clean out the cuts on your
elbows and learn to not pick at
the scabs on your knees
and that you’ll stand up more times
than the wind knocks you down
And that you’ll find ways to appreciate
the circles beneath your eyes, but
still hold onto the hope that one day
you will count your scars and smile because
you are proud of how far you’ve come
and how much you’ve grown, and
you’re not just surviving, you are alive.

life is full of searching

searching for someone who appreciates you,
who understands each deep thought
that fills your mind and holds your hand
even when those thoughts are unclear

we search for light in dark places,
hoping that things aren’t truly as
grim as they appear to be

we search for time and consequently
waste it in the process

so often we spend days and months
and years searching for something
we think will steady our hearts

step back and take a moment
to inhale and exhale with eyes closed,
and the one thing that will bring forth
pure joy will become clear, it will
stand out and beckon for your attention

you then have a choice:
either pretend you can find a light
more satisfying and continue to search
blindly for something that will never appear,
or look at the love and hope you’ve found,
and put your faith and trust in the
most brilliant light you’ll ever see

why would you keep searching
for stars in the shadows
when there’s already a sun
shining in your sky?

it feels as if
i'm the one
always chasing
after someone

my lungs are burning
and my heart is tired
i want to collapse
and loll here forever

let the flowers
bloom all around me
as i leave an imprint
in the grass

maybe someone
will gaze upon the blossoms
and mistake me for a lily

it’s strange to think
you will only remember me
as the person i was with you

you’ll never learn of my new habits,
nor will i ever come to know yours
i won’t get to watch you grow,
see you become strong,
hear about all of your new
adventures and revelations

no, i am only left
with who you were

we’re both frozen in time
in each others’ memories

i don't want a rarity
a full moon that only floats
in your midnight sky
once a month

nighttime feels so open,
you shout things
you'd never whisper
in the daylight
and let go of the fear
that surfaces with the sun

i think i'll break all your clocks
at twelve in the morning
to immortalize
our candid midnights,
so that your worries
will never rise

It terrifies me that we only get a limited amount of time with people. And that some people get more time than others who should have. I’m forever envious of those who’ve gotten more time with you than I have. That I may never get to be with you as long as they have. That our time is running out. And I miss you already. And I never want to say goodbye. At first it was slow, late nights in your car and afternoons in my bedroom. But now it feels like it’s happening all at once, like you’re doing a snow angel on my heart and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Kissing on the sidewalk, holding hands in your coat pocket because I forgot to bring gloves. Wandering around museums and having hard conversations on your couch that make me love you even more; even when the air becomes glass, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I feel to know you. That there’s no one else like you. My heart aches in your arms and aches when we’re apart. And I just want to be as close to you as possible, for as long as possible, because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I love who I am when I’m with you.

1.  don’t be afraid of getting hurt
because in life there are times
when we need to be vulnerable
an unmatchable brilliance is radiated
when you bare your soul to another
and are privileged enough to be shown
the deepest parts of their spirit in return

2.  write often
no one has to see it, you can scribble
on napkins and throw them away
but please, allow yourself to know
the freedom of letting words seep
from your heart and relieving
the heavy strain of carrying
so many smothering thoughts

3.   never promise forever
because not once have i met
a person whose forever lasted
and i can’t say
i remember a time
when my forever has lasted, either

i know i am young,
i know i am only seventeen,
but when i think of him
and his incandescent smile,
my heart swells and beats in time
with the cadence of his alluring words

his mind is like no other,
filled with such deep
and captivating thoughts
that flutter from place to place
like a moth, and like a moth
i am drawn to his brilliance

i long to hold his face in my hands
and trace his lips with my fingertips
and when i close my eyes
all i see is the way he looks at me,
as if i’m the one who paints
the summer evening sky

i know i am young,
i know i am only seventeen,
but i think i could spend
the rest of my life searching
and never find anything
nearly as beautiful as
the way he loves me

i want to dissolve into the sky
without a sound
without anyone noticing my empty space
in the most gentle and subtle way possible
i want to go away from here
i want to walk backwards and save myself
from what inevitability is ahead
i want to leave
i want you
to wish i’d stay

i’ve never known
something so fragile

i hold whatever this is
(you and i)
carefully,
with both hands

like glass,
it could shatter

the pieces
scattered

while i tiptoe
around the sharp fragments

trying to not let them
hurt me

like snow,
it melts

when the sun
comes up

to heat
the ground

and every time
i wish it’d stay

i hope my heart
will not become
like broken glass

i hope,
unlike snow
on a warm winter day,
you will decide
to never leave me

i’m beginning to realize
that i go into a situation
thinking things
are going to go
a certain way,
and i get my hopes up
and i pray that everything
will go according to plan,
but then later on
it’s brought to my attention
that God didn’t put me
in that place
to be blessed,
but to bless
someone else

and i guess it can get
a little disappointing,
because i start to feel
a little empty-handed,
but it’s also comforting
knowing that God is using me
because He knows
i’m strong enough
to do His work

I love it when I notice others
using the same vocabulary
or phrases as me

And while my mouth may remain
a straight line
in efforts to portray indifference,
my heart is smiling
from beat to beat
because it means that
you held me so close
that a bit of who I am
rubbed off onto you

It makes me feel as though
I’ll always be a little part of you,
disguised by letters,
unnoticeable to anyone else

But I see it (I see bits of me in you)

I’m still with you,
and I wonder if you can see it, too.

you fell in love with
late nights and soft kisses,
holding hands,
phone calls ending in
“i love you more.”

you fell in love with
someone knowing you
as well as you know yourself,
being seen when you
thought you were invisible,
comfortableness

you fell in love with
sparking short fights and
make up “i love you”s,
silent car rides and
quiet understandings

but you did not
fall in love
with me

there once was a young girl with green eyes
who wore her soft blond hair
in braided pigtails

at the age of seven,
she watched her older sister
stand in front of the mirror before school
and pinch her stomach with a disgusted face
          neither of them ate breakfast that morning

at the age of nine,
she watched her older brother
make fun of a girl with glasses
for reading on the bus
          she went home and hid all her books in the attic

at the age of twelve,
she watched the older girls at school
with straight hair and short skirts
put makeup on in the bathroom
and discuss how boys would only like you
if you looked perfect, like them
          the next day she arrived with red lips, short shorts, and no braided pigtails

at the age of fourteen,
she watched her father hit her mother for the first time
her mother cried when she saw her standing in the doorway
and told her daddy didn't mean it
          the next year, she told herself that her boyfriend didn't mean it, either

at the age of sixteen,
she was paper thin and empty
with straight blond hair, red lips,
purple flesh, and lifeless green eyes
          while staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror,
          she thought to herself "at least i'm normal."

i was sixteen, you were pretending
young and lonely, someone else
my imaginary friend,
who was never really a friend

deep in the shadows, you lurk,
a memory that won’t repress,
you were a distraction
from my mess of a reality, a place
to freely feel, although it was ugly

a mess
apart from
a mess

one that was okay because
it didn’t really exist,
a black-and-white silent film,
spinning on the screen and then forgotten,
i could turn it off and it would
be gone, you would be gone, you are gone

but you were never really there,
and i lie here motionless
caressing the memories of a ghost

i love you
i love you
i love you
and i’ll never stop loving you,
i couldn’t even if i tried

you’ve taken all of me,
scrubbed the dirt from my flesh
and replaced it with rose petals
and i love you, i love you, i love you

thank you for making me feel beautiful
for the first time in a long time

i wish i could peel up the floorboards
and lie beneath them
there i could hide in still silence,
but it still wouldn’t be completely
silent because i cannot leave my
mind behind

i couldn’t tell you what i’m thinking'
even if i wanted to
i thought that i had words for
everything, that i could always find
refuge in my ability to arrange
letters into feeling

i can’t

this emotion is a lightning bolt
and i am a bare tree alone
in a barren field

'what’s the difference between
thinking and feeling? how do you
know if it’s coming from the
head or the heart?

your parents
have wounds
they kept hidden
while pushing you
on the swing

now you’re seventeen
squeezing your eyes
shut and daydreaming
about all the ways
you will be better

you can create an ocean
between
once you’ve collected
enough freedom
to dig the pit
(it is reminiscent
of the one in your stomach)

the bridges
are yours to build
you don’t have to be
an island
but you don’t have to be
a punching bag

their wounds are
not an excuse
they do not get
to point to theirs
while brandishing
***** fingernails to
draw blood

but while their teeth
are sharp and their
eyes are dark
their broken skin shows
there’s still a beating
heart
in there
somewhere

maybe when i’m older
i’ll be brave enough
to reach out
and try
to feel it beat

i shouldn’t expect
to stand still
while the untethered
and unbothered
wind demonstrates
the power of the universe
as it sends the rain sideways
twisting dead and
soon to be dead leaves
in its playful vortices

because my roots
are brand new
my limbs are still
thin and delicate like
soft green saplings

for awhile
i will bend
and shake
and fear
the thunder
until i dig down
far enough
in the dirt

the bending
and the shaking
is part of
the beauty

if stay here long enough
if i let the storm soak into me
instead of letting myself
run for cover
i will become
strong and steady
like an old oak tree

i will wear my growth rings
like gold metals
proudly parading
the proof of
what i have weathered
—there will be
too many to count

and i will find myself
smiling at the sky
when the dark clouds roll in
because i am
still here
still standing
after all this time.

sometimes i drift
into another life
where ivy crawls up
the side of 
a warm building
to my left
as i walk
hand in hand 
with you,
your parents
strolling slowly
a few paces behind.
everything is still
inside of me.
i do not fear 
the future
nor ache for
the past.
my heart beats
quietly next
to yours.
i am only here,
only there.
i do not drift.
i listen to love songs
and am reminded
of my own
happiness.

the daydreams aren’t just daydreams anymore
i can get on the train whenever i’d like
the doors are wide open and waiting
for me to lie naked in the shifting light
of a four-story brooklyn walk-up
to fall asleep on a freckled chest
to run my fingers through fields of white sage
i am the opening iris
the floating dust that glimmers like crushed diamonds
the feathery eyelashes caught on eager fingers
i am the sunlight and the wind
intersecting across the gleaming reservoir
where the bluegills breathe underwater
where you and i dance gloriously on the surface
where we become carelessly entangled
before slipping underneath

if you look up, you will see
the bright-eyed and
the wide-mouthed—
the interesting, the casual, the adored
glistening in the warm night
peered at through microscopes and
telescopes and stethoscopes
far and far away

we are so desperate to be close
close and close and
close enough to see the blemishes
the scarring and the peeling
effaced by obvious and biased inner-commentary
they’re just not as red or sore as mine
perhaps they were formed under
a different kind of sun

what does the unfamiliar heart say?
does it sound at all like mine?
will i ever escape the sloppy grasp of dullness?
will the world swallow me whole?
if i count the days on both hands
on toes, on eyelashes—
if i only eat green things and
read tattered books and
pretend that i don’t mind—will i ever
break the mirror?
will i find seven years of good luck
between the jagged edges?

to exist as a reflection
is to not exist at all
there are lonely, dark purple heavens
waiting for you to sever your longing gaze
to stop lying to yourself
to hop onto the back of the cow
and begin living somewhere beyond the moon—
to realize, with closed eyes
you belong to the sky

come here. i’ll wrap myself around you
most of the time i’m sure i’m a sliding glass door
obvious like a schoolgirl crush
never able to hide the pink in my cheeks
or bury the truth behind enough broken parables
i’m about as vigilant as a chihuahua
perched on top of a sofa barking at the mailman
forgetting for a moment that you could pick me up
and put me down on the floor but
i promise i’ll just jump back up again
never fully accepting the plainness of my bluff
the winters crack my knuckles but
i don’t want to buy another pair of gloves
i’ve got ripped fingernails turned ******
and a kitchen sink full of unwashed mugs
and you’re pulling my hands away from my face
trying to show me how much we look the same

life is too
fleeting
and beautiful
to hide away in
a green overgrowth
of escapism

the unease is temporary
the shaking
will wash away
like bird **** flowing down
the side of a car door
in the warm bath of
a summer
storm

but the habit
of escapism
lingers, always
outstaying its welcome
taking your leftovers
from an empty fridge
without asking

yet, the momentary aching
melts away
in the bliss of sunlight

so, breathe.
be.
give in
to the freedom
of what is fated
apart from
grinding teeth and
collapsed shoulders

it either will
or will not

so be there
here
now
in spite of everything
that could
or could not
be.

you told me
to write down my feelings
and share them with you
when you wake up,
but drawing out these emotions
isn’t easy because
they’re pale and indefinite

i cannot distinguish
a path to take,
whether it’s winding
or cobblestoned,
or so overgrown with trees
that i cannot see the sky

so maybe in the meantime
i’ll sit in my room
and fold paper cranes
on rainy days
till a map that illustrates
how to carry on
makes its way
into my muddled hands

thirty eight days
twenty poems
and an embarrassing amount
of doodled hearts later,
the reality of you not being my one
has finally begun to set in

it’s been one week
of trying to get over you
and i still cried last night
and i will probably cry again
but not forever
because i know that i know that i know
that i deserve so much better

i deserve
someone who will think
my eyes shine like diamonds
and whose heart will always
ache to be next to me
and who will do whatever it takes
to have me, no matter what
someone who will overcome every obstacle
to ensure that i am forever his

and this will be
my last poem about you
and tomorrow will be day one
of erasing your name from my heart
and it’s going to sting
because i really was hoping
you’d stay

but no
i now see that you
are not my one
you are only one step
in the right direction

how do you expect me
to believe i deserve better
when you’re the one proving
that i’m not worth fighting for

and don’t you even dare say
“it’s not you, it’s me”
because i know one day
you will meet a girl
and her eyes will shine like diamonds
and your heart will always
ache to be next to her
and you will do whatever it takes
to have her, no matter what
you will overcome every obstacle
to ensure that she is forever yours

so don’t even try to feed me lies like
“you are good enough”
when you’re completely contradicting that
by leaving me here broken and alone

i never have to trim my nails
because of the anxiety that
has made itself at home
in the pit of my stomach

while tapping my feet,
i watch the clock slowly tick
and the breath in my lungs feels
thick and coated with doubt

but soon,
my time will come
and my eager feet
will carry me to a place where
hope fills my lungs and
i'll breathe with ease

because eventually,
everything is going
to work itself out

everything
will always be okay in the end
if you allow it to be

have you ever held the sun in your hands
sometimes i carry it around in my pockets and forget it’s there
sometimes i feel so full of it that i believe in god again
what else is there besides
the streams of light peeking through magnolia leaves
who am i to the baseball shirt
to the blazer or the black fishnets or the crooked bottom teeth
it doesn’t matter
i smell lemon verbena laundry detergent and it’s like time travel
i’m in our west hollywood apartment again falling asleep on my right hip
sometimes i am forty-two but i am always fourteen
do you see me on the page or in the sidewalk cracks
i wish i didn’t care but i always do
where does it come from
the longing
the need to be loved by the things that we love
i hear a song or read a poem and i’m on my knees
i hate being looked at but
i’d do anything for you to see me

Lord,
i pray to You
with a heavy heart
and brittle bones

please let confidence
unfold like flowers
that sprout between my ribs

please take the butterflies
out of my stomach
because they crowd it
and make me sick

please fill my mind with the knowledge
that Your love is stronger than
all of the hate that fills the earth

please inscribe on my flesh
that You have a perfect plan for me,
and with You i can conquer
all of my doubts, all of my worries

please never let me forget
what You have done for me

please hold my hand
while on this wearisome journey
and allow me to find life in You

i am overwhelmingly in love and it is the most peaceful yet
exhilarating feeling in the entire world. i feel like rain, a tornado, and
the sun peeking out from behind the clouds after a violent storm,
all at the same time. i am a mess of contentment and wonder.
he is all i’ve ever wanted.

who would have thought i would become so obsessed with clean? not
my mother, who’d nag me to pick up all the clothes scattered across
my bedroom nearly every day of ninth grade. we rarely saw the floor.
i’d sleep beneath books and laundry on my half-made bed. now i
scrub dishes, scrub counters, scrub the floor at night because i can’t
stand the thought of a ***** kitchen—little cockroaches scurrying
in and out of pots and pans. my home smells of lavender oil, a soft
mist, air cleansed by a pink-glowing himalayan salt lamp and plants
in the living room. now i put things away in drawers, close doors of
rooms that are the slightest bit messy. now i straighten books on the
coffee table, set the remotes parallel to one another, everything must
be in place. now i floss, wash my face every night, stare in the mirror
and repeat i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. now i burn my skin in the
shower, inhale the steam until my breathing is slow and my sinuses
are clear. i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. now i fold the laundry, stack
our clothes into two piles, his and mine. i make our bed, i organize
our shoes by the door, i kiss the man i love goodnight. i am clean, i am
clean, i am clean. i know what my father must think, i know he loses
sleep, i know there are holes in his tongue where his teeth have made
a home. i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. i know he wishes i still went
to church, wishes my boyfriend believed in a god, wishes i was clean.
i am clean, i am clean.

there are so many types of rain
light rain, heavy rain
spring rain, summer rain

the kind of rain
that make you want to
curl up with a good book,
the kind the races down
your car window
as you look out at
the tall trees whizzing by

rain that you kiss in,
rain that makes you feel alone
sometimes it smells of
new beginnings
and sometimes it feels like
you’re drowning

and the eventually,
it stops
and you can hardly remember
if you even like rain
at all

even with my heart
broken into
seven hundred
sixty-four thousand pieces,
somehow i still manage
to love you

it’s so frustrating because i know you wanted to be with me, on those days you drove almost an hour each way to see me and you kissed me so often and held me so tight and always pulled me closer and i could feel your eyes on me when i wasn’t looking, and we spent day after day like this, just being together and pretending that time could stand still, but at the same time, i feel like it was all just something for you to do while you were home, even though you deny it. i remember starting to tear up one afternoon with my head on your chest while you slept, because i knew it was just a matter of time till this was just a memory. i can’t picture you actually missing me, i can’t imagine you actually wishing i hadn’t said i was done with grey and in between. i feel like i’m so insignificant to you. like you have no feelings, like you couldn’t care less, this is just life, people come and go. and i know that, i know this is just life, and that people come and go, but it hurts that it’d never cross your mind to ask me to stay, that i was fun while i lasted, that you never wanted to make me yours. i’ll fade soon. i want to matter more to you. you’re a thinker, i’m a feeler, you hate that i’m so black and white. but i’m selfish and i want 3am texts that you can’t stop thinking about me and that you need to see me again soon. but that’s not who you are. and it’s unfair of me to want you to feel that way when you don’t. and it’s really okay, because if i extended my hand to you and you took it, i don’t think we would’ve gotten very far anyway. i loved being so close to you, but i’m excited to hold someone’s hand who doesn’t want to let go, to kiss someone who wants to kiss me forever, to not be anticipating an inevitable end, to be able to trust someone fully with my heart, to have someone that wants to hold it. and i don’t need that, i don’t need someone, i don’t need anyone. but if one day it’s what’s meant to be, i’ll let it be. i don’t want to be careless with my heart again. i don’t know why things happen the way they do, and i don’t regret you for a second, and i still think the world of you, but i’m too emotional and i fall too deep to give that much of myself again to someone who never asked for any of it in the first place.

if you are
like me
when you
were young
you were
taught that
tongues
should sleep
safely inside
filtered mouths
not dressed
in honesty
or pleasure
but rather
in delusion
in carefully
memorized
scripts

and when
your bones
form around
these limits
they break
a little
with every
breath
they form
in twisted
patterns
through
warped
childhoods
into
corrupt
adulthood­s
where
we must learn
what it
means to
unravel it all

to taste
to talk
to touch
and be
touched
freely.

something about you. something about october
the dried up leaves and the way everything feels quiet
in the middle of the day
like living inside of a vhs tape that hasn't been rewound
in a decade or two
makes me want to start visiting the cemetery
make friends with the forgotten
when we ended up walking the dogs there on accident
it felt like coming home
i'll bring my books and a bag of dried cherries, peanut butter
bars of dark chocolate wrapped in gold foil, sunflower seeds
the nightstand with the warped wooden drawer
that's always getting stuck
where i keep the half-melted birthday candles
and a box of matches, just in case
prop my pillow up against a headstone
read vonnegut until i fall asleep
grow closer to death until it doesn't scare me anymore
i used to think ghosts lived in mausoleums but now i know
they live inside of a twenty-four-year-old who watches
the same vampire movie every time it rains
just to feel safe inside the familiarity of the past
i'm still the twelve-year-old girl
just waiting for something to happen to her
i burn my skin in the shower just to feel less alone

i fear that you are
drowning in your own depth
and i hope that you have
learned to hold your breath
for extended periods of time
and that you know when
to come up for an interlude
of fresh air every once in awhile

your heart is so
special
please take care
of it

because i would hate
to hear that you’ve broken
two more
one, hers
and in return, yours
yet again

i found you
but you’ve found
someone else
so i will not let you know

i’m choking on
questions like
was i foolish for
thinking your heart
could still beat for me?
and
am i selfish for
wishing it did?

i found you
but i know
you are better off
with me hiding
in the trees

i will not let you know.

you make so much sense
amidst the tangled vines of
learning and unlearning
please don’t go before i get better

maybe i don't eat
because i want my skin
to be transparent
i want people to see me
for who i truly am
i hope to one day
wither away
until i am nothing,
until i am just a pile of bones


                                                                ­                        maybe then
                                                            ­                            you'll notice me

I’m at the point where I can go from feeling so much to so little in an instant. My emotions are all disarray. I feel like my veins are pumping potential energy, heart beat-beat-beating in anticipation for all the things that are about to happen in my life. Growing up is weird. I’m learning and changing and evolving and it doesn’t feel like summer that passes and it’s August and you’re wondering where all the time went… every day I feel time whizzing past; if the hands on the clock rotate any faster it’ll fly off my desk and out the window. I am so many things, and I’m training my eyes to find possibility in every second, to not let time get away from me, to not let myself live in a time that hasn’t even come yet. There is so much I want to do, so much I want to see, so much I want to create, so much I want to be. I’m chasing light and I’m discovering who I am and what I want to do and how I want to live and I’m aching to praise my God with every breath.

the poem i resist digs deeper into my chest like a buried soulmate. it grows blurry and distant until i can’t find the sharpness of it, but i can still taste how it made me feel. the feeling becomes a dull hunger. the distorted memory of a bite. still gnawing, lost, hopeful that i will give in to my undoing and gruesomely reveal the bloodied shadow of a bluff that has been called home. neither of us can sleep. my teeth ache. when the sky turns purple with torment, i end up in the woods, collecting feathers, consumed in the uncaging of a fire that will never catch

sometimes,
i get this weird sensation
where it feels like
i've known you forever

i miss you
even though
i've never had you
by my side

and i have these
pretend memories
of us together

they all seem so real,
even though
i know they're not

but hopefully
they will be,
one day

i think we still exist
somewhere in the universe
behind the sun
where all of earth’s abandoned
soulmates go to rest
i think i can see us
when i look up at the sky
and squint directly into
the rays of light,
your brown eyes burning
into mine

i think we are together
in the time that trails behind
the present, dancing
in circles until the last stars
fizzle out

i think that our promises
seeped into the soil, like
february rain, our souls sown
together, tucked in
beneath the world

i think what we had is
somewhere just out of reach,
pulsing in the dim spaces
between heat lightning

and although, in this lifetime,
we became nothing but shadows,
monsters that linger on bedroom walls

we are there, we are alive,
and we are still in love.