i hope you revel in the normalcy
when you feel the sunrise on your skin
walking down a brick path
i hope you breathe in the morning
hold the ordinary close to you
like a life that almost didn’t happen

because for some of us
it didn’t happen

i have never felt the blissful repetition
in being surrounded by what is expected
standing in seasons and looking at skylines
that your mothers and fathers
have stood in and looked at
mothers and fathers who do your laundry
when you come home to a home
that has smelled the same
for the past twenty years

so i hope that you laugh and drink
a little too much
and kiss people who make you feel seen
i hope you listen to bad music
and hug your friends too tightly
and skip your eight a.m. just because
you need slowness and stillness
and a coffee from the corner
and a breath of fresh air
in the morning
on a brick path
with the midday sun
on your skin

i will wait up for you
i will kiss you at the front door
i will rub your back until you fall asleep
we will walk down tree-lined streets
in cities that are new to me and old to you
we will hold hands on trains, in museums
for years, until there are permanent tan lines
on our fragile, well-lived knuckles
we will find rest in one another
on long days, on slow days
together, you and i

often, i picture us
holding hands and watching movies
sitting on benches beneath old oak trees
hearing your laugh throughout the day
and catching you smile
when you think i don't see

and all i can do is hope
that when you close your eyes
your mind is filled
with thoughts of me

I think the scent of bug spray on my palms will now forever remind me of you and the late night (early morning) we spent sitting in your car, drawing awfully unskillful portraits on the back of each other’s hands in 
dim light and 3 a.m. stillness. (I wonder if you could tell that doodling on your skin was just an excuse to touch you.) I wanted so badly to let my fingers find yours 
as we laid back in our seats 
and peeked out the rolled down 
windows at the infinite stars scattered above us in the 
early August night sky. I told you I wouldn’t kiss you, 
because I know my heart and 
how relentlessly it would 
replay how your lips felt on mine, and how it would ache knowing
 you couldn’t be mine,
 so I let you kiss my cheek instead,
 and the half a moment that I felt 
your unshaven face brush mine in the middle of the street at five in the morning feels like a fake memory. When you looked at me, I wanted to hide, because I was too afraid to read what words might’ve been written in your eyes, but I felt so content listening to the 
deep tone of your voice 
mix with the obnoxiously loud crickets singing in the trees 
surrounding us. I could’ve sat there with you till the stars disappeared and the sun took their place, but you walked me back home, and you left in the dark, and now I’m sitting in my bed thinking about how the hours between 2 and 5 a.m. have never felt so full.

sun squares on the hardwood
the morning robins
and you.

03:00
When I think about never speaking to him again, I picture a girl walking in a crowd that’s all moving in the same direction, and then suddenly she drops everything she’s holding and turns around and starts running as fast as she can, smiling and pushing past everyone till finally she reaches an open space and her face looks like sunshine as her hair blows behind her in the wind and she’s free she’s free, oh God, she’s free.

03:15
But then I think about walking into a doctor’s office ten years from now and sitting on a cold metal table, staring at my legs dangling off the edge, waiting. And then I look up as the door opens slowly, not expecting to see his tattooed arms hidden in a lab coat, but there he is and, oh God, his eyes haven’t changed, and I can’t breathe, and he just stands there, looking at me like an unfinished sentence. Then I’d have to let him put a stethoscope to my chest and listen to my heart and I wonder what it’d sound like, if it would sound like messy half beats of missing him. If he’d be able to tell. If he’d care.

03:30
Or maybe the next time I see him, if I ever see him again, we’ll both be whole versions of ourselves, content and in good places, our lives all sorted out and how we always hoped they’d be. And maybe we’d be able to talk about the weather and our kids and the lives we created apart. And maybe I’d be able to look at him with only feelings of pleasant acquaintance and relative indifference, not seeing the boy I fell for when I should’ve been focused on catching myself.

03:45
And I know I should find comfort in thinking about how one day I may look at him and feel nothing,

04:00
but it’s four in the morning and I don’t want to let go.

i kept anticipating
blocked off entrances and
handwritten out-of-order signs
over gas station bathroom doors
that are rusting at the corners

because each time i got in my car
that smells like sweaty dog
and lavender
i found a reason to turn around
i convinced myself that
the green lights were not meant for me
only backroads and passenger seats

the sun was not there
when i kept going
the sky was full of grey
and i could feel the rain in my chest;
i didn’t need it to be a perfect summer day
i just needed to believe
that i had enough light within me
to make it through

there are ladybugs crawling all over my mother’s house
or maybe it’s my stepfather’s house
or my brother and sister’s house
it’s someone’s house, it’s not mine
there are ladybugs scaling the window panes
and upside down, polka-dotted carcasses
lining the kitchen floor
the faucet is dripping
it has been for years
you dream of growing up in a house with a
fireplace in the living room
you forget that you might live there with people who
won’t fix it
they grow cold instead
they throw cardboard boxes over the side of the front porch
and pungent trash bags into a rusting and dented trunk
the basement is unfinished, filled with dead mice
and god knows what else
the washer trembles when it’s off balance
it won’t stop till you rearrange the soaking threads
there’s a yard full of untrodden grass

it looks so large and whole from the outside

but there are holes in the walls
the size of doorknobs and fists

i would really like to go home

funny how the good feels like a stranger. i went to office depot with my little brother, we were buying markers and glitter glue, and i was someone whose hands didn’t tremble. someone who didn’t want to go home, so we took the long way. when i am driving with the radio on, i am an actor in a bad movie. when i am picking up scallions at the grocery store, i am the girl you believe in. but when i’m hurting, when i’m breaking, when i’m scared—i look down and my shadow is there. i don’t know who i am without it.

there's something
entrancing about you,
i hear melodies like honey
when you enter my mind

you make me smile
even when
the rain is falling
and i think i could
make you happy, too

the two of us together
could be as beautiful as
the setting sun

but of course
the wicked reality is
we'll never get
the chance

when i asked you
why you're so sweet
and you replied

"because i like your smile,
you wear it so well
and if i can help with you smiling
then the world is a better place"

you stole the air from my lungs
in a pure and tragic manner

because one,
nobody
has ever been
so genuinely kind to me
i wish i could make you feel
as special as you make
me feel

and two,
i instantly thought
of my future
and it hurt my heart
because i'm almost certain
you won't be there

tighten your tanned arm around my waist
put your thumb inside my bottom lip
tell me how pretty i look in a dress
even more with it on the floor
and with a sun-dripping smile
i will bloom beneath the ripened lust
that seeps from your secret gaze
like a blazing hillside of orange poppies
shifting towards you in the soft wind
waiting to be crushed

i keep falling asleep
with poems on my mind
something about
my mother
something about
missed connections
i repeat the idea in my head
try to make it stick
enticing them to get
caught in my psyche
like flies in honey
i swear i won’t forget
but when i wake up
the window is open
the screen is intact
the little bugs are sweetly
humming on the outside
too wild and busy
to whisper what was felt
the night before

write from your heart: scribble down words
when you’re crying at 2am, or right after
you’ve gotten home from spending time with
someone you love, whenever your emotions
are at their peak. writing is bet when it’s
pure and raw and genuine. don’t filter when you
write, just let your soul flow out on the page.

Curled up beneath the duvet
knees drawn up to chest
inhaling the smokey scent of my fleece
sown fresh nostalgia
I remembered how
we laughed and ate off chinaware
while sipping out of plastic cups
sitting by the fire pit
in the backyard
my eyes wandered
towards the woods at dusk
and I breathed
realizing we are just specks of dust
that glimmer in the light of our Creator.

everything is covered in ****
i step in it, i sleep in it
i feel it running down my back in the
lukewarm shower
my slippers are sopping wet

right eye is red and stinging
it feels like nothing is clean

there are no black lights
i cannot find every stain to
kneel in front of with paper towels
and blot until **** and saltwater blend
so i mop the entire floor

throw away the couch;
i was never told it gets so hard to feel clean

it's a beautiful day today

my favorite weather
is when the sun
tenderly kisses my cheeks
and freckled shoulders

i see kids carelessly riding their bikes
and wind breezing
through the branches of tall trees
and i think of you

i think of how it would be
to lay in the middle of a soft green field
with our arms touching
and your hand holding mine

i wonder what animal you'd say
the clouds look like
and if you'd pick a flower
to place behind my ear
and look into my eyes
to tell me i'm more breathtaking
than any daisy
that has ever been quenched by summer rain

i think about you a lot,
and i know today
would be even more beautiful
with you by my side

are hands and knees that hit the floor
and crawl back towards what i’d sworn off before
weak, or brave
is it braver to run in the opposite direction
or to stay even when it stings
because when we’re in your car
i know what the crickets outside
are thinking, is it true
am i throwing white sheets over old reminders
written in dust, small whispers leading up
to an attic where all the hurt and confusion is stored
in cardboard boxes labelled DO NOT OPEN

right now i’m sitting on the stairs
with my back against the door
and i’m looking at your face, your face, your face
searching for something maybe i didn’t see before
and the words you wrote at two in the dark
made me miss you when i promised i didn’t,
and i want to stay, but when i try
to convince myself that you’re right,
that pushing you away is the easy way out,
that what we feel is a reason to keep each
other around,
i still find it hard to believe myself
when i tell myself
that i am being strong

the scent of incense mixed with rain is diluting the redolence of missing you, but not matter how many stormy nights i spending reading and listening and trying to find contentment in silence and simplicity, i will forever see your name between every line, hear your voice in every song, feel the absence of your presence in every moment spent alone. you are with me, you are with me, you are with me. you are always with me.

i don't want to sleep
because i don't want to wake up
and be the same person

i feel ugly, repulsive, disgusting
your words were like venom
and i spit them right back

this hatred is controlling me
and i don't want it to,
i don't want to be like this

i fear that things
will never be okay with us,
i fear that i really am the problem

this feeling of ecstasy,
it blooms inside of me

sparks like fireworks
spread throughout my limbs
my hands quiver
and my heart quickens

i want to run
through endless fields
and shout into the emptiness

because all of the sudden,
i am not invisible

So often I feel as though I am seen as summer rain,
someone who does nothing but
nourishes thirsty flowers in dry soil,
precious and beautiful and unable to do any wrong

when in reality, there are unseen, hidden parts of me
and secrets I’ve only been brave enough
to whisper to a few, bits of my past
that are journal pages ripped up
and swept underneath my bed

And you are my deepest secret

I took advantage of how you felt for me
and I made you feel like you
were dirt, contaminating me because
I was innocent and perfect and could do no wrong,
but that was a lie I tried to make you believe,
because I had convinced myself
it was true, for so long

I hate that I hurt you

And I hate that I will never
be able to take that back

I cannot stand the thought of you
walking around today, or years from now
thinking of me as a mistake, a waste of time,
a thunderstorm who did nothing but uproot
such special feelings only to
destroy you in your vulnerability

But I pray you don’t think of me at all,
and that you’ve forgotten me

because I cannot stand to think
you’re out there, somewhere
remembering me as someone
who broke you.