your loyalty fooled me
twice
*******.

I read to you
My unspoken words
Emotions so personal
Thoughts I've never shared
With anyone ever before
And as I read to you
I use my poetry
To show you how I feel
And when I ask you
"What do you think of it?"
You reply
So thoughtlessly
"I wasn't listening"

i think ive only seen
one other face
that looks as tired as mine

her eyes reflected black holes
and the bags underneath them
were as dark as rain clouds

and her beautiful face
cant begin to explain
the ugliness of her past

when she told me
that her brother had died
i didnt know how to respond

all i could think
was
how can someone possibly be sadder than me?

"I've been torn from the cloth of my people" I told my parents
A night prior I had unlatched my symbolic necklace
I told myself that I was finished
Finished because organized religion hadn't spoken to me
Prayers and holidays never elated me like they did everyone else
Not for lack of trying
I've lit candles
Opened presents
Gone to my house of worship
Associated myself with those of the same religion
But why?
Because my parents told me to?
I'm too old for that to be a reason
I look at the scripture and I don't believe it
I've prayed in houses of worship for hours
Every weekend
Praying for health or happiness or love
Even though I may not get everything I want
It's not my reason for not believing in a higher power
What do you mean "God"?
Am I supposed to defend my "people", just because they're my "people"?
I can't do it anymore
I'll listen and hope that one day I'll believe in God
As for now
I'll look to science and literature for guidance
Maybe one day I'll lay that necklace around my neck again
But not today

Wine nights are for the lonely
for the lonely to gather
for the lonely to ponder an alternate world

in which they have a companion
or apartment larger than their current residence
or five year plans absent of labor

I love wine nights.

Wine nights are the winding ***** on a Jack-in-the-box going backward
soothingly miserable
my fondest type of drunk; loopy, then asleep

Wine nights are for the old and wrinkly
kidding.
the old and wrinkly have husbands

wine nights
pathetic, right?

**** wine nights
i'm going to sleep..
SOBER

getting over him was seemingly
never an option

love does not disappear,
love haunts you

love is the source of inexplainable flashbacks to nights that were simpler

us ending...we never ended
in my mind, you are alive
I can see the dimples reflecting the saddest smile
your smell is present at bougey department stores
I am never alone

but our love hibernated
nearly a year ago
yet I am holding onto memories of simpler nights
and embraces of comfort and affection

moving away did not rid me of your existence
you are always here

I am not angry that you have not yet left my mind
but I am angry that you refused to remain by my side

getting over you was a stupid thought

you will always be here

today my muscles sang
songs of broken melodies
pieced together
as my breath became rhythmic
push till it does not matter
and pull until it does
the saltwater rid me
of what i thought was the end
but then it all came back
and i contracted once again
savior is for the dead

She looks at herself in the mirror
and sees an unfamiliar version of 'what could have been'
her skin is translucent
arteries are illustrated throughout her bare chest and arms
she looks down
it is not the body that she built
it is not the statue that she sculpted
there are legs but they do not run
they are latent and purposeless and blue

She looks back up
touches the mirror--right where her bowed lips are
they have not been grazed by another being since the last time she saw herself
the bags underneath her eyes
scream
I have been carrying too much
her eyes which once shone with possibility and ambition are now glazed over--impossible to reach

She hears herself speak
her vocal chords do not hum
instead she hears the words that she has written
as if her own poetry were a curse

She looks in the mirror
five minutes before she needs to leave for another day of something that someone somewhere deemed important
somewhere...

She turns around
back to the mirror
nose pressed
head down
ignoring her own cry for help

in my moment of despair
you came to my rescue
to my swollen eyes
and unkept hair
and your timing was perfect
so thank you,
for offering me comfort in the form of food
and thank you for holding my hand
and kissing me like there's no one else on Earth
but I can't forgive you for all the times you've asked
for us to sneak around
because I am wonderful
and you are wonderful
therefore,
we shall be wonderful together

Before you were you
You bled tears of life and sang songs of fear
You believed in serenity
And met peace at its core
Till you fell out the building
That is when you changed
When you hit concrete and saw that there was a world beyond
The grass of child's play and hills of dewdrops
As you began to sail
You found me again
You found me when I thought I couldn't cry anymore
You brought me life when she died
You brought me excitement when I was asleep
And you brought me the gift of knowing
That even if I was alone
Even if you hated me
You would still bring me words of comfort
Or faces of need
And it is in those very moments
That I close my eyes tightly
Clench my jaw
Pull my hair
And realize
That even if you aren't with me
You will always be here

I lay here in my bed
In the house that I've lived in
For my entire life
Yet I'm not at home

My sister and parents reside here with me
But I may as well be living with a dog and a cat
No...
Living with a dog and a cat sounds far more appealingn

I've only visited one place
That has felt like a home to me
Where people who I lived with
Understood the pain, the happiness, the mentality

We were a perfect community
None of us had ever had a safe haven
We were all lost and suddenly felt found
And there were nights when we wanted to be in our beds

But as I lay here
I cannot believe the stupidity of the notion of my house
Because here, things aren't good
I'm too high
I'm too low
There is no inbetween

My music is considered to be strange where I live
Where at home we all sang the songs that burned in our hearts
The melodies that depicted all the emotions we couldn't express
Because we understood each other

Here my work is laughed at
No one knows how I express myself
At home, we would read each other stories of our childhood
Or letters written to our dead family members
Or fictional tales that we wished to be true
And we thought nothing of it, because, we were home

And it's been nearly a month
Since I've seen my real siblings
Since we've sung and read and laughed and cried
I dont know how I'm going to survive at my house
I want to be home
I NEED to be home

blades of truth beneath
feet as bare as birth
inhale the soulful wind of
illusions of hope
and step
foot to ground
sigh at the flock, as
it has returned from
redundant seasons
i had hoped that
birds would not
return, as
their unison reminded
me of normalcy
and i am still standing
enclaves of shimmering
possibility become matte
in the light of
what has become
the spiral we call
*life

The dreary grey portrays this state
this state of contentment
the contentment however
is troubling
because lack of inspiration
is troubling in the sense that
I don't know what to do or what to write or how to write
and because it's my "art",
I'm angry that I cannot articulate these nonexistent thoughts
To think that creativity stems from suffering
is to think that pleasure is contingent on pain
still, this contentment is leading to mania and confusion
confusion as to why my writing isn't what it used to be
and I ask myself to weigh the costs and benefits
of suffering versus peace of mind
and I don't know
so here I am,
unexposed
left in between two fragile states of
emotion,
that cannot be described

I've felt these chills
I've felt these aches
I've felt the burning
And I shake
For I've never felt this
All at once
So suddenly
So brutally
Incomprehensible
The trauma by body has endured
The sleepless nights and
Thousands of pills
And dreams of blood and spite
So here I sit in the light of a
Broken chandelier
With my esophagus burning
And my stomach churning
And my head pounding
Pounding like a heavy lock on an
Expensive door
An expensive door to an
Enormous house
Where no one can hear my screams
My moans
My "I can't do this"s and my
Shrieks of angst
And for what
For what
For love?
For happiness?
For purpose?
I haven't smiled in five years
And I can't recollect a pleasant day
A day when nothing mattered
A day when a day was just a day
But here my stomach cries again
And again the gurgles and cracking
And the unfathomable pain
But it's not unfathomable
Because I've felt it all before

I didn't know what I was doing
the ***** had gotten to my head
and I was already absent from the real world
here I was with someone who seemed like
perfection
yet we had only just met
but he was charming and sincere
and "being" with him felt right
it felt right…until
until I wasn't me anymore
until my values had been shattered
and my dignity stripped
I can't be the strongest person you know because I ****** up
and it was awful

How does the world expect me
To be entirely put together
When I'm so broken
I'm not a pristine mirror
I don't reflect the beauty of the world
I'm shards of glass
That tear human flesh
I reflect only pieces of the world
And the pieces I reflect
Are uneven and sharp and dangerous
I wear a perfectly tailored suit
But my mind looks like an untamed jungle
My heart feels like torn tissue
My heart looks like an emboldened question mark
So why am I viewed as the girl
Who knows everything
Who has it all figured out
I know what I want
I don't know how to get there

cradle the passion he fills you with

sing till lungs bleed for he is your melody

never question his word

only bite it with flame

grab onto parts of him that will one day go away

I feel closer to the world that lays beneath my fingertips
than I do to the world outside my door
because here I can say
whatever it is that's on my mind
and I know there will always be someone
by my side
even if we're miles apart

I am wiping my slate clean only to get it ***** again with memories of you

i am poetry
i am the figurative language English teachers aim to disect
i am the metaphor within the metaphor within the simile
i demand commas and semicolons because no sentence should only have a period
i am the body of language that people seek to understand
i do not need to be understood
you can check your dictionary
understand my anecdotal properties
see how many stanzas there are
i am poetry because i make no sense
these are words
the purest language yet impossible to understand
i am poetry because i can listen to the sound of the wind
i can speak volumes without speaking
i am poetry though i am not always fluid
but rhythm is not essential and forced thoughts do not matter
i am poetry because i want to be understood
but there is no clear meaning
there is no clear cut
evaluate me as you may
interpret what you will
i am poetry and i will live on

I thought I could forget
But I can't
You're engrained into my every thought
My every motion
I thought I could forget our silly beginning and our abrupt ending
But all I can think about is what we could have been
To think that I spent time thinking about someone else
While you wanted nothing more than me
Is to validate my stupidity
There's nothing like us
There are no two people who understand each other without words
I need you
I think I love you
And I hope it's not too late

Once my hopes were shattered,
my expectations disappeared...

You're my father
I want you to come to my room
And insist on talking to me until I stop crying
Because I need someone to physically be with me
Screens won't cut it anymore
I'm in distress
I'm hurt
And I want your presence

I want to be anywhere but here
I want to scream at the top of my lungs
and say "I was here"
I am the anywhere but here girl
but the essence of me is here to stay
I will never back down and I will always stand strong
I will be resilient and quiet but bold
Because being stern is better than being a *****
and ***** I'm ******* done with this *******
so hold anything gross in your mouth
and throw it up in the bathroom
because we don't want to take it
I am going to hug myself
and love myself
and envy my own being
and when I do
I will be free

For a year I thought that you were the perfect person for me, but then I fell in love, and you became a memory.

I don't want to hear the echoes of what could have been
nor do I want to think of today as a distant memory
because right now…
is the beginning of always
and I always want to know what should have been
or what would have been

what would happen
if tomorrow, I looked you straight in the eye and said "there is an "us""
would you shoot me down or would you let me articulate the thoughts that have brewed inside of me for months

would you say that "we" are something…

fear drove me to hell
and hell drove me to angst
angst drove me to anger
and anger led to clarity
clarity that is too clear
for the human eye
because no one should ever see
anything
that sting

You will never need me for the reasons that I need you, and that's why we'll always be broken.

My past is not my present
So stop using my past against me

Can I borrow?
May I have?
Do you have?
Can you...?
STOP
TAKING
WITHOUT
GIVING
We are not friends, nor do we communicate, so leave me alone...

I am not a body
I am a soul
I am not an empty room
there are no reservations to be made