i.
no matter what your teachers
may tell you, your grades are not a
measure of how smart you are, that
has more to do with how you handle your
heart, and i have never seen anyone love
more fiercely or smart than you.  

ii.
i have let boys touch me just because
i was scared to lose them; don't let them
lay a hand on you without you asking
them to, you are worth more than that.

iii.
people will walk away, but you've known
that already.  keep your chin up so that when
they turn back one last time, they know that
you don't need them.
you don't need them.

iv.
i hope you find somebody that holds your
hands, even when you're nervous and
they start to sweat.  if they pull away,
you come find me and i swear,
i won't let go.

and i wish i knew
how to love you
back

a year ago
you told me
that i am
filled with
lightning

(i
finally
believe
you)

we stole dandelions from the fields
like hard-time criminals
and watched as they melted
in the palms of our hands--

i should have realized it was a
perfect euphemism
for the months to follow.

i want to walk
the same shores
odysseus did,

i want to be
important like
him, i want to

be important like,
i want to be

important

i worry about him all
the time*
i told you and
you shook your head like
you knew all too well

eleven nights later,
you tell me to get some
sleep, you say i worry about
you all the time

and i'm starting to think
it's code for people who
are trying to say 'i love you'
to someone who doesn't
love them back

he said i look more like an
iris than anything else
(and i couldn't help but think
how right he was, and how ironic
that he doesn't even have any idea
who i am)

your bones fit into the holes
of mine , and maybe it hasn't always
been that way, but we've collided enough
times that i have invented craters just
for you, so, please,
don't leave them empty

i read that astronauts
can tell from outer
space which cities are
newly built because
electricians are making
streetlights out of
sodium vapor now as
opposed to mercury,
so now road outlines
glow orange

and newer cities tend
to be more geometrically
planned, all straight
edges and such, while
older cities are made up
of frantic curves and
corners

and i wonder if i look
to you like i have been
worn and used, am i
frenzied and dull, or
am i new?  maybe my
jagged lines have
been sanded and smoothed

maybe
i still
glow

(i picked up
all your old habits,
and i'm not
letting them
go)

i've become the person i wanted to be
two years ago, but i've forgotten
why i wanted to be this way in the first place

(it's time to reconstruct myself again)

with every step, i felt myself break
just a little
                  bit
                       more.

i'm sorry i couldn't look back,
i was too afraid of finding you
collecting my pieces
to return them to me;
this time, i want you to keep them.

i  don't want  to live in  the
                            s p a c e s
between   your   words,   i
want to be  found in every
syl-
                    la-
                                     ble

i heard that women tend to
tell lies more often than men,
but when they to, it's to build
other people up, while men usually
lie to make themselves look better

so at midnight, when you said
that you loved me, and i told you
that i loved you too, which one
of us was really in the wrong?

maybe, just maybe, somebody
hollowed out the empty spaces in
the trees at crescent park
just as a secret message to me,
to remind me that it's okay
for beautiful things to feel empty.

i'll keep a compass tattooed on my
forearm so that i'll always know how to
find my way home, and if that needle points to you
when we settle for the night,

i won't question it.

every wall of this house reminds me
of you-

reminds me that you are 591 miles
away, and i haven't heard from you
for seventeen days, and i am beginning
to worry

before you left we sat on the
couch and i asked you to promise
me you would stay alive.
when i held out my pinkie you couldn't
take it, and i always tried to make sure
you'd never see me cry, but i couldn't
stand the thought of living
around your ghost and i guess i just
                                                   lost it

there is a cold spot on the sofa and
i wonder if it is you

i learned that sounds
travel faster through solids
than air, so press
your mouth to my skin,
tell me stories of the places
you were scared to have
been, i'll try my best to
understand, and with all that i am,
i will listen

i forgot to tell you earlier that
i've dreamt about you every night
this week, and this morning when i
woke up i thought it was winter,
but i was warm anyway.

when i was a kid, i pretended i could
breathe underwater so that if i was
ever caught in a wave for too long
i wouldn't panic- but now my hands are
shaking and i can feel my lungs getting tight
and my ear drums are starting to pound, and
these ceilings are
crushing
me.

it is summer again, and
we are getting high underneath
the tanglewood bridge

our shoulders stick together
with sweat, one of us coughing,
inexperienced, the other
laughing

it is summer again, and
i don't remember a day when i
didn't want to spend
all my time with
you

i         had         a
dream last night
that     you     fell
in      love     with
someone        else
and     i    realized
that  i  don't want
to      spend     the
rest        of       my
life    scared   that
i  might  lose  you

i         want        to
spend    that  time
waking             up
next      to       you,
seeing               the
world    with   you,
learning    how   to
grow   old  bravely
with                 you

and       i      guess  
what    i'm  trying
to         say         is

marry              me

i once knew a boy who spoke of
rustling leaves as a euphemism for
supreme love; he told me that he could hear them
whispering, "come closer, yes,
i really mean you"

can you hear it? he asked,
can you hear it too?

i closed me eyes and tried to remember
the last time i had heard an invitation as subtle as
the ones that hid in the solace of
autumn's last breaths, and there it was
buried in the softness of your palms outstretched
to the stars (longing to hold hands with the heavens)

when i opened my eyes again, i found myself
face to face with the only truth i would ever
learn: that every thing i've ever
needed to know is hidden between that boy's
words, your curious fingers, and the orange rain
that falls in november.

for all the times you were the only one
who could make me genuinely happy,
thank you

(i mean it)

during summer, we avoided the ocean
because it reminded us how
small we really are, and instead of singing
lullabies to drift away in waves of sleep,
we sang all night long to stay awake
for fear that if we let ourselves go, we'd have nothing
left to rise for by morning

(i never closed my eyes, but i had one
hell of a dream)

i wish my generation would stop
romanticizing misery; if he only loves you
because you are sad, then what will happen
when he's the only one to make you happy

(are you prepared to watch him walk away
for another girl reading bukowski?)

i.
some days are more
worth living than
others; today is not
one of those days

ii.
your words stay pinned
on my mirror, and i
don't know if i am
keeping them there to
torture myself
or to remind myself
that i should stay
alive

iii.
i used to be okay,
and i don't know how
i ever was that way
or how to get back

iv.
you used to draw maps me
on my arms; nobody knew where
they went except for
you

v.
i want go where
you do, but i don't know
how to find you

i've been told time and time again that
we are made of stardust, to the point where it's
not even poetic anymore, it's just
science. and while they're something beautiful in
chemical reactions and the attraction between
us and the earth's core, there is nothing beautiful
about the way biology was ruined for me
in seventh grade when we dissected frogs and i realized
that's actually what we look like inside-
we don't house constellations or milky ways or anything
worth staring at
                            (but even still, i couldn't look away).

i wonder if there's any chance of us being rescued from our flesh,
i wonder if maybe one day after we're turned to dust
again, our remnants will break free of earth's gravity
and we'll get the chance to be stars once more.

(i wonder if the reason we reach towards the sky at night
is because we can feel our brothers calling us back home)

i thought your memory would
weigh me down, but it turned out to be
an anchor; i've never felt more
close to you than i do now
(and with this weight i'm clinging to
it's like you never left)

he tells me he is reaching
his breaking point
(and) he sighs,
(and) he looks away,
(and) i want to reach out to him
to touch his hand, shoulder,
knee

but i am afraid he will
shatter

i want to cut myself
open, and pour out every
word i thought about
telling you but never did

and stitch myself
up without anyone's help,
and clean away everything
i have depended on to fill
empty spaces, and replace it
with something new

i want to paint over my
wounds so that i don't have
to be reminded of what
i went through to get here

i want to be beautiful without
you, i want to be courageous

i.
maybe people really were made
first as one large whole,
then cracked into pieces
and scattered, so that
if we ever lose our sense of
purpose,
we could know that there is hope
in finding it in others.

ii.
maybe it is fate
that brought me to you,
something magnetic,
or just chance.
i don't care, all that matters
is that i have you--
sometimes i just wish i knew
who to thank.

iii.
it scares me how much i like
the feel of your hand gripping mine,
as though it was meant
to be there from the start
(when i'm with you, i always feel
that much more complete).

iv.
if you carry pieces of me
deep inside of you,
does that mean somewhere
i carry pieces of you too?

i heard once on the playground that the human heart
is about the size of it's owner's fist;
that day i spent my whole afternoon
gathering handfuls of earth within the
palms of my hands just to see
how much i could hold, as if that could show me
how much i was capable of loving, but dirt
slipped through my fingers when i loosened my
grip, and i was scared that people were the same
(even at eight, i knew that sometimes the only reason
people stayed was because you held them too tight,
and if midnight provided a last-minute flight
they wouldn't hesitate to catch it because holding on
was harder than running away).
later on, i tried to catch people like fish,
reeling them in and then leaving them on a hook
because when i held them at a distance they were
pretty to look at and i could feel their heat, but when i
clutched them close to my chest, underneath my line of
sight, it was much easier for them to
break and hide.  that all changed when i met
you though; i disabled all my traps and
reached out to you with bare fingers, telling myself
if i could hide you between my hands then
maybe you wouldn't mind hiding in my heart.
i started out timid, grasping handfuls of your
shirt and the way your laugh sounded when it was
me that caused it, and sometimes at night
when i pretended you were there with me, i would
reach out for you, but daylight was different
and i've always had small hands

(i realized it was never about taking your heart when you
reached for my hand and held it like it was your favourite secret
you couldn't keep any longer; it was about letting you have mine)

some days,
i let myself
love you a
little too
much

i am beginning to wonder when i started finding
imperfections so beautiful

maybe it was when i decided
i would never be perfect,
and that the only way i could look at myself in the mirror
was if i started with the ugly scars on my ankle
and made my way up slowly
past my knobby knees,
prominent hip bones,
too-small chest,
pointy nose,
until i looked myself in the
eyes,
taking in every abnormality or distinct deficiency
until i could convince myself they were unique enough
to be considered in someone else's eyes
"pretty"

i began doing the same thing with everyone else,
turning their flaws into something charming
so much
so that when i came across you,
i didn't have to think about it-
i knew from the start that you would be
perfect.

like any
narrator,
i'm obsessed
with being
some one
else.

these days, i like to pretend
my hands don't shake and
my lungs don't collapse
when i hear your name
[but you've been tugging at me
with puppet strings
and i don't know if
i can breathe
because you
let me or if i am
finally
free]

i can't remember
what it's like to sleep in sheets
that don't smell like you

the day we went to the aquarium
was the day i decided to let myself fall
in love with you, and by 11:54 that
night i was practically suffocating
under the weight of words i did not
know how to say, so i simply took your
hands in mine and hoped that you
could read between the songs that i
whispered as you fell asleep.

we aren't much older
now, but wiser nonetheless,
and i have figured it out

i.
i spent my nights writing wishes into
paper cranes after we broke down, a repetition
of ink to paper - fold, press, release -

your name, your name, your name,
became habit every time i picked up the pen

ii.
when i dream of walking through
haunted houses, i hear voices through the
open windows, i swear it is you saying
come home, baby, come home. 

a draft cuts through each whisper and i pretend
it is your breath on my neck,
that your hands will follow, but when i turn
it is only the breeze from a crane beating its wings.

iii.
when it storms, the dock we used to
share secrets on floods - my fingers scratch
at my thighs like i am picking apart the wooden planks,
my skin splinters in all the places i have ever
been touched by you.  

i fold myself into a ship and sail where you can't
follow

it's gonna be a long time
he says, hands clutching his arms
and i want to pry his fingers
away, kiss the tips and
hide him from his fears

not forever, though
i tell him and
i hope he knows that
scars fade but we are both
talking about something bigger
so he smiles and says

*no, not
forever

i want to know the story
behind every freckle on your
back and ever scar on your
hands, i want to know how
they stuck with you and i want
to know the story of how
i stuck with you too

he said he believes that
after we die, we come back as birds
(but what happens after that
i asked; he shrugged and said
does it make a difference?)

i used to hate sundays,
but sometimes you hold
my hands in the pews
at church and i think that
i've been saved in more
ways than one

your sadness is not
beautiful, but your
scars are gorgeous

they are epics across
your skin that tell the
story of how you, just like
all great heroes,
survived