He may not be a poet,
But there is a certain kind of beauty
In his knowing
Exactly what to say.

i wake up with dried tears on the side of my face

i went to sleep smiling,
i thought
i dreamt of you,
as i remember

but i woke up with dried tears on the side of my face

perhaps my eyes see something
that my brain has not yet processed

they see your eyes trail off
when I'm enthused about my day
they see the way your body
is always slightly turned away

my brain gushes about the
sweet text you sent last week
and the future that could lie ahead

but my eyes are the realists
and don't ignore what my brain blocks
they notice the other girls
listed in your inbox

and my eyes know that
they've seen this all before
and the visions in my head
don't align with what you have in store

so my brain might be behind
and take some time understand
that these tears i wake up with
are not a deformity of my lacrimal gland

instead they are trying to fill me in
on what i am trying to ignore
and all these poems i waste on you
i will soon learn to deplore

i don't want to wake up with
dried tears on my face anymore.

11:22pm

Right now, as I sit here listening to Neil Young and allow myself to ponder over every little thing about my life, I have realized something that I should have became aware of a long time ago:

-I am not defined by my sadness-

Nor am I defined by the amount of times I've been dumped, or failed a test, or made some stupid mistake. I am not defined by my past, and I surely can't be defined by my questionable future. Why does it matter if I'm depressed, or if I **** at math, or if I don't have very many friends? These are all just tiny little fractions of the millions and millions of pieces that make up who I am as a person. And, to be quite honest; just because I'm sad, that doesn't mean that I have to be sad. I am completely capable of being happy if I want to be. I can do anything I want if I truly set my mind and heart to it. But the moment I let my sadness define who I am as a person, that will be the very moment when I lose all hopes for any positive change in my life.

Just because I'm sad, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate really good songs, or really good meals, or really good jokes. Just because I'm sad, that doesn't mean I can't laugh and have a good time with my friends, or discover all the beautiful things that life has to offer. Just because I'm sad, that doesn't mean I can't be happy, right? Because when you think about it, our minds are composed of emotion after emotion; ranging from complete sadness to hopelessness to anger to confusion to giddiness to absolute joy. So no, I am not defined by my sadness. But I'm not defined by my happiness, either.

I have strengths, and I have weaknesses. I make amazing progress only to watch it crumple in a single moment. I can go weeks -months even- without picking up the razor and drawing it across my skin. But the second I start getting those feelings again -those urges to distract myself from the emotional pain of a bad day by inflicting physical pain upon myself- that razor will be in my hand and before I know it, the familiar red drops will be trickling down my arms.

So yes, it's been hard. Life is hard. But if it was easy -if I didn't have to work my **** off to achieve the things I want- then would it be worth it? No. See, that's the thing about progress. When we want something, we get up and we fight for it. It might be difficult as hell but it's worth it because we know deep down that it's something we have to do for ourselves. Even if we make mistakes along the way, we learn from them and keep going until we can finally pat ourselves on the back and say I did it! And that right there, is the best part. The part where we can feel pride on the fact that maybe, just maybe, we are more capable than we thought we were.

It is now 12:06am and I would like to say one more thing:

I am 16 years old. I am still a child. I am immature, inexperienced, and still so uneducated. I have so much to learn, so much to experience, so much to live for. However, I have lived long enough to know that life is beautiful yet ugly, challenging yet worth it, infinite yet extremely finite. In that sense, I am terribly old. I am a teenager; a young adult. With 16 years under my belt, I should be able to say that I have been living life to the fullest. But I would be lying to myself if I did. I am so old, but mostly, old enough to know that I have done wrong. Old enough to know that I shouldn't have been letting my sadness define me.

And I am still so young...

But mostly, too young to not have hopes for a better future.
Too young to not have realized yet that *everything will be okay.