One line means that your life will not change. That everything will continue to exist as it was before. That you'll be the same person that you were ten minutes ago. That everything is, and will continue to be, yours.
Two lines means absolute change. Means giving yourself completely up as a person. Means that you'll be new, different. Two lines means that nothing exists as it was before. That nothing belongs to just you anymore. That your life will be shared.

It was the only test I ever passed that I kind of wanted to fail.

I refuse to apologize for the things I've written.
I refuse to apologize for telling truths amongst the cacophony in rhymes, or rhythms, or word *****.
I refuse to not own this brain, to regret my depression, to swallow my anxiety with a pill.
I will not lie, as my family expands and my brain reconforms to standards I forgot, it gets harder to dig up the person that bled for these words.
She and I aren't the same anymore, but we belong to the same body.
So I call on her when I need her, let myself really feel everything, my alter ego: the poet.
As my boyfriend's family asks me what I do for fun, I try not to lie. To say that I pour words from my soul is distasteful. So I joke "I'm a poet of sorts, a writer."
And they look at me with frightened eyes, so I do not tell them this is what I want to do for a living.
I do not tell them about the razor blades beneath my bed at age 16, or the ****** assault at 20.
I do not tell them inside this head is a mess that is desperately hiding.
But I do not disown her. My mess. My poet heart.

The terrible thing about poets is we're all sadistic masochists.
We all want to read about heartache, and we all want to write about the demons that haunt us in our worst hours.
We never talk about our happiness, our productive days and nights where we slept enough.
We drown in each other's depression so nicely, a swimming pool of lonely writers, ink pooling around us each because we always carry pens in our pockets.
No one wants to know how happy we are. How our boring mundane human life of doing dishes and vacuuming the carpet went.
We all want to stick the knives in a little deeper, to draw out a little more of each other's blood. Because honestly, our poetry has always been written in blood, sweat, and tears.
That's the thing about poets. We'd rather be miserable and have something to write about than be happy and have nothing to write about.

It's been a long time since I looked in the mirror and didn't see a stranger.
A long time since "you're beautiful" wasn't met with an instant shake of the head and a laugh.
I don't think he realizes what he's done to me.
While I was busy holding myself together with duct tape and glue, he was learning to stitch his own heart.
And our scars are reminders not of what horror we went through, but that we can make it through anything.
I'm not going to lie, I'm still a mess.
But he's helping me sweep up my broken pieces and catalog what caused the brokenness to begin with.
And as afraid as I am that failure is imminent,
His arms feel like a place I could call home for a long, long time.

I never expected to fall back in.
I suppose jumping is the real word, because I've always been a headfirst without thinking kind of girl.
I've always called it fearless, the words forever tattooed into my ribs, scar tissue raising so that his hands graze it when they touch me,
But oh dear God am I terrified as I make room for my things in his closet
Take a breath and store my makeup under his sink.
This is the first time in forever I can say that I wish I wasn't jumping headfirst.
I am frightened I am falling, forever the fearless female
Now a pile of lovesick mess on the living room floor I share.

You made a poet fall in love with you
And expected her not to write sonnets about your eyes
Haikus about the way you kissed her in the moonlight
Expected the fire in her heart not to inspire couplets
You made a poet fall in love with you, and when you left
Expected her not to write pages about the ache in her chest
Write a soliloquy dedicated to her tears
Expected her not to feel every gut wrenching moment of the pen hitting paper like your words hit her in the most vulnerable places of her mind.
You made a poet fall in love with you, and you expected her to be silent.
That is no fault of hers.

I miss you, okay? Even though it was my fault it ended and even though I want to punch you in your stupid face,
I also want to kiss your stupid face.
I'm so mad at everything and you and myself and fate and God
I just want to wrap myself in blankets
Or all of your stolen clothes..
And I want to not want to cry and I want to cry and **** I just.
Just ****.
Where are the words I need to explain what I'm feeling so that I can just deal with it?
Why can't I ******* deal with it?
I hate everything about this, every ******* moment I wish I could talk to you, every moment I know I can't. I can't.
Why can't I?