i have discovered who i am
i am not the product of my
          parents beliefs
                trauma
                    tribulations
i am my own person
with my own
           life
             beliefs
                 aspirations
my heart is
        lighter
            fuller
                free
i haven't written poetry because i've had no need for it.
it was an outlet for
               sadness
                    pain
                       desperation
and although i still feel all of that,
i have found
        people
             friends
                  lovers
who help me handle it.
i am happier than i've ever been
and so eternally
          grateful
               proud
                   overjoyed
that i lived. even when it was
             painful
                  useless
                       impossible
i fought to live. i fought to love.
              and
                  i
                  did

water surrounds me.
i can feel it on my skin.
it rushes around my body, like
a blanket swaddling a child.

            .i am a child of the water.
my eyes are open wide
i can hear the waves around me
swishing and gurgling like the
river is trying to tell me something

i see daylight through the clouds
it casts a golden light into the water
onto my skin.
                   ,i am a child of the day,

i am suspended beneath the surface
of a golden river
and sometimes it is suffocating
but sometimes it is home
and i think i am happy
       here
below the sun and the waves
with my eyes open and my heart beating just the same. . . .

the river brushes
my eyelids down,
and s l o w s my beating heart.
my skin is blanketed in gold;
the waves rock me to sleep.

          ,.i am a child of
          the daylight waters,
          warmed by the sun
          and blanketed by the
          waves. i am content.,

to be beautiful
to be skinny
to be happy
to be calm
to be free
to be secure
to be joyful
to be kind
to be a friend


(and sometimes?
to be dead)

it's been a while
since i've picked up
a pen and written
in my diary.

my pen, of course,
being my fingertips
and the diary being
my broken phone.

you become aware of your own mortality
staring out a window at 8 in the evening
like the dog does
when he's tired

seeing the trees bathed in sunset hues
and the man mowing across the street
the road, weather-beaten
with some rickety car rattling along it
and the realization that this will one day be
   completely
       gone.

you become aware of your life
and the ending of it
washing the dishes
and thinking
of friends
of television shows
of what you're going to eat for dinner

heart speeds up, sponge slows down
and the knowledge that
all of this pass and fades creeps
into your brain.
the knowledge itself is,
of course,
passing and fading;
such is life.

you become aware of dying
when you smile
when you laugh
surrounded by friends
family
making memories that will be lost to
the dirt surrounding your bones
sooner or later.

piano music is playing
thumps outside, small children
running down the stairs
and pretending like the world
isn't falling to pieces.

the innocence of a child
is something so precious
yet so fleeting,
ripped from small hands much too soon,
becoming an adult at ten years.

to this day, i wish that i was
born something different.
something to where my mind isn't plagued
with regret at what i've done
and who i am as a human.

my birthday is tomorrow,
but i'm not happy about it.
i wish that people would stop putting
so much emphasis on when i was born;
it just makes me wish i wasn't.