I like to pretend I don’t have emotions
In my mind I’m better then those weak-kneed, angsty teenage girls who write about true love in their journals but have never worked up the nerve to actually talk to a boy
I enjoy my feeling of superiority
But no human is without their flaws
My flaw happens to be you
When you’re near I seek out the nearest mirror and check my reflection
Fix my hair
Straighten my shirt
I clear my throat as I try to slow down my pulse
I tell myself to breathe, slowly; inhale, then exhale.
And when our encounter is over
And we’ve gotten no closer
To the place I long to be -in your beautiful freaking arms
I walk away and daydream of our lives together
Next thing you know I’ll be scribbling your name all over my notebook.
You turn me into a cliché I never thought I’d be
******* you and your beauty

…and your charming personality

…and your perfect smile

…and your witty remarks

Just ******* you.

You've got a pale mind and skin to match.
Misery still wet on your lips.
Don't shy away from the sun darling-
It with it's horizon will broaden yours.
It's time to stop showing your scars
But to restore your golden glow.
We're all cowards at something in our heads.
Heads filled with endless delight.
Heads filled with drowning corpses.
But
Our dreams-
Sliced the expectations of brainwashed bystanders.
Intertwined with poison and passion can show us-
Love
Will
Always
Survive.

You came to me flawless
Skin smooth and unbruised
And my arms were painted
Scars from the past exposed

And I tried to assure you
That you would come away clean
That love doesn’t hurt
That love isn’t mean

But you walked away decorated
One arm black, one arm blue
Tattoos from clinging too tightly
To someone who wanted to run

The sharp words we threw around
Dug deep into your skin
Leaving permanent lines
Etched into your porcelain arms

Yet, I’ve spotted you lately
With skin smooth and unbruised
You hide your scars from the world
With an innocent smile

I look back on days when I didn’t care about anything
And each moment was an opportunity for adventure
I saw beauty in everything
Childhood was a wonderful thing
Now I stand on the line between being boy and man
The child in me fights to survive
And you draw the man out of me
While I struggle to grasp what remains of my childhood
I watch it dwindle away every time I’m with you

I never loved you, I didn't dare.
Your forsaken heart is not for me to spare.

You'll tell me don't return dear
Our conquered love will die here
and so will you
to me.

Erasing every hand track
I'm never going to come back
to before summer came.

We are not born with hatred swirling around in our skull
It is something that is built within the structures of our environments
This civil war whose bombs wake us up in the morning
and whose grenades disturb our sleep.

We are not born with ******/******/******/****/****/**** on our tongues
This is the product of this billboard society that teaches us
to spit daggers rather slip our tongues around and caress

We are not born in fear of the other
It is not genetics that implore us to engage
in the ongoing battles between
     fat and skinny
     black and white
     religious and faithless
     straight and curved

Our world is a wasteland
filled with our soulless cardboard cutouts
doing nothing more than occupying space.
We examine our fingertips in search of identity
and are shown skin that has been scrubbed smooth
by the buffers created to stop our minds from
expanding too wide and our dreams from growing too big.
We look to the too-distant stars for directions but must turn to a foreign map
to tell us where home is.

What we are born with is excitement.
With adventure running through our veins.
With eyes the color of flawless wonder
and skin scarred with wisdom.

We were born with longing.
Longing for a great escape.
For rebirth.

I always seem to write something
In hopes that I’ll be the first person to say it.
I never am.
Someone has always said it
And said it much better than I did.

I started writing as a senior in high school.
What a terrible time to start
Because my ego got in the way
Of all the words I wanted to say.

I should have picked up another habit
Because smoking or gambling
Would have been far less
Self destructive
Than writing has been.

The first poem I ever wrote
Was about a heartbreak
I thought I had.
I wrote in hopes
That they would see it.
I don’t know if they ever did.
But that’s when I learned how not
To write a poem.

I’ve moved on since then.
Now I write about things.
Because it turns out they don’t change
People do and that’s okay.
But writing about who a person is now
Will not stop them from becoming more than your words.

That doesn’t make sense to everyone.
I’ve written poems
About people who lived life
A day behind everyone else.
Because they believed it gave them time.
But life catches up
And believe that it is the most unforgiving
******* any human will meet.

I’m now a sophomore in college.
I’ve recently decided to start a career in writing.
People always give me that look
When I tell them.
Writing doesn’t assure you of anything.
“Why write?
You could teach and live life $30,000 a year.”

This is truth.
It’s consistent, no worries.
But it’s easy.
Everything I write
Comes from a part of myself
That I have to struggle to find.
This struggle kills me
But I regenerate when the poem is finished.
And I’ve found that I’d rather **** myself a thousand times over
Than live to die once because it made life easy and hurt less.

I might never say something first.
Someone will always come before me
And I will always come before someone.
This poem is done.
And I am alive.