I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me  
the boy I cannot live without  
still ***** his thumb
in secret
how come my arms are
always so ******
what if I die
before morning
and mother's in the bedroom  
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance  
in time for the next party  
my room is too small for me  
suppose I die before graduation  
they will sing sad melodies  
but finally
tell the truth about me
There is nothing I want to do  
and too much
that has to be done
and mother's in the bedroom  
with the door closed.

Nobody even stops to think  
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team  
my marks were better than his  
why do I have to be
the one
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow  
will I live long enough
to grow up
and mother's in the bedroom  
with the door closed.

i feel void of words ..
                                  paragraphs and sentences are the same number of letters and 60 seconds is only a minute from now .
our minds can't think that far ahead , but the
hour glass that i'm staring at is the most mesmerizing thing i have ever laid eyes on .

we're never done killing time , but at least the stopwatch hasn't hit a mark that has made you feel
hollow inside .

  people say that love is young ,
but sweetest our love is centuries older than we have ever known .
we are the time lords .

my brain isn't connected to anything else in my body , and i think that's why i lie ..
because i honestly have no idea what's going on up there sometimes .
every once in a while there is a sting pain , and i get migraines from time to time ,
but i drink some *** and they're gone , and i am pleasant as punch .


today i helped my grandfather take down christmas lights
and every time i unplugged a set
from the outlet i thought about killing myself ..


love is lonely for almost all of us .
no one asked their lover to get a job that only lets them work night shifts ,
but we all told them they should take it .
and now we take a shower twice a week with only three cups of water ,
and we only only watch the television two minutes a day
so that maybe the bills will get low enough to the point that they can quit ,
and come home to us in the darkness of night .


the memories of that morning slide against my mind
like rain on a windowpane and i think that maybe you honestly did love me ,
but i also think that maybe ...

if you
can't see anything beautiful about yourself ,
get a better mirror .
look a little closer ,
stare a little longer ..
because there is something there inside of you that made you
keep trying , despite everyone who told you to quit ...
you built a glow-in-the-dark cast around your broken heart so that in the night
when the darkness tries to swallow you whole ,
you have a light to hold onto ..
you built a cast , and you signed it yourself .


you signed                                                           ­     **" they were wrong ."

there are days when my poems feel less like bruises
and more like crop circles waiting to spread their soft bones across
the earth of my page- these stories need to be told .
my voice used to be just a side effect of having a body ,
until it found paper and learned how to scream ,
the kind of scream that evaporates in all the noise .
i’d rather write about people who got lost in the cracks of my sidewalk -
so i can write about them clawing their way out -
than write about people who were born with every limb already above ground .
because sometimes every word is an act of therapy ,
and there’s no better listener than the reader who finds relief
in every oil spill of ink . because sad poetry is the truth ,
and i’m tired of biting my lip .
because the people i write for have been going through hell
and sometimes , if i spellcheck my words carefully enough ,
a line or two will flame brighter in that person’s heart
than the flames they’re so used to being burned alive in .
when i was a kid , i used to try mending the broken wings
of all the moths and butterflies that crossed my yard ,
until some of them gave up on flying with stitches ,
and i learned that sometimes people quit on life like that too .
so now i write all these poems to teach people
to start giving to themselves
instead of giving up or giving in .