I don't know what the *******'re telling me
but I hope it's more than you're letting on
I hope your uhms and whats will one day tell me what the ******* mean-
"more as friends"
or
"more than friends"
BECAUSE YOU'VE SAID BOTH
and you're keeping me up at night

Because I used to have role models
but they all just let me down
with insults
and hypocrisy
and poking needles into my lungs when I'm trying to take a big, deep, fulfilling breath.

you're so cool and i can't even skateboard off a curb

why do you even think about my eyes?
(I think about yours sometimes too)

I have shark teeth.
I use them to bite into myself when the night is too dark and I need that extra splash of red.
I chomp
and when I smile
it scares you.

I think
we all think
we're different.
I think
everybody thinks
they're alone
and nobody understands
and life is
so
*******
hard.

Sometimes I look out of open doors
take a cold sip of juice
and life doesn't seem so difficult
because it's easy to be sad.

But next to my tombstone, sunflowers won't grow,
and what would it matter anyway,
I wouldn't be there to see them

I am a series of problems,  you see.

I am that annoying song stuck in your head, the reason you can't get to sleep. I am the creepy girl in some horror movie that you swear you keep seeing around town, and the notification you got a little too late. I'm the embarrassing email you just sent, the one simple word you misspelled on an otherwise perfect paper, I am the stain you didn't know you had on the shirt you got two weeks ago. I am your work that nobody else seems to appreciate, and I am the voice in your head telling you that you are not good enough. I'm the grammar problem spell checks don't pick up on, I am the big piece of cake you promised yourself you wouldn't eat, but ate anyway. I am the ****** you won't pick in public and the moment your favorite cousin opens the birthday present you got her just to be very disappointed at what's inside. I am the thunder your dog is afraid of, the bikini you're too insecure to wear, the frizz of frizzy hair, I am the pair of jeans you had when you were younger that you wish your mom never gave away. I am your lost pair of favorite socks, a cavity, a weight gain.

I am your disaster, aren't I?

i wonder what types of poems you'd write
i wonder how long you think about mine
wonder if it matters (it doesn't, nothing does)
except the wind
and the ride
and your smile

so this is what it feels like to waste an entire day
I have been lost under covers and suffocating under thoughts
and all I can think of is you
there are moths in my mouth and there is waste in my brain
and tomorrow I hope will be better than today
but right now all I can think of is you

I need you to know
that I no longer write about you.

explore me softly
with pruned fingers, after a bath
trace my veins, blue eyelids
purple tinted lips
bite my chest, skin
press the bruises on my knees
explore me intensely
explore me at all
we are still strangers, and i am wondering if i will ever become familiar to myself
but i will trace your bones with my tongue
and enjoy the gentle aggressive soft hard touch of familiarity that i've never known

It's not fair of me to go with my gut
because my gut has also told me
that I am a failure and I always will be
that I've lost my mind and can't even see
how ugly I am, and how I'm better off dead
My gut is the awful voice in my head
It has said I should bleed and lick razors all night
that I need the dark because I can't handle the light
It tells me to cry when I should be smiling
When I should be awake, it makes life too tiring
I've thought of getting rid of it - so it can no longer say
but that's exactly what it wants - for me to decay.

I want my black lips to wrap around your fingers
and to never feel sad again because I'd hate to have to admit that I have feelings.
Please give me the moon to **** on
so when you kiss me you'll go dizzy from spinning in circles
because we flip and flop
and thrash through bedroom doors
and you've flipped me upside down
and all I want is for you to tangle flowers through my hair
and I can continue to write bad love poems.

you make me feel good and ******
safe and terrified
comfortable and insecure

you make me feel so much more than i ever thought i'd feel before

Your words spit truth
but even truth isn't always truth after a couple hours of thinking about it.
I often daydream of all these things I'd like to do
things that would make you like me
keep me
things that would make me like me
but they end as just dreams,
and I am
so
tired
of
that.

Tonight will be me on a skateboard,
spray-painting my village something yellow.
I hope I'll like it as much as the truth thinks I will.

there is a part of me that breaks myself down to the point where I am crawling
pulling at my scalp to get out of my own mind
but god ******* ****, does it feel good not to be crawling into someone else's arms.

I am learning to pick my own self off the ground
wipe my own tears from my eyes
wrap my arms around my torso and hold my own hand

losing sleep and brain cells,
i don't know what it is...
but i am so happy to have the privilege of getting to revolve my daydreams around you

i keep meaning to take more pictures.
and to quit turning my head away whenever my mood shifts (sorry)
i'm going to be better with words, i promise
but some moments, especially on boring days, i get to spend hours just playing with your hair and looking in your eyes and i know i don't need to say anything,
you already know what i'd say.
this is a good place to be, i think. holding your hand.

A night that feels like years ago
but was really merely seconds
creeps into your dreams
(not that you're sleeping)
and reminds you of how good it felt to get under your own skin
(you deserved it, you little ****)
and after the memory makes you sink into your own skull so deep you can't even hear the morning birds chirp you into reality,
you walk face first into closed doors, trying to slam through
and the door handle is right there
but your hands are tied behind your back
tied so tight it's cutting
(this is what you wanted, ISN'T IT?)

usually mad at myself for eating, pinching the skin of my stomach and thighs, but i've got an eye on that oatmeal and i feel exhausted and what if it's just me being hungry and i want to be strong
but more importantly, i want to be thin
i'm not quite sure why that is
but don't worry, i'm not doing anything about how fat my arms and legs feel, the skin i get to pull around under my chin
i just contour my cheek bones hoping they won't look so full
and feel best on days i pride myself on being small.
what a mixed up world we live in
what a consumer field
what a first-world disease
why do i still order medium t-shirts when i look better in a small
because i'm disillusioned of it all
and i talk about it a lot
for not wanting to talk about it
but i think about it even more

i have a weakness for the feeling this love makes
for good pens and cool hikes and blank pages and new music
i have a weakness for the dim blue light in your bedroom from the tv we pretend to watch
and i have a weakness for the way you sometimes softly speak your thoughts
i have a weakness for tree trunks i can't wrap my arms all the way around and for car rides with the windows down
my knees go ******* weak every time you touch me and i bite my ******* lip every time we make eye contact and all my peripheral vision sees is the ceiling, i have a weakness for blue eyes and blonde hair
for striped bed sheets now, for bass guitars and the little habits you keep
i  have  a  weakness  for  the  feeling  this  love  makes,
i get so weak i'd crumble up my rib cage just to prove you have access to my heart
but the miraculous thing is
this feeling of weakness that comes with love
is incomparable to the way that you make me strong

I want to get a little drunk,
sit on a couch and **** on lollipops
I want to look thin and fuckable, unstable,
I want to make eye contact while my hands are spread on card tables-
you pick up the jack, I swallow the ace
my mind is stuck in quite the mixed up place

i love you i love you i love you
in ways i don't quite understand sometimes
how loving can feel like it hurts
that it can be so distracting i can't think of anything else
that it can lift me up in seconds
cliche, etc, cliche, etc.
i love you in new ways and in the same ways
i love you because you challenge me to evolve
and i have and i am and i will

sometimes i wish i could be a window
and you are always on the inside,
and i am always letting the sun peek in
and you look so handsome smiling through rays of sunshine

Every time I think of climbing trees
I think of always looking toward the sky
and I never even imagine
the possibility of falling

being an adult feels like a joke
as if cigarettes or **** will change much
as if lotto tickets and *** and no driving curfews
will make me feel mature enough
to be considered an 'adult'

but being 18 feels pretty alright so far,
spending my first day of this new age
with you

I chew my nails off
even after a perfect night and day
because in the early sun of the first of this month,
you pushed my hair from my face and whispered,
"Goodmorning," with a smile
and I will miss you
like I will miss scraping my body against a blade
or sliding against a stage
leaving my heart in the spotlight.
Because just like that blade,
one day you will hurt me, I guess,
but you'll be in my dreams
and I'll wish to have you back to calm my shaking hands.

sometimes things get blurry and i stand up dizzy,
wondering in what world this might feel like reality
and when i turn around or focus back in on what i like to look at most
it's still his hands
so i'm not just dreaming, right?
every mixed signal or forehead to desk kind of day
makes me wonder how much life counts when you're wishing it away

I used to be so realistic and reasonable,
nixing words like "forever" out of my head
because what a stupid concept.
now all i want to tell you is,
I wouldn't mind being happy with you forever.

my name comes in pills,
colorful pops of acid you can slip over your tongue and wash down with saliva
and often times I wish someone would crave my affection
the way they crave the rush they get by popping mollys.
and often times I wish I was half as exciting

I won't get enough sleep tonight,
but I keep thinking of how old my mother's ankles look
and the way I saw three comets fall tonight...
I wished for more nights like these.
You said I'd get them.

I try to open my mouth,
letters bouncing around my tongue and teeth so they can form the perfect words.
I try to save my perfect words
for perfect moments
and perfect people,
but when my perfect time comes,
the universe is quick to remind me
that I am most certainly not perfect.
You see, I try to make myself believe that I can form a hurricane from my mouth,
that I can stand and stomp
and force waves to crash along the shore so you can hear the ocean...
As if I could be as intense as a hurricane
or as precious as a seashell that you hold against your ear.
I try to make myself believe that I could be the covers that keep you warm at night,
the blanket you hold tight against your skin
when ice is forming at your window
and the heater isn't on again because the bill is so **** high.
I try to make myself believe that I could be a photograph you keep in a shoe box,
the kind of photo you've hidden from the world,
not because it's bad,
but because it's this beautiful secret
and you want to keep it all to yourself.
It's always there to look at on dark nights,
this picture of a girl you used to know.
This picture is all you have left of her.
A photo that makes you so happy you cry,
but then you realize they are not just tears of joy,
because although it is too hard to admit sometimes,
you miss your past
you miss how everything was supposed to work out
and how you used to be king of the playground
but now you are just king of a one-bedroom apartment with a toilet that doesn't always flush.
I try to make myself believe that I could be hope.
I could be what makes you say,
"Hey,
this really isn't so bad."
...These words that I spit onto the floor will stick to your shoes when you get up to walk away,
and maybe they will stay there.
You will walk with them all across town-
step on gas pedals, stomp on ants.
I can believe my words belong on shoes,
side notes
blueprints
in unimportant categorizations that your mind will cast off as history and erase in your sleep.
I can believe that my words are like the paper airplanes I strung to my ceiling-  
Most of the time I don't even remember they exist...
but every once in a while,

I look up.

I'm not sure if I really ever want to be happy,
or if I want to be tragic.

I can never answer
Which one is more fun?

every night i shower and brush my teeth and shave and try to look cute in my boy-short ******* and big flannel shirt because every night i hope i'll sneak out to see him
but i don't
and i miss him
and my chest aches

reeking with self-worthlessness
because how am I supposed to top that
or top anything
because all I know how to do
and do well
is **** people off
and moments like this
long past you kissing me goodbye
me standing in my doorway left with none of you
but a t-shirt and the hickeys you left on my *******
and I am trapped inside my own color
or lack of
and all they can do is smirk at my black eyes
but they're black because I used to punch out my pupils
with hole punchers I stole from my second grade classroom
because I hate staring at myself in the mirror
and outside the moment of you licking up my thighs,
that's all I can look at
my purple, frozen lips
I sell my ice cold words for 25 cents on the main road
and you've forgotten about the cuts on my wrists
but I haven't because it's all the mirror shows me.

You don't smoke and I don't smoke
but sometimes I have dreams of sitting on a tree branch in a faux leather jacket
while you sit beside me and twirl my hair around your fingers
my eyeliner smeared the way you like it
black nails and black lips, the black death sits between my lips,
don't even worry about a thing,
I'll die anyway.

i think i'm going to go buy a lighter and something to smoke
and i'm going to put eyeliner on
grab my headphones and take a walk in the woods

last night i felt like i was reaching into your body for the end of the string that attached my body to yours
and it just wasn't there
but you said it was there
and i believed it was there
but why couldn't i find it with my fingers
why couldn't my palm grasp it
feeling around inside, peeking in and i'm looking around and I still don't see it but I tell myself I know it's there
and I know it has to be there because it's a string from my body that runs into you, where else could it be
and that's good enough so we go to bed without ever finding it
and in the morning I still feel detached but ignore the feeling until I can't anymore
and when you walked away
it felt like you snipped the string attaching us
and we couldn't find it because you had hardly wanted it there anyway
and when you ignored me
it felt like you knew all along that the end of my string attaching my body to yours
was already gone

maybe sometimes I'm not happy
and sometimes I acknowledge that
and maybe sometimes when you tell me,
"you can tell me anything,"
I believe you
so I try
sometimes, maybe I try
maybe I am still terrified, though
because I am still trying to figure out what words are scrambling through my head and how to put them together in a way that makes sense.
Maybe you'll never know because
I don't care about myself all that much.
I don't want to talk about me or tell you how sometimes
I am empty in a way that it feels like I'm drowning
-kind of like I want to, but mainly like I already have-
because I don't want to be a sad story.
I wish I never was in the mood to make up excuses for why I had to go home and sit by myself,
I wish I always wanted to get up and be something more than a waste of a body.
I want you to think I am more than that,
so please don't ask me to tell you anything,
please just tell me about you
PLEASE JUST TELL ME ABOUT YOU
and I will hold you when you need me to
I will laugh with you when you need me to
I will cry for you when you're too tired to
I will lay next to you and do nothing, if that's what you need
please tell me about you and let me ignore me

i'm hoping i look okay from behind
hoping your hands like intertwining with mine
i hope you genuinely prefer having me around
hope you remember me fondly a few years from now

DRINK COFFEE AND READ POEMS, talk more often, maybe even to a therapist. let yourself be heard and seen, let him ask you questions, let yourself ask him if he wants to go look at the stars with you but don't let yourself think about it too much if he says no

and to be completely honest
things are never picture perfect
things never end up movie-like
our lives don't have automatic background music
and your palms will get sweaty if you hold his hand for too long.
sometimes you'll **** during ***
or you'll snort when you laugh
sometimes you'll cry when you don't mean to.
plans will fall through
or you'll be too sad to make plans
and most days you won't wake up stunning
even if you're waking up beside someone you want to look pretty for

but we keep on hoping

you are a grave and I am the flowers
you wait for me ever so softly...
I try to be pretty, you try to remember
just let your brain melt out so smoothly...
there is no more grass surrounding your tombstone
and I struggle hard to survive...
You reach up and pull me under the soil
"come on, you're a waste being alive."

but **** my wrists are so empty
you made them this way and I am grateful
but I am also addicted to the pain
and I am triggered and dark
and it is late and I'm alone
but I don't have any razors
so I am left clenching my own teeth
BEGGING THAT ONE DAY THIS FEELING GOES AWAY

super good at having super split ends
and hoping you won't notice
really great at embarrassing myself
(maybe you won't mind)

I've been liking myself lately
and it's a different feeling,
but I think it's a good one.

I am so full of rage
and disappointment
because I can't figure out
why I am never good enough for myself.

Exploring the dirt
chance in my pocket
nothing but a backpack and hope
that I will never
ever
get bored

sometimes i worry
but when you put your arm around my shoulders
it's easier to shrug off any nerves
so i forget about my worries

I can't decide what sixteen has taught me.
That my mother won't like me until I move out
That happiness doesn't come with a license
That *** doesn't have to be romantic
or that I know how to feel alive.

When I was younger my best friend's sister asked me why my thighs were so much bigger than hers and without missing a beat I scrunched my eyebrows and said, "because my legs are so much stronger."
Since then my self-image is every teenage girl's sob story of not enough this or that, too much one way, too much in general
(i **** in my stomach when you put your arm around my waist)
and I've been trying to tell myself it's strength that matters,
but sometimes jutting bones seem like they'd hold up a little more than the flab of my stomach, like they'd put up a better fight against the sharp looks I'd give myself in the ******* mirror,
and maybe that's why I went from cutting my fleshy thighs to cutting my hip bones because **** my hip bones for being the only bones that weren't covered in fat.
I used to tell myself it'd be easy to skip every meal in exchange for 2 almonds and occasionally a piece of deli-cut turkey, I used to try for days to cut down on acceptable portions, and some days I'd win and I'd eat nothing and sometimes I'd win more and not think about it.
I used to try so hard to wrap my fingers around my ribs or to get my friends to stop saying my *** looked huge ("in a good way") but I was taught when young that overeating was okay because I'd sit at my plate until I swallowed everything that was given to me. I'd sit in the dark on nights I couldn't chew my chicken fast enough, since day 1 I've been a bad eater. I'd get yelled at for being full and now I'm always full but still eating and bones still seem stronger than my jiggly thighs and no, i can't wrap my fingers around my ribs, but if i **** in enough, i can see the outline