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 want my thighs to make you lick your lips
and my mini-skirt to make you clench your fists,
I want my black lips to haunt your daydreams
and my dark eyes to drive you crazy.
Come closer,
because I may seem shy,
but if you run your fingers gently up my spine,
I can trace you with my tongue
and let my lust get the better of our love.

listening to alternative music
while ripping my limbs off of my body
this
this is 3am
and
dedication

I've been listening to the same song on repeat
feeling how ***** my teeth are
and instinctively pointing my aching feet to the wall
sniffling with sickness and sneezing with crap
you still kiss me like I'm your supermodel.

I want to melt into your skin and stay there for a night
Bite your collar bone and sink my teeth a little further from our next goodbye.
Say hello to me again soon so I can wrap my palms around your shoulder blades
Move my fingertips to your jaw line and touch my tongue to your throat
Taste the way your words come out

sometimes i look at skinny pictures and think to myself,
i wish i starved myself or threw it up
tomorrow i'll drink more water and eat less food
because i don't want to impress anyone,
but i want to feel that small under big shirts
and i want to wrap up into a ball
and i want to look fragile but
i don't want to be fragile...
and so i remind myself
to be strong is hard when i'm making myself small

My days are long and short
at the same time,
and I have fallen off of the
'care' cliff,
because I do not care that
I was caught cheating on my test,
because I do not care that
this mess is what I call my room,
because I do not care that
my skin is breaking out and you must lie when you say that I'm beautiful.

Because I do not care that
I am dangling from strings called
"I should." and "You better." and "...or else."

i wonder where your hands will be in a year
i dream your fingers might still intertwine with mine

You said that you've been watching me for years.
You said that I keep you steady here, on the ground.
I'm not a girl for you to pursue, you said,
just a girl to look at when things get crazy.
Just a girl who has got your balloon head
tied to her wrist.
We're barely past strangers
and I don't know how your hands have pried open my skull and bones
so you can inspect.
You never asked permission.

You said your resolution for this year is
to stop thinking about me.

There are a few things that I don't care about in life and some of them are:
-why you're a vegetarian or vegan
-who my boyfriend is following on social media
-if people hold the door for me

I do care whether or not people respect your dietary preferences
If people think their girlfriends can't know who they're following on social media
And if people slam the door in my face

bags under my eyes
i'm sleep deprived
i just might cry
but so much tiiiiiiime

I used to slice my thighs apart
in emptiness
and a feeling I don't really know how to describe.
I'd sit under the shower jets,
let the water pool in all the creases of my body
and cover my ears with my hands,
put my face through the heat,
the sound not the shower,
but a storm,
Like the whole world was raining on me.

I've still got a cloud over my head sometimes,
and I know my lightning will come back.
I'm not sure if I hate or love that storm.
I am positive that I don't need it.

she's asking everyone in my house for their horoscope,
my brother's reading into it,
"it's so accurate," he said
and for some reason I feel so detached
from everything
from my own cells, even-
dragging my fingers across surfaces pretending like it was meant to be
but by the end of the year,
my fingerprints will be wiped clean
and
every time i leave a place,
i feel like they didn't want me there, anyway
including your door frame
you never wanted me there, anyway

I start another year tomorrow of solid routine
but all I want to do is find a warehouse to play music in
to drink in and **** in
find a place where my name does not reek of my labels
find a place where the walls can never remember me.

Sitting on hotel floors
wondering if i'm trying too hard
wondering if i'll ever get home
wondering if you'll still want to wrap me up
when I do

dreaming of watching myself drown
through decades
and living through the pits of hell.
you thought bursts of fire would scare me,
but man, i'm over it.
I want to be driving myself through the ******* gates

the first boy that kissed me without any warning
now kisses a girl that used to be my best friend
he shoved his tongue in my mouth while i was crying
i laughed and said, "this doesn't count"
got on my bike and rode away

the first boy i willingly kissed
i broke up with after letting him finger me for a year without any blow jobs in return (eventually i was comfortable enough with the idea, but ****, how awful of me)
and the summer after he cried over me he got back with his ex
(i was the mistake in the middle of them)

the boy that i kiss now
makes me bite my lip
and i miss him every second he's not around
because this love makes me hysterical
and i never really know what to say at the right time in the right way
so i just press my palm to his face
and hope he gets the message

In the bottom bunk,
Thinking of all the ****** things I've said to people while they were sad.
I was trying to make them feel less lonely, but "everyone feels like that sometimes" is hardly helpful and it just puts down the fact that they're feeling at all.
I wish I wouldn't talk sometimes, or
I wish I didn't grow up believing that everyone feels everything because I am constantly feeling so much
but not everyone does.
And believing that everyone feels doesn't help the feeling.

Next time anyone or myself is sad,
I will not minuscule it by involving it with everyone.

i had a theme but lost it,
wish i was lyrically inclined
wish i had more and more time
even though these days i mostly waste it.

but idk whats wasting time, exactly

My critical writing professor said that artists write or paint or do whatever art
on what they're obsessed with and made us talk about this poet who wrote about caves
and yeah, we agreed, caves are cool, but in the end it's still just rock.
I can't stop writing about you
and this isn't supposed to be romantic
or prove that I'm obsessed
I just think it's nice to hear poems about rock
and it's nice to love anything at all

I'm afraid to tell you that I am not joking when I say that
your eyes shine brighter than my own smile
and I'm not really sure what being in love feels like,
but if it's not this,
then it's not worth it.
The grease has piled on top of my face and head and heart
but you cleanse it with every pointed star
and squinted eye looking at me parallel to my shoulders
our chests perfectly in line.
I always have to catch my breath when the amount of clothing covering your torso
changes reality to a daydream,
but not even trophies match the fluttering I feel when you look me in the eye to tell me
"You are so beautiful,"
immediately after you've seen every single one of my flaws.

I was going to end it at one poem,
that one sentence (i swear)
but something about your hands tonight were magical
i've never wanted someones contact so constantly
just skin on skin, eyes on ******* eyes
just let me see you
and feel you
be around you
know you exist
you ******* know i exist.
-
human connection is more important than tornadoes
than earthquakes
than tsunamis and mudslides
human connection makes dying worth a wait

found a boy who makes love feel like speeding through a red light at an intersection
who reminds me of racing down the highway
windows down, hair blowing across my vision.
he and i could be a car crash
or a parking spot
he and i are 90mph on the freeway
yet when he holds my hand or brushes the hair out of my eyes
i swear the brakes hit themselves
and speed and light and time don't matter

i'm sorry i'm never sure
but i never am.
I want to get high because I'm tired of a lot
and I'm cleaning up my room but i'll never learn to clean up my act
and what would be the point of that, anyway
(what's the point in anything)
(what's the point in any of this)
tired of planning and hoping and dreaming of success
when i can't even think of what success is
when walking around strung out
seeing in black and white
lighting up and stumbling through bed sheets
doesn't sound so ******* bad
because you can't be bored if you're a drug addict, right?
i've already got my tombstone picked out
i've already drowned and i'll already die in a car crash
or get ***** in a city
and why do my nightmares get so tragic
when i've never really experienced a tragedy
Maybe we are all just walking tragedies
waiting for our time of disaster
SOME DAYS I HAVE HOPE
SOME DAYS I HOPE FOR AN OVERDOSE

godddddd i am just trying to enjoy the time i have but sometimes i don't know how i ***** that up so easily

most days i try cracking every bone and my neck only ever whispers and each finger wraps around it, wondering what goes through someone's mind when they push their fingers down their throat
(i could guess)
bored and uninspired
goodbyes are hard to get right,
at least pretend you like to kiss me goodnight
and **** it, maybe i should eat more so my body image starts to match my perception
or something like that
i don't care
I need the sun or the beams that come from your eyes when you're really in love, or at least pretend to be

sorry i'm still sometimes insecure,
i'm not asking for any reassurance

even dark cemeteries and UFOs
flashing lights in the night skies and 'keep out' signs...
even strangers and guns and things that frighten me
if you are heading toward them,
i will follow

putting perfume on before bed,
dancing in my daydreams without my muscles being sore
because there, I actually have the motivation to stay stretched.
>sometimes it feels like i'm ******* with my destiny,
as if i knew what i was supposed to do,
and it wasn't exactly this.

should one even bother trying to be cute or nice when the pay off of such things are purely selfish ego fulfilling agendas?
If I am dainty and adorable will I feel better or will I feel just as stone cold and as unsure as always, just with a softer edge, cookie dough with kids not caring about the uncooked eggs, the warnings their mothers give them because there is absolutely no need to be cautious with cookie dough, and adorable seems the same way.
Are appearances anything but that, and if we didn't have mirrors would we actually feel better for ourselves, or wear make-up for ourselves,
not for any man, just for our own confidence and desire.
Truly, it is selfish.
I like to be pleased when looking in the mirror, and I'm not sure that I ever 100% am, but posting a cute photo of myself is hardly ever done because sometimes self indulgence on social media just feels like an inconvenience to my own true being
meaning
that
i am a fence.
and my own grass is greener where I water it

Sometimes while looking in the mirror, I think to myself
I'm okay being me
I look alright
I am alright
And this is all I need
(It's not all that I want)
(but this is all that I need)

I can lie all I want,
but you know who I'm not lying to anymore?
Myself.
I know what I want now.
I know what kind of life I want to live.
I know it may not be successful, and it may not have very many people who stay in it for long,
but I think I am finally starting to like who I am
(and know who I am)
and as long as I have myself on my side
what's the worst that can happen?

there's a lot to the body of a poem,
i don't know.
sometimes i think a whole book of short sentences and 'enter,'
a whole book that reminds me of my early high school stream-of-thought poems,
shouldn't be acclaimed as great poetry on a shelf in barnes and noble.
but at the same time, I think you could leave a pile of feces to bake in the sun on the sidewalk,
3 people step in it by accident in a day,
and that is still life's finest example of poetry.
I've never really claimed to write poetry
but
there's a lot to the body of a poem,
each curve, each cellulite clump,
each real and exposed part of a poem
close up in a mirror type of exposed,
naked in front of your love for the first time type of exposed,
those are deserving...
but so are life's poems,
which is a lot like **** on the sidewalk.

I think I write both, and I suppose I like both and I know I am both.

Lately I've been thinking I'm invincible
and wondering if I'll spoil our romance by trying to make it last forever,
as most women do, they say,
but we both know I've never listened to 'them'.
I have this teacher that's been crying and yanking out dandelions in her yard
because what else is she supposed to do
but she tells me I'm a little more likely to develop a psychological disorder.
I think we're all psychos, really,
all depressed and anxious, at least,
and sometimes my ceiling never stops spinning,
but I think I'll be alright.

I'm pathetic and restless
and I like to climb things
I like to scare myself and see if I scare you
I've got fire in my bones and ice in my heart and if there is a hell, i'll be there
I like to ride my bike on warm nights and ride my skateboard on warm days and I don't mind the way I like to imagine myself riding you.
I might be interesting or boring
But mostly I don't know what I am.
Mainly I have no clue.

My job is to crunch my spine together
so I can wring the problems out of my flesh
and leave them soaking on the floor.

I hope to make this my job forever.

you've given me good memories in backseats
(we're getting good at 'being bad')
we could get into actual trouble
and i'd still do it all over again tomorrow

if we could churn things out in seconds,
i'd make you a tape of my top 3 songs I'd want to ******* to.
.It'd start with something fast-paced,
a song that would be standing up
a quickie but a "we can't help it, we have to right now" quickie,
not sloppy, just fast-paced.
loud and intense and back against the wall, hair grabbing, *** grabbing,
guitars blaring in the background, the beat matching my heart racing as you bend me over
.but the next song would be slower. It'd be the nights we didn't plan on it,
the ones where we already said goodnight and we tried to go to sleep
but I accidentally rolled closer into you and couldn't resist one kiss on the cheek
which made me want to kiss you more and then we're accidentally ******* and ending up having to say goodnight again.
Probably an acoustic, lyrics something about love.
.The next song would be classic. Something you're not allowed to really hate because it's by an artist you're kind of forced to respect? And you like it, really. It'd probably be one of my favorites by an artist I know you love. It'd play in the background and we wouldn't really notice it exactly until later down the road when we're on our own somewhere hearing it and wondering why the song reminds us of each other. It would be a song that just ended up playing one time while on shuffle in the parked car, us pretending nothing else was really present except that back seat.

I already have a lot of shuffled car songs that remind me of us in moments,
parked in the rain
from when kissing never got farther than kissing.

as I am growing as a lover, I am appreciating music in a new sense,
associating it with feeling from my own auto-biography of emotion,
associating those feelings with images from collect moments
and I am so glad some songs will always bring me back to right now
in this collection of moments and images and feelings
in these picture-perfect memories I have of rain on the windshield right before you kissed me while you played the Smiths
or while last summers shuffle of pop punk played while we fogged up the windows in a baseball field
and I am glad that once my mind can no longer form or remember the picture-perfect moments,
and I won't be able to put together the scenery,
I will at least be reminded of the feeling through a song.

i miss you
steady guitar riff in a loop
tucked behind my ear
you trace your fingers there
i fall asleep with a smile

i guess my blurry vision can still focus on our blurred conversations
and every time another bottle smashes
i'll think of the way your lips made me crash my brain against my skull over and over
because sometimes when i think too much,
i wish i'd never looked you in the eye at all
only for selfish reasons,
like the inevitable day we go in opposite directions.
you are more than a tongue or a hand holding a guitar pick
you have made more of an impression on me than i have in mud with boots on
and i suppose it is scary to think maybe i'll always be pressed like a flower in a heavy book
with the way your smile made me feel

Your scent is clinging to me
and I taste your salt.
It is too late for me to be thinking of you rather than dreaming,
too late to want to dance, but god,
if I could dance in my sleep,
my pointed toes would put holes in my covers.

I WANT YOU ALL THE TIME.
I THINK OF YOU CONSTANTLY.
I CAN'T GET YOU OFF MY MIND.
this is new and scary and I don't want to stop thinking of you
but I am afraid sometimes that
you want me to get you out of my head
I worry too much and sometimes I shake
or tap my foot
or scratch my arms until they bleed
and sometimes you hold me
and it's all I ******* think about until I see you again

I hated the way all of our city nights disappeared into one day-
into one 24-hour span that was decades longer in my dreams.
I know the inevitable place we will end up is in dirt, anyway
so why do I keep trying to dance along concrete?
All I am is a ******* strings,
being pulled in multiple directions
from every conflicting piece of advice I am given.
Maybe I will stop listening
because you, too, will die in the end
and leave behind the same **** thing-
a gravestone
(size depends on how much your loved ones are willing to spend)
or ashes
(carefully put into urns or thrown around and blown by the wind)
and the last one to hold us
is a casket or a ******* jar

so what does your advice really matter

The sweat drips down my red face as I focus on my heart rate
and look in a mirror that shows me how high I can kick,
but I need to 'be more intense.'
I think of her kissing your neck,
much better at it than me,
nibbling your ear,
much better at it than me,
she is much more confident
because she was plenty of first kisses,
and god, I wish I was yours.
I think of her clear face and the way that you still hang out
and the way she cheated on you
and the way she sometimes says hi to me in the hallway,
which makes me want to put my hand around her throat and say,
"I am so glad you lost the best thing that happened to me."
I think of this to make my pointed toes have a purpose
to make me dance with anger
but even after the song is over,
I can't stop
thinking.

Bodies smashing
lights flashing
skulls crashing against ***** sinks
and kids are snorting another line because what else is there to do but die.
I'm in a tight black dress,
one I starved myself into,
one I grind in
with empty dreams of ballet shoes
and you are not here anymore, because only fools have *** with an empty shell of a girl,
and we both know that you have never been a fool.
I stare at the red glow of the ceiling and watch my red flow down the drain
while I blink
to see your smile
to see a million smiles
I blink to remember that I smiled once, too.

please don't look at me (look at me more)
I will never believe you when you say I am your favorite
(I know too well the cruelty of this world
because I have been that cruel)
I have built my happiness into yours
I've put my smile in the palm of your hand and I'll let you punch walls
with my lips still inside your clenched fist
and none of it is preventable or your fault.
People are made to break things,
and I'm pretty sure you are in my life
to be the first one to break my heart.

So please do it,
break my heart,
but leave it shattered
the way a vase shatters when a girl throws it against a wall
the way you sometimes shatter our silence with sweet words
like "you're so beautiful"

i'm sorry
i don't really know why
but i am just so insecure that sometimes i am sorry that you talk to me
sorry you listen to me
sorry you say you like me
sorry for the day you won't like me anymore

My desk holds no pencils-
every mistake I make
will never erase.

I grip my flaws with a fist
because they will always be mine.

i thought i wrote you another poem
but really i just went empty for 3 hours
and dreamed of hammering nails into my forearm
(but now i guess i'm writing you a poem)

i like you

I think
when the sun comes out
when our faces get laminated along with whether or not we'd like our living heart in a useless, smashed up, messed around body given away to someone who can make it beat life,
I think we will get in a car
and disappear for a week.
We should go to a beach, put the seats down in the back and sleep there,
and I'll pack us a bunch of food,
and I won't need to wear anything but my bikini
and sunglasses,
and I'll let your soaked up skin mingle with mine under the dead stars.
It will be the most perfect thing.
I will be nervous and scared but your arms will reassure me that this is okay
because in moments like these,
nothing can go wrong.

I will be so alive
and I won't ever want to wash the salt out of my hair.

I used to think maybe if I held my breath long enough,
the universe would send me something -
a boy, the wind, the sun's beams -
to get me to take at least one more fresh intake of air.

I quickly learned that, in life, you never get handed anything.
You must either politely ask for what you want
or grow a pair and go grab it.

I just have scenarios in my head where I get to turn to you and be so open and honest
and we're laying in your bed and I feel so present and there and real
and we're both physically tired but mentally racing
and I ask you if you really believe in love...in all of this
and I ask you to explain what you feel with me
and you don't think it's dumb, and I can't imagine what you say.
maybe one day soon the scenario will play out
but daydreams are just daydreams
maybe I'll ask you anyway