i have gazed through this window
for three and a half hours now
as if the reason why you left
is hidden somewhere behind the trees
and i worry about you, endlessly-
with a painfully heavy heart
that threatens to spill out on paper

i have wondered about you
since the sun first kissed me
good morning,
but i don't want to wonder anymore
(is it even love if you have to wonder?)

with a thump of bitter confusion,
i am strangled by my own questions
from a mind only cluttered
with thoughts of one person

i'll let the sun disappear
as the moon kisses me goodnight
and tonight will not be the last night
that i'll fall asleep with your face
engraved in my memory

i'll let the stars cover me
and envelope the scars you left
from the words that escaped your lips
i'll try to forget you tonight
and maybe tomorrow
i won't have to wonder anymore

Sometimes victory is the first step. The turn of a doorknob. The cry for help. Victory is finally getting up to eat dinner after crying silently on your bedroom floor when the weight of the world collects like dictionaries upon your shoulders. It is eating that bowl of ice cream anyway, even when the same voices that have haunted you for years keep attempting to shrink you into a skeleton shadow. It is dressing up in the morning when all you want to do is let scorching hot water carve paths down your spine, forgetting the sound of all the voices you have ever heard because it causes you to wonder just when yours disappeared. It is reading a poem in front of your class, hands and voice shaking like palm trees in hurricane wind. It is realizing that some people will pretend to understand the fire of your soul yet cower in your presence due to the terror of getting burned. It is realizing that you are not immune to this, susceptible to creating madness in the nights you keep searching for, but cannot find, any air left to breathe.
It is admitting you are weak. It is choosing to believe the I-love-yous even when they hang above your head like chandelier glass. It is falling asleep shattered yet committed to wake up anyway. Victory is hidden in the idea that tomorrow, as lonely as today has painted it,


exists.

We’re sitting on the plaid couch in my basement, your hand in mine like a puzzle piece we took forever to find. It’s when we’re doing nothing when I realize that I want to do everything with you. It is almost always winter in my mind, my thoughts permanently frozen in time, paralyzed to my bed sheets the way icicles cling to shivering windowpanes. But with you, it’s different, our blossoming love proving the existence of a perpetual spring. We grow wildly- like two oak trees embraced behind the fence in my backyard, our branches intertwined and our roots firmly entrusted in the dampness of the soil. Not even the strongest breath of wind could destroy us.
And we walk hand-in-hand in the breath of October, the kind that stings like knives to the bone. You forget to bring a jacket with you but you insist that you are perfectly fine, that the electricity radiating between our fingers is enough to keep you warm for a collection of intoxicating eternities. And to us, the rest of the world barely exists, their watchful eyes and orchestral voices like anthems proclaiming the silliness of our juvenile love, a bright-eyed girl in a violet trench coat and a boy with a smile so bright it’s almost as if she had accidentally fallen in love with the rays of the sun. The kind of livid brightness that warms the coldest of hearts, the darkest of rooms.
But we walk to the neighborhood coffee shop with the combined tranquility of two retired lovers strolling through Paris and the frenzied excitement of exhilarated children on the seemingly endless journey to Disney World. Every welcoming front porch and townhouse we pass feels empty in comparison to the home we created within us, with a fire permanently kindled in our souls and between our restless fingers. You kiss me where the sidewalk ends, between the trees that resemble the magnificence we have become- the sky melting every molecule of transparent sadness I had left within me through an endless palette of pastel bliss. And in that moment, we become the fragile remnants of summer heat stuck trapped and misunderstood in the birth of autumn.

I fell helplessly in love with an angel
possessing the Midas touch
and stained glass wings
that had since forgotten how to fly,
but as we immersed ourselves
in unpredictable oceans made of
bizarre dreams and treacherous emotion,
we taught each other how to soar again.

We danced slowly to the melody
of our own syncopated heartbeats
that matched perfectly to the rhythm
of the hushed songs emerging
from the depths of our parched souls

Gone are the hopes of a future
dedicated entirely to our selfish intentions
replaced by ambition revolving around
the art of a future devoted  boundlessly
to each other

We will continue to glide together,
locked in time by fragile pinky promises
as we venture through a broken world
created entirely within
the small waist of an hourglass

And for one day,  I can only pray
that we find ways to love without the limits
of sand aspiring to run out,
because the vastness of the universe
calls me to not only follow
the hushed echoes of my own voice,
but the brilliance of gold my heart has become
ever since he learned how to caress it

you were not a verse
or a stanza
or a meaningless jumble
of half-hearted words
and you were not just
the crossed-out name
in the back of my book

you were the ray of light
wedged between the pain
and how the colorful feelings
that decorated my mind
could never be put into words
no matter how hard i tried

you were never smudged gray
or ink stains on skin
and you were more than the substance
that spilled itself onto paper
because to me, you meant so much more
than a collection of words,

you were the story

There exists an abundance of neglected apologies stuck lodged at the back of my throat that remind me of how much I have forgotten the sensation of breathing deeply since you have. Words, how flimsy and inadequate, form into lethargic shapes that sit helplessly in the stomach and desire only to matter to you. I have painted for you a golden sky that stretches beyond horizons that can no longer be noticed by the naked eye and I guess we have both grown tired of prowling the heavens for potential endings.

I have seen dandelions sprout freely within the dimple on your cheek and I wonder how you can go on so casually convincing yourself that you are not made of sunshine. I have felt lightning channel through your fingertips far too many times to believe it is just an illusion you have designed to make the dark clouds feel a little less intimidating.

There is a certain danger embedded within the comforting blanket of safety. I want to tell you I am sorry that the metaphors and lines of poetry I have crafted will never begin to describe even the smallest fraction of your limitless importance. I am sorry that my words cannot make you see the icicles that form in my bloodstream when your tears whisper that you are exhausted of being alive. I want to shout I love you, I love you, I love you, why can't YOU love you? until I run out of air in my lungs, the chords of my voice continuing to strum the same promise inside and out until it forgets the tune. But doing so is impossible, because your soul is an old song that cannot be removed from the brain once it is stuck and I am so sorry, my love, that yours has lost the memory of innocence.

I am a broken vinyl record spinning the same expired words over and over again, hoping your tomorrow will be void of pain so that there will be enough leftover space for you to listen.

when I was a child,
I used to gaze up at the man on the moon
peeking through the gaps
between the bedroom curtains
that sheltered me from the rest
of the whole world

and I remember feeling small,
pressing my hand against cold glass,
against waves crashing along shores I hadn't yet met,
people swarming around dinner tables
with faces I couldn't recognize;

how we were all just tiny specks of dust
frozen in our beliefs
that we meant something
bigger than just our bodies

and now that I am older
and my skin has tasted the warmth of other voices,
I have built myself a box made of other words
from lives I entered by accident,
simply by trekking around cities
and falling in love with strangers
that once felt so unfamiliar

here I am,
and now I gaze out the window
of the house I never felt at home in,
feeling the embrace of a thousand worlds
I somehow met
even before I truly learned how to wander.

Home is here,

within the safety of arms that hold me tightly so that emptiness can no longer climb into my bones. You are the roof when it storms in my mind and the buckets overflowing with tears that seep through the cracks in the ceiling on the nights my skin forgets how to shelter. Your words exist in the whistling kettle on the stove steaming with gentle whispers that remind me that I must pour my doubt into a porcelain cup and swallow.

Sometimes the taste is worth the burnt tongue.

I adore you in the way you never think twice about parting your curtains to let the shy sunlight kiss my cheek on the mornings I worry that I'll only ever know the feeling of lonely shadows creeping down dusty mantles and floral wallpaper, tiptoeing down the ridges of my spine like something that has never dreamed of being loved.

Because now, there is no need to keep the television buzzing in the background to drown out the voices from under the sofa shouting for me to store my beating heart in the attic. Instead, the room is silent except for the melody of laughter echoing down the walls and in the pictures of us hanging upon them. There is only music left playing as your footsteps flutter down the stairs in a hurry to dance barefoot with me in the kitchen. The only voice left to hear is yours, lulling me to sleep better than counting reasons to stay alive ever could. Tomorrow, there will be no more numbers left to reach.

Her--
whose translucent face I first met
within the irises of your attention,
vibrant in the fading photographs
where your figures once melted together
like wax dripping from a summer candelabra.

She—
is still found in every obliterated promise,
a lingering aftertaste of faint perfume
I can still smell on your skin
when I am wrapped in it, comfortably,
secured in your amber chrysalis of worry.

I watch your eyes scan rooms for her walk,
for the soft motion of her dress swaying
those pale legs reflecting shy moonlight,
the flicker of yesterday’s flame.

I hear the syllables of her name fill the air
like a word you have grown fearful of mispronouncing,
a favorite song stuck in your brain
distantly hummed under warm breath
when you run out of reasons
to remind me that she and I
do not share the same blood
nor the same bones.

For I am made of her ashes, her expiration,
carried by the winds of your embrace
whisking me away to distant kingdoms
where the language spoken is one
that only remembers her voice
and how effortlessly it interrupts mine
before I can even part my lips
to speak.

It still terrifies me when I remember
the moment I swore I would never believe
anyone who said they loved me ever again

At the end of the day, as I lie here
with my pillow soaking wet with tear stains,
words are just meaningless fragments,
and lately I've been feeling like a malnourished plant
desperate for a drop of hope amidst a barren desert

Even though the wounds you caused on my heart
have aged into stronger scars,
I still stand with clenched teeth and a weak stomach
whenever another boy with pretty eyes tells me
I'm his everything

I miss being the bright-eyed girl
who reeked of confidence and wasn't afraid to accept affection
with open arms rather than always keeping them crossed.
I miss feeling invincible, like my heart was unbreakable,
instead of hearing the monotone thump
of what used to live in it

But most of all, what I miss the most
is waking up every day without having to wonder
if your eyes have found someone else's.
I wonder if holding her hand makes your jigsaw heart feel complete.
I was convinced that I was your missing piece,
but I haven't felt whole in the longest time.

Missing you seemed like the biggest mistake I had ever made,
but as I sit here feeling broken and utterly irreparable,
like the frail skeleton of someone I used to be,
I'm starting to think that perhaps,
My biggest mistake was giving away all the love I had stored inside of me
to someone who never even tried to love me
in the first place.

on the 4th of August 2015
at 3:39 in the afternoon
you said your first hello
to me

I replied,
uncomfortably;
and advancing five months,
I am wrapped up in your arms
the way a butterfly resides
in its chrysalis

A summer hello,
a friendly greeting
has turned into the kind of poetry
I fear losing
the most.

If he makes you feel like you are just the sum of your flesh and bones, run away. Run as fast as you can and do not dare look back. The rush of cold air will light your lungs on fire anyway, but keep running until your legs give out and you find yourself somewhere far away.  Once you leave the past behind, you are no longer a girl with stringy hair and beady eyes who fell asleep every night with her throat burning of choked-back tears and missing him. You are no longer the empty girl who counted seconds waiting for a sign to stay. You are, and always will be, greater than the sum of the stars in the sky. You are the bird's song and the rain's hum. You are every seedling sprouting in an open field, but you yourself are responsible for your new beginning. Do not let anyone tell you that you are equal to the scars that scatter your skin or the empty face staring back at you in the mirror. When you finally find yourself somewhere far, far away, I hope you also find who you really are.

you don't love me anymore
i can see it in your
lifeless eyes
and our hollow conversations

you don't love me anymore
i can tell, by the way
we talk in fading blue
and how our words don't echo
and sparks refuse to fly

you don't love me anymore
because the loved don't cry
and the love don't whisper
(why?)
you don't love me anymore
because the love
has seeped out of you,
and into her heart,

but not mine

he was not a boy-
he was a song
but no one knew the words
and no one could sing along
(except for her)
he was not a boy,
he was the way
the ocean kissed
her sandy toes,
and he was what kept her warm
on cold winter nights,
even when a flannel quilt
and a cup of her favorite tea
could not

she was not a girl
she was a story-
filled with metaphors
and meanings no one understood
(except for him)
she was not a girl,
she was the way
the breath of winter
painted windows in december,
and she was what kept him warm
on cold winter nights,
even when the monotone hum
of a sad, old radiator
could not

I want to waste Thursday nights with you
and nine-thirties
and Saturday mornings.
I want to scavenge through tiny bookstores with you
and read melancholy poems with you
and watch the rain fall like I did for you.
I want to watch scary films with you
and cover your eyes with my hands
and hide from the ghosts under blankets.
I want to spend winter days with you
and frolic in autumn leaves
and indulge in the springtime air.
I wanted to be with you forever
and call myself yours
and call you mine.
But we’re only granted the things we need, not want.
and I want you to love me
and I want you to miss me
But I need you to need me the way I need you.

today it occurred to me
that i really don't know you at all

i do not know your favorite books
or what kind of music you listen to
on long car rides to the seaside,

and i wonder about
all the places you'd like to visit
and your favorite constellations
in the starry december skies

but i do know that you have emerald eyes
and you mumble hushed words to yourself
and you look wonderful in red
(and you wear it quite frequently)

there are still countless things
i'd like to discover,
and you are an unfinished jigsaw puzzle
(like myself)
and i keep pondering on the idea
that i am the missing piece

one word
two syllables
a messy jumble of
seven sad letters
five consonants
two lonely vowels.

Perfect
was the girl
with long raven hair
and shimmering green eyes
who wiped away
mascara stains
and hid her wrists
under bulky sweaters
because she felt hate
towards the reflection
in the bathroom mirror.

Perfect
was the girl
who last smiled in May
starving herself from
her distant dreams,
her unreachable goals,
the air she breathed
too caught up in hopes
of someday becoming this

one word,
two syllables,
seven letters
five consonants
two vowels


and all because she believed she was not.

i'm not searching for "just for fun,"
the puppy-love craved by children
who desire clammy hand-holding
and uncomfortable glances

i don't want "just because"
or a filler just for now
until someone with brighter eyes
and a genuine smile
decides to replace me

i don't want to be a second option
or to force smiles
or to try and impress
all for the sake of a title

i want not being able to fall asleep
even with the weight of a whole day's stress
resting upon my heavy eyelids
and i crave
not being able to breathe
because then, the empty spaces
and incomplete pieces
in my lungs
in my heart
in my brain
will be overflowing
with thoughts of you

we have faded
like the denim overalls
that belong to the haggard farmer
once a sturdy, deep blue
now tattered with fatigue
color melting away as did time
below the sun's scorching breath

we have faded
like pencil in an antique diary
formerly confided in with dismal feelings
once an intriguing charcoal artistry
now a hodgepodge of insincere gray
the pain receding away as did time
beneath weary shelves of dust bunnies

we have faded
like the end of a film
with the screen darkening by each dreaded
millisecond
once a glowing, vivid sight
now a parcel of despondent credits
slowly vanishing until every speck of light
has dissolved into an unfortunate nothing

right before i fall asleep
i crave a hand to hold
and phone calls ending in
"i love you more"

what a beautiful thought
waking up to a
"good morning, beautiful"
or daisies on my doorstep

he creates sunsets on my cheeks
and ignites a fire in my chest
with thoughts of what could be

i crave cheesy puns
and overused jokes
and being best friends
with the boy who captivates me

but i am undeniably afraid
to let him in, because
one day-
my doorstep will be bare,
with pale cheeks
and bitter stares
and i fear tearstained cheeks
and 4 AMs awake
with thoughts of what
had been

lurking impatiently in the crevices of your mind,
i nudge you and beg your soul to reminisce.
you are afraid of the ache i bring you,
but yet you crave the twinge.
i am but a burst of pure nostalgia,
an irreplaceable, bittersweet remembrance.
like a relentless ghost, i haunt you,
reminding you of your expired bygone days.
you desire only the blissful pieces of me,
too remorseful to revisit the hurt you once felt.
and i am both agonizing and delightful,
a menagerie of melancholy pain and
immense commotion.

i fear heights,
spiders,
public speaking,
and being lost

i fear hospitals,
darkness,
long term commitments,
and feeling alone

i am so afraid
of miniscule things
and i must admit,
the monsters under my bed
have escaped
and made their way
into my head,

but what i fear most
is that one day,
you'll be staring
at a girl with glimmering eyes
looking at her with
admiration
pretty thoughts
and love in your eyes

and all your fears
have escaped
because you will have found
the center of your universe
and i fear
that i'll just be
another expired star
in your sky of
useless memories

i can't write
or think
or breathe
as well as i used to
anymore

my veins are clogged
with unspoken words
and my heart feels numb
with mismatched thoughts
that refuse to escape me

and at two in the morning
i am still wide awake
stifling, within my bitter heart,
the courage-
to put them down on paper

you swallowed my words
inhaled the fragments
and the pieces of me-
you inhaled them,
and i want to be able
to breathe on my own,
to fall asleep
without the heavy weight
of my own terrible thoughts,

but you ran away without
taking them first

i hope you still remember
sitting by my side, silent as stone
and how even though the air was
perfectly still,
and even though no words were
uttered,
there was still an unvoiced sense
of tranquility
which floated harmoniously
above both of us,
perhaps it was just me, but at that
particular moment
we were united in a beautiful
mess of noiseless bliss
so still, so secretive
and i swore to myself
that silence was the most
fascinating creature

i hope you still remember
sitting by my side, silent as stone
with the air untroubled, and perfectly
still
and how even though it seemed better
quiet than blatant
and even though there were no words
spoken at all
there was still a deafening ache
which lurked over us like a hateful fog
perhaps it was just me, but at that
particular moment
we were divided by a tremendous wall
of shameful hurt
so still, so secretive
and i swore to myself
that silence was the most catastrophic
form of loneliness

i want to know you
at five in the morning
the sky still dim,
the world untouched
with your eyes shut tight
engrossed in a dream
i want to know you then

i want to know you
at eleven thirty AM
as you sip a cup of tea
(sweet, your favorite)
with your nose in a novel
(the kind you can't put down)
i want to know you then

i want to know you
at six in the evening
flipping through channels
your feet on the coffee table
with your tousled hair
(still incredibly flawless)
i want to know you then

i want to know you
at ten thirty at night
the sky lined with stars
like the freckles on your face
with a smile of exhaustion
and toothpaste kisses
i want to know you then

roses were not my thing
and somehow he already knew
from the very beginning,
because one September morning
as the sun arrived to greet me
“good morning”
so did he,
with an abundance of handpicked daisies
and a breathtaking “hello”
with that smile, seemingly genuine,
so believably true, like the daisies.

but he left the next month,
leaving me with a vase of shriveling sadness.

roses were not my thing
but somehow you never really knew
because one February morning
the morning sky blazing with a vibrant tangerine hue,
you arrived at my doorstep
with a bouquet of tired-looking roses
and i recall wondering why
so you insisted that they were
beautiful, like me.
but to me, they weren’t beautiful at all
just a cliché mess of mediocrity,
the furthest away from beautiful
and so was I.

but you never left my side,
and with time they grew out of their vase
                    and into my heart.

she claimed
she would much rather
feel hurt than to be numb
because at least
there was still a tugging distress
rather than bleak extinction,
and at least she was aware
that she was clearly still
alive

he claimed
he would much rather
feel numb than to be hurt
because at least
he couldn't feel the tribulation
tearing him to pieces from
within,
and at least he was not aware
that he was somehow
indiscriminately
dead

i used to battle sadness like a war in my head,
but now i have learned to cherish my misery.
i always thought being sad meant infinite hours of despair,
but i never really believed that unhappiness could spark iridescent creativity.
i once loathed my incessant loneliness,
but now i indulge in the inspiration it holds within it.
if i could alter the ache of my past, i still would not, because
i would have never experienced how truly captivating sadness is.
i never realized that sorrow can be joyous, in its own twisted way,
but i might begin scavenging for the silver lining in every desolate rain cloud.
i can’t fully erase the toil accumulated from tragic times,
but i can use this hysteria to craft something quite lovely.
i won’t ever feel complete ecstasy, perhaps not.
but i might begin to heal my brittle heart.
i used to only think of sadness as an indestructible burden,
but now i possess a growing admiration towards it.

I believe in the aptitude of creativity
the sudden, yet intense, surge of inspiration
the hidden blissful pieces of life
the satisfaction in pure simplicity
the endless, vast, human imagination
soaring dreams, passionate feelings, and the casual moments
that morph into fantasy.



But I don’t believe that inspiration can only be located in the happy moments we experience, without even digging for it.



I believe in forgiving, but not forgetting.
I believe in the beauty of amiable innocence.
I believe in finding immense creativity in the
mysterious, the meager, and the seemingly insignificant.



And I believe in jumping imagination barriers and escaping
this destructive and confined reality.

you fell in love with april
and the warm breezes within it
you fell in love with our small talk
and deep conversations
overflowing with continuous feeling

i fell in love with red
because that's what you always wore
and i fell in love with paper
because it was my bitter escape
from a tumultuous flame inside of me

you fell in love with my words,
my unintentional smiles
and never ending stories
you fell in love with bits and pieces
but not in love with me

life is beautiful, they say,
and sure enough, it is.
each ray of sunlight,
that kisses you awake
each smile exchanged,
so incomparably honest
each breath emitted,
a sure sign of existence
there’s no doubt
that life is beautiful.

life is beautiful, they say,
but you begin to question
whether it’s fiction or not
as you lay awake at 4 AM
with a tear-stained face
each breath you take,
seemingly meaningless
each second that goes by,
igniting your loneliness.
is life really beautiful then?