Some days I think my mother wants to hate me more than she wants to love me. It feels like most days she finds more flaws than I knew were possible. My sister and I were the rough drafts before she perfected her work and gave birth to our brother. When I came out to her she asked why it took me so long to do it, how do you look at the person that’s supposed to love you unconditionally and say you didn’t want another nail in your coffin, another tally mark on the board of all of your **** ups. Every time I eat something I hear her voice at the back of my head telling me I should stop. I’ve never dined alone, my whole life my mothers voice has joined me when the slightest thought of food has crossed my mind. I have spent more days than I can count wishing I had the self control to starve myself. How do you say that out loud? How do you make the words slip off your tongue to anyone without them thinking you’re a lost cause. I think about dying like I think about skipping my next meal. It’s never set in stone, there’s no contract binding my thoughts to my actions but it’s always at the back of my head. A wailing ghost haunting my brain just waiting for the day that we actually go through with something when we first think of it.

I often joke about my mental health. Every time someone asks me if I’m okay I respond with something witty without thinking. My body’s natural instinct is to make a situation lighter to protect myself. If I laugh I can’t cry, if I laugh to the point of gasping for air then maybe my body will confuse it for a sob and my chest will stop feeling like it’s filling up with water instead of oxygen. I was never taught how to swim so on rough days when I start drowning I can’t do anything but flail. So far I’ve managed to keep my head above water but what happens when my legs and arms get tired? Who’s going to throw me a line and pull me out of the water? Most of the time I feel lonely on land but when I’m drowning I realize just how empty the ocean can be. When I was four my mother left my sister in charge of me. I walked into the pool without my water wings and almost drowned. A crowd of adults surrounded the water but it was my sister that jumped in to save me. It was in that moment that the world showed its true colours. An eight year old risked her life to save me and my mother barely made a fuss. That was the last time anyone ever saw me drowning. I no longer have my sister to jump in and save me. Over the years her sights have switched to someone new and life has caught me yet again unaccompanied. I don’t have any water wings to keep me afloat so I just keep thrashing and choking and praying to god someone will see me going under. But what if this time nobody ever does?

I think I fall in love with the idea of people more than I fall in love with the real them. I have no idea if the girl with auburn hair and pretty blue eyes paints under the stars but I can vividly see her doing it and a part of me falls in love with a version of her that likely doesn’t exist. My best friends brother is just a guy with a love for Studio Ghibli movies and a knack for making people laugh. This doesn’t stop me from imagining the long nights we’d spend on his couch discussing Morrisey. I don’t know how to differentiate heart from mind, poet from person. I often question if I’ll ever be able to love someone without painting them in a light they don’t belong in. Is this how it will always be? Questioning every feeling I have, analyzing whether I love someone for the person they really are or if I’ve written them into the poem I want them to be. How do I know that my feelings are genuine when I have a habit of turning every person I meet into a love poem?

People tell me I’m pretty when the sun is down
My body is a wonderland but only when cloaked in darkness
You want to feel the curve of my chest
But don’t want to see me in the moonlight
I’d have countless lovers if I agreed to be loved during nightfall

I want to be beautiful when the world is lit up
I crave to be shown off before dusk
Nobody walks down the street holding my hand
Unless the only witness is the moon

I’m the girl you get a crush on but never tell your friends about
Growing up I always had boys confessing to me
But only online
Only in secret

Maybe someday someone will love me in the daylight
Kiss me in the middle of the afternoon
In front of their friends
When there are witnesses to their affection
But for now I’ll be the girl you only find pretty in moonlight
Or when you’re feeling tipsy and the world isn’t quite what it used to be

I saw you tonight for the first time in months. Your hair was shorter and your face was covered in stubble, I’ve never known you as anything but shaggy haired and clean shaven, it was yet another reminder that I no longer know you.

You wore a dad hat and pink T-shirt, clothes I never would’ve recognized you in, but you still wore your worn down converse like you did when we were almost us.

You’re quieter now and your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes. What once made you laugh until you cried now leaves you stone faced and I’m beginning to question if I ever knew you at all.

I still miss you, but it’s easier to miss you when you’re no longer the person I fell in love with. It hurts less to look at you and remember what we had when I know it’s no longer possible to love you like that.

I hope that you’re still happy. I hope you continue to laugh until your stomach hurts and watch ****** reality tv until the sun comes up. I hope your days are filled with far too many iced coffees, ridiculous twitter threads and indie music.

Tonight I said goodbye to the boy I fell in love with, in his place stands the boy that broke my heart many months ago. I don’t know where you stopped and he began but I think it’s time to move on from you. You’ve evolved into a different version of yourself and as much as I miss the person that completed me he’s nothing more than a memory to mourn.

I am made of stardust—
every inch of my body was once a part
of the galaxy
and I need to start to remember that

How could I possibly hate the skin I’m in
when at one point people would look up at the stars
and marvel at my beauty

I am more than just bones
and muscle
and skin—
my lungs were plucked from the Milky Way
my hands once touched Saturn
and the love in my heart was a gift from the moon

If I continue to hate my body
then I am hating the universe that crafted me
with her own two hands—
how cruel to look at an artist
and scoff at the beauty they have created

I have never been the girl you fall in love with

Over the years I’ve won gold for being
1. the girl you bring home to your parents
2. the girl that takes care of you when you’re drunk
3. the girl that hollows herself out for you and carries you in her lungs until you feel better again
but I have never been the object of your affection
nobody has ever looked at me and thought
“that’s the girl I’m going to fall in love with”

I’m perpetually the last one picked for kickball
but instead of picking teams you’re picking your future
and instead of kickball it’s your heart
but I’ve never been good at sports
so it makes sense why I’m picked last every time
who falls in love with a girl
that can’t even be trusted to play kickball?

My heart comes with a money back guarantee
if you’re not satisfied you can return it to me in 30 days
I ask that it’s returned in its original condition
but I’m a sucker for keeping people happy
so I’ll accept it broken with a smile on my face
and give you back every penny
so you can find one more worthy of your money