Once
I built a sandcastle
and showed it to
the ocean.
I had made sure
that every detail was
perfect—
working as hard as I could
to keep it safe,
because all I ever wanted was
for it to last long.

The waters hardly noticed,
they were far too concerned
with their own purposes
to even bother
with my effort.
When they crashed at my feet,
it sent the best kind of chills up my spine—
but that only happened
if it was convenient for them.
They'd never go out of their way
just to find their way
to me.

Sometimes I would try
to go out to them,
wanting the seafoam
to rush over my toes
and the cold spray
to splash into me.

But sometimes they didn't come.

The waves went back out
and wanted nothing to do with me.

The next day
I returned to the ocean.
What I found was that
in a matter of hours,
the waves I had
loved so much
had taken the chance
to destroy.
The sandcastle that
I'd worked so *******
was completely gone,
without a trace,
nothing to show for it.
You wouldn't even know that I'd
tried in the first place.

You and the ocean have a lot in common.

"Kids can be mean," they said.
"Kids can be immature."
They told us that kids can
do things they normally wouldn't
without really thinking things through.
They didn't warn us, though,
that those same kids
would smile at you in the halls
and treat you like a friend
when you were face to face.
They never warned us
that kids would be cruelest
when they could hide behind
the mask of the word "anonymous"
and walk away, totally blameless.
We weren't ever told
that the harshest things said to us
would be from kids we thought liked us—
and we'd never even know which "friends"
we're saying things to hurt us.

"Kids can be mean," they said,
"but they won't really mean it.
It's just being swept up in the mindset
that acceptance will come from
judging those that are being judged."

And they sometimes tried to tell us,
but so few of us listened…
the power we have
to stop the kids ganging up on kid
is just as strong
as the power we have to start it.

I love the fact
that I get to see you
in ways nobody else
has ever been able to see.
Like the way you laugh
when I feel like being silly
or the hardness in your jawline
after just fighting with your mom
of the flash of mischief in your eyes
right before you kiss me.
I get to see the side of you
that still acts like you're five years old
and brightens immediately
as we run towards a playground.
I notice the aura you have,
as if the air around you
was scattered with flakes of gold.
I get to feel the rush
of your breath on my neck
whenever you're right behind me—
and when it feels like everything in me is empty,
I can know the safety
of being encircled in your arms.
And nobody else
sees these things quite like I can,
because nobody else will ever love you the exact same way.

When I was young and lonely,
yet wise enough,
I'd slipped off my skin and held it out to you
and you accepted it. I'd been left with bare bones, then.
And as I handed over my lips and eyebrows and fingernails,
You accepted those, too.
Next I'd slipped out my heart and offered you it,
But you refused to take it, and so
I'd realised I was left without a coat
in the cold winter's blight.
Nothing but a skeleton, as frostbite
bit at me and I'd stood shivering,
my skin in your hands,
my heart in mine.
The wind hit my back and sent through me shudders
and I pleaded for you to give back what had once been mine.
But you just stood with eyes like glass, and wordlessly
you let me know it was helpless.
One by one, I felt my bones begin to freeze
from my toes and swiftly traveling up.
I couldn't tell then if my shaking came from cold
or if it was the blizzard of emotions burying me.
At my fingertips I could sense
the heart which I still cradled in my hands start to grow rigid
and it's beating grew ever more mechanical,
losing all energy and life,
working routinely and with passion gone.
Time stopped altogether and we stood, unmoving.
A fleeting warmth, a single hot tear—
it barely left my eye before becoming solid.
And the silence broke with the sound of your footsteps
but there I stayed in stunned paralysis,
my eyes locked on the remains of me
that you had ****** at my feet
and the cold heart I still held.
I picked myself up and slipped me back on,
the same as I had been before.
But my heart I kept frozen, though now it's aware
and I won't make that misstep again.
With a heart not my own, I'll continue,
untrusting—
the only part of you I let myself keep.

I inked your name
all over my body
until every inch of me
had traces of you,
as you claimed every new part of me—
my attention, my mind,
and finally my heart—
until you had me in my entirety
and every word I said
echoed with the sound of you.
Every new promise I tattooed
onto my skin
with invisible ink
so it could only be seen
to you
who knew every detail of me
like you knew your own
ambitions,
like you knew your own reflection.
And the ghost of your hands remained
everywhere that I
had welcomed them.
And soon those ghosts
found a way
to sink deeper than the surface
as all the promises and fingerprints
and your name,
over and over,
were sent into my bloodstream
and overtook every part
of who I had been.
Until finally I couldn't even
recognize myself
buried under the things
you had taken
and rearranged forever
as I was writing
the same five letters
behind every word my hand formed.
And as more of me was lost
to the cells of you
hidden throughout my veins,
you took more steps
further away
until the only evidence
you had even been here
was your name,
over and over,
inked into my heartbeats
and whispering repeatedly
from every single thing
I'd written of love.