Today I went outside, took in some ‘fresh’ air.
(Not sure I’d call anything in this smog infested city fresh.)
I breathed, and breathed, and breathed.

I took in so much air until I wasn’t sure there was room in my chest.
(Though with my heart missing its half full at best.)
When I finally felt like bursting I released all my waste,
exhaled it so forcefully I felt my lungs leaving too.

When the little boy handed me that day lily,
I didn’t mean to spend time breaking it. But I had to pull out its center.
Because like me, it looks prettier empty.
The core of it all is unnecessary.

When I found a spider living inside I gasped.
Not for fear, but because how beautiful is it, to find another creature like me. Living inside of beauty, hiding from the animals outside.

The smog in this city is filling my lungs. Each inhale burns my core,
the one I emptied so long ago.
Today I finally felt it filling again.
For once I think I felt whole.

I believe some poetry is best unseen, unheard, and unloved.
Not to say it isn't beautiful, but that it is so beautiful it must remain secret
For fear of tarnishing it.

I have so many poems about a girl with brown eyes,
Who told me she did not know how to love anymore.
But after getting in a relationship with a guy just a day after our break-up
Seems to be loving fine.

Perhaps its better I did not share those poems.

I have come to the conclusion that I am just hard to love.
Mostly because I need to write all my feelings,
Turn sadness into metaphor and anger to simile,
Just to be sure these emotions won't tear me apart.

When she told me she didn't know what love meant,
I wrote her a poem about the ways I wanted to get to know her.
She didn't understand it.
That my poetry was my love,
That if she couldn't see that I wouldn't know what love was either.

Its been over a month since she left me for someone with stronger hands,
But I still have managed to reign in my poetry.  
I do not write about the ways I wanted to know her,
Nor do I let mention of her smile slide into my metaphor.

If I do, it is never seen or heard.
I lock it in the remains of this black heart,
Burn it in the flames of my pride.
I will not let heart break run me.
My love is a beautiful secret.
I will not be tarnished by a broken girl who does not know how to love.

I keep writing about you
A lot of people say that my poetry is amazing and I have no idea why they say that
And I think it's because they're all about you, because you're ******* wonderful
But what you don't know and what they have no idea is that
I stare at the ceiling for hours
And my hands can't seem to move
Leaving my pen untouched and just having a blank page
Filled with no words about you or about love
Because all I feel is frustration and disappointment
Maybe I write these things but it actually doesn't come close to how I'm really feeling
But if actions could be expressed into words
I would write about how I should have hugged you for hours and convinced you to stay
How your favourite song just came up the radio, reminding me the first you made me listen to it
I would write about me standing outside the rain near the bus stop, thinking and replaying all the things you said to me, as I hide my tears from the rain
Then I realized I never had you
We were never official
I would write about the burning fire from my heart as it start to burn because of how much I miss you
and how the burning flakes have reached my brain at 3 in the morning thinking about how I miss your voice and how I crave your presence
And then I remember being up so late was only that much fun when you were still around, with our deep talks & late phone calls
I wish every ******* day that you were still here
And I don't know how to end this writing because there is no poetic way to say and describe how I feel so empty and that I just want you back
But what I know is that I'll never let go

The more I think,
The better off I am alone.
These thoughts of mine are the only things that do not leave.

I have watched best-friends turn to dust,
At the hands of boys they said they'd rather be with than to be friends with me.
Just as I have watched exes return to the people they called poison because the first time did not work out.

I guess I am the poison,
And the people who hurt them were the antidote.
Because god forbid I ask you to take care of yourself,
Drop the cigarette, this metaphor isn't cute.
Flush the needles, your soul is already covered in track marks.
Toss the razors, your heart has too many scars.

I am sorry I wanted you to live,
And I'm sorry you wanted to die.
But you can't hang around anymore.
And neither can I.
Please get out of my life.
Just leave me alone.

Don't try to come back,
I'm better off here on my own.
Its easier to fight heartbreak,
If I remain alone.

"I smiled, you forgot to respond."

A body was found in my home town.
They are calling homicide.
People I know are scared,
More than that,
They are paralyzed.
Worried that it could be them,
Danger lurking around every corner.

We lost three highschool students earlier this year.
It feels like life times ago.
I watched a whole city mourn together.
Even the streets seemed to weep.
And street lamps gave hugs.
I was sick from all the crying,
Sick from watching people break down.
Sick of the sadness that hung around.

I haven’t seen my own city streets in two weeks.
I don’t think I’d recognize them if I did.
They are shuddering in shadows,
Anxious for salvation.
But here I sit,
Wondering the age and race of the victim.
Desensitized to the reality of it all.

When three of my peers died this year I did not mourn them rationally.
I wondered what their corpses looked like.
If they had become gaunt with rigor mortis,
Or if they were still soft and supple as they had been all the times they did not acknowledge me.

I am sitting miles away from everything I grew up tracing in my mind,
Wondering how a nameless corpse looks on a cold metal slab.
Laughing at the people chasing ghosts over their shoulders.

Small towns are too easily rocked by tragedy.
I think I could knock mine over with a pinky finger.
This year has proved to me that the good die young,
And the young die loved.
I wonder who loved the man they found in the park.
Will he be just another ghost to haunt these grounds?

If I were to die right now,
They would find my body stiff in the morning.
I would be all rigor mortis,
Less soft girl next door.
I wonder who would have loved me.
Am I bound to just be another ghost haunting this town?