beware when you fall in love
with an artist
be it a painter, a singer, or poet

for the artist will
paint you
with strokes and hues
in shapes of every kind

sing about you
with heartbreak lyrics
and feelings which rhyme

write about you
with the simplest words
and a secret message she wants to say

beware of the artist,
and her love
one wrong move
and you're an artwork in her display

I was eight and in math class
and I wrote your name over and over again in my little green notepad hoping that you’d notice or that you’d feel the pressure of my pen tracing your name over and over again.
at the end of class the teacher asked me to walk up grab some chalk and long divide
but I hadn’t a clue and no where to hide so I tried, with minimal effort, to sketch some numbers on the board, curling my 2 and crossing my 7 so that you’d notice me.
I looked at you and your chubby face looked back at mine
and I loved you for a long time, then.

I’m made of bones and blood,
and those bones,
unbroken and holding me up,
is proof of my survival.
And though there is emptiness and fear hiding inside,
put together with the will to keep going,
I know I am stronger than ever.
And there is salt in my blood
from the days where tears infiltrated
into the valleys I built to hide in.
But the oxygen inside each blood cell
is proof that I’m still breathing.
I’m alive. I’m alive!
And I’m trying my best not to forget that.