words were always being launched
across the rooms of my house.
insults and accusations were flung
from one room to the next.

it wasn’t long before those words
were replaced by objects.

whenever I came home,
ceramic plates and decorative vases
would already be splayed out across
our kitchen floor, wrecked and broken.

I learned quickly
how to tiptoe around the mess.
if I wasn’t careful, the soles
of my feet would drip blood.

I accidentally learned pointe
by avoiding broken glass.

until someone pointed it out,
I never realized I was dancing.

my movements were somehow
considered to be a performance,

but all they were ever meant to be
was an avoidance of pain.

we had a risky kind of love

a young kind of love

a reckless kind of love

a “we don’t know where we’re going
but get in my passenger seat
and we’ll know when we get there”
kind of love

a skinny dipping

crazy adventures

endless road trips
kind of love

a “there’s so much to do.
but touch me and just for tonight,
let’s forget about everything else”
kind of love

a smoke clouds

red eyes

breathe me in
and hold me there
kind of love

a “the world is scary
but hold onto my hand
and you’ll be fine”
kind of love

a late night drives

flushed cheeks

“shut up and kiss me”
kind of love

we had a risky kind of love
but *******
it was so worth the risk

you held me close to you,
and I felt your heart beating
deep inside of your rib cage.

I closed my eyes and listened
to the rise and fall of your chest,
hearing the soft thump of
your heartbeat and imagining
that if I stayed still for long enough,
I could melt into you.

for the first time in my life,
I felt like I belonged.

you made me feel like
I belonged with you

like I belonged on this planet.

like I belonged here, right here,
secure in your arms.

I haven’t felt safe
since you let go of me.

it’s been years, and I still scream
halfway through the night.

I still wake up drenched in sweat and tears,
feeling his grip around my wrist.

when I take a shower,  I find myself
still trying to scrub him off me.
I’m still trying to erase the
cigarette burn on my right hand,
the one he gave me when
he was drunk and angry.

sometimes, I scrub my skin until I bleed. not intentionally, of course.
I don’t want to hurt myself.
I’ve hurt myself enough over the years,
and I have the scars to prove it.

all I want is to scrub him off of me.
I want to feel clean again.

but no matter how raw I scrub myself,
the fingerprints and bruises still linger.

“it’s not always necessary
to be strong, but to feel strong.”
you said, quoting some author
I hadn’t heard of until then.

I wanted to tell you how
I loved it when you talked about
the books that you read,
how I loved hearing the passion
in your voice over something as
simple as a well-written paragraph.

I wanted to ask you how you always seemed able to live in the moment,
how the past never bothered you
and you always had faith
that the future would be beautiful,
and that somehow everything
works itself out in the end.

I wanted to say “I love you.”
I didn’t.

to this day, I don’t know what
stopped me. I tried to come up
with a reason, telling myself that
I was seeing someone else then,  
and it wasn’t a good time, and
I wasn’t sure if I loved you.

I told myself not to be impulsive
because we had the rest of
our lives to figure things out.

I see now how ******* stupid
those excuses were.

the man I was seeing then didn’t
care about me, and he didn’t
even try to act like he did.

and there’s no such thing as
a perfect time to say something
that you’re scared to say.

I remember how we stood on top
of this massive hill one summer,
and again, I found myself
wanting to say “I love you.”
and again, I didn’t.

the accident happened
a few months ago.
I just found out.

I’m sitting here, replaying
all of those moments in my head,
all of those conversations
where I didn’t tell you
what I wanted to say.

I should’ve screamed it from the
very top of that huge hill that day
so that you and I, and all
of the neighbors below us,
would know that I was sure of it.
they’d know that I meant it.
I did mean it, even if I didn’t
have the courage to say it.

my mind keeps taking me back
to that quote you said.

“it’s not always necessary
to be strong, but to feel strong.”

what if I am strong,
but sometimes
I don’t feel like it at all?
what does that mean?

I never got to say what I needed to say.
even though now, I’m the only one
who can hear it, I need to say it aloud.
I need to get these words onto paper
before they eat me alive from the inside out.

I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

and I always have.

“You loved him.”
It wasn’t a question,
but I answered anyway.

I immediately became defensive,
scared of my past being brought up
and merged with my present.
I was doing so much better.
I couldn't afford to mess it all up now.

“I wouldn’t call it love.” I said,
when I wanted to say:

YESYESYESYESYES OH GOD YES



“Why?”
Perhaps they were genuinely curious.
They didn’t know, after all.
They didn’t know anything about
him, or me, or us.
And they never would.
I couldn’t let someone in, not now.

“It's complicated.” I said,
when I wanted to say:

IT'S SO SIMPLE

I LOVED HIM BECAUSE
HE MADE ME FEEL SOMETHING,
AND FEELING ANYTHING IS
BETTER THAN FEELING NOTHING

HE TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE WHEN
I COULDN’T EVEN LOVE MYSELF



“So why did it end?”
I could feel the walls
I built myself tumbling down.

I wanted to tell them,
I wanted to tell them everything.
I couldn't. I turned away.

“It didn't work out.” I said,
when I wanted to say:

I TRIED I TRIED I TRIED

I GAVE HIM EVERYTHING I WAS

AND I LET HIM TAKE
EVERYTHING I HAD

AND HE STILL WANTED MORE

IN THE END, I WASN'T

SMART ENOUGH

PRETTY ENOUGH

SKINNY ENOUGH

THICK ENOUGH

QUIET ENOUGH

BOSSY ENOUGH

CLASSY ENOUGH

SLUTTY ENOUGH

WILD ENOUGH

PRIVATE ENOUGH

ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH

HAPPY ENOUGH



NO MATTER WHAT DID,
I WASN'T ENOUGH

I sum up politics in three words:
wealth equals power.

we are expected to make lasting
changes in our communities,
and in our country itself.

but to do that,
we need power.

and the people in power
will always have more
wealth than we do,

which means that
the people in power
will always have more
power than we do.

they tell us that we are
the future leaders
of this country.

they tell us that as leaders,
we are expected to make
changes in our communities
and in our country itself,

but they tell us that
only because they
know that we can’t.