he said, “stop apologizing.”

it’s a bad habit of mine.
I apologize even when
I know I’m not at fault.

he said, “stop apologizing.”

I didn’t even realize I was.
it’s an automatic response that
I’ve been programmed to use.

he said, “stop apologizing.”

I tried to notice when it happened,
but it’s not an easy habit
to unlearn after years of training.

he said, “seriously, stop apologizing.”
I said “I’m sorry.”

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.

be careful when handling me.
my body was built with gunpowder,
and someone lit my fuse
long before we met.

be aware that at any moment,
I could burst.

you can run away now
and never look back,

or you can wait here with me
and together, we'll look up at the sky.

it's entirely your choice.

but, darling, if you can't accept
the chaos inside of me,

then you will have no right
to comment on
my beautiful explosion.

I was told that some people
are born to be leaders,
and other people
are born to be followers.

my depression has sent me
on a downward spiral,
and I know that
I can't stay strong forever.
I won't stand tall forever.

am I a leader?
when I fall, will I take
anyone else down with me?

or am I a follower?
will I fall because I let
someone drag me down?

and if I don't want
to be either of those,
then who do I want to be?

earlier, I was reading this story
about a kid who jumped
off the Golden Gate Bridge.

he said that
as soon as he jumped,
he felt instant regret.

this kid survived and
he has now become
a successful man.



I wonder how far
he had to fall before
he regretted his decision.

was it twelve feet down?
forty feet down?
two hundred feet down?

how far did he have to go
before he realized that
he didn't truly want this?



I am falling.
I have been falling
for a while now.

sometimes I feel like
I've hit rock bottom,
but then I see that I've
only slowed my descent.



how far will I have to fall
before I want to live?

what if that realization
doesn't hit me until
it's too late?

I am afraid that I might
finally see a purpose for
my existence, but by then

I'll have already
hit the ground.

you are not the first man
to take off my clothes,

but you are the first man
to see me naked while
my clothes are still on.

in ancient Greece,
there was once a belief that
humans were originally created
with four arms, four legs,
and two faces.

Zeus, the Greek god of the sky,
became afraid that these humans
would have too much power,

so he split them into two bodies
and separated them.

they were condemned
to spend their lives
searching for their other halves.

according to Greek mythology,
looking for your soulmate
is a punishment.


I don't believe in those stories,
but they make sense.

we punish ourselves
by spending our entire lives
in search of our soulmates.

we are on an endless journey
looking for love in
all of the wrong places,

and we never pause
to look at our own lives
along the way.

we are so blinded by
this need to keep moving
and to find someone,

that we miss everything
we could be enjoying
by ourselves.

today
I watched her
open the mailbox.

she hesitated
before she did.

to anyone else,
this meant nothing.
they didn't know



that nine years ago,
she was standing
in the driveway
while her husband
was taken away.

under the glow of
red and blue lights,
she smiled thinking
that this was finally over.

there would be
no more bruises
and no more heartache.

she would finally be free.
she could finally breathe.

she had no idea that this
was only the beginning.



as the years went on,
the faith drained
from her body.

he was everywhere.

in her call log,
outside her window,
in her nightmares,

e v e r y w h e r e.

he wouldn't leave.

she didn't think that
she could ever be free.



but today,
I watched her stand
in her driveway

and open the mailbox
of her very own house

and read the letters
from the loved ones
that she was forced to
lose all those years ago.



today,
the neighbors watched
as a random woman
opened her mailbox.

I watched as a woman
finally opened the
gate to freedom.

I went on a date today.
this isn’t going to be a poem
about how I found true love,
or how I met someone and
suddenly my problems all disappeared.

none of that happened.
this isn’t some fairytale and
I won’t sugarcoat my words.
I’m still hurting. I’m still furious
and confused and so, so tired.
these past few months
have not been pretty.
there is no way to
romanticize this pain,
and there is no reason to.

these past few months have been
breakup ***, followed by regret,
and then a rush of hope.
they have been relearning life
and drinking far too much,
blackouts and breakdowns
and *****.

I am healing, and that takes time.
I’m still emotional.

but I went on a date today.
it’s not a remedy for
magically forgetting. I didn’t forget.
it didn’t bring me total closure.

but I laughed today.
I listened today.
I was listened to today.
I talked about myself and my interests,
and my trauma wasn’t a
topic of discussion for the
first time in a very long time.
it was refreshing.

I went on a date today.
this isn’t something that
would be front-page news.
there wasn’t some
earth-shattering, incredible moment.
my life has not changed.

but today I had fun.
I felt relaxed and worry-free

and for the first time
in a very long time,
I went to bed
reflecting on my day
and not about all of
the days I spent
with you.

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.

to cross the earth,
you'd need to travel
over 24,901 miles.

there are over
7,800,000,000 humans
in 193 countries
on 7 continents.

the average person meets
less than 80,000 people
during their lifetime.

statistically speaking,
you will meet less than
0.001% of the people
walking this planet.



I've always had trouble
believing in the things
that we cannot prove.

from mythical creatures
to certain phenomena to
bible stories and religion,

faith is something that
I can't seem to find.



but statistically speaking,
we should have never met.

statistically, we should still be
two strangers living our lives
thousands of miles apart.



right now, I am looking
over at you and realizing
just how ******* lucky I am.

there are over
7,800,000,000 humans
in 193 countries
on 7 continents.

yet somehow, we defied
those statistics and
we found each other.



maybe I won't ever
believe in religion
or phenomena or fate,

but I do believe that
sometimes miracles happen

and the most unexpected
feelings can become reality.



I believe that love
and happiness do exist,
and I believe that
all because of you.

this world is not
as bad as it may seem.

hope is not as dim
as it may appear.



sometimes, statistics
don't matter at all

and life gets better
even if you didn't
think that it could.

I believe that now,
and you are my proof.

he was smiling
and we were laughing
and then he was gone.

there was a loud noise
that made my ears ring.
I didn't realize what
had happened, but
I knew it was bad.

I ran as fast as I could.
I didn't look back.

my legs burned
but I knew that I
had to keep running,
no matter what.

I burst through the
door to our apartment,
panting and crying.

my family stared at me
and it took me a minute
to understand why.

I went to wipe my tears
with the back of my hand,
and the liquid was red.

those weren't my tears.
that wasn't my blood.
the realization hit me
like one punch after another.

a random car had
pulled up next to us.
my friend's brother was shot.
I was standing next to him.
I ran. he wasn't behind me.

as my fear faded,
my memory became clearer.
the realizations that hit
my mind must have
punched my stomach too.
I was suddenly sick.

my ***** coated our kitchen floor
and my family took me into
our bathroom to clean myself up.

my friend and his brother
had known me since I was born.
I grew up with them.
I would continue growing,
but now he wouldn't.

I watched as his blood
blended with the water
in our apartment's shower.
I watched as it swirled
down the drain until
the red was all gone.

my last memory of
the kid I grew up with
is watching his blood swirl
down my shower drain.

it's been years since that day.
I've grown up. I moved out
of the city a long time ago.

it's over. he's gone.
there is nothing I can do,
and there was nothing
that I could have done.

but somehow, I still feel guilty
for washing him off of me.

"you'll understand
when you're older."

I was told that
over and over.

when I asked about
anything bad or scary
or even something that
they simply didn't
want to explain to me,

that was the response.



what's global warming?

is grandma dying?

will my parents ever
get back together?

what is suicide?
why would someone
ever want to do that?

why do I have to
look away from
this scene on TV?

can boys kiss boys?
can girls kiss girls?

what is ***?

drugs are bad, so
why does my mom
use them every night?

where is my big brother?
when is he coming home?

"you'll understand
when you're older."



I'm older now

and still, there
is so much that
I can't understand.



a black man gets
shot in front of his
children and family.

the person behind
the trigger is human.

how could a human
take the life of another
human with no regrets?



my brother was killed
on impact when his
car flew off the road.

my other brother
smiled through his tears
and thanked god that
he didn't have to suffer.
he thanked god for our
brother dying instantly.

what kind of god
takes the life of someone
so young and so bright?
why should we pray
to a god like that?



the last time I saw her,
my mother was just
a walking corpse.

she had bruises and welts
and emotionless, dull eyes
and a rib cage viewable
from outside of her body.

why did my mother
turn herself into this?
when will she die?
is it wrong for me
to hope that comes soon?



they told me,

"you'll understand
when you're older."

but all I understand
is that there are things
that were kept hidden
from my young ears.

I still don't understand
why these things happen
or who to blame for them
or if people are good or bad.



"you'll understand
when you're older."

I'm older now.
I don't understand.

don't you understand?
I am happy.

but your happiness
tastes like friendship and laughter,

and my happiness
tastes like antidepressants.

“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’m so tired
of feeling so tired

I’m still a child
playing a game
of musical chairs.

I’m just trying to
find a seat with
everyone else.

I’m still going
around and around
and around again,
searching for my
chance to fit in.

but every time
that I think
I’ve finally
found it,

as soon as
I go to sit down,

life pulls the chair
out from under me.

as you held me,
your hands moved across me,
your fingertips tracing
every curve of my body.

your hands wandered
until they found my scars.
every muscle in my body tensed up,
waiting for you to comment on them.

they weren’t new.
by this time, I had dealt
with all types of reactions.

there were the people
who were disgusted
and didn’t try to hide it,

the people who were made so
uncomfortable that
they didn’t know what to say,

the people who
insisted they understood
when it was obvious that they didn’t.

you were hard to read.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from you.
you pulled me closer to you
and held me tighter,
and I felt myself relax.

you didn’t tell me you were fine with them, you didn’t tell me you were sorry,
and you didn’t tell me they were beautiful.

you were honest,
and I loved that.

you weren’t fine with them,
but neither was I,
and that didn’t stop you
from caring about me.
you weren’t sorry,
you didn’t pity me,
and you didn’t change
the way you acted around me
like most people do.

but most importantly,
you did not call them beautiful.
they aren’t.

there is nothing beautiful
about self-hatred,
and these scars
are nothing more
than its byproducts.

self-harm is not pretty.
my past is not pretty.
my scars are not pretty.
I told you all of this.

you didn’t disagree with me,
you didn’t try to argue.
you simply held me.
you didn’t look at my scars,
you looked at me.
you didn’t say much.
you didn’t have to.

when you did finally speak,
you told me,

“you’re right.
your past isn’t pretty.
but that doesn’t mean
your future can’t be.”

there was this one time
when some boy
looked at his friend
and said,

"you fight like a girl."

that same boy
called me a ****
and slapped my ***
when I walked by.

that same boy
got hit so hard,
his face smashed
against a locker in a
high school hallway.

that same boy
broke his nose and
chipped two teeth.

I looked down at him
and said,

"I fight like a girl too,
and I just ****** you up."

guests used to comment on
all of those picture frames
pinned proudly to the walls.

you would smile politely
and give them a tour.


“there’s my daughter
on her first birthday!”

“there’s my son building
a fort out of snow!”

“there’s our family
on vacation at the beach!”


you used to get so many
compliments on your
picture-perfect family.


I wonder what they
would have said if they
knew about the holes
punched into the wall
underneath those frames.

he has his father's eyes.

that's the first thing
that I notice when
I hold my son
for the first time.

those huge, hazel eyes
are staring back at me
from his perfect face.

he is so small
and so young
and so innocent

but already,
he reminds me
of his father.

already, I am scared
that my son will
grow up to be
just like his father,

or maybe even worse.
maybe my son will
grow up to be
just like me.

I try to forget about
the things that I’ve done,
and sometimes I can

but when I get home,
I see that my bad decisions
are still stained into
my bedsheets.

you like to pretend
that you are blind.
your friends like
to believe you.

but you can't keep up
this act forever.

soon, you will need
to open your eyes.
you will need
to look around.

you will start reading
that newspaper left
decaying on your doorstep.


when you finally see
the pain that you've
been privileged enough
to never feel,

when you've read
about enough pain
to put that gun
in your own mouth,

don't pull the trigger.
the world doesn't need
any more violence.

soon, you won't be able
to ignore the screams.
you will see how
the world is hurting,
and how your ignorance
has helped cause this.

you won't be able
to live with yourself.

but when you turn that gun
towards your own head,

don't pull the trigger.
the world doesn't need
any more bullets.

what it needs is
for you to help ensure
that no more triggers are pulled.

before I met the man I love,
I had a bad history of
entering abusive relationships.

it might not make sense,
but a healthy relationship
used to be so much scarier
than an abusive one.

when my ex got angry,
he would hit me.

when my boyfriend gets angry,
he walks away until
he's calm enough to have
a rational conversation.

my ex was predictable.
I knew what was coming.
I could brace myself
for his punches.
I was never unprepared.

the first time that my boyfriend
walked away, my body
physically shook with fear.

because he didn't hit me,
and because violence
was all that I knew,

I was so afraid that
he would come back
with something much
worse than a punch.

he came back with a hug
and an "I love you."

now, I would be afraid
if a man tried to hit me.

it might sound strange,
but I am so happy
to be so scared

because that means
I've stopped wanting abuse.

it means I've finally realized
that I am deserving of love.

I’m alright, I promise. You don’t have to worry.

I know that every note I give to you now sparks fear in the pit of your stomach, and you skim over my sentences looking for words like “suicide” and “I’m sorry.”

When I hand you a note, you examine every word. From my handwriting to the ink I use, you take in every detail. You read between the lines now even on a blank sheet of paper, where there aren’t any lines to read between.

Your eyes are trained to spot the differences now. My life has become a game of Clue where you are the only player.

When my voice cracks, even the slightest bit, your ears have been conditioned to tune in immediately. You are constantly scanning for hesitation when I talk. You watch me to see if my hands shake, or if I bite my lip. You are searching for the warning signs that you think you missed last time, even though I never showed any.

They say that when you lose one sense, your other senses grow stronger to compensate. We say that we’ve become so close, but what we mean is that we’ve always been codependent. We did not bond over shared trauma; we bonded over a mutual fear of being alone. Our anxieties have molded into one huge, chaotic mess. Our fears have become so tangled that neither of us know who is afraid of what anymore. The only fear I am certain of is the fear of losing you.

I lost my ability to feel anything, and you developed a sense of hypersensitivity to balance out my numbness. I stopped caring about myself, so you started caring about me even more. You feel too much when I feel nothing.

I know you won’t believe me, but this is not a suicide note. You don’t need to worry about me. I’d promise you, but I’ve broken so many promises that I know they have no meaning anymore.

I cause you pain. There’s no use in denying it; we both know it’s true. I’m not trying to push you away. Even if I did, I know you’d come back. I have been draining your happiness and health slowly. Now, I am trying to rip off this bandaid all at once.

I’d rather you hurt from this revelation of who I really am. I’d rather you hate me for being someone who takes the easy way out, than hurt you by letting you believe that I have the potential to be in love.

I am capable of loving, and maybe I don’t show it the way that I should, but I love you. God, you have no idea how much I love you.

What I am not capable of is trusting. I love you, but I can’t trust you. I have no trust left, not even for myself.

And what is there without trust? Love itself isn’t enough to build a relationship off of. We talk about love as if it is a miracle. In every fairytale, true love is what saves the princess. Love breaks the curse. Love can turn a frog into a prince, a beast into a man. We talk about love as if it cures all. But love isn’t as powerful as we make it sound. You can’t love someone back to life.

I don’t know if I even want to save myself anymore, and you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. I am so grateful for your love, but your love alone is not enough.

I’ve always said I’m a realist; you’ve always said I’m nothing more than a pessimist in disguise. Maybe that’s true, maybe I do see only the negative side of things. But those negatives have kept me safe. I prepare myself for the worst so that I can never be disappointed, only pleasantly surprised. I can never be let down. In a way, I guess we’re both right. Pessimism has been my reality. This numbness has been my reality.

When you’re done reading this note, please tear it up into a thousand tiny pieces. Rip it, crumble it, destroy it. Make it impossible to reread. Please throw it away and don’t dig it back up. Please walk away and don’t look back.

If you turn back around, and if I look into your eyes again, I know that I will not let you leave. I will pull you back to me and let this cycle of destruction begin all over again. I hurt myself, which hurts you, which hurts me. It will not end.

When you go through the photos of us on your phone, please go through them quickly. If you have to delete them, then delete them. Deleting a picture doesn’t delete the memory with it. I know that, but it’s a start. One less photograph is one less reminder of me. One day, when you’re strong enough, maybe you can go back and flip through our old albums. But by the time you are strong enough to live healthily without me, I doubt you’ll still have them saved. One day, you will leave me in the past. It’s hard for me to admit it, but I know that is where I belong.

When you climb into your bed at the end of the night, please do not remember me sleeping next to you. I know how wrong the bed will feel when you get up in the morning and notice that there is no warm spot left on the other side. I know how strange it will be to turn over and not roll into my arms. This loneliness will feel like a foreign language, but please, learn to understand it. The words will eventually feel natural on your tongue, even if it doesn’t happen until your tongue is in the mouth of someone new.

When what used to be our songs play on shuffle, please don’t ruin them with thoughts of me. I want you to be able to hear their lyrics without pain. You deserve to smile when songs begin to play. I don’t want you to have to turn the radio off. You deserve to blast your music loud, and to sing without embarrassment. You deserve someone who will dance with you around the kitchen the way that we did once. You deserve someone who makes you laugh, and who makes you feel loved. Despite what you have made yourself believe, you deserve better than this.

These songs deserve to mark happy occasions, not to bring up bad memories. They deserve to be sung to, not cried over. They deserve to be shared with someone who’d mention their titles to you in love letters, not someone who only writes you suicide notes.

the walls here are thin
because we can't afford
to build them any stronger.

we can't afford to spend money
to test smoke detectors,
or to build new fire escapes.

if this building
goes up in flames,
we have accepted that
we will all burn with it.

we can't afford to
spend money on
our children's safety.

but even if we could,
would it matter?

money can buy teddy bears
and pretty flower bouquets.

money can beautify
our roadside memorials,

but lit candles and
decorated street corners
can't bring back the
children who died there.

every night, I hear the sirens
of an ambulance speeding
through our streets.

sirens are the lullaby
that this city sings to our children,
and to our children's children.

if I didn't hear them
when I close my eyes,
I would be afraid.

because no sirens
does not mean that
there is no crime.

no sirens means only
that no one has come
to clean up the scene.

someone told me once,
that in suburbia,

in the neighborhoods
where the houses are
built with thick walls
and strong foundations,

and the neighbors fight
over who can buy
the fanciest car,

and those fights end
with snarky comments
instead of gunshots,

their children
fall asleep listening
to the sound of crickets
instead of sirens.

in those neighborhoods,
they do not raise their children
to be afraid of drugs
and death and violence.

they raise their children
to be afraid of our children.

our children are buried
six feet beneath the ground,

before their children
even learn the meaning
of the word "death."

I was your typical angsty teenager,
lust and recklessness personified
into a human body.

I never called myself a poet,
but I spent my days
writing to boys who never loved me
and parents who were never there.

I went through a photography phase.
I cut images from magazines,
women with stick-figure shapes
and too much makeup and sad eyes
that everyone seemed to love staring at.
I took pictures of people
when they weren’t looking,
found beauty in others
when I needed to find beauty in myself.

I went through a rebellious phase.
I shaved the side of my head
and dyed my hair blue, and then black.
I tattooed my skin and
pierced crazy places on my body.
I smiled at adults walking by
because they fell silent,
and I knew that they were judging me
but didn’t have the
courage to say anything.
I liked thinking that
I was braver and louder
and more confident at seventeen,
than these people were at sixty-four.

I snuck out and went
for long walks in the dark,
because the nighttime air
felt peaceful and still.
and when the world was fast asleep,
I could let go of my attitude.
for a few hours, I could feel calm
because nobody was watching.

I was walking home one night
with Molly in my bloodstream
and adrenaline in my bones
but I got trapped in my mind
somewhere along the way,
stuck floating in between
self-worship and self-loathing.

I ran away a few times,
usually ending up at my friends’ houses.
I drank from blue Solo cups
not knowing what I was drinking
and not caring enough to know
as long as it got me drunk enough
to dance all night
and not remember a single thing
the next morning.

I watched my best friend
sneak away, not so stealthily,
to go have ***
with boys twice her age.
I think she snuck away loudly
on purpose so that
we would all know  
she was capable of
getting boys to
pound her senseless.
I don’t think she was capable of
getting boys to love her
for more than her body,
but I don’t think she ever tried.

I fell in love,
or at least I thought I did.
I had my heart broken
and healed and broken again.
at one point, there was a boy
who taught me how to kiss,
and that the backseats of cars
are rarely as spacious as they look.

through our conversations,
I learned that this boy believed
in extraterrestrial life,
and that he hated the color orange
for reasons he could not explain,
and that when he imagined the future,
he saw me in it.

through my own heartbreak,
I learned that sometimes
words mean nothing,
and that people can lie,
and that we were too young
to imagine any future at all.

I made memories
that still haunt me,
and promises that
I broke long ago.
I lived in the moment
and didn’t want to
think about growing up,
or what my plans would be
one year from then, or five, or ten.

I didn’t want to think
about anything farther away
than the weekend,
because nothing was guaranteed,
and nothing ever stayed the same.

change is constant
and, to me, that is both
beautiful and terrifying
at the same time.

I snuck out

and I stole cash

and I ran away

and I got lost

and I was alone

and I was scared

and I got into cars
with strangers

and sometimes
I didn't know
where I was
when I woke up

and I kissed boys

and I had ***

and I got hurt

and I hurt myself

and I skipped school

and I did drugs

and I drank too much

and I trespassed into places
where I knew I shouldn't be

and I went home with people
who I knew I should've ran from

and I kissed more boys

and I had more ***

and no one noticed

and no one said anything.



but then I kissed girls

and suddenly,
everyone noticed

and I was told that
I was doing bad things

and I was told that
I was going to hell

and out of every bad thing
that I had ever done,

I was never told
that I had sinned

and no one had ever said
that I did something wrong

until I kissed another girl.

why would you smoke a cigarette
but leave half of it dropped onto the sidewalk?

“our cigarette butts leave signs,”
you told me,
“I threw it there to
let others know that
I can control my bad habits.”

this is who you are.
you’re the type of person
who leaves cigarette butts on concrete
to scream “I was here.”

you’re the type of person
who purposefully lives an unfinished life
for the world to wonder
what you would’ve done
if you had more time.

this was the same way you left me.
halfway through our dreams and goals,
only to find out that I loved you
wholeheartedly, obsessively, and recklessly,
while you walked away
with a mouthful of tobacco smoke
and halfway love.

"I want a lifetime
of waking up to you
hogging the blankets,
and holding you on
nights where you panic.

I'm not good with words,
not like you are.

but I want to fight
for what we have.

I want to stand by you
while we remind ourselves
why we got together
in the first place.

I'm sure of what
my life needs now.

it needs the girl
who hopped onto
the back of my bike
like it was nothing,

who didn't know
that one day soon
it would be everything.

it needs the girl who
stopped me and told me that
she wasn't ready to use
those three words,

but then yelled
'I love you'
while riding me not
too many nights after.

great timing,
by the way.

it needs the girl
who used words
to turn her pain
into a message
about surviving.

I could stare at you
for hours and still
be amazed years later
that I met someone
so beautiful.

luckily, you remind
me to stop staring
and to keep my eyes
on the road.

because of you,
we only crashed once.

I am madly
in love with you

and I want this
to be forever."



I reread this note
every night when
you're working late.

you're much better
with words than
you think you are.
you must be,

because when you
handed me this
and asked me
to marry you,

I didn't hesitate
before I said "yes."

there used to be a shy, young man
living four doors down from mine.
he never seemed too hurt to me,
and he told me he was fine.

I shouldn't have believed him
but I didn't have a choice.
you can't listen to cries for help
if the crier has no voice.

he was from the south side
where bullets fly like stars,
painting the skies red every night
through windows, skin, and cars.

a girl lived on the north side
slightly to the west.
I had never met her,
but he said she was the best.

when he talked about this girl,
she was his rock, his moon, his sun.
she was all he'd ever dreamed of
and their romance had begun.

I saw him outside all the time
daydreaming down the block.
his story was a timebomb
and I wish I saw the clock.

I never saw this girl of his,
but she made him someone new.
he smiled, happy and in love
and I knew she loved him too.

he finally seemed eager
to learn, to live, to leave.
kids don't make it out of here
but I let him believe.

city kids are city kids.
they never travel far.
they will never see a garden,
just concrete, blood, and tar.

city kids don't breathe fresh air.
they smoke ****, cigs, cigars.
I wish that things were different
but this is how they are.

I wish that the boy four doors down
was able to be freed,
but just like all the other boys,
he had to stay and bleed.

that boy would sneak out late at night,
walking alone in silence.
he'd travel to the northwest side
with no fear of the violence.

every night, he'd stay awake.
his eyelids felt weighed down.
he didn't seem to notice.
I never saw him frown.

every day, he could be seen
doing what he always did.
with deals and deaths and drive-bys,
he didn't get to be a kid.

but none of that mattered
as soon as nighttime came.
he saw his girl when it got dark.
every night, it was the same.

until one night, the boy got stopped
and told to stay away.
the northwest side was not his side,
but he could not obey.

their romance turned to horror
and their love turned into fear.
I wish it didn't go this way,
but the end was clearly near.

city boys and city girls
never see what we call "fame."
they don't show up in newspapers,
and no one asks their names.

city boys die every day,
with bullets in their brains.
no one hears their cries for help.
no one feels their pain.

the young man living on my block
fell in love and saw no danger.
on the south side, he was sweet and shy.
away from home, he was a stranger.

he never made it out of here.
he didn't get to finish growing.
he went to see his perfect girl
but never got where he was going.

the next morning, his girl was told
how they found him on the ground.
she took a rope and went to bed
and that's where she was found.

******, pain, and gunshots
and a girl hung from her ceiling.
this city saw it all and more
and still, we aren't healing.

I think about him often now,
that boy from four doors down.
I wonder where he'd be today
if he had left this town.

two graves dug in the dirt too soon
are all that's left of them today.
you won't ever hear their stories
now that they've gone away.

a boy with hope still in his eyes
and dreams still in his mind
was stolen so abruptly
before it was his time.

a girl with love still in her heart
and faith still in her smile
was punished with a death sentence
but never had a trial.

he was a modern Romeo
and she was Juliet.
they fell in love and lost their lives
not even grown up yet.

a tragedy with pain and loss,
a true Shakespearean drama.
this is the kind of story
that leaves us all with trauma.

once, there was a boy and girl
who ended when they bled,
like characters inside a play
that they had never read.

they were taught how to survive,
who would hurt them, where to look.
they knew of pain and grief and death
but never learned to read a book.

my skin
has housed sunburns
and scraped kneecaps.
it has carried
hair and goosebumps
and so many freckles
that I could never count.

my skin
has endured bruises
and cigarette burns.
its suffering is
the aftermath of
abuse, impulsivity,
and my own self-hatred.

my skin
has braved hot weather
and icy water.
it has protected me
from prickly thorns,
from strong winds,
and from myself.

despite the cruelty
that I inflicted
onto it,
this skin
held me together
even when I
felt like I was
falling apart.

each moment that you survive
takes you one step closer
to the time when
things will be better.

it might still be far away.
it might not be an easy journey.

but right now,
you are reading this

which means you are awake

which means you are alive

which means that
you have survived
every single moment
up to this point.

you have survived
every heartbreak

every loss

every laugh

every smile

and

you have survived
through times where
you weren’t sure you could do it.
but you did.

and now, you are done reading.
now, you are a few minutes
and 127 words closer
to seeing better days.
better days are coming.
just keep reading.
just keep breathing.

keep breathing…
keep breathing…
keep breathing…

I am addicted to
rough *** and masochism.

I used to be addicted
to self-harm.

I learned to live without the feeling
of a blade against my skin,

but now I need the feeling
of warm hands against my skin
where my blade used to be.

I'm not recovering.
I'm still hurting myself.
all that changed is the weapon
that I choose to do it with.

I have met dates online.
I've had friends set me up.
I've gone to so many dinners,
and I've gone home with
more people than I'd like to admit.

I have slept with men
and I have slept with women.

I have left someone
and I have been left.

I've been in relationships
that ended mutually,
and I've been in relationships
that ended in heartbreak.

I learned the hard way that
*** is not equivalent to love.

I learned the hard way that
I didn't know what love
was supposed to feel like.

I learned the hard way that
I deserved so much better than
what I was doing to myself and
what I was letting others do to me.

I learned the hard way that
I was making the wrong choices.

but I am so glad that I learned,
even if it hurt.

some people never learn
to see their own worth.

if you step on a twig while
walking through the woods,

you'll see all of the deer
look up and run off.



if you drive your car down
a windy, forested road

and a deer suddenly appears
in the path of your headlights,

you'll see its eyes grow large
and afraid, glowing in the dark

but the deer won't run off.



a deer will flee at the sound
of a single branch snapping,

but it will stand still and
let a car crunch all of its bones
without trying to leave at all.



we consider ourselves to be
the dominant species.

we claim to be the smartest,
bravest, strongest, most intelligent
beings that walk this earth.



so why are we afraid to die?

if a deer can accept its fate
and stare straight back at death
when they stand face-to-face,

then why can't we?
why do we cry and scream
and feel sorrow when death
finally comes to visit us?



we are smart and we are strong
and we think in a way that
other creatures cannot think,

but we also have fears that
other creatures do not have.



this is the price we pay to
have those traits we say
that only humans have.

as humans, we trade our
innocence for knowledge,
learning about war and
early death and suffering
at the hands of fellow humans.

this knowledge is a burden,
more of a curse than a blessing.



we consider ourselves to be
superior to the other creatures
who we share this planet with.

but is that true? is that a fact
or a product of human ego?



as humans, we **** animals
and we **** each other.

we are the creators of
mass extinction and genocide.

we have designed weapons
and the ideas of warfare.



yes, we are strong
and we are smart,
but we are violent.

sometimes I think that
a deer is more human
than a human being.

a deer is smart and
strong enough to survive.

it might not have the
same level of intelligence,

but it also doesn't have the
same amount of violence
etched into its genes.



sometimes I think that
any creature is better
than a human being.

we were fourteen kids.
there were enough of us
to fill a classroom,
but we rarely went to school.
we learned what
we needed to know
from the streets.
school was pointless.
multiplication and cursive
wouldn't keep us alive.

one of us was almost sixteen,
in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
he got mistaken for
someone else, and he was
stabbed over and over
and over and over again.
we were thirteen kids.

two of us were nineteen
and almost twenty,
walking down a block
that wasn't ours.
we heard the shots
from our street
a few blocks over.
we were eleven kids.

one of us was thirteen
and on our block
where she thought
she would be safe.
she was pulled into an alley
and hurt in the worst ways.
she found out
she was pregnant
a few weeks after.
we didn't hear the gunshot
when she took her own life,
but we all knew she was gone.
we were ten kids.

one of us saw his brother
gunned down in
broad daylight.
he couldn't stop
replaying the scene
in the back of his mind.
he grabbed a Glock 19,
and he took the lives
of four kids from
the other side of town.
he disappeared that night
into the glow of
blue and red lights.
he rotted away in a cell.
we were nine kids.

one of us was a hero.
he pulled a woman
out of a burning car
and lost his life
in the process.
the newspapers refused
to show his story
when they heard
what neighborhood
he came from.
he died a hero, but
he would never be seen
as anything but a villain.
we were eight kids.

five of us lost so much
that eventually we had
nothing left to lose.
the gang life called,
and five of us answered.
we knew that
they couldn't be saved.
these streets don't
give people back.
and they'll take you,
dead or alive.
we were three kids.

one of us was twenty
and he thought that
he would make it out
of here, onto better things.
he was making dinner
for his younger sisters,
two beautiful little girls.
a stray bullet burst
through the window
and took him down.
the last thing he saw
was those two little girls
who he loved more
than you could ever imagine.
he was their older brother
and their parent and
their best friend, all at once.
they watched him fall
and never get back up.
we were two kids.

one of us made it.
she grew up, and she
moved far away from
our old neighborhood.
but those memories and
those losses and that pain
never left her mind.
she turned to pills
and then to needles,
and one day, she
took a little too much.
I was one kid.

I am one kid, now grown,
with thirteen dead friends.
I am a survivor, but that
isn't something to celebrate.
I shouldn't be a survivor
because none of this
should've ever happened.
we should still be fourteen kids.