There is no authorative figure on Earth who can tell you who to give your heart to.
No one can tell you who to love, how to love them, or when the love should end.
Parents think they can control every aspect of your life, but love is an exception. It's beyond anyone's control, especially theirs.
They will pick at you, tell you you're too young, that no one will ever be interested in you, or that you're not good enough.
What kind of parenting is that?
Can't they just understand? Some never will.
Some will never let you rest until they've ruined your relationship, self-esteem, and the chance to let someone love you ever again.
It's just something I'll never agree with.

I fell in love with you,
But I was scared to.
I told you the secrets of mine,
And you made me feel fine.

Your face bloomed like a sweet flower,
You casted away my feelings of sour.
From your bright eyes you took my heart,
But that was just the start.
You looked so calm and beautiful despite it all,
Even when you caught me after my fall.

Each lover has a theory of their own,
Of being together, of being alone.

We stay together through every season,
But we sometimes fight without reason.
Our love goes beyond the seas and skies.
I see our love shinning inside your eyes.

You don't know that you're perfect to me,
In the mirror, what do you see?
Don't you see a smile as warm as your sweater?
Or eyes that could love forever?
Don't you see that you're perfect to me?

What do you do when someone has your whole soul wrapped around their finger?
Love is such a sweet yet scary word.
In the blink of an eye they could be gone, and there you'll be, right back where you started,
The only difference being your heart is ruptured, and your eyes are constantly damp from your thoughts about the past.
Love can be oh so sweet,
it can bring you to the highest places.
But it can also be oh so brutal,
creating your own little personal hell.
Yet when you find that sweet, fearless love, you forget about all of that and jump right in, ready to try again.
Wrapped around their finger.

it's three in the morning and
for the first time in so long,
the silence that rings in my ears doesn't remind me to think of you.
hours ago, i wondered when I would stop thinking-
when I would stop thinking of you.
yet now I feel strong.
now i feel like I could spend
three seconds, minutes, hours
being tortured by the silence and I'd be unphased.
I'd be unaware of you.

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines