there are secrets wrapped up in the blankets
that are thrown haphazardly onto my bed,
all the lies that i’ve told,
all the wrongs i haven’t righted,
those people who i tried out
and then discarded just as easily
as if they were an empty wrapper
i had no use for anymore.

if i keep them bundled up,
the secrets will stay at the foot of my bed,
forever locked up.

but at night they fall over my body,
covering, enveloping me in a warmth
that soon becomes suffocation,
an endless drowning that i can’t escape.

i’m a broken vase,
consisting of several pieces of jagged glass,
clumsily glued back together,
the fragments not fitting as well as they used to.
you can see the cracks,
the empty gaps,
and it seems as though
i could easily be tipped over
and shattered altogether again.
most people wouldn’t try to piece me up
and make me complete,
but you dare to defy odds,
and even insist on placing inside me
flowers that tangle in my hair
and fill in these gaps,
and then setting me out in the warm sun.
darling, i've never felt more whole
in my life.

i know that lying with him
isn’t what you expected,
that when you kiss,
the only thing you feel is his lips
against yours,
that you feel like
all the fairytales,
all the movies lied
about what true love entails,
that you’re going to keep seeing him,
a small what if tucked there
in the back of your mind,
but you can trust that
your secret is safe with me.

(because i’ve been there too.)

i prepared for the worst,
protected myself from the future storm
that no one else could see but me.
it never came,
and i sat in my shelter,
alone with my thoughts.
i wish i was a prizefighter of words,
wish i was able to express to you
how i truly feel,
but instead i spend my days
shadow boxing myself,
without you.
there’s a battle raging inside my mind,
a constant push and pull
between what’s real
and what i feel,
and i lost you,
but i don’t have anyone to blame
but myself.

you leave me hopeless and empty,
withered, weak, wilted.
you leave my fingernails chewed-up,
destroyed like the rest of me.
you leave me clawing at the surface
of what i could be
but unable to break through.
you leave me swearing to resist you
but wanting even more.
you leave me loving you
and hating myself,
an unfair trade-off,
an addiction that i can’t seem to break.
i look at what’s left of myself
and see that you’ve left nothing.

more than four thousand teenagers
succumb to suicide each year,
so if you’re reading this,
that means you’ve made it through
all of the things that
were supposed to bring you down
but didn’t,
all of the people who
told you that you’d be nothing
and were wrong,
all of the times when
were kicked down
and almost stopped believing in yourself
but brushed yourself off,
stronger than ever before,
and sure,
sometimes tomorrow will be harder
than today is,
but you’ve come too far
to just give up now.

i don’t think
my fingers belong anywhere else
than in between yours:
when we interlace hands,
click,
they fit right into place
like a key into a lock.

i don’t think
my lips belong anywhere else
than pressed against yours:
when we kiss,
click,
it’s like they were built for each other,
and sparks  go flying.

i don’t think
you belong anywhere else
than by my side:
if you take on the world with me,
click,
everything will be
as it should.